This typical Hollywoodization of Fitzgerald's famous novel inserts lots of material to make sure the viewer understands the "facts" of the background and motivation of Gatsby. But it completely loses the points of the novel, e.g. "the rich are different from us" and their egoistic carelessness and its costs. The failure of Gatsby to succeed in his version of the American Dream is ruined by his conversion just before he's shot. Daisy, Tom, and Jordan Baker are cardboard cut-outs and not even representative of what the characters in the novel represent. Daisy isn't weak, alcoholic, or selfish enough, Tom isn't loutish or selfish enough, and Jordan isn't amoral and nonchalant enough. Nick and Jordan CAN'T get together at the end, his whole purpose in the story is to highlight, by contrast and by his rejection of all of them, the worthlessness of these careless rich. It's a good movie of its type, and Ladd is wonderful, but there are no "boats against the current, carried back into the past" or whatever the exact final words of the novel were. As the credits acknowledge, this movie is not the novel.
imho the made-for-TV version is the best of the three film versions. Tom especially is perfect, and tells you everything Fitzgerald wanted you to know about the rich. Daisy is good and Nick is excellent. The ambiance is perfect. And it's pretty true to the book. In the big budget big screen version, Redford completely misses the complexity of Gatsby and therefore, even if everything else in the movie had been perfect, (and it wasn't bad!) his lack of tension, conflict, hardness, etc. completely scuttles it.
imho the made-for-TV version is the best of the three film versions. Tom especially is perfect, and tells you everything Fitzgerald wanted you to know about the rich. Daisy is good and Nick is excellent. The ambiance is perfect. And it's pretty true to the book. In the big budget big screen version, Redford completely misses the complexity of Gatsby and therefore, even if everything else in the movie had been perfect, (and it wasn't bad!) his lack of tension, conflict, hardness, etc. completely scuttles it.