The Last Tycoon (1976 film)

The Last Tycoon
Theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel
Directed byElia Kazan
Screenplay byHarold Pinter
Based onThe Last Tycoon
by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Produced bySam Spiegel
Starring
CinematographyVictor J. Kemper
Edited byRichard Marks
Music byMaurice Jarre
Production
companies
  • Academy Pictures Corporation
  • Gelderse Maatschappij N.V.
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • November 17, 1976 (1976-11-17)
Running time
123 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5.5 million
Box office$1.8 million

The Last Tycoon is a 1976 American period romantic drama film directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Sam Spiegel, based on Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel The Last Tycoon. It stars Robert De Niro and features Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jack Nicholson, Donald Pleasence, Jeanne Moreau, Theresa Russell and Ingrid Boulting.

The film is the second collaboration between Kazan and Spiegel, who worked together to make On the Waterfront (1954). Fitzgerald based the novel's protagonist Monroe Stahr on film producer Irving Thalberg. Spiegel was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

The Last Tycoon did not receive the critical acclaim that much of Kazan's earlier work had received, but it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Gene Callahan, Jack T. Collis and Jerry Wunderlich).

The story was Fitzgerald's last, unfinished novel, as well as the last film that Kazan directed, although he lived until 2003.