Last Holiday is a 1950 British film featuring Alec Guinness in his sixth starring role. An alternative title could be, beg your pardon, ‘A Man Doomed to Die’ lifted straight from the Bosley Crowther review of 1950.
Unlike his previous film Kind Hearts and Coronets, Alec Guinness plays only one part and he modestly carries it to perfection. He takes the role of George Bird an agricultural implement salesman, who as the film opens is told by his physician the awful truth: he has not much time left to live. He suffers from Lampington’s Disease, a rare form of disease for which there is no cure and the doctor who has found it in him therefore may indulge in a bit of smugness and advise him to spend all his savings on his last holiday. It is precisely what Mr. Bird intends to do. The film has much to do with his meeting certain specimens, the kind Charles Dickens had in another era made famous in print. The haberdasher who fits out the doomed man knows that his moustache is wrong for the apparel he just got at a bargain price of 65 pounds. Mild mannered that Gorge Best is we see him sans his moustache from then on and he goes to Pinebourne, a holiday resort. Checking into the hotel we have more personages that could only be bred on the British Isles on tea with cucumber sandwiches and tea cakes talking rather strange. Having read nothing beyond Debrett’s Peerage and the Times, these are for tracing the lineage of Mr. Bird who has the manners of a nob.
George Bird the one who, at the beginning, confesses to his physician that he has no relatives or friends soon falls in love and is offered a fruitful business opportunity, but these events only serve to make him reflect on what he had not achieved in life.
Finally, Bird speaks to a hotel guest who is the namesake of the disease he was diagnosed with. The physician assures him there must be a mistake and that Bird does not have the disease. After a trip back to the city, Bird confirms the mistake, and is ready to begin life anew with his sweetheart and his business opportunity. The twist is that he never makes it back to the hotel. He ends up in a car accident on the way and is killed. The hotel guests, having learned the truth, have moved on to their humdrum pastime of ‘ counting titled heads’. Kay Walsh, in the role of an embittered housekeeper of the baronial Torquay hotel and Beatrice Campbell as the beautiful wife of a young adventurer who is helped in her distress by the doomed man carry their parts well and with ease. Sidney James, as an out-of-place tourist, and Muriel George, as a dowdy nouveau-riche, stand out among the several assorted and significant British types. Of course Alec Guinness makes the film memorable and to the ranks of the best to come from the British studios.
Last Holiday was loosely remade in 2006, starring Queen Latifah as Georgia Byrd, LL Cool J, Timothy Hutton, and Alicia Witt.
Let me end this appreciation quoting from Bosley Crowther,’… it is Mr. Guinness who carries the main role in this film, which Mr. Priestley has not only written but has also helped produce. And it is Mr. Guinness' facility at suggesting intense emotional moods through his perfect command of stoicism that lifts the poignant story to its peaks. His doomed man is pitiable in his misery, he is funny in his bourgeois attempts at fun, but, above all, he is touchingly noble in his serene and wistful despair’.(-NY times November 14, 1950)
Directed by
Henry Cass
Produced by
Stephen Mitchell, A. D. Peters, J.B. Priestley
Written by
J. B. Priestley
Starring
Alec Guinness
Beatrice Campbell
Kay Walsh
Gregoire Aslan
Jean Colin
Muriel George
Release date(s)
1950
Running time
88 minutes
Country
UK
benny
Monday, 18 January 2010
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Loves of a Blonde-1965
Is the first film that brought Miloš Forman international fame and he followed it with such classics as One flew over a cuckoo’s nest(1975) and Amadeus(1984). Forman’s early movies are still very popular among Czechs. Many of the situations and phrases are now in common usage: for example, the Czech term zhasnout (to switch lights off) from The Firemen’s Ball, associated with petty theft in the movie, has been used to describe the large-scale asset stripping happening in the country during the 1990s. Having introduced the director let me now get on with my appreciation of the movie.
Loves of a Blonde (Czech: Lásky jedné plavovlásky) is a 1965 Czech film and it works at different layers. On the surface it is a simple story of Andula, a young factory girl falling head over heels with a traveling musician for whom it is a one night stand. Whereas the girl her whole life she shas invested ,-for its emotional depth I can only cite Renoir’s une partie de campagne(1936) for comparison, and must salvage it from falling to pieces. Unlike Henriette the Czech girl dares to follow it up.
The film begins with the general (’my hooligan love’ a pseudo Beatle number) to the particular musically represented by ‘Ave Maria’ at the end. The bach-gounod number in this case is meant to be a paen to the blonde working girl who in her elemental goodness stands as a modern Maria.
It is also a social satire.
The film takes place in the provincial Czech town of Zruc, which Forman sketches in a few shots: a train station, a housing block, a shoe factory that could have been lifted from any of the East European films of the communist era. Andula, the blond protagonist of the film is a worker in the shoe factory, one among some 2000 who outnumbers male population by 16 to one. The film opens with the benign manager of the factory asking army officials to place a regiment in Zruc, as a way of redressing the local imbalance of available males and yearning females. “They need what we needed when we were young,” the manager says to an avuncular Major who can well understand the manager’s predicament. ‘Sex liberates woman from their drudgery and social isolation’ seems to be the watchword and how the government tries to meet the expectations of the female workforce touches the very flaw of party manifesto as written and in practice.
