The Cracker Factory

An underrated TV movie.

Though it's a little dated and the variety of psychiatric stereotypes is a little annoying, but really it's a very good TV movie that I wish were available on video. It's one of Natalie Wood's best performances and she captures the Cassie Barrett character right on. The Cleveland setting gives it a great middle America setting and Marian Mercer, Shelley Long (before "Cheers") and the supporting cast are as up for this as is Natalie.

It's about alcoholism and promotes AA but doesn't go overboard in preaching to us. To the contrary, The "Cassie" character, thanks to the writing and to Natalie Wood, kick the wind out of the "typical" therapy people and methods.

Having just finished Suzanne Finstad's biography of Natalie Wood, I was eager to see The Cracker Factory because it was one of Natalie's favorite roles and a performance that she was very proud of. I have seen almost all of Natalie's films, and after watching this one, I can definitely say that it is perhaps her best work as an actress. Don't get me wrong, she was excellent in all of her films, but in The Cracker Factory, her acting was sheer brilliance. She was extremely convincing as Cassie, a depressed alcoholic housewife who drifts in and out of mental treatment. The role not only called for tough dramatic acting, which Wood of course tackles excellently, but also calls for an actress that has great comic timing due to Cassie's acerbic wit, which Natalie displays effortlessly and hilariously.

The supporting cast is also in top form. Peter Haskell is great as the distant husband, Perry King is good as Cassie's psychiatrist, Juliet Mills is excellent as a supportive nurse, and a young Shelley Long is superb as the manic depressive Cara. The film itself is very good overall, although the music and certain parts of the script make it obvious that it is a made for TV movie.

In a great production, however, the highest honors must go to Natalie Wood. In her biography, Finstad writes about how Natalie often felt that her acting was inferior to her peers that had studied Method Acting in New York at the Actor's Studio (like James Dean). Watching The Cracker Factory, it is obvious that she had no reason to feel that way, her acting was brilliant, as good and even better than many of the great Method actors. I only wish that Wood would have received the critical recognition for this performance that she so richly deserved.

Natalie Wood in an unsung tour-de-force, playing relatively ordinary housewife and mother who has a mental collapse. Adaptation of Joyce Burditt's popular book, this TV-movie attempts to deal with touchy subject matter in a straightforward, mature, non-exploitive manner, and for the most part is quite successful. While in recovery mode, Wood is unblinking and unblushing, whether relaying her character's personal feelings or describing childhood haunts. The narrative is a bit clogged with medical minutiae (I would've preferred to see more of Wood at home with her family), however the results are relatively well-wrought and quite memorable, and Natalie's work is blessedly unaffected and heartfelt.

There are three kinds of TV movies. First, fiction stories which look like the big screen films, but cheaper: thrillers, comedies, westerns; nothing really exciting most of the time. Second, you have TV movies related to real life of people, gloomy, depressing, not the kind of stuff that most audiences will pay for in a theater, when they go to forget their daily problems, especially when they are with their kids whilst eating popcorn, eccept maybe some films from directors such as Paul Mazursky, Daniel Mann or Peter Bodganovitch. And third, you have, in TV industry, biopics, biographies of famous folks: politics, show bizeness, sport. So this one belongs to the second category, destined to home audiences, people sitting in their sofa and seeking in this kind of movies, some things in common with their own problems; with sometimes a bit of peeping tom line too. Guilty pleasure to observe distress, hopeles, despair. Nathalie Wood is of course excellent here and I think she did not play better for the big screen, where most of time, she played in major, famous movies, with only her presence, her beauty and charisma instead a real actress' play. In TV industry, at least, she could be a real actress and show her skills. That's my own opinion, i can be wrong. This movie is good enough for me but certainly not DAY OF WINE AND ROSES or LOST WEEK END. It is too light hearted for such a subject, not a comedy, but only not depressing, as I expected.

Burt Brinckerhoff's exceptional made-for-television movie "The Cracker Factory" based upon the Joyce Rebeta-Burditt book of the same name offers a phenomenal performance by the late, great Natalie Wood. Natalie Wood shines as Cassie Barrett, a suburban alcoholic housewife who's in and out of the local hospital mental ward. She gives a rare look into the turbulent life of a wife and mother who suffers from depression, alcoholism and slight mental difficulty. Wood's Cassie Barrett is a spunky, bright individual looking for answers as to why she can't seem to handle her own life, while others do. Wood is warm, witty, intelligent and adds a special glow to this perceptive film.