The World of Henry Orient

Plot synopsis:
In early 1960s New York City, concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) pursues an affair with a married woman, Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss), while two adolescent private-school girls, Valerie "Val" Boyd (Tippy Walker) and Marian "Gil" Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth), stalk him and write their fantasies about him in a diary. Orient's paranoia leads him to believe that the two girls, who seem to pop up everywhere he goes, are spies sent by his would-be mistress's husband.
In reality, fourteen-year-old Val, the bright and imaginative daughter of wealthy international trade expert Frank Boyd (Tom Bosley) and his unfaithful, snobbish wife Isabel (Angela Lansbury), has developed a teenage crush on Henry after seeing him in concert, and involved her best friend Marian. Although Marian's parents are divorced, Marian lives a relatively happy and stable life in a townhouse in the city with her mother and her mother's also-divorced female friend, while Val, whose parents are still married (albeit unhappily), sees a psychiatrist daily and lives with paid caretakers while her parents travel the world.
Val's parents return for Christmas, and Val becomes concerned that her mother Isabel is having an extramarital affair with a young pianist. Val's interference leads her mother to find and read Val's diary. Isabel chastises Val and seeks out Henry, ostensibly to tell him to stay away from her underage daughter. The cheating Isabel and the womanizing Henry are quickly attracted to each other and begin an affair, which Val and Marian accidentally discover while stalking Henry outside his apartment. Val's devastation and Isabel's attempts to cover up her own behavior cause Frank to figure out what happened. Frank and Isabel separate, while the paranoid Henry flees the country. However, positive changes for Val result as Frank, who unlike Isabel genuinely cares about his daughter, resolves to stop traveling so much and establish a real home where he and Val can spend more time together. In the end, Val and Marian have matured and moved on from fantasy play to makeup, fashion and boys their own age.

Tags: comedy

Review:
George Roy Hill is a perhaps neglected name in any 'top ten' list of great directors we are likely to see, but his filmography speaks for itself, with a number of quiet classics among a few heavyweight top 100 films--all within a somewhat small oeuvre.
Each of these classics shows to good effect Hill's marvelous aesthetic moods and attention to detail, combined with absolutely expert casting, obtaining winning performances from all of the principles, with superior character acting from the secondaries.Peter Sellers is actually something of a secondary in this one as the title role, but his portrayal of Henry Orient is so ludicrous and wonderful that he steals the show every time he's on screen.
They don't compete for space at all (the scene-stealing qualities of Ms Walker notwithstanding),and they get equal attention and equally precocious dialogue, with the simpatico theme being so stressed as to tell us purposely that they are equal partners through and through.Ultimately the film leaves me feeling bittersweet, partially through nostalgia--Hill's 1963 NYC is beautiful--but also because the movie has that theme of fleeting innocence in the face of oncoming adolescent desire.
Yes, there is pathos, when the two discover how adults have turned their world into Henry Orient's world.Although the cast is sterling all around, Tom Bosley is a standout as father to one of the girls, who helps put things to rights.If the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam are cultural watersheds, then this film is a refreshing antidote; it gives the lie to the glib put-downs of the era by the current generation..
George Roy Hill clearly understood what a real buddy movie is made of, regardless of age or gender (remember "The Sting"?).I showed this film to my daughter when she was 12, and she loved it too.
She's watching it as I write this.A few notes about Merrie Spaeth: First, she became a well-known media consultant and political speechwriter, which is why the film "Wag the Dog" used her name for one of the actresses considered to play the peasant girl in the fake Albanian bombing newsreel.
It is one of those rare, quiet films that not only succeeds as a comedy, amusing to both children and adults, but also as a touching drama, with many poignant moments.The cast is uniformly excellent, with Peter Sellers and Paula Prentiss providing most of the comedy, as they try to have an illicit romance while being pursued all over New York by the love-struck teenagers, played with charming veracity by Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker.I was particularly impressed by the way George Roy Hill was able to convey the thoughts and emotions of the two girls with such nuance and understatement.
The manic magic of being a young girl with a dizzy, silly enthusiasm, especially one that is so pretentious on the outside yet deliciously seamy below the surface.This movie is all about the thrill of finding a true friend and the adventures you have with someone who you look up to and who likes you, too.
