''The Betsy'' is a 1978 American romantic

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film directed by

Daniel Petrie Daniel Mannix Petrie (November 26, 1920 – August 22, 2004) was a Canadian film, television, and stage director who worked in Canada, Hollywood, and the United Kingdom; known for directing grounded human dramas often dealing with taboo subject ...

, from a screenplay by

William Bast William Bast (April 3, 1931 – May 4, 2015) was an American screenwriter and author. In addition to writing scripts for motion pictures and television, he was the author of two biographies of the screen actor James Dean. He often worked with hi ...

and

Walter Bernstein Walter Bernstein (August 20, 1919 – January 23, 2021) was an American screenwriter and film producer who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s because of his views on communism. Some of his notable works included ''The ...

, based on the 1971 novel of the same name by Harold Robbins. It stars Laurence Olivier as a retired auto tycoon, with

Robert Duvall Robert Selden Duvall (; born January 5, 1931) is an American actor and filmmaker. His career spans more than seven decades and he is considered one of the greatest American actors of all time. He is the recipient of an Academy Award, four Gold ...

Katharine Ross Katharine Juliet Ross (born January 29, 1940) is an American film, stage, and television actress. Her accolades include one Academy Award nomination, one BAFTA Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. A native of Los Angeles, Ross spent most of her ...

Tommy Lee Jones Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...

, and

Jane Alexander Jane Alexander (née Quigley; born October 28, 1939) is an American actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 to 19 ...

in supporting roles. The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 9, 1978, by Allied Artists and

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

. Robbins considered ''The Betsy'' the best movie adaptation of any of his works.

Plot

A fading family-owned

automobile manufacturer The automotive industry comprises a wide range of company, companies and organizations involved in the design, Business development, development, manufacturing, marketing, and selling of motor vehicles. It is one of the world's largest industry ...

and its owners pin their hopes for a return to profitability on a new model named for the great-granddaughter of the firm's founder. The aging Loren Hardeman Sr. remains the titular head of a Detroit automotive conglomerate. (An obvious parallel exists between this fictional character and that of

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

.) His grandson, Loren Hardeman III, now runs the company as president, but has diversified into other fields and is concerned that the auto division is not as lucrative as it once was and might even need to be eliminated. A young auto racer, Angelo Perino, has been secretly commissioned to develop a groundbreaking fuel-efficient car. He juggles romantic relationships with a British royal, Lady Bobby Ayres, and the young Betsy, who is about to turn 21 and inherit a fortune, including the new car that her great-grandfather is naming in her honor. Loren Hardeman III bitterly despises Hardeman Sr., who once carried on an affair with Loren's mother. The older Hardeman is not the man he used to be, but he is not ready to step aside forever.

Cast

* Laurence Olivier as Loren Hardeman Sr. *

as Angelo Perino *

as Loren Hardeman III *

as Sally Hardeman *

as Alicia Hardeman *

Lesley-Anne Down Lesley-Anne Down (born 17 March 1954) is a British actress, singer and former model. She achieved fame as Georgina Worsley in the ITV drama series '' Upstairs, Downstairs'' (1973–75). She received further recognition for her performances in ...

as Lady Ayres *

Kathleen Beller Kathleen Beller (born February 19, 1956) is an American actress who was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Supporting Role for her role in '' Promises in the Dark'' (1979) and was well known for her role as Kir ...

as Betsy *

Joseph Wiseman Joseph Wiseman (May 15, 1918 – October 19, 2009) was a Canadian-American theatre, film, and television actor who starred as the villain Julius No in the first James Bond film, '' Dr. No'' in 1962. Wiseman was also known for his role as Manny We ...

as Jake Weinstein *

Edward Herrmann Edward Kirk Herrmann (July 21, 1943 – December 31, 2014) was an American actor, director, and writer. He was perhaps best known for his portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the miniseries ''Eleanor and Franklin'' (1976) and 1982 film ...

as Dan Weyman * Paul Ryan Rudd as Loren Hardeman Jr. * Charlie Fields as young Loren Hardeman III

Production

Assembly-plant footage was filmed at the

American Motors American Motors Corporation (AMC; commonly referred to as American Motors) was an American automobile manufacturing company formed by the merger of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation and Hudson Motor Car Company on May 1, 1954. At the time, it was the ...