Froman always had a felicity in casting the right actors for the parts. Just as he made the roles of Baron von Sweiten, Count Rosenburg and the valet in Amadeus memorable the three ‘old farts’ of army reservists who try to date the three workers are unforgettable.
In honor of the army reservists brought to the town a party is organized where girls in all sizes and expectations take part. The age old mating game played in the pub has plenty of room for comedy, which the director uses to lead the viewer to the heart of the film. Andula catches the eye of the comparatively dashing young pianist, Milda (Vladimir Pucholt). The next morning, the traveling musician assures her repeatedly, “I do not have a girlfriend in Prague.” Milda leaves town, as expected, but Andula has fallen in love with him, and decides to journey to Prague to track him down. A low-key black-and-white ensemble comedy, Loves of a Blonde was cast predominantly with non-professional actors.
In Prague Andula meets the dysfunctional family of Milda and it is clear that in his parents we have the duplicate the blonde and her feckless groom on the making. Forman’s dark comedy must be seen to be enjoyed. His comical sense reaches its best in the part where the parents try to cope with a strange girl who has intruded upon their private space though it is for one night. From that point the director tickles the funnybone, as it were with a scalpel, and only later we realize that whatever future happiness Andula may have with Milda shall only be a downer, an anti-climax to the trite line we are so familiar with, ‘and they lived happily everafter’.
‘Over the course of the three acts, the film’s context evolves from social satire (set in a public space) to emotional intimacy (confined to the private space of a single room and a single bed) to domestic drama (set in the awkward private-public space of a family apartment). The thematic shifts reflect the shifts in setting: the first section is centered on youth and infinite possibility; the second on young adulthood and romantic fulfillment; the third on maturity and inevitable disappointment.’ (Dave Kehr Feb 12, 2002-criterion collection)
Similar Works
Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn (1966, Gennadiy Shpalikov)
The Pornographers (1966, Shohei Imamura)
Kitchen Stories (2003, Bent Hamer)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967, Milos Forman)
Noa at 17 (1982, Isaac Yeshurun)
Adoption (1975, Márta Mészáros)
( ack: wikipedia,criterion collection, Allmovie)
It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967. It is also known under an alternate title of A Blonde in Love.
Directed by
Miloš Forman
Produced by
Doro Vlado Hreljanović
Rudolf Hájek
Written by
Miloš Forman
Jaroslav Papoušek
Starring
Hana Brejchová
Vladimír Pucholt
Vladimír Menšík
Music by
Evžen Illín
Running time
90 min.
Language
Czech
benny
Loves of a Blonde (Czech: Lásky jedné plavovlásky) is a 1965 Czech film and it works at different layers. On the surface it is a simple story of Andula, a young factory girl falling head over heels with a traveling musician for whom it is a one night stand. Whereas the girl her whole life she shas invested ,-for its emotional depth I can only cite Renoir’s une partie de campagne(1936) for comparison, and must salvage it from falling to pieces. Unlike Henriette the Czech girl dares to follow it up.
The film begins with the general (’my hooligan love’ a pseudo Beatle number) to the particular musically represented by ‘Ave Maria’ at the end. The bach-gounod number in this case is meant to be a paen to the blonde working girl who in her elemental goodness stands as a modern Maria.
It is also a social satire.
The film takes place in the provincial Czech town of Zruc, which Forman sketches in a few shots: a train station, a housing block, a shoe factory that could have been lifted from any of the East European films of the communist era. Andula, the blond protagonist of the film is a worker in the shoe factory, one among some 2000 who outnumbers male population by 16 to one. The film opens with the benign manager of the factory asking army officials to place a regiment in Zruc, as a way of redressing the local imbalance of available males and yearning females. “They need what we needed when we were young,” the manager says to an avuncular Major who can well understand the manager’s predicament. ‘Sex liberates woman from their drudgery and social isolation’ seems to be the watchword and how the government tries to meet the expectations of the female workforce touches the very flaw of party manifesto as written and in practice.
Froman always had a felicity in casting the right actors for the parts. Just as he made the roles of Baron von Sweiten, Count Rosenburg and the valet in Amadeus memorable the three ‘old farts’ of army reservists who try to date the three workers are unforgettable.
In honor of the army reservists brought to the town a party is organized where girls in all sizes and expectations take part. The age old mating game played in the pub has plenty of room for comedy, which the director uses to lead the viewer to the heart of the film. Andula catches the eye of the comparatively dashing young pianist, Milda (Vladimir Pucholt). The next morning, the traveling musician assures her repeatedly, “I do not have a girlfriend in Prague.” Milda leaves town, as expected, but Andula has fallen in love with him, and decides to journey to Prague to track him down. A low-key black-and-white ensemble comedy, Loves of a Blonde was cast predominantly with non-professional actors.
In Prague Andula meets the dysfunctional family of Milda and it is clear that in his parents we have the duplicate the blonde and her feckless groom on the making. Forman’s dark comedy must be seen to be enjoyed. His comical sense reaches its best in the part where the parents try to cope with a strange girl who has intruded upon their private space though it is for one night. From that point the director tickles the funnybone, as it were with a scalpel, and only later we realize that whatever future happiness Andula may have with Milda shall only be a downer, an anti-climax to the trite line we are so familiar with, ‘and they lived happily everafter’.
