The Fountainhead (1949)

Director:

King Vidor

Writers:

Ayn Rand (screenplay)
Ayn Rand (novel)

Release Date:

2 July 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

No Man Takes What's Mine !

Plot:

An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.

Plot Keywords:

Architect | Visionary | Individualism | Jackhammer | Personal Vision

Cast

  (Complete credited cast)

Gary Cooper	...	Howard Roark
Patricia Neal	...	Dominique Francon
Raymond Massey	...	Gail Wynand
Kent Smith	...	Peter Keating
Robert Douglas	...	Ellsworth M. Toohey
Henry Hull	...	Henry Cameron
Ray Collins	...	Roger Enright
Moroni Olsen	...	Chairman
Jerome Cowan	...	Alvah Scarret

Also Known As:

De opstandeling (Belgium: Flemish title) [un]
Ein Mann wie Sprengstoff (West Germany) [de]
El manantial (Spain) [es]
Halyvdines psyhes (Greece) [el]
Kun den stærke er fri (Denmark) [da]
La fonte meravigliosa (Italy) [it]
Le rebelle (Belgium: French title) [fr]
Pilvenpiirtäjä (Finland) [fi]
Pionjären (Sweden) [sv]
Vontade Indómita (Portugal) [pt]
Vontade Indômita (Brazil) [pt]

Runtime:

114 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:PG | USA:Approved (PCA #13358) | Finland:K-16 | Portugal:M/12 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Hoping this film would make her a star, Warner Bros cast a relative unknown, 22-year-old Patricia Neal, after considering and then rejecting Bette Davis, Ida Lupino and Barbara Stanwyck for the female lead.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Cameron smashes the window in Roark's office, you can see that the flag outside the window flying in the skyline is not rippling and therefore is part of a photographic backdrop rather than a live location.

Quotes:

Howard Roark: I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Bright Leaves (2003)

The house was a temple to his wife ...

This overheated potboiler attempts to make a social comment on the corrupt nature of conforming to the wishes of the masses, when its most interesting aspect these days is the teaming on screen (and off) of gruff-voiced Patricia Neal and her self-confessed 'love of her life', Gary Cooper. Their love scenes together are certainly not lukewarm!

Aside from this, there's a convoluted plot about architecture, the newspaper business, and the understated power of the humble columnist. Raymond Massey moves from one situation to the next with the same lack of passion, eventually giving Cooper and Neal their chance to simmer in close proximity. Robert Douglas is terrific as the obnoxious architectural critic, Ellsworth Toohey; while Kent Smith and Henry Hull put in OK performances as a weak architect of little originality, and a nervous press room editor, respectively.

The ones who catch the eye of the viewer, however, are Neal and Cooper. Towering performances in camp classic style. The imagery, too, is suitably suggestive – drills in a stone quarry, large skyscraping buildings, whips and pokers.

'The Fountainhead', adapted by Ayn Rand from her own novel and brought to the screen under the direction of King Vidor, is enjoyable despite the odd bout of overacting from both its principal and minor actors, and a truly silly script on occasion. The movie isn't great but in using the world in which it is set as a character of equivalent power to anyone on the screen, it sets itself apart as more than just run-of-the-mill.