Peter Sellers may be the bait, but two girls supply the hook that keeps this coming-of-age comedy in people's minds 40 years on.Sellers has the title role as Henry Orient, a pianist more interested in practicing his lines than his scales, but the film's focus is on a lonely young Manhattanite named Gil (Merrie Spaeth) and her new pal Val (Elizabeth "Tippy" Walker), two adolescents who decide to make Val's crush on Orient into the secret center of an adventure-filled friendship."Henry Orient" is a film of two parts co-existing uneasily at times.
The best scene in the movie by far, very much in line with the "Can't Buy Me Love" sequence in the same year's "Hard Day's Night," shows the pair running along a city block, "splitzing" over fire hydrants and tryke-riding boys, their eyes alight with joy as they literally rise over their city surroundings.
He's actually quite enjoyable to watch, doing one of his best voice performances as a Brooklynite who affects a French-Italian accent to charm the ladies (listen carefully and you will hear his Brooklyn undertone throughout) but he and Paula Prentiss as the married object of his desires seem to be in a completely different movie, playing a broad farce at odds with the real, sometimes gut-wrenching tone of the rest of the film.This could be a bigger problem but for Elmer Bernstein's lilting yet driving score, featuring one of the most arresting themes I've heard in film, which seems to carry Val and Gil from one delirious moment to the next with complete abandon while allowing room for darker, contemplative passages.
Director George Roy Hill had a gift for employing music at the right moment (see "The Sting"), and the score of "Henry Orient" is a secret strength as it skates over the thinner plot elements.More obviously a strength is the script by Nora and Nunnelly Johnson, which really captures a sense of how young people talk, goofily, quickly and all-at-once, skipping over the stuff that doesn't matter, like when Val and Gil first meet at their ritzy school.
"No filter!" "He's not scared." One wishes the film found more to draw Orient and his youthful admirers together, though the detour into the state of Val's parental relations has merits of its own, especially with Angela Lansbury doing another of her classic nasty-Mommy turns.While it didn't set the world on fire in 1964 and, like its young stars, slipped off the radar screen too soon after its premiere, "Henry Orient" remains an engaging glimpse at American youth post-Salinger but pre-Beatles.
Val is also a prankster who brings Gil into her high energy and overly dramatic make believe world.Early on, director George Roy Hill pulls together scenes of one afternoon in Central Park spent pretending to be chased by a band of evil cuthroats, leaping over every possible object and their first encounter with Henry Orient.
It is also a very funny movie, with only a couple of occasions where the humor is not appropriate to the emotion of the situation.Val develops a crush on Henry Orient, a concert pianist who hides his Brooklyn roots behind a fake accent and hides his mediocre talent behind avant-guarde music.
Fortunately Turner Classic Movies recently showed it and the soundtrack was not a problem, making possible a fairly decent high-fidelity VHS recording.The two young actresses who played the very natural but entirely madcap duo who precipitate most of the plot's ins-'n-outs are completely charming and they are supported by an extraordinarily well-chosen cast of top-notch professionals.
As the film's title character, Peter Sellers wasn't permitted by director George Roy Hill to unbalance the proceedings.
Two teenage girls stalk a pianist in "The World of Henry Orient," a 1964 film starring Peter Sellars, Angela Lansbury, Phyllis Thaxter, Tom Bosley, Paula Prentiss, Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker.Spaeth and Walker are the 14-year-old teens, and the writing for them isn't good - it's PERFECT, capturing what it's like to be that age and having your first crush.
The object of their affections is vain, paranoid Henry Orient (Peter Sellars) a pianist who apparently specializes in somewhat ugly modern music whom the girls see kissing his married girlfriend (Prentiss) in the park.
After that, the girls read all they can about him and start staking out his apartment and restaurants he frequents.The Prentiss character, Stella, lives in fear of her husband finding out about her non-affair - she refuses to go to Orient's apartment, and whenever she acquiesces, she ends up running out of the back of the restaurant while he's getting a cab.
Val comes from a super-rich family and neglectful parents, played by the glamorous Angela Lansbury and Tom Bosley as her quiet, hard-working husband.
Lansbury is terrific and looks great, Bosley is excellent, and Prentiss is a riot as a neurotic mess.But the young girls - what memories they brought back of fantasy, crushes, wild laughter, pranks, and complete devastation.