‘Over the course of the three acts, the film’s context evolves from social satire (set in a public space) to emotional intimacy (confined to the private space of a single room and a single bed) to domestic drama (set in the awkward private-public space of a family apartment). The thematic shifts reflect the shifts in setting: the first section is centered on youth and infinite possibility; the second on young adulthood and romantic fulfillment; the third on maturity and inevitable disappointment.’ (Dave Kehr Feb 12, 2002-criterion collection)
Similar Works
Dolgaya Schastlivaya Zhizn (1966, Gennadiy Shpalikov)
The Pornographers (1966, Shohei Imamura)
Kitchen Stories (2003, Bent Hamer)
The Firemen’s Ball (1967, Milos Forman)
Noa at 17 (1982, Isaac Yeshurun)
Adoption (1975, Márta Mészáros)
( ack: wikipedia,criterion collection, Allmovie)
It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1967. It is also known under an alternate title of A Blonde in Love.
Directed by
Miloš Forman
Produced by
Doro Vlado Hreljanović
Rudolf Hájek
Written by
Miloš Forman
Jaroslav Papoušek
Starring
Hana Brejchová
Vladimír Pucholt
Vladimír Menšík
Music by
Evžen Illín
Running time
90 min.
Language
Czech
benny
Friday, 15 January 2010
The Earrings of Mme.de...-1953
In one of the three Guy de Maupassant–derived stories of Ophuls’s Le plaisir (1952), the rejected model jumps out of a window and winds up in a wheelchair. The artist, now forcibly married to her, and with plenty of time to work, voices the bitter aphorism, “There’s no joy in happiness.” In the present film Danielle Darrieux invites unhappiness since it is the only way she can feel the pulse of her innermost universe where the heart rules. In Ophulsian universe, men and women occupy separate but equal spheres, and if the men have more power and agency in the world, the women are the conquistadors in the more important realm of the heart. They are the ‘militarists of love’ as Stendhal would call them. For the general’s wife in the Earrings of Madame de… a piece of jewelry serves as nicely as one marries above one’s rank to be reckoned as a woman of importance. Louise is married and she has a lover. 'Loss’ of her earrings presented to her by her husband could set in motion, events of such import as a kingdom lost at the throw of a dice. Such a personal article ( a trifle in itself) could as the kerchief of Desdemona lead to death in some cases or social disgrace. Louisa belongs to the rank and file of the militarists of love who gamble with trouble, knowing tragedy is around the corner. Why do they still do it? I recall a passage where Stendhal (Red and the Black) quotes the case of Margaret du Valois, the wife of Henri IV. She needed such dangers in order to feel her existence. Not having anxiety was as being in a limbo, out of the pale of social respectability her station and rank commanded.
The Earrings of Madame de . . . is based on a 1951 novel by Louise de Vilmorin simply called Madame de, who, in pawning the earrings given her by her husband, sets off a chain of circumstances that, when she falls desperately in love, tightens around her and destroys her. It’s like a brooch, small in scope but filigreed and chiseled masterly as the works of Ophuls often are. The film has a special sheen brought out by incisive wit, irony and understanding. His films are all a treat to watch. It is all on the surface like light caught and the many facets of the stone keep you attentive to what goes on beneath. ''Madame de...'' is one and his ''La Ronde'' (1950) and ''Lola Montes'' (1955) are similarly masterly. Take for instance the scene where he makes Baron Fabrizio Donati writing his lover day after day, with no letter back. Of course Louise frail in health and unable to stay in Paris tears up his letters and throw them out of her train carriage all the more despondent. She must play her part as demanded of her. In her thoughts,-her tears and unhappiness on reading them were as good as replies to them. ‘ I’ve answered all your letters my love,”says she. She lacked the courage to reply in any other manner. Louise is married to a general. Their marriage has style but no substance. In fact as the general observes it is superficially superficial. In the same context he sententiously adds, - it is his way of serious conversation, 'our conjugal bliss is a reflection of ourselves'.
The way she views her earrings is a clear indication of her feelings with regards to marriage. The diamonds, a gift of her husband she doesn’t mind selling since her debts that necessited it, are part of household expenses. She has run up debts in keeping her station in the society while the gift coming from Baron Donati is from desire. She makes it clear in her tryst in his carriage that she will always keeps them by her bedside. That is what love means to her. In the end when she presents the gift to the Church its significance cannot be lost on the viewer.
The diamond earrings like RL Stevenson's Bottle Imp turns up often to expose their shallowness as a couple and it echoes Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu: marriage as an institution in the pre WWI France meant for the privileged precious little no more than parading their good breeding and privileges. In this film also disaster follows the woman who makes a false step. Louise will lie to cover the absence of her earrings that makes her lover take offense first and then lead to a duel between two persons who mean most to her. All this will make the viewer agree with the general who quotes Napoleon,"The only victory in love is to flee".
