The Great Gatsby is a 1974 American historical romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Jack Clayton, produced by David Merrick, and written by Francis Ford Coppola.

It stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterston, Bruce Dern, and Karen Black. The plot concerns the interactions of writer Nick Carraway with enigmatic millionaire Jay Gatsby (Redford) and Gatsby’s obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan (Farrow), amid the riotous parties of the Jazz Age on Long Island near New York City.

The Great Gatsby was preceded by 1926 and 1949 films of the same name. Despite a mixed reception by critics, the 1974 film grossed over $26 million against a $7 million budget. Coppola later stated that the film failed to follow his screenplay. In 2013, a fourth film adaptation was produced.

Plot

Nick Carraway pilots his boat across the harbor to his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom’s mansion in East Egg. While there, he learns Tom and Daisy’s marriage is troubled and Tom is having an affair with a woman in New York. Nick lives in a small cottage in West Egg, next to a mysterious tycoon named Gatsby, a former Oxford student and decorated World War I veteran, who regularly throws extravagant parties at his home.

Tom takes Nick to meet his mistress, Myrtle, who is married to George Wilson, an automotive mechanic. George needs to purchase a vehicle from Tom, but Tom is there only to draw Myrtle to his city apartment. There she taunts him with Daisy’s name.

Back on Long Island, Daisy wants to set Nick up with her friend, Jordan, a professional golfer. When Nick and Jordan attend a party at Gatsby’s home, Nick is invited to meet Gatsby privately, who asks him to lunch the following day.

At lunch, Nick meets Gatsby’s business partner Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish gangster and gambler who rigged the 1919 World Series. The following day, Jordan appears at Nick’s work and asks him to invite Daisy to his house so that Gatsby can meet with her.

Gatsby surprises Daisy at lunch. It is revealed that Gatsby and Daisy were once lovers, though she would not marry him because he was poor.

Daisy and Gatsby have an affair, which soon becomes obvious. While Tom and Daisy entertain Gatsby, Jordan, and Nick at their home, Daisy, on a hot summer day, proposes they go into the city as a diversion.

At the Plaza Hotel, Gatsby and Daisy reveal their affair. Gatsby wants Daisy to admit she never loved Tom. She does not and drives off in Gatsby’s car. The others return separately to the island.

During the drive home, Daisy hits Myrtle when Myrtle runs into the street. Believing that Gatsby killed his wife, George later goes to Gatsby’s mansion and fatally shoots him. George then commits suicide.

Nick holds a funeral for Gatsby. There he meets the man’s father and learns Gatsby’s original name is “Gatz”. No one else attends the funeral.

Afterward, Daisy and Tom continue with their lives as though nothing occurred. Nick breaks up with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest, frustrated with Eastern ways. He laments Gatsby’s inability to escape his past.

Cast

Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby
Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan
Bruce Dern as Tom Buchanan
Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway
Karen Black as Myrtle Wilson, George’s wife
Scott Wilson as George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband
Lois Chiles as Jordan Baker
Edward Herrmann as Ewing Klipspringer
Howard Da Silva as Meyer Wolfsheim
Kathryn Leigh Scott as Catherine, Myrtle’s sister
Regina Baff as Miss Baedecker
Vincent Schiavelli as Thin Man
Roberts Blossom as Mr. Gatz
Beth Porter as Mrs. McKee
Patsy Kensit as Pammy Buchanan

Production

Development

Producer Robert Evans planned on making The Great Gatsby with his wife Ali MacGraw as Daisy as it was her favorite book. Evans hired Truman Capote to write a script that turned out to be unusable despite Capote’s $300,000 fee. Evans made a deal with Broadway producer David Merrick as producer of the movie, and it was Merrick who bought the rights for between $350,000 and $500,000 from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s daughter, Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald.

Casting

Evans originally sought Warren Beatty for the role of Jay Gatsby, but Beatty turned him down, reluctant to act opposite MacGraw. With Beatty out, Evans offered the role to Jack Nicholson, but Nicholson also reportedly was wary of acting with MacGraw and was unable to make a financial deal.