. .and allowed myself to shed a few tears--or joy and of pain--for the characters.Incidentally, I was fortunate enough to meet Phyllis Thaxter in 1989, and subsequently work with her twice--she starred in DRIVING MISS DAISY in 1991, and was the NARRATOR for PETER PAN in 1994 at Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach, FL, where I was working at the time--and she had very fond memories of making this film.
tippy walker, who evidently left acting, gives a miraculous performance as the kooky 14 year old Val...and Angela Lansbury, Tom Bosley, and Phyllis Thaxter play the various parents with incredible subtlety and perceptiveness.
I loved both movies and watched and rewatched them so when I saw "Henry Orient" come up on cable recently, I was curious to see how it had aged.Wonderfully, in one word.
I've never seen it again, but I've never forgotten the scene where Peter Sellars' character, Henry Orient, is playing a piano concerto with an orchestra in performance.
The story of two young girls who sweetly stalk aconcert pianist, played with insane panache by Peter Sellars, isone of the nicest coming-of-age movies of  that era.
This can hardly be called a Peter Sellers movie.The movie really belongs to the two girls with a crush on the Sellers character, Henry Orient, a schlocky avant-garde pianist.
As much as I love and respect Sellers, I could see other actors in the role without hurting the movie.If you want to see teenagers do a good job of acting like teenagers (albeit in 1964 and having a crush on a concert pianist instead of the Beatles) this is a good flick.
Sellers played avant garde (or self-appointed avant garde) pianist Henry Orient, who manages to pick up two acolytes, Tippy Walker as Val Boyd and Merrie Spaeth as Gil Gilbert.
Spaeth's mother (Phyllis Thaxter) is a decent woman raising her daughter with the help of her friend (Bibi Osterwald).The girls decide on being devoted followers of a "cult" of Orient, a concert pianist of dubious popularity whose records they collect and whose photos they pick up.
They certainly spoil his personal lifestyle - especially his relationship with wealthy Paula Prentice.Sellers had some choice, but minor moments in this film - his trying to put a curse on the girls at one point, or his running from backfire (thinking it is a jealous husband).
There was also a concert sequence with the conductor getting angry at the "embellishments" in the score that Sellers puts into the concerto he is playing.But the bulk of the film was really carried by the two girls, who are shown growing up and trying to maintain their friendship.
THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT (4 outta 5 stars) Classic little comedy about a pair of 14 year old girls who, bound by their overactive imaginations, become best friends.
One of them becomes infatuated with Henry Orient (played by Peter Sellers), an avant-garde pianist whose one joy in life seems to be in seducing married women.
I searched the IMDB for the two young girls (it was their first film for each) and found they made almost nothing else -- hard to believe when they were so good in this movie.
Peter Sellers uses a great New York accent when he is being his real self, and Paula Prentiss' jittery reaction to his tries to seduce her are hilarious.
The two young girls who play the main characters are wonderful, and if they had a career after this movie it wasn't a memorable one.
Gone is the naivete of the 50's- Valerie's mother is a cold selfish woman who cheats on Tom Bosley and Valerie's best friend lives alone with her divorced mother and a friend- but the idea that two young girls following a grown man around New York City might lead to disaster is not even hinted at in the film.
The title is misleading; it is less about the philandering, phony character played by pre-PINK PANTHER Peter Sellers than it is about two young ladies grappling with puberty and the adult world.
The same year that Peter Sellers starred in "Dr. Strangelove", he starred in "The World of Henry Orient", in which he played a pianist pursued by two girls.
Tiresome, uneven comedy-drama has two precocious (and, I thought, unengaging) teenage girls in New York making life miserable for an increasingly paranoid concert pianist (Peter Sellers).
The remaining adult cast, featuring Angela Lansbury among others, is good in its own competent way.One great unexpected joy of the film was its many scenes of a beautiful and mostly vacant New York City.
Because this was a pretty funny joke, the movie does at least get a score of 7, but the acting of Peter Sellers didn't particularly hurt or help the score, as his role could have been played by many people.
Sellers who starred in Lolita, The Pink Panther and Dr. Strangelove has nothing to do, but is forced by the script to do it over and over while Paula Prentiss and Angela Lansbury have their moments, but Tom Bosely, Phyllis Thaxter and Bibi Osterwald bring the film down.
