I didn't see what others apparently saw in this film. I did not see the moral of the film so much concerning the price of success as it being that despite your best efforts, you are often doomed to become your parents.
At the beginning of the film, Alfred (Paul Newman) returns home after the second World War to renounce his father because he has, in Alfred's opinion, ignored his mother while strictly attending to business to the point where his mother has become an adulterous lush. Ten or fifteen years later, Alfred has ignored his own wife Mary (played by Joanne Woodward) while climbing the corporate ladder until his own lonely wife has become an adulterous lush. The only crime of his father's he does not commit is to produce offspring that can be dragged into the mess his life has become. One person with a more warped moral code than either Alfred or Mary seems to be Alfred's boss. While eating lunch he casually informs Alfred of Mary's affair with an old flame. When Alfred reacts by saying that he intends to divorce Mary, his boss warns him against such an action. To Alfred's boss, Mary's behavior isn't a moral failing or a cry for attention - it is an unforgivable breach of etiquette, and this is the same way he feels about divorce.
Overall, the main characters in this film lack redeeming characteristics to the point where the movie almost becomes a film noir soap opera. There are still solid performances by both Newman and Woodward, and it is still worth seeing 50 years after it was made. After all, the idle rich and the mistakes they keep making over and over have not changed that much after half a century.
At the beginning of the film, Alfred (Paul Newman) returns home after the second World War to renounce his father because he has, in Alfred's opinion, ignored his mother while strictly attending to business to the point where his mother has become an adulterous lush. Ten or fifteen years later, Alfred has ignored his own wife Mary (played by Joanne Woodward) while climbing the corporate ladder until his own lonely wife has become an adulterous lush. The only crime of his father's he does not commit is to produce offspring that can be dragged into the mess his life has become. One person with a more warped moral code than either Alfred or Mary seems to be Alfred's boss. While eating lunch he casually informs Alfred of Mary's affair with an old flame. When Alfred reacts by saying that he intends to divorce Mary, his boss warns him against such an action. To Alfred's boss, Mary's behavior isn't a moral failing or a cry for attention - it is an unforgivable breach of etiquette, and this is the same way he feels about divorce.
Overall, the main characters in this film lack redeeming characteristics to the point where the movie almost becomes a film noir soap opera. There are still solid performances by both Newman and Woodward, and it is still worth seeing 50 years after it was made. After all, the idle rich and the mistakes they keep making over and over have not changed that much after half a century.