‘The Earrings of Madame de...,' directed in 1953 by Max Ophuls, is one of the most mannered and contrived love movies ever filmed. It glitters and dazzles, and beneath the artifice it creates a heart, and breaks it. The film is famous for its elaborate camera movements, its graceful style, its sets, its costumes and of course its jewelry. It stars Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica, who effortlessly embody elegance. It could have been a mannered trifle. We sit in admiration of Ophuls' visual display, so fluid and intricate. Then to our surprise we find ourselves caring’.( Roger Ebert-2001)
ack: Press Notes: Ophuls, A Pleasure Indeed, Criterion-Sep. 19, 2008
Cast
Comtesse Louise de Danielle Darrieux
Générale André de Charles Boyer
Baron Fabrizio Donati Vittorio De Sica
Monsieur Rémy Jean Debucourt
Monsieur de Bernac Jean Galland
Lola Lia Di Leo
Credits
Director Max Ophuls
Based on the novel by Louise de Vilmorin
Adaptation by Marcel Achard, Max Ophuls and Annette Wademant
Cinematography: Christian Matras
Music : Oscar Straus and Georges van Parys
Costumes: Georges Annenkov and Rosine Delamare
Sound : Antoine Petitjean
Editing: Borys Lewin
* Run Time: 105 minutes
* Filmed In: B&W
benny
The Earrings of Madame de . . . is based on a 1951 novel by Louise de Vilmorin simply called Madame de, who, in pawning the earrings given her by her husband, sets off a chain of circumstances that, when she falls desperately in love, tightens around her and destroys her. It’s like a brooch, small in scope but filigreed and chiseled masterly as the works of Ophuls often are. The film has a special sheen brought out by incisive wit, irony and understanding. His films are all a treat to watch. It is all on the surface like light caught and the many facets of the stone keep you attentive to what goes on beneath. ''Madame de...'' is one and his ''La Ronde'' (1950) and ''Lola Montes'' (1955) are similarly masterly. Take for instance the scene where he makes Baron Fabrizio Donati writing his lover day after day, with no letter back. Of course Louise frail in health and unable to stay in Paris tears up his letters and throw them out of her train carriage all the more despondent. She must play her part as demanded of her. In her thoughts,-her tears and unhappiness on reading them were as good as replies to them. ‘ I’ve answered all your letters my love,”says she. She lacked the courage to reply in any other manner. Louise is married to a general. Their marriage has style but no substance. In fact as the general observes it is superficially superficial. In the same context he sententiously adds, - it is his way of serious conversation, 'our conjugal bliss is a reflection of ourselves'.
The way she views her earrings is a clear indication of her feelings with regards to marriage. The diamonds, a gift of her husband she doesn’t mind selling since her debts that necessited it, are part of household expenses. She has run up debts in keeping her station in the society while the gift coming from Baron Donati is from desire. She makes it clear in her tryst in his carriage that she will always keeps them by her bedside. That is what love means to her. In the end when she presents the gift to the Church its significance cannot be lost on the viewer.
The diamond earrings like RL Stevenson's Bottle Imp turns up often to expose their shallowness as a couple and it echoes Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu: marriage as an institution in the pre WWI France meant for the privileged precious little no more than parading their good breeding and privileges. In this film also disaster follows the woman who makes a false step. Louise will lie to cover the absence of her earrings that makes her lover take offense first and then lead to a duel between two persons who mean most to her. All this will make the viewer agree with the general who quotes Napoleon,"The only victory in love is to flee".
‘The Earrings of Madame de...,' directed in 1953 by Max Ophuls, is one of the most mannered and contrived love movies ever filmed. It glitters and dazzles, and beneath the artifice it creates a heart, and breaks it. The film is famous for its elaborate camera movements, its graceful style, its sets, its costumes and of course its jewelry. It stars Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer and Vittorio De Sica, who effortlessly embody elegance. It could have been a mannered trifle. We sit in admiration of Ophuls' visual display, so fluid and intricate. Then to our surprise we find ourselves caring’.( Roger Ebert-2001)
ack: Press Notes: Ophuls, A Pleasure Indeed, Criterion-Sep. 19, 2008
Cast
Comtesse Louise de Danielle Darrieux
Générale André de Charles Boyer
Baron Fabrizio Donati Vittorio De Sica
Monsieur Rémy Jean Debucourt
Monsieur de Bernac Jean Galland
Lola Lia Di Leo
Credits
Director Max Ophuls
Based on the novel by Louise de Vilmorin
Adaptation by Marcel Achard, Max Ophuls and Annette Wademant
Cinematography: Christian Matras
Music : Oscar Straus and Georges van Parys
Costumes: Georges Annenkov and Rosine Delamare
Sound : Antoine Petitjean
Editing: Borys Lewin
* Run Time: 105 minutes
* Filmed In: B&W
benny
Umberto D.-1952
Is old age that bad if enduring masterpieces could be teased out of it? Surely the Bard of Avon in King Lear sounded a warning note and made a case using the old king as an example, of the pitfalls of growing old without being wise. Ingmar Bergman showed what a motherlode the old age contained through his film Wild Srawberries. Vittorio De Sica has similarly created a masterpiece using a civil servant who has been left to fend for himself after the society squeezed everything worthwhile out of him. He has a piddling pension. It is ever shrinking and yet the governments dole is his by right but as for his needs for company and ancillaries he is on his own. In that twilight zone a dog is not just a dog but company that can light up his hours. Carlo Battisti as a retired civil servant, impoverished and isolated puts his all in that relationship. Screenwriter Cesare Zavattini and director Vittorio De Sica gave Umberto Domenico Ferrari a certain dignity despite of lacking youth, family, friends, health, money, and home. But with little Flike, he could, clutching him to his breast, fretting over his well-being, ultimately begging the dog to come play with him he could go on as though life still continued to beat as with his infancy. But when it runs away the effect on him—on us watching—is devastating. “I have no hesitation in stating that cinema has rarely gone such a long way toward making us aware of what it is to be a man. (And also, for that matter, of what it is to be a dog.)”– André Bazin, 1952
‘It was the fourth film that Zavattini and De Sica made together after World War II, and the first to fail. Shoeshine (Sciuscià, 1946) and The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette, 1948) had brought into focus, for domestic and international viewers alike, the intuitions, concerns, and methods of Italy’s best postwar filmmakers, and so had established neorealism as a movement. The impact on critics was enormous. “No more actors,” André Bazin wrote of The Bicycle Thief, “no more story, no more sets, which is to say that in the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality there is no more cinema”—or, rather, that the film is “one of the first examples of pure cinema.” The impact on audiences was equally strong, with both Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief winning the Academy Award for best foreign-language film’.( Seeing Clearly Through Tears: On the Smart Sentiment of Umberto D. by Stuart Klawans-22Jul03)
We have the first images of Umberto D. out of an impromptu street demonstration of old-age pensioners. The police disperse the crowd leaving the central character to take up the rest. Positioning Umberto between two characters of contrasting status we are given a hint of futility of culture since his intelligence or learning makes no contact or sympathy with his landlady with pretensions to bourgeois respectability. Despite being a gentleman, Umberto finds himself in concert with the housemaid who is uncluttered with book learning or culture. ( a nonprofessional actor, Maria Pia Casilio, discovered by De Sica when she was an apprentice seamstress). Flike is the only major character other than the landlady to be played by a trained performer, the canine actor Napoleone.
