Rating: 
Summary: Katharine Hepburn's tour de force perfomance
Review: This is simply the best movie I have ever seen. Katharine Hepburn gives her best performance of her career. I can't believe she wasn't awarded an Academy Award for her powerful performance as Mary Tyrone a woman terrorized by her drug addiction. She has an alcoholic actor husband (Sir Ralph Richardson) and two sons (Jason Robards Jr.) who is also an alcoholic and (Dean Stockwell) who is suffering from consumption. On a long sad night the family confront their problems and what is captured is probably the best family drama ever filmed. There is so much emotion in all the actor's harrowing performances. Sidney Lument gives great direction to Eugene O' Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. A mesmerizing film probably the best ever!!
Rating: 
Summary: A dark and depressing movie
Review: I saw this movie on the library shelf and so checked it out. I did so because at the moment I am studying the life of Fredric March, and this was one of the plays he performed in his theatre career. I wanted to know what the play was about. He had played the role of the father in the stage version.Anyway...this is a LONG film and I had to watch it in two evenings. It seemed depressing to me from the very beginning, and seemed to slide you farther and farther down into the hopelessness of their lives as the film went on. I am not a fan of films that are so dark, so sad, so hopeless...it is no joy to watch a dysfunctional family such as this. They are a strange bunch...at times seeming to care for each other and saying a kind or loving word to each other, but in the next breath they are saying very hurtful words that cut to the heart. I could not believe how this pattern of "I love you I hate you" dialog went on and on in the movie. Obviously they are all deeply troubled people, and unable to really help each other. I did not care for the swearing in the movie, or all the times the name of God was used in vain. I must say I did not really LIKE this film at all...it was too hopeless, and for it to end them no better off than they were in the beginning, well you just sit there and wonder, "What was the purpose of telling us this story?" You cannot feel anything but sadness at their hopelessness, you are wanting to do nothing but to cry for this family. While I did not like the story, I will say the actors did a good job of portraying their characters...Katherine Hepburn stood out to me most of all; she seemed the most tragic figure in the family. This film was definately very real...there are people who do function like this in their relations to one another. Yet personally, I like to see a film where in the end the characters have grown or have learned something to better themselves...in other words I prefer to feel some hope for them in the end. It is not a film I would ever watch again.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best tragedies ever put on film
Review: As other reviewers have stated, there's very little to fault w/ this film. The faults that are there are technical and hardly worth mentioning in a work so perfect in every other way. This was one of the first films to receive awards for all of its performers at Cannes, and at first viewing, you'll see why. Katherine Hepburn would go on to win an oscar for work that is (to put it gently) far inferior to this. Here, she is peerless, and after watching her performance you'll have a hard time envisioning any other actress as Mary Tyrone (though Jessica Lange is definately mature enough to tackle it). Lumet has directed many a great film, and this is definately one of his best. The print here is about as good as you're likely to get ever, and it's definately worth any price. For anyone interested in what is surely one of the best films ever made in America, check this out...it's a keeper!
Rating: 
Summary: Eugene O'Neill's Greatest Work
Review: There is a lot to admire in this 1962 production of "Long Day's Journey into Night," and very little to criticize. This has to be one of the best versions of the play ever captured on film, and it has an excellent cast and script. The cast rehearsed the play for four weeks and spent two weeks taping it, and their efforts paid off. Katharine Hepburn plays the mother with wonderful dramatic intensity; compare this performance with "On Golden Pond," and you can see how far apart those two characters are from one another, and thus recognize the true scope of her acting ability. Jason Robards played Jamie Tyrone when the play was released on Broadway in 1956, and his performance is by far the most hypnotizing of them all. His experience and undertanding of that role is what makes this film. Sir Ralph Richardson truly becomes James Tyrone; you can't help but notice how his eyes shine with the truth of his feelings as he describes his character's past triumphs on the stage. Perhaps one of the most surprising and most satisfying performance (next to Jason Robards) comes from Dean Stockwell, who was at the height of his dramatic abilities in the early 1960s. About the only flaws in this film can be attributed to minor technical issues of continuity, lighting (it is very clear when the characters are outside versus being on a sound stage, for example), and the music. I felt that Sir Ralph Richardson's English accent didn't quite line up with the Irish heritage of the family, but overlooked it in light of his great performance. This film is truly an experience!
Rating:
Summary: one of the greatest
Review: This film is one of the greatest ever made, with stunning performances from all concerned. Everyone in the film is so good, I'd defy you to walk through the room while it's on and not be transfixed. It is criminal, with all the trash being transferred to DVD, that this film is not among them. When is Criterion going to get going?
Rating:
Summary: Powerful Version of a Challenging Classic
Review: Although this is not quite the purist-version one might expect, Eugene O'Neil's justly famous LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT comes to the screen with all power intact. This autobiographical story of tangled relationships in a self-destructive, chemically-addicted family offers incredible performances from an inspired cast--most particularly Katherine Hepburn, cast against type as the etherial, morphine-addicted Mrs. Tyrone. The leisurely pace, supercharged intensity, and deliberately distancing cinematography will not be to the taste of all viewers, but those who can bend their mind to the film's demands will find LONG DAY'S JOURNEY an astonishingly powerful and moving film. A must for all O'Neil, theatre, and Hepburn fans.
Rating:
Summary: and we were so happy.....for a time.....
