The World of Henry Orient

Amazon.com essential video

The World of Henry Orient would be a classic, if only more people knew about it. Here are the adventures of two prep-school Manhattan girls, memorably played by Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker, who decide to dedicate a brief but crucial moment in their lives to the adoration of one Henry Orient (Peter Sellers). Orient is a concert pianist--with curiously uncertain accent--more renowned for his mistresses than his playing. (Although Sellers is onscreen for less than half the picture, he sketches one of his comic gems.) The movie has a wonderful J.D. Salinger flavor of early-'60s New York privilege, with a keen sense of the secret lives adolescents can construct for themselves. Director George Roy Hill brings an occasional burst of New Wave style but otherwise steers the movie into the tone described by one of the girls: "I feel awfully happy in a sort of sad way." --Robert Horton

Description

Peter Sellers, Paula Prentiss, Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley are hilarious in The World of Henry Orient, a funny, charming (Los Angeles Times), lively and imaginative (Newsweek) place you'll want to visit again and again! Two starry-eyed schoolgirls spy, stalk and scheme their way into the life of a concert pianist (Sellers) in this wacky piece of inspired lunacy (The Hollywood Reporter). With half of New Yorkincluding a bevy of befuddled cops and one man-hungry momin tow, these precocious teens do all they can to keep tabs on their harried hero, inadvertently turning The World of Henry Orient entirely upside down!

Customer Reviews:

Loved it Then, Love it Now.......2007-08-20

It was my favorite movie when I was about 11, not really for Peter Sellers, but for the girls and mostly Manhattan. From the first time I saw that movie growing up in a small North Carolina town, I knew that one day I would live in Manhattan. So after high school I moved to midtown Manhattan where I lived for over 30 years. Now I've moved closeby to a rural area of New Jersey, but I can still get the train back in when I want to. And I own this movie to remind me how I fell in love with a city.

Something Missing.......2007-03-24

This movie just misses being something special... what could it be? Peter Sellers is my favorite actor but the accents he uses in this movie don't work. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to viewing pleasure is Tom Bosley's role as an absentee father - his acting is stiff and pretentious. When he says his lines, it's like he's reading them right off the script. Make-up! Mr. Bosley's smoking jacket! Take ten! The teen-age girls are adorable, Gilbert's mother and mother's friend are right on the mark, as well. But Paula Prentiss! I kept wondering why Henry Orient would keep pursuing her - with her neurotic mannerisms and skinny old self. Altogether this flick is mediocre at best.

movie transaction.......2007-01-10

I recieved this movie immediately after purchase, and the process was ver quick and easy!

An Absolute Gem.......2006-07-11

George Roy Hill gets my vote for most underrated director. I don't know if it was intentional but Hill seems to have specialized in directing extremely difficult films ("Slaughterhouse Five", "The World According to Garp", "The Sting", and "Slap Shot") and did them all quite well. "The World of Henry Orient" (1964) certainly falls into this difficult category as his two inexperienced young stars were featured in almost every scene and alternated between location shooting and studio sound stage work.

This will probably be regarded as Hill's best film, not because it is technically perfect but because few (if any) films have successfully interpreted an ambitious screenplay in such a subtle and lyrical manner.

It is a story seen from the point-of-view of two 14-year old girls who the viewer first meets at the moment they first meet each other. Gil (Merrie Spaeth) and Val (Elizabeth Walker in an extraordinarily good performance) are prep school students in New York City who immediately connect despite coming from very different backgrounds and being in different developmental stages. What distinguishes this from most film friendships is that both are loners who are comfortable enough with each other to maintain their own individuality, even dressing differently.

Hill managed to put the two young actresses at ease in front of the camera and to capture their natural energy, this is what gives their characters an unexpected authenticity. I was struck by the true-to-life qualities of these two girls.

They keep accidentally bumping into the title character, a vain concert pianist (Peter Sellers), and become his youngest fans. Dressed in Chinese hats (insert "Orient" here), the two girls stake out his apartment. He is engaged in a long-term and frustratingly unsuccessful attempt to seduce an ultra-paranoid married woman, nervous Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss). Henry and Stella fuel each other's paranoia and finally convince themselves that Stella's husband is employing the girls as detectives.

The film's funniest scene occurs when Gil and Val convince Al Lewis (Grandpa Munster) that their mother is Jayne Mansfield.

"The World of Henry Orient" is the only film I know of that takes the world of 13 and 14 year-old girls seriously. "Ghost World" (which placed a "Henry Orient" poster on the wall of Enid's bedroom), New Waterford Girl, and "Times Square" could be considered sequels-stories, what Gil and Val would become a couple years into the future when they were a couple years older and a little worn down by the additional experience with the world. It's also the first credible portrayal of the effects of divorce and parental neglect on children.

