Word: fonda
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...first glimpses of the aged couple who are reopening their comfortable old summer house are suffused with a similar light, though that is more a trick of the moviegoer's memory than of the cinematographer's art. For Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda arrive in On Golden Pond bearing with them not merely their vacation baggage but a montage of beloved images assembled from a combined 95 years of motion picture acting in 129 features, not to mention uncounted stage and television appearances...
...bargain of friendship between the generations). But emotionally On Golden Pond is no less valid for being something of a cliche. Anyway, the characters are so strong that the piece does not play as a cliché. Hepburn, for example may have a less chewy part than has Fonda, but the briskness of her manner, her well-justified image as a no-nonsense individualist who is nevertheless a good sport, serve her wonderfully. There is a vivifying touch of tension between an actress who was a liberated woman before the movement was born and her role as traditional wife...
...Golden Pond finally belongs to Henry Fonda, who has had to wait until the end of his life for the part of his life. As Norman he is able to bring together, in a single character, the two main strands of his talent. The old gentleman's character is grounded on the main line of Fonda's star career. The fundamental decency and intelligence that were basic to the likes of Tom load and Mr. Roberts still infuse his presence...
...character actor. The military martinet of Fort Apache, the cold-eyed outlaw of Once Upon a Time in the West, even the hilariously befuddled herpetologist "Hopsy" Pike of The Lady Eve-they all light up in one's memory as the spirit that animated them flashes in Fonda's eyes. Without raising his voice he gives a bravura performance as he moves from depressed withdrawal to momentary rages, from the struggle to express affection to the struggle not to express it, lest it be mistaken for weakness...
...their visitors departed, the last bags and boxes stowed in the station wagon, Norman and Ethel go down to the pond to say goodbye to the loons that have been their summer companions. The bird family turns out to be diminished too-just the mother and father are left. Fonda eyes them and in the wry, dry voice that has drawled through our consciousness for almost half a century, speaks a kind of generational epitaph, weary but accepting. "Babies are all grown up . . . and moved to Los Angeles or somewhere...