Home > VHS  $17.99   UPC: 027616516435 Landlord Features : Closed-captioned Color NTSC Directors : Hal Ashby Release Date:  01 September, 1998 Manufacturer:  MGM (Video & DVD) Availability:  This item is currently not available. List Price:  $14.95   Accessories: (none) Similar Products: Torch Song (1953) La Notte Brother John Happy Ending (1969) Bachelor Party (1957)   Movies like The Landlord just don't get made anymore. Nowadays, the plot--an idle, wealthy young man (Beau Bridges) buys a tenement house in a poor black neighborhood and finds himself confronted and changed by the radically different lives his tenants lead--would be the basis for a broad comedy or a ponderous, self-important statement picture in which the hero comes to a profound understanding of something bland and inoffensive. But in the 1970s, a movie could be something too slippery to categorize. The Landlord is part social satire, part character study, part serious examination of race and class--and it delves into these things without having any answers or even strong advice, just a sense of the reality it depicts. Bridges, with his baby-faced innocence, is excellent, as are Lee Grant as his capricious mother and Pearl Bailey and Lou Gossett as some of his tenants; the rest of the cast is less recognizable but just as good. The movie uses abrupt editing to juxtapose the past and present or upper- and lower-class environments; the production and costume design use black and white to subtly comment on our responses to color in the world. The accumulation of all this lacks the focus that might make The Landlord a great movie, but it is a provocative, unpredictable, and engaging one, and well worth watching. --Bret Fetzer   Customer Reviews   A great oldie. Rating: 5 I searched for years after seeing this movie when it was first released, but it didn't seem to be available on VHS. I was very pleased to find a copy - in great condition. Beau Bridges and Pearl Bailey are terrific in this tale of a rich white boy's foray into the black culture of the late 60's/early 70's - the impact of the tenants in the building he buys in a black neighborhood (just beginning to be gentrified) and his on their lives (his involvement with a female tenant who's husband is in jail). But I think the best part of the movie may be Lee Grant's performance as his mother. Underrated as an actress who I believe was mainly known on tv, she hits a perfect note as a spoiled white woman who can't quite remember which of her many beaus she actually married (after a night of drinking with Pearl Bailey). Some hard truths about the gap - culturally and economically - between black and white are played out very well here and the love story is quite touching. Terrific movie that has aged well. I hope more people stumble upon this gem! to say the least... Rating: 5 ...Profound. Nothing short of an algorithm of life's past, present, and future ignorance and faux pas. It has a wide eyed view on what is real, and depicts life in all it's glory and gloom. Each role will tell you somethings we all should know, but were never, and will never be taught. A rare retrospect of wisdom captured in film. A strong allusion of humor and melancholy. BOLD, ORIGINAL, POWERFUL Rating: 5 I discovered this film by accident while reading a black cinema history book by Donald Bogle. I was fascinated by the movie once I saw it. It's become one of my favorites. This is an art house film about a wealthy white man who becomes a landlord of a Brooklyn tenament and makes connections with two very different black women. I love the boldness and complexity of the film and the directing was dreamy and odd--making it a surreal visual experience. I was captivated, as usual, by the spectacular performance of the late, great superior Diana Sands, who died too soon: I think she would have been one of Hollywood's biggest black actresses had she lived. She is mesmerizing in this film. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone interested in movies that explore race relations and the complexities of human relationships.