"The World of Henry Orient" is more a coming of age story than a comedy although it does have some comic moments. Most of these involve the title character played by Peter Sellers. But don't expect the over-the-top performances of the older Sellers, his Henry Orient is more along the eccentrically restrained lines of his Fred Kite-trade union leader character in "I'm All Right Jack". Paula Prentiss is also quite funny in a restrained portrayal.

Ultimately it is Hill's subtlety and nuance that are most memorable. Watch the expressions change on Gil's face as Val takes her on a fantasy trip involving the "wished for" return of her father in time for Christmas. Val quickly moves on to another subject as Gil quietly finishes processing the dream.

Tom Bosley is especially good as Frank Boyd, Val's father. He does not appear until midway into the film. You learn that he has long doubted that he is actually Val's biological father and has kept the father- daughter relationship distanced, with both parents constantly traveling and Val left at school. With minimal dialogue Bosley shows Frank's slow realization that he loves his daughter more than anything in the world, despite his earlier doubts.

This leads to one of cinema's most amazing climatic scenes, coming unexpectedly at least 10 minutes before the actual ending. Val returns home after accidentally discovering that her mother (Angela Lansbury) and Henry are having an affair. Although she does not reveal this to her father, watch how Hill almost wordlessly illustrates the climatic revelations and the process of father and daughter finally finding each other. This visual narrative is why film is so powerful in the hands of a skilled and visionary director like Hill.

This is a nice 16x9 print that could greatly benefit from captioning as the audio track is quite poor.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

One of the Best.......2006-04-20

This movie makes my list of the top-ten best of all time. It's too bad it is so little known.

It is the only movie I've seen that gets youth right. It shows what it is like to have a "crush" - to love someone from afar, innocently, absolutely. This sort of enthusiasm is so central to the heart of being young, especially of being a girl - yet I have never seen it portrayed anywhere else. In the fifties and sixties we had blander teens, preoccupied with little home and school crises - like who was going to take whom to the prom. In recent decades we have been bombarded with sitcom teens, sexually precocious, spouting know-it-all one-liners. In between those two stereotypes of teens, there is the truth - what The World of Henry Orient is about.

Boyd is the "genius" who sparks to Henry Orient (played by Peter Sellers) first. Orient is a second-rate concert pianist performing for a season in New York. Boyd is not blind to his shortcomings. She admits he "needs practice." But she is smitten with him nonetheless. She brings her friend into the adoration. The two girls romp through New York together, following their idol, collecting his discarded cigarette butts ("No filters. He's not scared!"), studying him from a distance - then going back to their rooms to worship him in Oriental rituals they invent and elaborate themselves.

There is no word for what these two girls are up to. We would call it "stalking" now. But it's not that. It's at the other end of the spectrum from that sort of malevolence. It's pure eagerness and joy and it's a joy to watch.

The movie takes a turn past midpoint though. This could have been an uneasy mix of pathos and slaptstick - but the director and actors carry it off and make a plausible, inevitable blend of the two.

The girls are wonderful at capturing the squealing, longing delight of having a crush. Peter Sellers is perfect as the only somewhat talented bounder. Paula Prentiss turns in one of the best comedic performances ever as the highstrung married woman with whom Sellers continues to try to arrange a liaison - against increasing odds as he and Prentiss become convinvced that the little girls following them, cropping up everywhere in pagoda hats, must in fact be spies sent by Prentiss' suspicious husband. Angela Lansbury is a true villainess, a mother who has been so indifferent to her daughter and who knows her so little that she interprets the girl's antics as sexual escapade, sullying and perverting the fun.

If you never experienced the sort of sheer gleeful delight these girls enjoy - if your teenage years were spent in the infinitely drearier pastime of all-night keggers - then you missed what youth is all about. But this movie can bring you to the place that should be the birthright of all youth - a place before relationships get sexualized, a place before calculation of costs and benefits. It's a golden interlude. This movie is a MUST-SEE classic.

Average customer rating:

Loved it Then, Love it Now
Something Missing
movie transaction
An Absolute Gem
One of the Best

The World of Henry Orient [Region 2]
Starring: Peter Sellers , Paula Prentiss , Angela Lansbury , Tom Bosley , and Phyllis Thaxter
Director: George Roy Hill
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Comedy | Genres | DVD | Video

( W ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
Similar Items:

ASIN: B0001Y9YKW