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Summary: this movie IS Ayn Rand -- I know because I AM Howard Roarke
Review: Rand had unprecedented control over this film: approval of cast, script (she rewrote Cooper's final speech making it LONGER), and all the other nonsense.And it's all crap. But MAGNIFICENT crap. See EVIL ARCHITECTS CONSPIRE AGAINST THE INDIVIDUAL! See SPIRIT OF MAN TRIUMP OVER MEDIO...MEDIORCH... DULLNESS! See PATRICIA NEAL WHIP COOPER (literally) UNTIL HE RAPES HER (her idea)! See RIOTS IN THE STREET OVER A BUILDING! Yep. See SETS WITHOUT WALLS! Very cool effect See AN OFFICE THE SIZE OF CONNETICUT! So big the ceiling is a matte painting. See EVERYONE SHOVE THEIR JAWS FORWARD! They must've all had their retainers in upside down. See THE HOMO-EROTIC QUARRY! Really, it's creepy... those distant explosions... Finally a movie that shows ARCHITECTURE the way it really is. WHY CAN'T I GIVE THIS FILM TEN STARS?!!! You goddam Collectivists!
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Summary: This movie brings to life an important message.
Review: Some of the people who critized this movie apparantly have never watched a 40's or 50's movie. In those days actors actually had to have some talent before they would be let on the stage. While this movie is a bit dry, the message it brings is not, and it is the message which makes it interesting. The mentally challenged among us will not understand the plot or the message. The Fountainhead will make you think. I recommend it.
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Summary: The Disappointment
Review: Whatever you thought of the book - and I loved it - this film adaptation is a failure. The casting, the screenplay (in which Rand herself had a hand) fail to do the book justice. For the definitive film adaptation of Ayn Rand, I highly recommend the Italian-made "We The Living".
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Summary: Enjoy this movie for what it is,it ain't gonna get no better
Review: I had to search my thoughts to see if I was even going to review this film of which I bought a copy. You can argue film versus book until the cows come home. You could say "lets make this with Helen Mirren and Mel Gibson." You can have Turner colonize it. Well folks, it is not going to happen; so do not waste your time wishing, and look at this movie. An other reviewer quite correctly summed it up as a pretty faithful summary (as opposed to adaptation). In that you get the essence of the book with a few saved speeches. All the actors get their point over to you. This includes Gary Cooper as Howard Roark and Patricia Neal as Dominique. The scenes portray the story very well. The Frank Lloyd Wright architecture adds to the time period. The tone of the movie gives the impression that this was copied from a stage play where one person at a time talks and no one overlaps until the first person is finished. All in all ,the entire movie is worth the viewing. It is also worth keeping a copy to see what this review missed.
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Summary: Life Inspiring
Review: If you really look at the meaning of this movie, it's about man being true to himself, no matter what. By being true to himself, Mr. Roark gets everything he wants, love, fame and fortune. Excellent.
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Summary: Campy Madness
Review: Genius Ayn Rand can be blamed for lobbying to hire over-the-hill, former cowboy, laconic, lethargic, passive Gary Cooper to play her anti-hero, Howard Roark in this lunatic camp classic. The minute he comes on the screen, you would think he was Howard Roark's father. He's totally devoid of the intense fanaticism that made Roark such a memorable character. Why, oh, why, didn't Director King Vidor over-ride the egomaniacal Rand and consider some of the other hopefuls: tough guy Dane Clark, tough, romantic John Garfield, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas. Orson Welles, still svelte and brilliant, would have been fantastic. etc. Give Rand credit for wanting Greta Garbo for Dominique Francon but by this time, the eccentric, reclusive Garbo had already withdrawn from reality to such a degree she could no longer appear before a camera. Ida Lupino would have been terrific. But no, they went with newcomer Patricia Neal who comes across as just as a pretty American girl with too much money. The miscasting destroyed any hopes of this movie ever achieving greatness. Cooper reportedly demanded star close-ups, camera set-ups favoring him, dialogue rewritten, etc. They should try remaking the movie today,using stage actors and not the pretty bratpack of Pitt, Affleck, Cruise, Depp, etc. As for Dominique, please, God, not Gwenyth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Winona Ryder, Nicole Kidman, etc.
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Summary: Form must follow function...