Review: This is perhaps the greatest American play. If not, Long Day's Journey into Night is surely the greatest American tragedy. Presented in its entirety by a brilliant cast, this excruciating journey into pain and remembrance is not to be missed by those who love great writing and great acting. This is arguably the finest cast to perform this work. Many have commented that this is Katherine Hepburn's finest performance. Watching her Mary Tyrone succumbing once more to her drug addiction and slipping away...away, is devastating. I would like to recommend Ralph Richardson's James Tyrone as the definitive portrayal. I have seen Olivier and Jack Lemmon and others tackle the role, but no one ever got the Old Ham's pomposity and penny-pinching pettiness with such sympathy for the old man's history and sheer human-ness in his weaknesses and foibles. It is an indelible performance. Jason Robards made his name in the role of Jamey Tyrone on Broadway, and it is a polished performance we get here. Dean Stockwell is fine as Edmund, it is just not as juicy a role being more catalyst and reaction to the others. As we watch these people peel back the layers of love and hate and resentment and old hurts and envy and jealously, while also exposing their great love and need for each other, we are watching Eugene O'Neill peel back the history and deep wounds of his own family with an unflinching honesty akin to watching him peel his own hide off to expose the blood and nerves and sinew beneath. Hell yes it is painful, because he is dissecting and examining the lifelong hurts and pain that only those close to us can inflict, those wounds and scars carried the full extent of a lifetime. There is no better writing or acting to be found than what you will find here. Sidney Lumet's direction does not get in the way, and the black & white photography is appropriate to the mood and effect of the piece. Though laced with black Irish humor throughout, this is nonetheless a brutally honest tragedy of loss and sadness. Written with "tears and blood"...no kidding! Everybody knew what they were about here. Direction & cinematography are to serve the words and the performances. And there is no better chance to see this Masterpiece of the theatre performed fully and with unmatched brilliance.
Rating: 
Summary: An entirely too long movie
Review: I'll be brief. This was three hours of pain and suffering. If it had been a short, twenty to maybe an hour long, it could have been more enjoyable. But three hours of mediocre acting with fake emotions was a terrible waste of time to me. Fans of the playwrite or actors, don't be outraged, this just wasn't a good production.
Rating:
Summary: Hepburn's Greatest Peformance in O'Neill's Greatest Tragedy
Review: Eugene O'Neill finished writing "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in 1940, but when he died in 1951 his will specifically stated the play was not to be produced until at least 25-years after his death. Because his widow relented and gave her permission for this "play of old sorrow written in tears and blood" we are left with this 1962 film and Katharine Hepburn's greatest acting performance. I first stumbled upon this film on late night television twenty years ago and I still remember staying up and crying throughout the emotionally devastating conclusion with the camera slowly pulling back from the family sitting around the table before a stunning series of emotional close ups of the doomed Tyrones. This painfully autobiographical play is set on the long day and night in 1912 when the Tyrone family deals the news that young Edmund (Dean Stockwell) has tuberculosis. The tragedy is compounded by the rest of the family: a father (Ralph Richardson) who is a miser, a brother (Jason Robards, Jr., repeating his stage performance) who finds solace in drink, and a mother who retreats into her addiction to morphine before the night is over. Writing about his own family, O'Neill not only changed their last names to Tyrone but also switched Eugene with Edmund, the name of the infant brother who died. After watching this heartbreakingly painful story you know why the playwright wanted it tucked away until he was long gone. Hepburn received her ninth Oscar nomination for her role as Mary Tyrone (the award went to Anne Bancroft for "The Miracle Worker"), and the four actors shared the acting award for the Cannes Film Festival along with the principals of "A Taste of Hone" (no clue how they came to that strange pairing). The almost 3-hour film is the complete O'Neill script (the key selling point for Hepburn in taking the role) and was shot by director Sidney Lumet in sequence in 37 days after the cast rehearsed for three weeks. The music score is by Andre Previn and Boris Kaufman was the cinematographer of this black and white film. O'Neill is enjoying something of a revival thanks to Kevin Spacey in "The Iceman Cometh" on Broadway, but when it comes to film this is far and away the best representation of his work. Given that he wrote extremely long plays about the early part of the last century, it is likely we will never see a greater film version of O'Neill than "Long Day's Journey Into Night." Interesting background tidbit: Hepburn tried to talk Spencer Tracy into taking the role of the father. Tracy, who was already in failing health, turned it down, claiming it was a question of salary (Hepburn received only $25,000 for her part). Some of Tracy's biographers, wondering how one of the greatest actors of the century would have done with one of the greatest plays, have suggested that Tracy was intimidated by the role. Still, it is hard not to fantasize about the "Long Day's Journey Into Night" as a Tracy-Hepburn vehicle.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Definitive
Review: This is perhaps the finest film of a serious American play ever produced. The acting, the direction, the music (by Andre Previn), the cinematography, and (most of all) the timeless anguish of Eugene O'Neill's script---all come together in a film so astonishingly powerful that it will take your breath away. If there is a complaint to be lodged about this film, it is this: that the performances of the four leads (Katherine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell) are so definitive that, at least for me, watching any other version of this play has become impossible. I walked out on a well-reviewed live staging at intermission and turned off the PBS remake with Jack Lemmon at the end of the first act. It should not be this way, but it is: the filmmmakers did their work all too well! Be forewarned: this film is very long (three hours), very talky, and very, very bleak. If you are expecting car crashes or hot sex scenes, look elsewhere. When Hollywood makes silly romance movies, they are often advertised as being about "the human heart." No: "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is about the human heart. And it is the most emotionally shattering motion picture I have ever seen.
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