Great Film overall

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

TWIAT is about a has-been actor with the shakes who starts to rediscover his mojo as a director in Rome with the help of an Italian gamine (Dahlia Lavi), while everybody else around him manipulates and abuses him and one another. He's got to have been living in the world's most expensive sanatorium, by the way. He finally learns to rely on himself alone, not the people who have had their hooks in him - quite a contemporary message, if done in a very glib way, with a slight twist on 'Casablanca' at the end.There are two common threads with all the reviews here: George Hamilton's 'best' work was ahead of him substituting for Elvis in the Hank Williams story 'Your Cheatin' Heart', and while gorgeous to look at (eg Kirk's Maserati, the 60's Roman parties), and with performances that would go down a scream in pantomime/burlesque, the movie just drags - not too badly, but it does. (Though it picks up well with 9 minutes to go). The music is also very dated.The drag is because while the script expects us to invest our feelings in the post-suicidal Andrus (Douglas), it spends too much time and energy with the co-stars and their much worse neuroses and marriages from hell - and the sub-Fellini Italian traveloguery, while interesting of itself, is obtrusive. There's also a lot of casual violence against women which is not good.On the whole, it's worth watching if you don't have to pay for it and you'd like to see something halfway between Douglas Sirk and Martin Scorsese. Oh, and a bee-ootiful black Gibson archtop at about 1:39. Almost better than the Maserati ragtop, which ends up under a fountain.

I've watched this film twice, and I still don't know quite what to think of it.On the one hand, it has Edward G. Robinson as a co-star in a film where he's not a gangster. That's something I always look forward to. And it has Kirk Douglas in what I feel is a rather strong performance. Another plus.But on the other hand, it has a script that seems to cluttered with subplots, which makes the whole film seem a bit hectic. It also has what must be one of the poorest performances I've ever seen -- by George Hamilton. It has Cyd Charisse in a film that proves she was a better dancer than actor, although she doesn't dance in this film (if you get my drift). Claire Trevor is also along as an over the hill wife; she is "okay", but nothing more.The plot: Kirk Douglas plays an former big star who, due to alcoholism and a nervous breakdown, can't even get supporting roles. Edward G. Robinson plays an old film director who once was a mentor to Douglas, and who now needs him in Italy to help him on the technical end of film-making. George Hamilton plays a very problematic young actor. Robinson and his wife (Trevor) have a marriage which is on the rocks. Douglas falls in love with the same young actress whom Hamilton loves. It looks as if an Italian company will grab away the film due to going overtime when Robinson has a heart attack. They're all going to live happily ever after -- even the heart attack victim. Or will they? There's a great scene where Cyd Charisse gets put in her place, but shortly after that the very ending of the film is just too "quick" to be at all satisfying.I'm going to give this film an "average" grade, although I still have reservations.

Imagine a film with Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, George Hamilton, Cyd Charisse and Claire Trevor being miserable. It's hard to believe but it's true.The best scenes are when we see clips of Douglas's 1952 "The Bad and the Beautiful." That was a picture.This garbage deals with Douglas as an actor getting over suicide and being brought to Rome to work for director Robinson. There he meets his ex-wife Carlotta, played in a whore-like manner by Ms. Charisse. She is way out of her league in this one but her days of dancing with Fred Astaire were long gone.Interesting to see the teaming of Robinson and Trevor, this time as man and wife. They made such a great duo 14 years before in Trevor's Oscar-winning gem "Key Largo." As was the case with the latter, Trevor is once again a drunkard but with no reason as she had in 'Largo.'The picture is a rip-off of "The Sun Also Rises" as it deals with emotionally unbalanced people. At age 22, George Hamilton, as an actor, is already over the hill.Douglas wants to reenact his hitting of a wall this time in Rome as he had done in L.A. during his drunken suicide attempt. He and the others really hit the wall by making this awful film.

You gotta love the title "Two Weeks in Another Town." It's fabulous. As for the movie...it's a big budget, sprawling color extravaganza that's either a sequel or a prequel to "The Bad and the Beautiful" depending upon whom you speak to. Kirk Douglas stars as Jack, a has-been, alcoholic actor who, fresh from the asylum, is summoned to Rome by his guru, the director Maurice Kruger (Edward G. Robinson). Also in Rome is the wife that drove Jack into an alcoholic stupor, the seductive Carlotta (Cyd Charisse). Initially all Jack is to do is direct the dubbing of Kruger's film so he can finish on time and satisfy the Italian producer - but things become more involved.I can't agree with one comment that this is the veiled story of Tyrone Power, Linda Christian, and Darryl F. Zanuck, with circumstances changed to protect the guilty. Certainly the promiscuity aspects are similar; Ty took up with Anita Ekberg, magazine editor Mary Roblee, etc., and Linda, well-known for her exploits like the Cyd Charisse character, had an affair with Edmund Purdom. And Power was certainly tied to Zanuck. However, the story is pretty Hollywood generic; one could probably make the case for other actors' marriages and connection to directors and/or producers."Two Weeks" is also way over the top, which is what Minnelli intended: old Roman gluttony. It's a feast of scenery, big acting, and a wild, dramatic story, which peaks with Douglas and Charisse in a fast car careening through Rome.Kirk Douglas is great as an actor returning to his past, only to find there's nothing there of use. Robinson turns in a excellent performance as a tough yet insecure director who cheats on his emotionally abusive and abused wife yet depends on her like a child its mother. Trevor as the wife is appropriately hurt, angry, and downright vicious. George Hamilton plays an up and coming actor - as one comment noted, this is a stretch; he doesn't really register. Charisse gets costar billing but doesn't have much to do but laugh evilly, wear glamorous clothes, and look seductive. She succeeds."Two Weeks in Another Town" is certainly worth a look, though it was hard for this viewer to connect with any of the characters. I think it stands alone as neither a prequel or sequel to "The Bad and the Beautiful" as a story of what it's like to make films in another time - and in another town.