Not bad, sequel wise. If it's a long way from "Godfather, Part Two" it is an even farther distance from "Godfather, Part Three". The first half is definitely the lesser part. Canadian director Ted Kotcheff and scenarist, Mordechai Richler (the "Duddy Kravitz" team) examine British snobbery, adultery, and Tory politics amusingly and with a lively pace but do not really give us anything that the 1958 film did not present in much more dramatic fashion. And while the entire cast gives solid performances, as expected from Brit actors, there is no character in the sequel as compelling as Simone Signoret was in the original playing a literal and figurative outsider who must be sacrificed on the altar of Joe Lampton's desire for wealth and status.
However, in the second half a most interesting change occurs. Joe decides to leave his wife and cushy, if humiliating, job in the provinces and journey to London to be with a woman he's convinced will rejuvenate him. The opposite happens as she rises in her profession while he is stuck in occupational limbo and suddenly Joe is faced, as are most of us sometime in our existences, with the question, How will I live my life? I, for one, found that Kotcheff and Richler posed this question interestingly and answered it most intelligently (if heavy handedly, at times, as in the ending where Joe is literally "locked in" to his job). And since interest and intelligence are in short supply in the cinema I'm glad I didn't pull the plug on this movie halfway through. Give it a B.
PS...Is it just me or did Jean Simmons get hotter with age?