* Key Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Ileana Simova, Elena Rea, Lamberto Maggiorani, Alberto Albani Barbieri, Memmo Carotenuto,
* Awards: Best Story (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie 1956), Best Foreign Film (New York Film Critics Circle 1955)
* Run Time: 89 minutes
benn2
‘It was the fourth film that Zavattini and De Sica made together after World War II, and the first to fail. Shoeshine (Sciuscià, 1946) and The Bicycle Thief (Ladri di biciclette, 1948) had brought into focus, for domestic and international viewers alike, the intuitions, concerns, and methods of Italy’s best postwar filmmakers, and so had established neorealism as a movement. The impact on critics was enormous. “No more actors,” André Bazin wrote of The Bicycle Thief, “no more story, no more sets, which is to say that in the perfect aesthetic illusion of reality there is no more cinema”—or, rather, that the film is “one of the first examples of pure cinema.” The impact on audiences was equally strong, with both Shoeshine and The Bicycle Thief winning the Academy Award for best foreign-language film’.( Seeing Clearly Through Tears: On the Smart Sentiment of Umberto D. by Stuart Klawans-22Jul03)
We have the first images of Umberto D. out of an impromptu street demonstration of old-age pensioners. The police disperse the crowd leaving the central character to take up the rest. Positioning Umberto between two characters of contrasting status we are given a hint of futility of culture since his intelligence or learning makes no contact or sympathy with his landlady with pretensions to bourgeois respectability. Despite being a gentleman, Umberto finds himself in concert with the housemaid who is uncluttered with book learning or culture. ( a nonprofessional actor, Maria Pia Casilio, discovered by De Sica when she was an apprentice seamstress). Flike is the only major character other than the landlady to be played by a trained performer, the canine actor Napoleone.
* Key Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari, Ileana Simova, Elena Rea, Lamberto Maggiorani, Alberto Albani Barbieri, Memmo Carotenuto,
* Awards: Best Story (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie 1956), Best Foreign Film (New York Film Critics Circle 1955)
* Run Time: 89 minutes
benn2
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
The Godfather Part II-1974
The kernel of the film is same as what Machiavelli in his book The Prince seems to say. The book was meant for Lorenzo de Medici, the Magnificent. Of course the Medicis of another age and clime hold parallel to the Corleone family in as far as that they could acquire power and maintain it. As Medicis before them the Corleone family embody the American Dream and in it they didn’t have such taste or luck as the Medicis had. Michaelangelo under the aegis of the Corleone family surely would have churned out kitsch by dozens. The film has no pretensions to art and culture but is a crime drama. In order to ensure success what a bloody trail the Corleones leave in their wake? The Machiavellian methods dictated a course that is violent and amoral. Afterall given the stakes involved, the warring parties cannot then as now afford to let their objectives clouded by fine sensibilities. In this context the film quote "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," has the directness of a thrust from a stilleto or a spray of bullets from a machine gun. The second part of the Godfather is the saga of Vito Corleone from his childhood in Sicily (1901) to his founding of the criminal Corleone Family in New York City while still a young man (1917–1925) and like the Prince is a modern treatise for any one who would want to maintain his position acquired by fair means or foul.
The plot includes two parallel storylines. One involves Mafia chief Michael Corleone following the events of the first movie from 1958 to 1959 and the other his father is a series of flashbacks. In the present, Michael Corleone attempt to steer the family business towards respectability but at great cost to his own relationships. Even his own brother, Freddie (John Cazale) is sacrificed to Michael's grim and ultimately pointless determination. The Godfather Part II became the first sequel ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and garnered and even bigger Oscar haul than The Godfather. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script co-written with Mario Puzo the film stars Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, and Talia Shire. New cast members include Robert De Niro( who won the Best Supporting Actor) , Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg.
Trivia: Paramount was initially opposed to name the movie The Godfather Part II. According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title. The success of The Godfather Part II began the Hollywood tradition of numbered sequels.
