At the age of twenty-nine, Elgar Enders "runs away" from home. This running away consists of buying a building in a black ghetto in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Initially, his intention is to evict the black tenants and convert the building into a posh flat. But Elgar is not one to be bound by yesterday's urges, and soon he has other thoughts on his mind.
Beau Bridges Lee Grant Diana Sands Pearl Bailey Walter Brooke Louis Gossett Jr. Marki Bey Mel Stewart Susan Anspach Robert Klein Will Mackenzie Gretchen Walther Douglas Grant Stanley Greene Oliver Clark Florynce Kennedy Joe Madden Grover Dale Trish Van Devere Lawrence Cook Héctor Elizondo John McCurry Lionel G. Wilson Marlene Clark Gloria Hendry Willis Pinkett Hannah Battle Michael Ferguson Bobby V. Garvin Show All…
El casero, Der Hausbesitzer, Il padrone di casa, Amor sem barreiras, Хазяинът, 房东
USA USA 
Marking as a first time watch because I remember very little about my initial viewing and watching the new Kino Lorber Blu-ray was like watching for the first time.
Basically my least favorite Ashby film of the 70's and it's because I find it to be overwritten. Too on the nose with its commentary on race relations, gentrification and white privilege. Although it's fascinating and commendable that Ashby was tackling these issues in 1970 with his first feature.
Great direction and performances. And gorgeous Gordon Willis cinematography.
Btw, check out the cinematographers that Ashby worked with during the 70's... they are all the best of the best.
The Landlord - Gordon Willis
Harold and Maude - John A. Alonzo
The…
What a pedigree this 1970's film has:
1) The Landlord was produced by Norman Jewison (Academy Award winning producer/director of In The Heat Of The Night).
2) Jewison gave the script of The Landlord to his frequent editor Hal Ashby (also an Oscar winner for his editing of In The Heat Of The Night) for his directorial debut. A year after The Landlord, Ashby would direct Harold And Maude.
3) Gordon Willis was the cinematographer. Two years after The Landlord, Willis would work on The Godfather, to be followed up with All The President's Men, Annie Hall, and many other 1970's classics. As critic Steven Garrett once noted: "Willis defined the cinematic look of the 1970s: sophisticated compositions in which…
Underpinned by a painfully funny but searing script from Bill Gunn, The Landlord is a provocative and deftly crafted debut from “quintessential flower child” Hal Ashby. An indication of even greater things to come from a vitally important figure in American cinema.
The abyss between caustic observation and liberal guilt. New Hollywood contradictions played for all their ressonance. It moves strongly between those hard to concilie spaces. The logic of star power does the rest as Bridges young face gets to carry it between all its effects.
I’m a sucker for stories like this—where someone sticks their neck into a world they clearly don’t belong to and gets knocked around for it. The Landlord hooked me, even though I’m not deeply familiar with Black culture or its nuances. Ashby’s direction is raw and unvarnished, giving the film this loose, lived-in texture that feels totally natural.
Beau Bridges is perfect as the clueless, privileged bourgeois stumbling through unfamiliar territory. He’s not likable in a traditional sense, but he’s fascinating to watch. And Lee Grant? She doesn’t even need much screen time. She just shows up and owns the room. There’s something magnetic about her presence, like she knows exactly how to shape every second she’s given.
The themes…
The part where Lee Grant gets shwasted af with Pearl Bailey should’ve won her that Oscar ALONE
this movie really is a product of its time
Hal Ashby's debut film is a remarkably incisive send-up of race relations and nascent gentrification in the late 60s/early 70s. Unlike many Hollywood films of the period, its portrayal of urban Black life is genuine - not stereotyped or menacing but very human - thanks to screenwriter (and playwright) Bill Gunn, from a novel by African-American writer Kristin Hunter. Quite funny with good social critique and performances, it's an auspicious start.
A pampered 29 year old white guy Elgar Enders (a young Beau Bridges) raised in privilege decides on a whim to buy a tenement building in Park Slope - a marginal Black neighborhood at the time. His plan: kick out the tenants and turn it into a cool bachelor…
The early moments had me concerned this was going to be the first Hal Ashby film that I couldn't really tune into the frequency of, but once we meet protagonist Elger Enders' (Beau Bridges) immediate family and realize what environment he spawned from, everything fell into place for me...and I found myself laughing—a lot. "The Landlord" is a terrific, truly subversive comedy that mines a great deal of humor from upper crust white society being forced to reckon with the post-Civil Rights era—it has big 'Liberals in blackface' energy. Despite the heavy dose of satire, Ashby never descends into outright parody, and thanks to a stellar supporting cast (Pearl Bailey, Louis Gossett Jr.), I found myself emotionally involved in this…
"The Landlord" is a 1970 film directed by Hal Ashby. Partially satirical comedy and partially hard-hitting dramatic application, the entirety of "The Landlord" is incredibly sharp within its topical premise. The film centers around Elgar Enders (Beau Bridges) who is a well-to-do bachelor hailing from a highly affluent family. Financially well off is one thing, but the Enders family give off a very open indication that they are Wasps of older affluent design, living in esteemed wealth basically like a birthright and thinking that they are head and shoulders above everyone else. Living in a mixed element of enjoying his wealth but have a bit of entrepreneurial spirit, Elgar takes it upon himself to buy an apartment building within the…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Hal Ashby captures the political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s by allowing us to see many points of view, capturing race relations, the divide between the rich and poor in New York in a fresh and unique way, and allowing each character's distinct personality to shine through at each moment. There's a lot to like here, but the narrative is uneven and falls flat at times, however the film is still innovative enough to overlook the majority of these flaws. The picture is quite attentive in general, and Lee Grant manages to give a standout performance.
The first film directed by Hal Ashby, and its shot by Gordon Willis, and written by Bill Gunn.
And no one ever talks about it? Weird.
People sure must hate Beau Bridges!
Playful and cutting, with a sobering final stretch that isn't the crushing misery I feared, even though the ending rings a little odd, without ever breaking the reality of what has come before. It was obviously meant to piggyback on stylish white-guy ennui of THE GRADUATE, but Gunn's script makes it a totally different beast.
