Nick Carraway pilots his boat across the harbor to his cousin Daisy and her husband Tom’s mansion in East Egg.

Nick lives in a small cottage in West Egg, next to a mysterious tycoon named Gatsby, a former Oxford student and decorated World War I veteran, who regularly throws extravagant parties at his home.

At lunch, Nick meets Gatsby's business partner, a Jewish gangster and gambler named Meyer Wolfsheim, who rigged the 1919 World Series.

The following day, Jordan appears at Nick's work and requests he invite Daisy to his house so that Gatsby can meet with her.

Nick breaks up with Jordan and moves back west, frustrated with eastern ways, and lamenting Gatsby's inability to escape his past.

Producer Robert Evans planned on making The Great Gatsby with his wife Ali MacGraw as Daisy as it was her favorite book.

[8][9][7] Evans then sought 49-year-old Marlon Brando for the role coveted by 38-year-old Robert Redford, who broke through to superstardom in 1973, the year The Great Gatsby remake was lensed.

[citation needed] Gulf + Western CEO Charles Bludhorn, whose conglomerate owned Paramount, vetoed any such deal on the grounds that the two movies were separate entities.

[8] Director Jack Clayton upbraided Evans for his lack of knowledge about the book and convinced him to cast Redford.

[12] After Ali MacGraw's departure from the project, Candice Bergen and Katharine Ross reportedly were offered the role of Daisy.

Faye Dunaway wants the role so badly she maneuveres her knowledge of Hollywood to obtain a screen test, but Clayton still passes on a final decision.

She had the privilege to have for godfather legendary film director George Cukor who had a historic link to the book: a young man beginning his career, he had directed the work's original Broadway stage adaptation in 1926.

And I remember my wife telling me that she and the kids were in New York when The Godfather opened, and it was a big hit and there were lines around the block at five theaters in the city, which was unheard of at the time.

[16]On his commentary track for the DVD release of The Godfather, Coppola refers to writing the Gatsby script, adding "Not that the director paid any attention to it.

The film received mixed reviews, being praised for its faithful interpretation of the novel but also criticized for lacking any true emotion or feelings towards the Jazz Age.

The critical consensus reads: "The Great Gatsby proves that even a pair of tremendously talented leads aren't always enough to guarantee a successful adaptation of classic literary source material.

[19] "As Fitzgerald wrote it, The Great Gatsby is a good deal more than an ill-fated love story about the cruelties of the idle rich...The movie can't see this through all its giant closeups of pretty knees and dancing feet.

"[20] Variety's review was likewise split: "Paramount's third pass at The Great Gatsby is by far the most concerted attempt to probe the peculiar ethos of the Beautiful People of the 1920s.

The fascinating physical beauty of the $6 million-plus film complements the utter shallowness of most principal characters from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.

Robert Redford is excellent in the title role, the mysterious gentleman of humble origins and bootlegging connections...The Francis Ford Coppola script and Jack Clayton's direction paint a savagely genteel portrait of an upper class generation that deserved in spades what it received circa 1929 and after.

"[22] Tennessee Williams, in his book Memoirs, wrote: "It seems to me that quite a few of my stories, as well as my one acts, would provide interesting and profitable material for the contemporary cinema, if committed to... such cinematic masters of direction as Jack Clayton, who made of The Great Gatsby a film that even surpassed, I think, the novel by Scott Fitzgerald.

[28] It also won three BAFTA Awards for Best Art Direction (John Box), Best Cinematography (Douglas Slocombe), and Best Costume Design (Theoni V. Aldredge).