The Fountainhead

Dir. King Vidor

USA 1948 | Black & white | 112 mins | Cert PG | Drama | Hollywood Classics

Cast: Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey

This famously berserk cult picture, an adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel of neo-Nietzschian philosophy (‘objectivism’), has Cooper as the ‘creative force’, revealed in an architect who dynamites a building that fails to conform to his plans, and builds the world’s tallest tombstone in memorial to his friend. Loosely based on the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the production design shamelessly steals from Wright’s designs.

Available on: 35mm