Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970)

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) - Faye Dunaway
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) – Faye Dunaway

Puzzle of a Downfall Child movie storyline. Fashion photographer turned director Aaron Reinhardt (Barry Primus) visits a withdrawn colleague at her windswept island cottage. By taping conversations with former model Lou Andreas Sand (Faye Dunaway) and developing her story for film, Aaron hopes “to help her put the fragments together, to sort out and focus on the reality.”

Flashback several years to the arrival of prim, high strung Lou (nee Emily Mercine) in Manhattan. After bowling over agent Peggy McCavage (Shirley Rich), the gorgeous, feline-looking Lou is an immediate success in the fashion industry. Still, she’s frantic with fear about her work, becoming neurotically dependent upon pills, young friend Aaron, and possessive photographer Pauline Galba (Viveca Lindfors). Lou agrees to marry art director Mark (Roy Schieder), but sabotages the relationship by standing him up at the alter.

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970)

Increasingly erratic and temperamental, Lou’s position as a top model begins to slip. More is revealed about her past, in which we see that the unstable beauty may have been molested as a teenager, either by a wealthy older man or a priest. Lou is so afraid of her own desires that she either picks up anonymous men in bars, or makes men she’s already involved with pretend to be strangers before going home with them.

Lou’s paranoia increases, further alienating her coworkers. She’s hospitalized after trying to seduce her psychiatrist, then leaves the fashion business to move to a remote beach house off the New England coast. We return to the present, where Lou sees the visiting Aaron to the ferry. She asks him why, since they were such well suited as friends, they never actually had an affair. The confused Aaron answers that they DID indeed have an affair, leaving Lou to puzzle over her fragmented memories.

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) - Faye Dunaway
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) – Faye Dunaway

Puzzle of a Downfall Child is a 1970 American drama film directed by Jerry Schatzberg and starring Faye Dunaway, Barry Morse, Viveca Lindfors, Roy Scheider, Barry Primus, Ruth Jackson, John Heffernan, Sydney Walker, Clark Burckhalter, Shirley Rich, Jane Hallaren and Emerick Bronson.

The film was Schatzberg’s first foray into feature film making; at the time he was primarily known as a fashion photographer and had directed a few commercials. Schatzberg initially worked with French screenwriter Jacques Sigurd, who had written a script involving a woman having an abortion, but the collaboration came to an end due to creative differences.

Carole Eastman, whose unused draft for Petulia Schatzberg had enjoyed, was approached to write a new screenplay, and only the title from Sigurd’s script was kept on the insistence of Schatzberg. Eastman based the new script on recordings Schatzberg had made of his friend, model Anne St. Marie, while Aaron was in part based on Schatzberg himself. The phrase downfall child came from a friend of Schatzberg’s who had recounted a nightmare where she was trying to save a child falling from a building. The name of Faye Dunaway’s character is an allusion to Lou Andreas-Salomé.

Puzzle of a Downfall Child Movie Poster (1970)

Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970)

Directed by: Jerry Schatzberg
Starring: Faye Dunaway, Barry Morse, Viveca Lindfors, Roy Scheider, Barry Primus, Ruth Jackson, John Heffernan, Sydney Walker, Clark Burckhalter, Shirley Rich, Jane Hallaren, Emerick Bronson
Screenplay by: Adrian Joyce
Cinematography by: Adam Holender
Film Editing by: Evan Lottman
Costume Design by: Terry Leong, Roland Meledandri
Set Decoration by: Hubert J. Oates
Art Direction by: Richard Bianchi
Music by: Michael Small
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: December 16, 1970

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