A grim black-and-white allegory from an Evan Hunter novel, this mood piece has James Garner waking up in Central Park with no memory whatever and piecing together his past through a series of memories, hallucinations, and casting changes. Why he wouldn't have any ID on him, first of all, isn't explained, and the use of three different actors to portray the same woman in his life becomes quite confusing, good as Katherine Ross, Suzanne Pleshette, and Jean Simmons are. We're never sure how literally to take anything. Garner's excellent, as is the high-contrast photography of a dusty-looking mid-'60s Manhattan, and as the story slowly builds to a kind-of-sort-of resolution, we're intrigued. It's an interesting artifact and very much worth seeing, but one can sense how the twisted storytelling and overall bleakness didn't help the box office.
Review of Mister Buddwing
