RAGTIME

 E.L. Doctorow's picaresque novel was always going to be one of the great unfilmable books until Czech director Milos Forman, working from a Michael Weller screenplay, brought it to the screen in 1981. It might have been better if he had left well enough alone. It's reasonably entertaining but the novel's several interlinked stories never gel on screen so it's left to Forman's large cast to carry the picture and a number of them very ably do so with Howard E. Rollins Jr.'s Coalhouse Walker Jr. coming off best.

The various tales involves the murder of Stanford White, (Norman Mailer) by Henry Thaw, (Robert Joy), over Evelyn Nesbit, 'the girl in the red velvet swing', (which was the title of an earlier film dealing with this incident with Joan Collins as Nesbit, a part much better played here by a young Elizabeth McGovern). Then there's the story of Brad Dourif's initial courtship of Evelyn before getting involved in the Coalhouse yarn while yet another tale, (the weakest), follows Mandy Patinkin's down-and-out inventor who becomes a famous movie director all culminating in the Rollins' story of a proud African-American taking his revenge on those who abused him and which takes up the final section of this long film.

For this story Forman was able to coax James Cagney out of retirement to play the city's Chief of Police while other 'oldies', mostly guesting in the cast, include Donald O'Connor, Pat O'Brien and Bessie Love. It's not a bad film, just a meandering and disappointing one that, despite all the dramas onscreen, never really builds up a head of steam and when it's over it all feels very anti-climatic.