Cast
Al Pacino as Don Michael Corleone
* Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen
* Robert De Niro as Young Vito Corleone
* Diane Keaton as Kay Corleone
* John Cazale as Fredo Corleone
* Talia Shire as Connie Corleone
* Lee Strasberg as Hyman Roth
* Michael V. Gazzo as Frankie Pentangeli
* Morgana King as Mama Carmella Corleone
* G.D. Spradlin as Senator Pat Geary
* Richard Bright as Al Neri
* Marianna Hill as Deanna Corleone
* Gastone Moschin as Don Fanucci
* Troy Donahue as Merle Johnson
The Godfather Part II ranks among the most critically and artistically successful film sequels in movie history, and is the most honored. Many critics praise it as equal, or even superior, to the original film.
...a sumptuous flamboyant entertainment - not a work of art perhaps but a rich, enjoyable wallow of a movie.
~ Barry Norman, 100 Best Films of the Century
benny
The plot includes two parallel storylines. One involves Mafia chief Michael Corleone following the events of the first movie from 1958 to 1959 and the other his father is a series of flashbacks. In the present, Michael Corleone attempt to steer the family business towards respectability but at great cost to his own relationships. Even his own brother, Freddie (John Cazale) is sacrificed to Michael's grim and ultimately pointless determination. The Godfather Part II became the first sequel ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and garnered and even bigger Oscar haul than The Godfather. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola from a script co-written with Mario Puzo the film stars Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, and Talia Shire. New cast members include Robert De Niro( who won the Best Supporting Actor) , Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg.
Trivia: Paramount was initially opposed to name the movie The Godfather Part II. According to Coppola, the studio's objection stemmed from the belief that audiences would be reluctant to see a film with such a title. The success of The Godfather Part II began the Hollywood tradition of numbered sequels.
Cast
Al Pacino as Don Michael Corleone
* Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen
* Robert De Niro as Young Vito Corleone
* Diane Keaton as Kay Corleone
* John Cazale as Fredo Corleone
* Talia Shire as Connie Corleone
* Lee Strasberg as Hyman Roth
* Michael V. Gazzo as Frankie Pentangeli
* Morgana King as Mama Carmella Corleone
* G.D. Spradlin as Senator Pat Geary
* Richard Bright as Al Neri
* Marianna Hill as Deanna Corleone
* Gastone Moschin as Don Fanucci
* Troy Donahue as Merle Johnson
The Godfather Part II ranks among the most critically and artistically successful film sequels in movie history, and is the most honored. Many critics praise it as equal, or even superior, to the original film.
...a sumptuous flamboyant entertainment - not a work of art perhaps but a rich, enjoyable wallow of a movie.
~ Barry Norman, 100 Best Films of the Century
benny
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
To Be or Not To Be-1942
The movie chronicles the adventures of a Polish theater company before and during Nazi occupation. The film draws its life from two players of that company: Josef Tura and his wife, Maria. The former is a ham who is fixated to play the soliloquy from Hamlet whenever he could hold the centre stage. Hence the title of the film.
To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch who adapted from the story by Melchior Lengyel. The film stars Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges and Sig Ruman. Supposedly a comedy film the film fell flat on its release because the general public felt that making fun of such a real threat as the Nazis was revolting. (During the premier, Benny's own father walked out of the theater disgusted to see his son in a Nazi uniform during the first scene.) Worse still the film was released two months after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash.
Plot
The movie chronicles the adventures of a Polish theater company that has also been performing Shakespeare's Hamlet, with Maria as Ophelia and Tura in the title role. Maria is curious to know the handsome young pilot who has been sending her flowers. Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski sends a note asking for permission to finally meet Maria, and she agrees, telling him to come to her dressing room when her husband begins his "To be or not to be..." speech, so they can be sure of privacy. As a result, the young man walks out (very obviously) just as Tura begins his monologue and it causes the highly-strung actor great distress. Maria is attracted to Sobinski when they meet, and the two arrange to meet again. But then
Germany has declared war on Poland just as Sobinski is beginning to win her heart and news such as this must spell disaster for lovers. He leaves to join the fight and the actors take shelter under the theater as bombs begin to fall. Rest of the proceedings are fairly predictable what with the theater troup trying hard to stay afloat while sinister plots to ferret out Polish resistance are put forward and checkmated. The film bears ‘the Lubitsch touch’ that keeps the film from falling apart. His light touch is evident throughout keeping what could be a mindless farce into a zany but intelligent caper . For an example let me sketch the final scene. Tura and Maria escape into England and the actor is once again on stage as Hamlet and reaches the moment of "To be or not to be." He eyes Sobinski in the audience as he begins the speech, but both of them are struck dumb when a new young man gets up and heads backstage.
Cast
* Carole Lombard as Maria Tura — an actress in Nazi-occupied Poland.
* Jack Benny as Joseph Tura — an actor and Maria's husband.
* Robert Stack as Lt. Stanislav Sobinski — a Polish airman in love with Maria.
* Stanley Ridges as Professor Alexander Siletsky — A Nazi spy masquerading as a Polish resistance worker; tries to seduce Maria in order to persuade her to become a Nazi spy.
The film was remade in 1983 by Mel Brooks.
