Two for the Seesaw

Two for the Seesaw’s seemingly odd pairing of actors makes it an authentic romantic drama of the false starts and uncomfortable snags that the twice-shy find in opening up to another a second time around.

Robert Mitchum crosses Brooklyn Bridge in Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw (1962).

Robert Wise's black-and-white film opens with a lovely title sequence of panoramic shots of lower Manhattan, to a bluesy André Previn score. Film noir veteran Robert Mitchum crosses Brooklyn Bridge alone on foot. He ambles through lower Manhattan on what feels like an overcast Sunday morning to a walk-up tenement apartment on Mulberry Street near Prince. It looks like a dead ringer set-up for film noir; but Mitchum’s body language lacks purpose and menace. 

Mitchum’s Jerry Ryan is a successful middle-aged Nebraska lawyer who finally got enough of going through the motions of a gilt-cage life when his wife of twelve years filed for a divorce. He left Lincoln with $500 in his pocket and an idea to reinvent himself in New York. At a party in Greenwich Village he is drawn to Shirley MacLaine’s lively Gittel Mosca (shortened from Moskowitz) “from Brooklyn by way of the Bronx,” as she says. Gittel is a dancer and costume designer almost 30, briefly married, on her own in bohemian Manhattan since she was 16.

Shirley MacLaine’s Gittel Mosca reflects in her dancing loft in Two for the Seesaw (1962). 

The party has an authentic feel. It is in the loft apartment of Oscar (Eddie Firestone) an acquaintance of Jerry’s who earlier left Nebraska for New York to paint and enthusiastically tells Jerry the move saved his life. Oscar’s guests are an eclectic assortment of artsy people who could be actual Villagers of the time, as opposed to stereotyped hip-daddio beatniks one often sees in period movies. Malachy McCourt is among the New York actors who appear in uncredited roles.

A Greenwich Village party has an authentic feel in Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw (1962).

MacLaine’s nutty energy is almost as easy to typecast as Mitchum’s hulking, sardonic, heavy-lidded menace. But there is chemistry between these two odd ducks twenty years apart in age. Scraps of character traits for which they are known fly up, but these are the flimsy defenses of vulnerable people trying to break out of unsatisfying personal routines. It is a messy process. The viewer gets the treat of watching this pair of gifted actors find strengths and vulnerabilities in their own and each other’s character. A number of their dialogues take place by telephone stage-style across a split screen.

‘We need to talk’: Many of Two for the Seesaw’s dialogues occur stage-style across a split screen.

This is not a lighthearted rom-com and not for everyone. It is about being insecure about one’s feelings, but hopeful; though there seems to be no way this couple will end up together. Millennials may be put off by the archaic social relations between men and women. But one of the film’s and these actors’ strengths is that they would acknowledge these conventions as defenses, confront and try to overcome them in themselves. If one takes the characters as Mitchum and MacLaine play them, the story feels honest; each has something the other needs and they learn from the other.

Romantic false starts and uncomfortable snags in Robert Wise’s Two for the Seesaw (1962).

The script was adapted by Isobel Lennart from William Gibson’s hit Broadway play. Lennart is best known for the book of the musical Funny Girl and its screen adaptation. But Gibson’s two lead characters and their situations reminded us of Elaine May and what a marvelous job she would do with this material. Anne Bancroft was the original Gittel on Broadway where the play first ran from January 1958-October 1959, and Henry Fonda, who actually was from Nebraska, appeared as Jerry.

Anne Bancroft and Henry Fonda starred in Two for the Seesaw’s Broadway run in the late 1950s.

Two for the Seesaw 1962 US; United Artists (119 minutes) directed by Robert Wise; screenplay by Isobel Lennart, based on William Gibson’s hit 1958 play; cinematography by Ted McCord; editing by Stuart Gilmore; music by André Previn; produced by Wise and Walter Mirisch.