The Way We Were (1973) on Netflix
Katie Morosky, a Jewish student with outspoken political views, and Hubbell Gardiner, a reserved WASP writer, meet at college and again in wartime New York, where they fall in love.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.0/1031,228 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes64%
Trailer
Plot summary
Katie Morosky and Hubbell Gardiner come from different worlds. She is Jewish, outspoken, and committed to her political causes, among them her support of communism. He is a reserved, traditional WASP who doubts politics and politicians, yet he respects her conviction. At college she is drawn to his looks, his athleticism, and his writing, while his friends tease her for her beliefs. Toward the end of World War II they meet again in New York City, where Katie holds down several jobs and Hubbell, a naval officer, is back from the South Pacific. They fall in love, but their differences surface when Hubbell's friends make jokes after President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies and he seems indifferent to their remarks.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Way We Were (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Over time 11 writers, including Dalton Trumbo, Alvin Sargent, Paddy Chayefsky and Herb Gardner, contributed to the script. The result was a garbled story filled with holes that neither Streisand nor Redford liked, and Laurents was asked to return, doing so only after demanding and receiving an exorbitant amount of money.
- Laurents felt it was important for his heroine to be Jewish, and thought it was time a mainstream Hollywood film had a Jewish heroine, so he wrote the role of Katie Morosky for Barbra Streisand, the industry's most notable Jewish star, whom he had cast in his 1962 Broadway musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale.
- Stark agreed to the film because Pollack assured him he could deliver Robert Redford for the role of Hubbell, which Laurents had written with Ryan O'Neal in mind; O'Neal's affair with Streisand was at its end and Stark wanted to avoid conflicts between the leads.
- In his 2023 book about the making of the film, journalist Robert Hofler questions Laurents' account of the story's inspiration, pointing out that Laurents also said Katie was "mainly me" and that Hubbell was partly inspired by his own two great loves, one of them actor Farley Granger.
- Because the film's start date was delayed while it underwent numerous rewrites, Cornell was lost as a shooting location, and filming instead took place at Union College in Schenectady, New York.