Review: I have been accused of being a collectivist because I do not enjoy Ayn Rand's novels. I'd always tried to argue that it wasn't the message that I disagreed with, but the delivery. In fact, I whole heartedly believe that man's individuality is his greatest strength, that true virtue can only be reached when man stands alone, and that a person should not have to compromise his or her vision to serve society. I also don't suffer under the delusion that this is an amazing revelation and that I am one of the few people in the world that understands this. Unfortunately, her writing and the film adaptation of her book "The Fountainhead" makes it clear that she did believe this. The way people talk is ridiculous. Nearly everything that came out of the mouths of the "bad guys" was something like: "What hope can one man have to stand against the will of the majority? In an age such as ours we can not afford to have individuals who dare hold their own vision." The dialogue is really that silly. Rand called her style of writing Romantic Realism. Romantic because it dealt with people not as they are, but as they should be. Realism because her stories were set in the real world. Since the good guys (like the supreme egoist and hero of the film Howard Roark) embody her Romantic ideal, I am only left to believe that she put the bad guys (the conformists and collectivists) into the realism column. That is absurd. I'm sorry Ms. Rand, but people don't talk like that, and very very few people think like that. That is the main flaw of this film and Ayn Rand's fiction in general -- it is not set in the real world. Her message would have been countless times more effective had it strived to show the more subtle ways that people are made to conform and compromise. Instead of this, however, we get a steady stream of things like "the vision of one man is unimportant compared to the will of the people." In some ways I can understand Rand's paranoia. She fled Russia when the communists took over and came to America, the only country that was founded on similar ideals as she held. I'm sure that in Russia around the time of the revolution there was more talk of the kind found in this movie (though I can't help but think the dialogue would've made even Lenin groan). Even so, the societal picture she paints doesn't really apply to American audiences. The message -- yes, the delivery -- no. There is no subtlety to the plot or the dialogue, there is no depth to the characters or the performances, and to be honest most of the movie is so hokey that it will keep you rolling on the floor. Howard Roark himself said that form must follow function. Indeed it should, and Ayn Rand would probably do well to follow her own advice.
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Summary: what the movie really is about
Review: I noticed a lot of poor reviews of this movie and it seems as though those viewers do not truly understand what the movie is about. Some complain that it is an absurd parallel to Hitler and the Nazi party. Others complain that it is to fake because people would never get worked up over this mans architeture style. Well the truth is that the majority of these reviews are WRONG. Granted they all wanted to seem intellectual and rave about the philosophical significance of the novel and how it carried over into the movie, I can not knock them for that, but never before have I seen someone so off base when it comes to the meaning of this movie. The main character in the movie, played by Cooper, is actually a mock of the real life architect Frank Lloyd Wright, on of America's greatest architects may I add. He really did encounter many of the same things as Coopers character did, including getting kicked out of Architecture school and people not excepting his work. Just recently the novel and movie "PRIMARY COLORS" was released, and many know that the book is an interpretation of Bill Clinton's life. Many of the characters in it do not have the same name as the people they represent in real life. The style used in THE FOUNTAINHEAD is the exact same as the novel PRIMARY COLORS, real people and events, different names. So I suggest buying this movie and ignore many of the ignorant reviews placed at this site.
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Summary: If this movie were a cartoon, it would be no less believable
Review: I'm not sure what planet Ayn Rand came from, but her dialog bears no relation to the way that people actually communicate. Peter Keating: "Howard, I'm a parasite, I've lived off of other people all my life and hated myself for it". Ellsworth Toohey: "I play the stock market of the mind, and I sell short". Roarke's academic dean: "There's no place for originality in architecture, no one can improve on the buildings of the past, one can only learn to copy them. It's my duty as your dean to tell you that you'll never be an architect". Are you serious Rand? These characters don't do a very good job of selling your philosophy because they're so absurdly unbelievable. People are rioting in the streets because an architect dares to be different? Howard Rourke agrees to design a housing project for the poor anonymously, allowing the hapless Peter Keating get all the credit for it, than blows it up because changes have made to the original design? Isn't blowing up a building a felony and shouldn't he have done a little time in the clink for this? This movie hasn't aged well, to be kind.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but generally absorbing film about...architecture?
Review: As TV Guide puts it every time this film airs on the tube, "The Fountainhead" is a "flawed but generally absorbing" movie (still the greatest comment on a film I have ever heard). Of course since it is Hollywood the romantic angle between iconoclast architect and rugged individual Howard Roark (Gary Cooper) and chic architect critic Dominique Francon (Patricia Neal) becomes more of a focal point than it ever was in the novel, although you would have to think that the affair that started between the two actors during the making of this film must have had more spark than they showed on screen. Still, all things considered, it is surprising that the gist of Ayn Rand's philosophy survived relatively intact in Roark's big speech at his trial. The film centers around a love triangle between Roark, Francon and her husband, Gail Wynand (Raymond Massey), who flip-flops between being Roark's patron and critic the way his wife bounces between her husband and her lover. However, the point is not about love but about the individual versus the collective and the choices that all of the other characters need to make when Roark is put on trial for refusing to submit his gift to the whims of the masses. The problem is that you will have a hard time getting past the Freudian imagery (e.g., Roark at the quarry with the big drill, the final shot atop the skyscraper). If the movie inspires you to read "The Fountainhead," that would be fine, because if you are going to judge Rand's philosophy you need to do it off the novel and certainly not off of this film (or its incredibly lousy cover).
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