Mister Buddwing
Encyclopedia
Mister Buddwing is a 1966 American film drama starring James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

, directed by Delbert Mann
Delbert Mann
Delbert Martin Mann, Jr. was an American television and film director. He won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Marty...

.

It is the story of a well-dressed man who finds himself on a bench in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

 with no idea of who he is. He proceeds to wander around Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 meeting women (Jean Simmons
Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...

, Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette
Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress, on stage, screen and television.After beginning her career in theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...

, Katharine Ross
Katharine Ross
Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...

, Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury
Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

) as he desperately tries to figure out his own identity.

Based on the 1964 novel Buddwing by Evan Hunter
Evan Hunter
Evan Hunter was an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952...

, the evocatively shot black-and-white drama with a lively jazz musical score was written by Dale Wasserman
Dale Wasserman
Dale Wasserman was an American playwright. -Early life:Dale Wasserman was born in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and was orphaned at the age of nine. He lived in a state orphanage and with an older brother in South Dakota before he "hit the rails". He later said:-Career:Wasserman worked in various...

.

Plot

Waking up on a New York park bench, a man's mind is a total blank. He has no identification on him, just a slip of paper in his pocket with a phone number on it.

The number leads him to a woman, Gloria, who doesn't recognize the man but gives him some money out of pity. For the purpose of identifying himself, he invents a name out of thin air, spotting a Budweiser beer truck go by just as a jet plane passes overhead.

On the street, Buddwing spots a woman he thinks he knows and calls out "Grace!" to her. Her name is Janet, but a flashback of a romance with her from college days goes through Buddwing's mind. He experiences similar flashbacks after meeting Fiddle Corwin, an actress. They share a romantic fling, but images of her contemplating suicide flash through his mind.

The Blonde, a socialite, is on a scavenger hunt, just for kicks. Buddwing accompanies her to Harlem, where her goal is to get into a dice game. While there, a passing remark jogs Buddwing's memory. He recovers from the shock of an incident involving his wife and a pregnancy, ultimately remembering who and where he was before his blackout.

Cast

  • James Garner
    James Garner
    James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...

     as Mr. Buddwing
  • Jean Simmons
    Jean Simmons
    Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...

     as The Blonde
  • Suzanne Pleshette
    Suzanne Pleshette
    Suzanne Pleshette was an American actress, on stage, screen and television.After beginning her career in theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...

     as Fiddle Corwin
  • Katharine Ross
    Katharine Ross
    Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...

     as Janet
  • Angela Lansbury
    Angela Lansbury
    Angela Brigid Lansbury CBE is an English actress and singer in theatre, television and motion pictures, whose career has spanned eight decades and earned her more performance Tony Awards than any other individual , with five wins...

     as Gloria
  • Jack Gilford
    Jack Gilford
    Jack Gilford was an American actor on Broadway, films and television.-Early life:Gilford was born Jacob Aaron Gellman on the lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, and grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn...

     as Mr. Schwartz
  • Billy Halop
    Billy Halop
    William "Billy" Halop was an American actor born in New York City.He came from a Jewish theatrical family: his mother was a dancer, and his sister Florence Halop was a child actress, who later worked on radio and in television...

     as the 2nd cab driver

Awards and honors

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Best Costume Design (Helen Rose
Helen Rose
Helen Rose was an American costume designer and clothing designer who spent the bulk of her career with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer-Career:...

) and Best Art Direction
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...

 (George Davis
George Davis (art director)
-Career:Davis began his career at 20th Century Fox, his first film was Joseph L. Mankiewicz's fantasy The Ghost and Mrs. Muir in 1947, a director for whom he frequently worked, notably on House of Strangers , All About Eve -Career:Davis began his career at 20th Century Fox, his first film was...

, Paul Groesse
Paul Groesse
Paul Groesse was a Hungarian-born American art director. He won three Academy Awards and was nominated for another eight in the category Best Art Direction.-Academy Awards:...

, Henry Grace
Henry Grace
Henry Grace was an American set decorator. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for twelve more in the category Best Art Direction.As an actor he had a role as Dwight D...

, Hugh Hunt
Hugh Hunt
Hugh Hunt was an American set decorator. He won two Academy Awards and was nominated for eleven more in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:...

).

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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