Trivia: ‘A prescient line was cut out of the film after the death of Carole Lombard: when Lombard is invited by Robert Stack's smitten airman to fly in a plane with him, she says: "What can happen on a plane?" The line has since been restored to available prints of the film’.(ack:wikipedia,all movie guide)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Produced by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Melchior Lengyel
Edwin Justus Mayer
Music by Werner R. Heymann
Uncredited:
Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography Rudolph Maté
Editing by Dorothy Spencer
Running time 99 minutes
Similar Movies
La Traversée de Paris (1956, Claude Autant-Lara)
The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)
La Grande Vadrouille (1966, Gérard Oury)
La Poudre d'escampette (1971, Philippe de Broca)
Novye Pokhozhdeniya Shveyka (1943, Sergei Yutkevich)
Bon Voyage (2003, Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
The Producers (1968, Mel Brooks)
L'As Des As (1982, Gérard Oury)
Senechal the Magnificent (1958)
Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919, F. Richard Jones)
Movies with the Same Personnel
Ninotchka (1939, Ernst Lubitsch)
Heaven Can Wait (1943, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)
Nothing Sacred (1937, William Wellman)
That Uncertain Feeling (1941, Ernst Lubitsch)
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
Wilson (1944, Henry King)
Tarzan Triumphs (1943, William Thiele)
Other Related Movies
is related to: Ay, Carmela! (1990, Carlos Saura)
Mephisto (1981, István Szabó)
has been remade as: To Be or Not to Be (1983, Alan Johnson)
benny
To Be or Not to Be is a 1942 comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch who adapted from the story by Melchior Lengyel. The film stars Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges and Sig Ruman. Supposedly a comedy film the film fell flat on its release because the general public felt that making fun of such a real threat as the Nazis was revolting. (During the premier, Benny's own father walked out of the theater disgusted to see his son in a Nazi uniform during the first scene.) Worse still the film was released two months after actress Carole Lombard was killed in an airplane crash.
Plot
The movie chronicles the adventures of a Polish theater company that has also been performing Shakespeare's Hamlet, with Maria as Ophelia and Tura in the title role. Maria is curious to know the handsome young pilot who has been sending her flowers. Lieutenant Stanislav Sobinski sends a note asking for permission to finally meet Maria, and she agrees, telling him to come to her dressing room when her husband begins his "To be or not to be..." speech, so they can be sure of privacy. As a result, the young man walks out (very obviously) just as Tura begins his monologue and it causes the highly-strung actor great distress. Maria is attracted to Sobinski when they meet, and the two arrange to meet again. But then
Germany has declared war on Poland just as Sobinski is beginning to win her heart and news such as this must spell disaster for lovers. He leaves to join the fight and the actors take shelter under the theater as bombs begin to fall. Rest of the proceedings are fairly predictable what with the theater troup trying hard to stay afloat while sinister plots to ferret out Polish resistance are put forward and checkmated. The film bears ‘the Lubitsch touch’ that keeps the film from falling apart. His light touch is evident throughout keeping what could be a mindless farce into a zany but intelligent caper . For an example let me sketch the final scene. Tura and Maria escape into England and the actor is once again on stage as Hamlet and reaches the moment of "To be or not to be." He eyes Sobinski in the audience as he begins the speech, but both of them are struck dumb when a new young man gets up and heads backstage.
Cast
* Carole Lombard as Maria Tura — an actress in Nazi-occupied Poland.
* Jack Benny as Joseph Tura — an actor and Maria's husband.
* Robert Stack as Lt. Stanislav Sobinski — a Polish airman in love with Maria.
* Stanley Ridges as Professor Alexander Siletsky — A Nazi spy masquerading as a Polish resistance worker; tries to seduce Maria in order to persuade her to become a Nazi spy.
The film was remade in 1983 by Mel Brooks.
Trivia: ‘A prescient line was cut out of the film after the death of Carole Lombard: when Lombard is invited by Robert Stack's smitten airman to fly in a plane with him, she says: "What can happen on a plane?" The line has since been restored to available prints of the film’.(ack:wikipedia,all movie guide)
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Produced by Ernst Lubitsch
Written by Melchior Lengyel
Edwin Justus Mayer
Music by Werner R. Heymann
Uncredited:
Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography Rudolph Maté
Editing by Dorothy Spencer
Running time 99 minutes
Similar Movies
La Traversée de Paris (1956, Claude Autant-Lara)
The Great Dictator (1940, Charles Chaplin)
La Grande Vadrouille (1966, Gérard Oury)
La Poudre d'escampette (1971, Philippe de Broca)
Novye Pokhozhdeniya Shveyka (1943, Sergei Yutkevich)
Bon Voyage (2003, Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
The Producers (1968, Mel Brooks)
L'As Des As (1982, Gérard Oury)
Senechal the Magnificent (1958)
Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919, F. Richard Jones)
Movies with the Same Personnel
Ninotchka (1939, Ernst Lubitsch)
Heaven Can Wait (1943, Ernst Lubitsch)
The Shop Around the Corner (1940, Ernst Lubitsch)
Nothing Sacred (1937, William Wellman)
That Uncertain Feeling (1941, Ernst Lubitsch)
Trouble in Paradise (1932, Ernst Lubitsch)
Wilson (1944, Henry King)
Tarzan Triumphs (1943, William Thiele)
Other Related Movies
is related to: Ay, Carmela! (1990, Carlos Saura)
Mephisto (1981, István Szabó)
has been remade as: To Be or Not to Be (1983, Alan Johnson)
benny
The American Friend-1977
(Aka Der Amerikanische Freund)
It was Mark Twain who wrote Innocents Abroad. In that 1869 book he referred to his fellow trvellers as innocents. His fellow pilgrims while visiting the Holy Land were not for freeing their minds but trivializing the past and to be convinced of their set opinions as true. Alas it was then. The American in this film is entirely a mutant of naïve Americans of his age of which Tom Ripley is one. He is the new pilgrim and he is a criminal. He is more of the Harry Lime mold than of Mark Twain’s fellow Americans.