Evans then sought 49-year-old Marlon Brando for the role coveted by 38-year-old Robert Redford, who broke through to superstardom in 1973, the year The Great Gatsby remake was lensed. Although Brando was too old for the part, he had reestablished himself as a box office star with the twin successes of The Godfather and Last Tango in Paris.

Incensed at his loss of income when he surrendered his profit participation points for $100,000 to Paramount before the release of The Godfather, Brando personally negotiated his deal, demanding an unprecedented salary reportedly as high as $4 million salary, frankly revealing that the high salary would recoup his losses from the sale of his points. Gulf + Western CEO Charles Bludhorn, whose conglomerate owned Paramount, vetoed any such deal on the grounds that the two movies were separate entities. Brando refused to be in Godfather II when his salary demands were not met.

Robert Redford campaigned for the role of Jay Gatsby, but Evans rebuffed him on the incorrect belief that Fitzgerald’s text specified Gatsby had dark hair. Director Jack Clayton upbraided Evans for his lack of knowledge about the book and convinced him to cast Redford. “I began to think Evans never read the book,” Clayton recalled. “Sure, he liked the idea of doing a Fitzgerald movie, but he didn’t know the text. Nowhere in it does Fitzgerald say Gatsby’s hair is dark.”

During this time, Ali MacGraw subsequently lost the part of Daisy after she left Evans for Steve McQueen. MacGraw and McQueen approached producer Merrick through their agents and offered themselves as a package, but McQueen was turned down on the grounds that Redford already was cast. Without McQueen as her co-star, she dropped the project, although Evans claimed it was he himself who terminated her participation in the movie.

“It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it . . High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl . ,”— Fitzgerald’s conception of the voice of Daisy Buchanan.

After Ali MacGraw’s departure from the project, Candice Bergen and Katharine Ross reportedly were offered the role of Daisy. Tuesday Weld is considered. Faye Dunaway wants the role so badly she maneuveres her knowledge of Hollywood to obtain a screen test, but Clayton still passes on a final decision.

What approach Clayton did not pass on was Mia Farrow’s. She had the privilege to have for godfather legendary film director George Cukor who had a historic link to the book: a young man beginning his career, he had directed the work’s original Broadway stage adaptation in 1926. She sent a cable to producer Evans asking him to consider her for the role. Director Jack Clayton found agreement to go with this casting.

Screenplay

Truman Capote was the original screenwriter but he was replaced by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola had just finished directing The Godfather, but was unsure of its commercial reception and he needed the money. He got the job on the recommendation of Robert Redford, who had liked a rewrite Coppola did on The Way We Were. Coppola “had read Gatsby but wasn’t familiar with it.” He checked himself into a hotel room in Paris (Oscar Wilde’s old room) and started.

He later recalled:

I was shocked to find that there was almost no dialogue between Daisy and Gatsby in the book, and was terrified that I’d have to make it all up. So I did a quick review of Fitzgerald’s short stories and, as many of them were similar in that they were about a poor boy and a rich girl, I helped myself to much of the authentic Fitzgerald dialogue from them. I decided that perhaps an interesting idea would be to do one of those scenes that lovers typically have, where they finally get to be together after much longing, and have a “talk all night” scene, which I’d never seen in a film. So I did that – I think a six-page scene in which Daisy and Gatsby stay up all night and talk. And I remember my wife telling me that she and the kids were in New York when The Godfather opened, and it was a big hit and there were lines around the block at five theaters in the city, which was unheard of at the time. I said, “Yeah, yeah, but I’ve got to finish the Gatsby script.” And I sent the script in, just in time. It had taken me two or three weeks to complete.

On his commentary track for the DVD release of The Godfather, Coppola refers to writing the Gatsby script, adding “Not that the director paid any attention to it. The script that I wrote did not get made.”

William Goldman, who loved the novel, said in 2000 that he actively campaigned for the job of adapting the script, but he was astonished by the quality of Coppola’s work:

On his commentary track for the DVD release of The Godfather, Coppola refers to writing the Gatsby script, adding “Not that the director paid any attention to it. The script that I wrote did not get made.”

William Goldman, who loved the novel, said in 2000 that he actively campaigned for the job of adapting the script, but he was astonished by the