Differing opinions, arguments and some notable complaints emerge (including the Showtime production budget and the limitations it may have placed on the film) during Infinite Gestation’s discussion of Last Call, a made-for-cable biopic from 2002 concerning the final years of F. Scott Fitzgerald. This is not the “old sport” you know and love. Far from the Jazz Age, a weather-worn and alcoholic Fitzgerald (a fine performance by Jeremy Irons) resides on the fringes of Hollywood, writing The Last Tycoon between hallucinations of his (then institutionalized) wife Zelda and spats with his mistress, Hollywood gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. The author manages some progress on his novel with the assistance of his secretary Frances Kroll (whose 1985 memoir Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald serves as a basis for the film) before his sudden (though perhaps not unexpected) death at the age of 44.

Follow @Infin8Gestation on Twitter • Visit InfiniteGestation.com

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:34 — 48.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More

Show Notes & Links

• Last Call (2002 film – also known as “Fitzgerald”) written and directed by Henry Bromell
• The Last Tycoon
• The Great Gatsby (2013 film)
• Big Sur by Jack Kerouac
• Frances Kroll Ring
• Sheilah Graham
• Against the Current: As I Remember F. Scott Fitzgerald by Frances Kroll Ring
• This Side of Paradise
• The Beautiful and Damned
• The Great Gatsby
• Tender is the Night
• Wonderboys (2000 film) – Curtis Hanson
• The Great Gatsby (1974 film) – Jack Clayton
• Paul Hecht as Samuel Kroll (Frances’ father)
• The Mission (1986 film) – Roland Joffé
• Beloved Infidel (1959 film) – Henry King (starring Gregory Peck as F. Scott Fitzgerald)