A charming comedy about teenage love interests and friendships, it is excellently acted, especially by Tippy Walker, who is very natural in her role, and the creative camera angles and camera movement are able to keep the film constantly engaging on a visual level.
Sellers plays Henry Orient, but he seems to be performing in some completely different movie.
Manhattan 14 year old private school girls Val Boyd (Tippy Walker) and Marian Gilbert (Merrie Spaeth) become best friends.
They run across egotistical famous avant-garde pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers) who is having an affair with married Stella Dunnworthy (Paula Prentiss).
Her mother confronts Henry Orient and end up in an affair with him.The girls are adorable troublemakers and Peter Sellers has great reactions to them.
The World of Henry Orient The key to being a successful groupie is being a woman.And while the fans in this comedy are females, they're drastically underage.Obsessed with concert pianist Henry Orient (Peter Sellers), school girls Val (Tippy Walker) and Gil (Merrie Spaeth) secretly follow him around Manhattan, taking notes on his affair with a married woman, and concocting fantasies about their lives with him.When Val's mother (Angela Lansbury) stumbles on the girls' journal, she accuses Orient of seducing her daughter, only to end up having an affair with him at the expense of her marriage to Val's workaholic father (Tom Bosley).A perfect portrayal of precocious teenage girls, their odd fashion choices, and their naïve views on love, The World of Henry Orient deals with mature matters of the heart with caprice and candor.Besides, the best way to get close to a concert pianist is to impersonate a piano bench.Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca.
*SPOILERS*The 60 year-old women on IMDb who recall this as a favorite childhood memory should perhaps re-watch this from the jaded 21st century point of view, knowing that the filmmakers squeezed as much sex as they thought they could get away with in this film.I recently watched this for the first time, and was surprised at the blatant and not-so-blatant innuendos.The first thing that struck me was the opening scene, where director Hill got as many up-skirt panty shots as possible.
It was pretty obvious to me this was a closeted lesbian relationship.Paula Prentiss wants to commit adultery, and c**k teases Henry Orient quite a bit.Henry Orient becomes the sex fantasy of mother and daughter, with one having intercourse, and the pubescent one thinking about it to the point of tears.The end of the movies shows the pubescent girls putting on heavy make- up, including "lipstick the color of a scarlet gash".Now that I have all of you prudes up in arms, let me say this-- It was an enjoyable film, mostly due to Tippy Walker.
She showed such promise I'm sorry she didn't get into more films.The music and cinematography were great.Many reviewers here say they wanted more Peter Sellers, and that he wasn't funny enough.
"The World of Henry Orient" is the only film I know of that takes the world of 13 and 14 year- old girls seriously.
Peter Sellers is Henry Orient, yet he is merely a marginal, supporting character in this supremely pointless story.
Still this is a worth while film to view.Peter Sellers is Henry Orient, a classic pianist who appears to be messing up his work because he is being distracted by Paula Prentiss.
I would have loved being distracted by Prentiss.The main story is of two young girls who are musically inclined, develop a crush on Henry & follow him all over town.
Still, seeing this cast & laughing at & with Peter Sellers is a very entertaining way to watch a movie..
Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker play two rather eccentric teenage girls (is there any other kind?) who find fascination in the comings and goings of Henry Orient (Peter Sellers), a world renowned pianist they come upon kissing his married mistress (Paula Prentiss) in the Ramble in Central Park.
Like Doris Day's victim (a perplexed movie producer) in "It's a Great Feeling", Sellers gets paranoid every time he sees these two girls.
The World of Henry Orient is a film about growing up and the pain of that first celebrity crush.....Come on!
The girls become fast friends and Val confides that she is in love with a pianist named Henry Orient played by the talented Peter Sellers.
Even though the film is named after Henry Orient we don't see too much of the character in a lot of scenes.
The World of Henry Orient is one of those films that I encourage the young to see.
George Roy Hill directs "The World of Henry Orient", a once original now thoroughly tame film starring Peter Sellers as Henry Orient.
The girls' overworked imaginations result in them pursuing Orient and recording their fantasies in their diaries, a fact which irks one of their mothers, played by Angela Lansbury.Sellers' role isn't particularly well written, but Walker and Spaeth do good work.