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It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Day of LocustFor every winner comes a bunch of losers. Day of locust tells the story of these losers as they try to live thru the hell they are in. In the midst of the Californian heat, a young artist dreams of fulfilling his Hollywood dream. In his quest,he meets different personalities unseen in dazzling world of cinema. All of whom are vying for their very own glimpse of stardom, ultimately changing his own pure vision of his dream. Personally, I admire its effort to replicate the 30's Hollywood vibe. Its distinctive soft-focus photography and beautiful depiction of the era are true highlights. In addition, Black and Sutherland were phenomenal in their respectable role.BUT here comes the film's biggest problem, I found its script to be quite problematic. From the story's perspective, its nature just felt to have been bigger or campier. This people are living in the edge and does not feel like it. Also, the film has a lot troubles of coming terms with its surrealistic plot points. Its presence at times felt a bit forced . Lastly, the ensemble story-line did not really work for me. Its scope was too big for its own good. Overall, Day of Locust has its moments but a drastic problem from its script really dampens its ambitions. [3/5]

Based on Nathanael West's equally Hollywood-Gothic novel, "The Day of the Locust" revolves around the lives of several Los Angelenos: Tod, a Yale art graduate working on a painting; Faye, an aspiring and out-of-touch actress, and her ostentatious father; and Homer, a sexually-repressed outcast. The film charts each of the characters' aspirations that come crashing into one of the most apocalyptic and ghastly endings in film history.I had read West's novel years ago before finally seeing this film, and it's evident that director John Schlesinger took heavy cues from the source material. This adaptation stays true to the novel, only making minor alterations where it has to cut its losses. It's dark, wacky, grotesque, and at times flat-out disturbing, and there is a strange dreaminess to the film that recalls the novel's borderline-absurdist approach to the material. There is a phenomenal attention to detail here and sophisticated cinematography, capturing the hazy underworld of Hollywood that houses its rejects and wannabes. The film's greatest asset is, inarguably, its stellar cast. William Atherton plays the leery painter with conviction, while Donald Sutherland captures the eccentricity and quirks of Homer. In the novel, West draws all the characters to the tipping point of caricatures, and Karen Black perhaps best embodies this as Faye, the starry-eyed and artless aspiring actress— Black evokes the childlike sensibility of the character with a purposeful sexuality that is what makes her character in particular so disturbed. Burgess Meredith (also Black's co-star in "Burnt Offerings") is appropriately hammy as her gimmicky showman of a father. Geraldine Page makes a brief but grandiose appearance.The oft-discussed ending is worthy of the talk it is the subject of; it is one of the most well-shot and harrowing conclusions in film history, edging on the apocalyptic and the orgiastic, much like the source material. While typically discussed as a drama, I consider "The Day of the Locust" to be a horror film just as I consider the novel to be a horror novel— unconventional, albeit, but the film captures something wildly grotesque that challenges its audience, and some may find it a difficult a film to find merit in. There is a terrifying nucleus to this story that trumps its less-horrific finishings. All in all, "The Day of the Locust" is a classic and important film; like its source novel, it serves us with a grim portrait of society that is not exclusive to Hollywood, but is perhaps best exemplified in the city of stolen water and stolen dreams. Barring "Mulholland Drive," which came over two decades later (and was undoubtedly influenced by Schlesinger's film), "The Day of the Locust" remains the greatest fictional representation of Hollywood ever, and perhaps the most horrifying film to lay claim to Los Angeles. 10/10.

I wasn't going to write a review but felt guilty that someone might read all the film school gushing and watch this dreck. I'm not a young man and I regret wasting 2½ hours just to learn a lesson.Very good acting, great characterization, loathsome characters (which I like) and an excellent premise, but just a premise. We unfortunate viewers are bashed over the head with the idea that people in Hollywood are bad. Over and over and over for two hours and twenty four minutes. This may be a spoiler, but how can I spoil something that rotted before the novel's author sat down at his Corona portable? The over the top ending is not needed to reinforce Hollywood bad- it is needless violence- not even entertaining violence. I've said this before and fear I will say it again- you can't act your way out of a bad script. Don't watch this movie, if only to learn from its mistakes. Find a copy of Carey McWilliams' Southern California Country (1946). His book covers the thinking behind Hollywood and its neighbors in greater depth and with wit. Lesson learned for the short remainder of my life- no more 1970s dramas except for thrillers.

Nicely done skewering of Hollywood in the 1930s. Well, maybe more than just Hollywood bites the dust. In sociology, "Hollywood" is simply a more intense expression of what goes on in everyday life, as the nose is a prominent feature but is still part of the face.The movie preserves Nathaniel West's distinction between the performers and the audience, though they meld towards the end. Among the more obvious of the actors is Karen Black as a flirtatious movie extra, and her father, Burgess Meredith, a salesman selling a bag of tricks. The observers include William Atherton as the viewer's proxy, a recent graduate of Yale summoned to Hollywood as an art director; and Donald Sutherland as Homer Simpson (great name), a pathologically inhibited accountant from the Midwest who has "come to California to die." They all live in the San Bernardino bungalow courts or garden apartments or whatever they are. The architecture of Southern California is a marvel, with fake mission style, fake Southern plantation, fake thatch-roofed English cottage, fake Arabian Nights apartments. Robert Benchley lived in The Ali Baba bungalows, which may, in itself, have been enough to drive him to drink. I recently stayed at the Taj Mahal Motel, which vaguely resembled a miniature of its namesake, only painted Day-Glo purple -- unless the whole thing was some Arabian apparition induced by the toxic atmosphere. But, in any case, nothing is what it seems to be made of. The huge, hammered-metal hinges on the doors of the Medieval castle turn out to be of insubstantial tin.All the characters are pathetic but the one I found most nearly sympathetic is Homer Simpson, Sutherland, who wants only to be left alone until he drops, like the over-ripe oranges on his back yard tree. But he's swept up by incidents into coming to adore and house Karen Black's fake slut. She acts like a floozy and, until she needs the money, she may actually be the seventeen-year-old virgin she claims to be. But Sutherland is to Black what a Handiwipe is to us.Characters come and go, and their relationships become complicated. William Atherton, for instance, the sophisticated artist from the East, falls for Karen Black and becomes embittered when she dumps him for someone she can get more out of. He's blandly handsome and a little innocent. Karen Black is sadly miscast. She's big and strong and her eyes are close together, making her manipulativeness obvious. What was needed was a beautiful young teen-ager whose narcissism is justified and who could lie convincingly to herself and others. Burgess Meredith dies and leaves a lovely pink-cheeked corpse. One expects someone to walk up to the casket and remark, "My, doesn't he look natural." Except he doesn't. He looks more beautiful than ever, the handiwork of an expensive undertaker who knows exactly how to make death mimic life.There are a couple of action scenes. The armies of Napoleon and Wellington fall from a fake wooden hillside that collapses. It's difficult not to chuckle as one absurdly clad soldier after another charges into the widening crater.At the end, there is a self-destructive riot built around the premier of a Major Motion Picture and Sutherland's finally popping like a zit and stomping a noxious child to death as Mr. Hyde did. The letting loose of the built-up tension in frenzied hysteria lasts maybe a little too long but it successfully projects the empty, thumotic restlessness that animates the everyday masquerade.