WHERE IT'S AT
US, 1969, 106 minutes, Colour.
David Janssen, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Drivas, Brenda Vaccaro.
Directed by Garson Kanin.
Where It's At was written and directed by noted playwright (Born Yesterday) Garson Kanin. A popular writer and director of the '30s, he concentrated on stage work and screenplays with his wife, Ruth Gordon (Adam's Rib, The Marrying Kind, Pat and Mike) during the '40s and '50s. His attempt to recreate his career as director in the late '60s failed with this film and the Dick Van Dyke vehicle, Some Kind of a Nut. This is a film about Las Vegas, gambling, double-dealing. It is glib, fashionable. However, it is too contrived and did not make great impact. David Janssen is the star and performs in his usually intensely brusque way. The film has an amusingly scatty part for Brenda Vaccaro. Very much a take it or leave it comedy about gambling and father-son rivalry.
1. The significance of the title, popular jargon? An entertaining comedy, satire?
2. The presentation of Las Vegas, gamblers, well-educated sons, secretaries, gold diggers? Las Vegas chorus girls? The supervisors of the casinos? The artificial world of Las Vegas, money? Gambling and its codes? How entertainingly presented?
3. Colour photography, the presentation of the casinos? The editing devices, the voice-over techniques, the interspersing of alternate visuals? The impact of this playing with techniques? The musical score?
4. The plausibility of the plot - For comedy and moralising purposes? The moral point of the story - the hard father, the educated son, the gamble, the son imitating the father and outdoing him, the change of heart and letting his father win? The society gold-digger and her opportunism ? The daffy secretary and true love?
5. Andy as a precocious young man - his Princeton education, his return to Las Vegas and the audience entering it with him? The clashes with his father? His cultured background and his father's fear of homosexuality? The friendship with Molly? Diana and her opportunism? The gamble? Andy and the seduction by Phyllis? The change of heart, the decision to use the money to outwit his father? His smugness and taking of control? Change of character? The final confrontation, allowing his father to win, the rejection of Diana, the happy ending with Molly? A credible young man? The point that he was making to his father? Example?
6. A.C. and David Janssen's rugged style, control of the casino, his contact with his men, visuals? The marriage to Diana? Investigation of his son, trusting him, being outwitted and ousted? His falling into despair, his being reinstated?
7. Diana and her society background, love for A.C., attempt at seduction of Andy, knowing the truth at the end? The contrast with Molly and her humorous conversations, self-dramatisation, throwing herself at Andy, good humour?
8. Phyllis and the Las Vegas chorus girls, the seduction and its purpose? Its effect?
9. The presentation of gambling, Caesar's Palace and its reputation, the people who go to the casinos? The huge turnover of money? Devices used to trick investors? Ownership and schemes, Swiss money, Florida deals? The film's presentation of this double-dealing and critique of it?
10.Father-son relationship, rivalry, the proving of self? The moralising effect of the film - the combination of comedy, satire, moralising?
