It's the spring of 1937, and Katie Morosky, Hubbell Gardiner, J.J. and Carol Ann are all seniors at Wentworth College where they face an uncertain future in Depression-torn America. And, if that wasn't enough, there's Civil War in Spain (1936-39) and the threat of World War II in Europe. Katie (Barbra Streisand) is a Jewish political activist, a serious, no-nonsense member of the Young Communist League (YCL) who organizes strikes and peace rallies. Hubbell (Robert Redford) is a handsome blond WASP golden boy who's in college on a track and field athletic scholarship, has a pretty sorority girlfriend Carol Ann (Lois Chiles), is a budding writer, and for whom everything in life comes too easily. When WWII breaks out Hubbell and J.J. (Bradford Dillman) become U.S. Navy officers while Katie works in the Office of War Information as well as a New York restaurant.
Seven years pass, and by chance, Katie and Hubbell meet in New York City at the El Morocco night club. Although they are totally different in personality, social and political values and religious background, somehow opposites attract and several years later they find themselves married, and still later they move to Hollywood where Hubbell turns his first novel A Country Made of Ice Cream into a screenplay. The title tells us a great deal about Hubbell's world - rich, sweet, creamy and delicious - the world of the penthouse condominium, as compared with Katie's world of the walk-up flat. They are the classic odd couple, and as screenwriter Arthur Laurents once said: Hubbell gave Katie class, and she gave him sex.
As long as their external world is reasonably stable and safe, Hubbell and Katie can manage their differences. But Hubbell's original vision in his novel gets changed by the Hollywood movie production machine into something unrecognizable, they get caught up in the late 1940s Red Scare and Communist Witch Hunt of Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his House Un-American Activities Committee, and Katie discovers that Hubbell has been having an affair with Carol Ann, his college sweetheart, who is also J.J.'s ex-wife. Hubbell and Katie divorce just after their daughter Rachel is born, probably in 1948.
The 1973, 118-minute theatrical release would have us believe that Katie divorced Hubbell because he had cheated on her with Carol Ann. But the 50th Anniversary Edition, released in 2023, contains five minutes of additional film and explains the real reason why Hubbell and Katie got a divorce. Both Katie and classmate Frankie McVeigh (James Woods) had been Young Communist League members at Wentworth College although Katie had left the league after college. Frankie was in love with Katie but when he realized at a college dance that she was in love with Hubbell, and then later she married Hubbell, Frankie got his revenge by naming her as a Communist to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Hubbell could not continue working in Hollywood if he was married to a former Communist. So he and Katie had to divorce.
Directed by Sydney Pollack, this is a sweeping romantic drama produced in the Hollywood style, and with the production values of The Electric Horseman and Out of Africa, both also directed by Pollack and starring Redford. Created when Redford and Streisand were at the height of their box office popularity, The Way We Were presents some of the major issues of the period, showing how the characters have their life trajectories altered by external events.
The film received Oscars for Best Song and Best Original Score. The supporting cast includes Patrick O'Neal as George Bissinger and Viveca Lindfors as Paula Reisner.
I must admit that I'm guilty of fact-checking the time line of the film. Clearly it opens in the summer of 1944, because we see posters supporting FDR's reelection in 1944, and the D-Day invasion of France is mentioned. The flashback to Wentworth College is the spring of 1937 because the film later mentions that they are the class of 1937, and the Civil War in Spain has already begun. The last scene in the film takes place in New York City, probably in 1955, since Katie is active in the Ban the Bomb movement and there was a highly-publicized protest in NYC in June, 1955. So the film covers an eighteen-year-period. This makes me think that Katie and Hubbell were born in 1915, and graduated from high school in 1933. There is a scene in their Malibu beach rental when Hubbell is talking with Katie about J.J. and Carol Ann's marriage and how Carol Ann wants J.J. to stop drinking. Hubbell observes that Carol Ann is 33, that they are all 33, and that she doesn't have many more moves left. For them all to be 33 would mean it was around 1948, which is consistent with the Hollywood motion picture blacklist beginning in November, 1947.
It was important for me to understand the timeline because my mother was born in 1913, and my father in 1914, and I was born in July of 1942. So, although my father did not serve in WWII because he was working for Raytheon on the development of radar and was considered vital to the war effort, they lived through it and it impacted all of us.
IMDb 70/100
MetaScore (critics=61, viewers=72)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=63, viewers=80)
Blu-ray 50th Anniversary Edition
Wikipedia page
The poignant last scene from the film
YouTube clip from the film
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