The American Friend is of the neo-noir genre. The film is based on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. The Third book Ripley's Game (of five) is directed by Wim Wenders who also gave us Wings of Desire. (The Talented Mr. Ripley and Purple Noon are both based on the first book.)
Wim Wenders mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film. Unlike Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley Dennis Hopper’s role is subservient to that of Zimmermann.
Dennis Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the work of American painter Derwatt (Nicholas Ray), who has feigned his own death to increase the value of his paintings. While auctioning this work in Berlin, he meets art restorer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz), who he learns is suffering from an incurable blood disease. When a shady friend (Gerard Blain) requires Ripley to find a "clean" non-professional to do a contract hit in order to pay off a debt, even he is reluctant. But he quickly realizes that the physically vulnerable Jonathan would be perfect for the job, and tries to get him to accept by employing various subterfuges to persuade him that his condition is even worse than it is. For his part, Blain guarantees the restorer that his family will be financially secure for life, and a deal is struck.
Naturally, complications arise.
In case of Wenders his characteristic ambiguity blurs the difference between Ripley and his victim. A sense of contingency and randomness permeate his work. For the same reason he stops himself from developing the desperation Zimmermann needs to make this story work. The result is a kind of watching the proceedings take their own course than being involved.
The doppelgänger motif, which threads through Highsmith's work is the dominant metaphor of Wenders' film. The cinematography is both bleak and pretty -- bouncing between Paris and postwar Germany. There are cameo roles for directors Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) and Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor).
Cast
* Dennis Hopper - Tom Ripley
* Bruno Ganz - Jonathan Zimmermann
* Lisa Kreuzer - Marianne Zimmermann
* Gérard Blain - Raoul Minot
* Nicholas Ray - Derwatt
Run Time: 127 minutes
In A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir, David N. Meyer says, "— The American Friend is worth the effort. Few movies from any era or genre offer such rich characters, realistic human relationships, gripping action sequences, or sly humor."
Similar Movies
Chinese Boxes; The Passenger; Öszi Almanach; Purple Noon; Il Faut Tuer Birgitt Haas; With a Friend Like Harry...; Mafioso
(Ack: wikipedia, Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com)
benny
It was Mark Twain who wrote Innocents Abroad. In that 1869 book he referred to his fellow trvellers as innocents. His fellow pilgrims while visiting the Holy Land were not for freeing their minds but trivializing the past and to be convinced of their set opinions as true. Alas it was then. The American in this film is entirely a mutant of naïve Americans of his age of which Tom Ripley is one. He is the new pilgrim and he is a criminal. He is more of the Harry Lime mold than of Mark Twain’s fellow Americans.
The American Friend is of the neo-noir genre. The film is based on Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series. The Third book Ripley's Game (of five) is directed by Wim Wenders who also gave us Wings of Desire. (The Talented Mr. Ripley and Purple Noon are both based on the first book.)
Wim Wenders mines Dennis Hopper's real-life experience as a painter and collector in this existential take on the American gangster film. Unlike Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley Dennis Hopper’s role is subservient to that of Zimmermann.
Dennis Hopper stars as the eponymous American, currently a middleman selling the work of American painter Derwatt (Nicholas Ray), who has feigned his own death to increase the value of his paintings. While auctioning this work in Berlin, he meets art restorer Jonathan Zimmerman (Bruno Ganz), who he learns is suffering from an incurable blood disease. When a shady friend (Gerard Blain) requires Ripley to find a "clean" non-professional to do a contract hit in order to pay off a debt, even he is reluctant. But he quickly realizes that the physically vulnerable Jonathan would be perfect for the job, and tries to get him to accept by employing various subterfuges to persuade him that his condition is even worse than it is. For his part, Blain guarantees the restorer that his family will be financially secure for life, and a deal is struck.
Naturally, complications arise.
In case of Wenders his characteristic ambiguity blurs the difference between Ripley and his victim. A sense of contingency and randomness permeate his work. For the same reason he stops himself from developing the desperation Zimmermann needs to make this story work. The result is a kind of watching the proceedings take their own course than being involved.
The doppelgänger motif, which threads through Highsmith's work is the dominant metaphor of Wenders' film. The cinematography is both bleak and pretty -- bouncing between Paris and postwar Germany. There are cameo roles for directors Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) and Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor).
Cast
* Dennis Hopper - Tom Ripley
* Bruno Ganz - Jonathan Zimmermann
* Lisa Kreuzer - Marianne Zimmermann
* Gérard Blain - Raoul Minot
* Nicholas Ray - Derwatt
Run Time: 127 minutes
In A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir, David N. Meyer says, "— The American Friend is worth the effort. Few movies from any era or genre offer such rich characters, realistic human relationships, gripping action sequences, or sly humor."
Similar Movies
Chinese Boxes; The Passenger; Öszi Almanach; Purple Noon; Il Faut Tuer Birgitt Haas; With a Friend Like Harry...; Mafioso
(Ack: wikipedia, Michael Costello, All Movie Guide
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com)
benny
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)