(AMC)

Kenosha, Wisconsin Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenos ...

factory. It shows construction and painting of 1978

Gremlin A gremlin is a mischievous folkloric creature invented at the beginning of the 20th century to originally explain malfunctions in aircraft and later in other machinery and processes and their operators. Depictions of these creatures vary widel ...

, Pacer, and

Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Pact or treaty, frequently between nations (indicating a condition of harmony) * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other ...

models on AMC's assembly line serving as the factory of the fictitious Bethlehem Motors. For authenticity, the film's producers learned from AMC about how new cars are developed. The titular car is a slightly modified 1974 Lancia Beta coupe. ''The Betsy'' features music composed by John Barry. It was filmed at Rosecliff mansion in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

. A review by automobile industry expert Alex Taylor noted that the filmmakers did not show believable characters and realistic dialogue. Attempts by Hollywood to capture the auto industry on film, such as ''The Betsy'', have "aimed at realistic drama but wound up with suds." By 1978 there had been a notable increase in the construction of

racquetball Racquetball is a racquet sport and a team sport played with a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. Joseph Sobek invented the modern sport of racquetball in 1950, adding a stringed racquet to paddleball in order to increase velo ...

courts in the United States, so Petrie chose to shoot a scene in a company racquetball court during the first meeting between the characters played by

and

Reception

The film opened in 473 theaters and grossed a record opening weekend for Allied Artists of $2,727,084. The film earned rentals of $7.85 million in the United States and Canada. Most of the reviews of the film were negative. ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' reviewer Gene Siskel offered a damning critique of the film: ''

The Boston Evening Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of #Pulitzer, 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The B ...

'' correspondent Michael Blowen described it as "a ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wif ...

'' condensation of a television soap opera." In the '' New York Daily News'',

Rex Reed Rex Taylor Reed (born October 2, 1938) is an American film critic, occasional actor, and television host. He writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for '' The New York Observer''. Early life Reed was born on October 2, 1938, in Fort Wo ...

stated that "the temptation to compare ''The Betsy'' with the

Edsel Edsel is a discontinued division and brand of automobiles that was marketed by the Ford Motor Company from the 1958 to the 1960 model years. Deriving its name from Edsel Ford, son of company founder Henry Ford, Edsels were developed in an effor ...

stretches from here to deadline, but this movie is so bad, so numbingly obtuse, so bloatedly pretentious and awesomely corny, no capsule put-down seems adequate. It's '' The Damned'', set in

Grosse Pointe Grosse Pointe refers to an affluent coastal area next to Detroit, Michigan, United States, that comprises five adjacent individual cities. From southwest to northeast, they are: * Grosse Pointe Park * Grosse Pointe * Grosse Pointe Farms * Grosse ...

. Or, as

Tennessee Williams Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the thr ...

might drawl, it's about 'a lotta things, honey—greed, lust, vice, homosexuality, incest, suicide, murder, and puttin' on airs.'" The film appears in a chapter of Harry and

Michael Medved Michael Saul Medved (born October 3, 1948) is an American radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic. His talk show, ''The Michael Medved Show'', is syndicated from his home station KTTH in Seattle. It is syndicated via G ...

's book '' The Golden Turkey Awards'' titled "The Worst Films Compendium from A ('' The Adventurers'') to Z ('' Zontar: the Thing from Venus'')". The Medveds wrote that "another Harold Robbins book bites the dust as a wretched, melodramatic film. Lord Laurence Olivier’s attempt at a

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

twang is a hilarious flop, as is his incestuous relationship with his daughter-in-law, Katharine Ross." The film is also listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book ''The Official Razzie Movie Guide'' as one of the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made.

Notes

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Betsy, The 1978 films 1978 drama films American auto racing films American business films American drama films American Motors Films about automobiles Films based on American novels Films scored by John Barry (composer) Films directed by Daniel Petrie Films set in Michigan Allied Artists films United Artists films Films with screenplays by Walter Bernstein Cars designed and produced for films 1970s business films 1970s English-language films 1970s American films