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Fantastic!

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There are over 200 reviews here, almost every one of them disagreeing in one way or another with the other 200 or so. This is that kind of film! Cooper is brilliant, Cooper is awful; Neal is ridiculous, Neal is too sexy or intelligent to live; it is Massey's best role, how could Massey have been induced to take it?; the screenplay is over the top, doesn't make any sense, makes sense only to people with high IQs, couldn't possibly appeal to an unreconstructed idiot; the music is overwhelming, the music is bottom-drawer Steiner; it is a director's film, the film resists any attempt at direction; the photography is fantastic, it is fantastic that anyone can consider this photography. And on and on it goes. Much to my chagrin, I agree with everybody's opinion. As I said, It is just that kind of film! Which is what makes it one of my favorites, and one I return to every few years. I have done so again.So, this is my take on it. This is one of the most wonderfully overblown films based on a famous novel that I have ever seen. The four leading characters - played by Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey and Robert Douglas - are so far beyond the pale that they seem like visitors to Earth from another planet, and not necessarily one you would want to visit in return. In reality, Cooper plays the most gigantically-imagined role of his career, and although there is no real change in his laid back acting style from 40 or 50 other films (it was said that he once played a scene next to a Cigar-store Wooden Indian, and that the critics accused the Indian of overacting!), somehow the greatness of the character seeps through and you really believe him. (Supposedly, Cooper was late-in-life John Barrymore's favorite screen actor.) Patricia Neal, unbelievably only 22 when this was filmed, plays a woman who appears to have an IQ of about 180 and an emotional desperation almost as great, one who seems to have lived a huge life before every laying eyes on Cooper; it is not a well-written role, but she plays it like Goneril passing through Lady Macbeth on the way to becoming Joan of Arc. Wonderful. How can you be that good at 22? Messy writing or not, this is probably Massey's best two hours on screen, because, at least for me, you can't take your eyes off him when he's there. And Robert Douglas, the late 1940's/early 1950's epitome of swashbuckling villainy (did he ever meet a sword he didn't like, a dagger he could not embrace?) is here once again the true villain of the piece, but one of an essentially non-physical and effete presence and delivery. All the other actors are as good, just not as noticeable. The photography and direction are the initial calling cards here. We do not ever get to see most of the architecturally grand buildings Cooper wants to build, or does start to build in time, but the views we do get of them on paper, in cardboard construct, in planning stages, or in distance shots, are so well lighted, photographed, angled, etc. that we can have no doubt that Cooper's character is just as great as he thinks he is. And make no mistake about it: Howard Roark is as certain of his purpose and as intent upon achieving it as anybody we have come across since Captain Ahab, and he's even tougher when confronted by opposition than is Ahab. Ahab at least believes in God, even if only as his non-swimming nemesis; I would posit that Roark believes in nothing in this world except Howard Roark. (Funnily enough, I would never have thought of Cooper for this role any more than I would have thought of Gregory Peck for Ahab. So why are you reading this, since I obviously don't know what I'm writing about?) As for the direction, I get the feeling that Vidor was probably overwhelmed by what he saw on the written page and just went with the flow, figuring that if the writer is delivering cosmic situations and dialogue and the actors are intent on playing them to the hilt, who is he to get in the way and prove himself cosmically challenged? So, there it is. I simply cannot explain my love for this film beyond a love for its total excesses in every category that means anything to me. The last film I saw that had this effect on me (granted, with cosmic dialogue in very short supply) was BURN AFTER READING. I had never seen so many 1s and 10s for the same film from IMDB reviewers, so it must have had either something to say to no one, or nothing to say to everyone. And that's pretty much what THE FOUNTAINHEAD says to me, but 60 years earlier. I will happily watch both films every couple of years until the trumpet sounds (maybe it did sound already, in both films, and I just missed it because all the kitchen sinks kept getting in the way!).

Movie is faithful to the book since Ayn Rand wrote the screenplay. Deserves 10 for content. The miscasting of Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, and Raymond Massey prevented it from being the great movie it deserved to be.

I'm only giving it more that 1 star to salute the actors dedication. And the image is not bad, although nothing magnificent. The author is pretty awful, their very shallow understanding in human beings make it really hard for the actor to not appear as automatons spouting ridiculous dialogues. For a political motivated movie, their conception of basic political elements is utterly risible. Don't get me on egoism -the motive of the movie- they can't even get egoism right. The plot is unimaginative, with real oblivious references, and a total misunderstanding of basic philosophical concepts. The movie was a torture.

Let's face it - On the surface The Fountainhead appears to be a fairly ambitious film. But in reality the final product is nothing but a downright silly and confused adaptation of Ayn Rand's famous philosophic novel from 1943. This flick completely misses the mark on all of the book's vitality, dynamics, and character development by a country mile. The fountainhead has been stripped bare, right down to the plot's basic essentials.The Fountainhead's story spotlights in on a 'Frank Lloyd Wright'-Type architect by the name of Howard Roark and his fierce clash with the compromises of society. Roark is a defiant, inflexible man whose determination to retain his artistic integrity must be kept in his complete control at all costs, even if that means resorting to an act of destructive violence.The Fountainhead's one major flaw, and biggest disappointment, was the casting of the 50 year-old Gary Cooper to play a 25 year-old Howard Roark. Not only was that a bad decision, but the story's super-intense romance which Roark had with Dominique Francon was seriously compromised by Cooper's age, too.Roark's love-interest was played by actress Patricia Neal, a woman who was young enough to be Cooper's grand-daughter, for crying out loud. The sexual-chemistry between these 2 actors on screen was just about nil.The character of Dominique Francon was, indeed, an odd one. This woman was just plain weird from my perspective. I mean, she had the most peculiar, and annoying, way of purposely tormenting any man with whom she found herself attracted to. As far as her actions went - Instead of being pleasantly alluring and enticing, Dominique came across as being extremely repulsive. Believe me, Dominique was one mixed-up babe, that's for sure.All-In-All - The cast did what it could within the stifling limits of a plodding, heavy-handed script that was written by novelist Ayn Rand, herself.At best, The Fountainead was mediocre movie-entertainment. It should have been a whole lot more than that.