All The Bright Young Men

I just watched The Paper Chase for the first time in years. It has flaws--more caricatures than characters, a dreary love story, not much of an ending--but overall, a fine movie.

Timothy Bottoms is in practically every scene, and, even with his 70s hairstyle, and all that whining about his Contracts class (doesn't he care about Torts or Civil Procedure?), he doesn't wear out his welcome. His fellow law students are a lot of fun, with Edward Herrnman and Craig Richard Nelson in particular providing plenty of comic relief. (Though I find it hard to believe that the James Naughton character, who has photographic memory, simply can't hack it because he doesn't know how to put all the facts together--if he were that hopeless, he'd have failed half his courses as an undergrad.)

Above all, there's John Houseman as Professor Kingsfield. Maybe he doesn't have a lot of range as an actor--some claim he was simply playing his imperious self--but he's the most memorable thing in the film and deserved his Oscar. Houseman apparently was proudest of the scene near the end where he's with Timothy Bottoms in an elevator and has to ask who he is. Houseman said he played it so you're not sure if Kingsfield honestly doesn't know, or is messing with the guy.

The dialogue gets the legal stuff right (rare in films). In general, it's a very literate film coming from a major studio. Why don't we see stuff like this any more? Is it because no one writes them, or studios won't make them?