Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.
Paul kills a man in a duel and is subsequently charged for murder. He flees to another State but is captured by a man of the law. Both eventually team up to fight the titular gang who sells guns to fierce Native Americans.
Strange comedy in which the light tone contrasts in some parts (particularly the last one) with dramatic situations. The film is quite watchable and has an elegant plot structure, but leaves much to be desired in the aforementioned last part, which is when the two heroes are in the comancheros' hideout. Perhaps that part had the potential for a whole film's duration, as the complexity of the situation required more elaborate solutions than the ones which the film comes up with.
Rating: 54 (unchanged)
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Friday, May 17, 2019
Hello Again (1987)
One year after her death, a woman is revived by an incantation enunciated by her sister. She faces some problems due to her peculiar condition.
Terrible comedy which should not be seen. When seen, the best one can do is to forget it. The amazingly awful script is like a Frankenstein monster made up of bits and pieces of other comedies very badly sewn together and without much rhyme or reason.
Rating: 12
Terrible comedy which should not be seen. When seen, the best one can do is to forget it. The amazingly awful script is like a Frankenstein monster made up of bits and pieces of other comedies very badly sewn together and without much rhyme or reason.
Rating: 12
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Flame of Barbary Coast (1945)
The year is 1906. A cattle rancher from Montana visits the Barbary Coast -- the red light district in San Francisco -- where he intends to collect a debt. He meets a casino singer and falls in love with her. He gambles his collected money and loses. He goes back to Montana, but has plans to return to the Barbary Coast.
This film revolves around a problem it imposes on itself: how to make the girl leave her current lover for the protagonist. It ingeniously sets up situations of stress that reveal her current lover's shortcomings as a lover (which somehow are implied to be correlated with his shortcomings as a person); an earthquake which nearly makes her paralyzed is required to make her at last switch lovers. The film contrasts the moral integrity of the rural environment with the corruption of the urban one, but takes all its thrills from the latter, and none from the former. I guess this is dialectics in action, although some might prefer to call it hypocrisy. The film is competently written and realized, albeit within that clearly artificial frame.
Rating: 43
This film revolves around a problem it imposes on itself: how to make the girl leave her current lover for the protagonist. It ingeniously sets up situations of stress that reveal her current lover's shortcomings as a lover (which somehow are implied to be correlated with his shortcomings as a person); an earthquake which nearly makes her paralyzed is required to make her at last switch lovers. The film contrasts the moral integrity of the rural environment with the corruption of the urban one, but takes all its thrills from the latter, and none from the former. I guess this is dialectics in action, although some might prefer to call it hypocrisy. The film is competently written and realized, albeit within that clearly artificial frame.
Rating: 43
Sunday, May 05, 2019
Marido de Mulher Boa (1960)
I have translated (with minor liberties) the film's press-release synopsis (available on this page).
"Anacleto and Frederico are partners in the firm Pardal and Pardal, a high fashion house. Anacleto is married to Arminda, a former theatrical actress, who has chosen him over Frederico. However, Anacleto remains a womanizer. The two partners buy from Giovanni a lottery ticket for taking part in a sweepstake's grand prize, and then Anacleto gives away fractions of his half to four women: Sueli, Marlene, Virgínia and Sofia, [in the hopes of winning their favors]. The longshot horse on which they have bet wins the race, luckily to Frederico, who intends to use the money to marry Sofia, and unluckily to Anacleto. He desperately tries to get back the "gasparinos" (pieces which comprised a lottery ticket) distributed among the abovementioned women, but Arminda, aware of his maneuver, anticipates him and gets back three of the ticket's pieces, leaving only Sueli's piece to be recovered -- but the latter had already shared it among her work mates. Once all confusion generated by the chase after the ticket's pieces is over, Arminda and Sofia return to their homes, after Anacleto vows to end his womanizing ways."
A slightly different synopsis is given on Wikipedia, and I have translated it also:
"Anacleto and Frederico are partners at Pardal & Pardal high fashion house. Both frequently quarrel because Anacleto married Arminda, to whom Frederico had been engaged. Furthermore, Anacleto is an incorrigible womanizer and, on account of both bearing the name Pardal, Frederico is constantly getting beat up by mistake by men who get angry at his partner's harassment on their wives. Anacleto buys a lottery ticket and distributes fractions of it among his "conquests": he gives one to humble employee Sueli, two to singer Sofia, and a few more to chorus girl Marlene and manicurist Virgínia. When the ticket wins the right to run for a sweepstake's grand prize, Arminda gets word of his misdeeds and, [aiming to give him a lesson], demands that Anacleto show him the ticket. Anacleto goes after the women to recover the ticket's fractions, not knowing that Arminda [follows him] to avoid that he gets them back."
Note: parts which I find doubtful or debatable I have placed between brackets []. In particular, I would like to point out that Arminda states that her real purpose is to learn from other women what she needs to make her desirable to Anacleto, rather than to just "give him a lesson".
This comedy has a few implausible points in its plot, in particular the sum of money which Arminda is willing to spend to recover the ticket fractions, but let's perhaps credit this to her possible innumeracy or to her obsession. Aside from that, it is another Brazilian comedy with the same kind of lowbrow humor which abounded in comedies of that era in Brazil. This one has a considerably smaller amount of musical numbers, and, perhaps as a consequence of that, the repetitiveness of the plot becomes rather tiresome around the last third or so of the movie.
Rating:32
"Anacleto and Frederico are partners in the firm Pardal and Pardal, a high fashion house. Anacleto is married to Arminda, a former theatrical actress, who has chosen him over Frederico. However, Anacleto remains a womanizer. The two partners buy from Giovanni a lottery ticket for taking part in a sweepstake's grand prize, and then Anacleto gives away fractions of his half to four women: Sueli, Marlene, Virgínia and Sofia, [in the hopes of winning their favors]. The longshot horse on which they have bet wins the race, luckily to Frederico, who intends to use the money to marry Sofia, and unluckily to Anacleto. He desperately tries to get back the "gasparinos" (pieces which comprised a lottery ticket) distributed among the abovementioned women, but Arminda, aware of his maneuver, anticipates him and gets back three of the ticket's pieces, leaving only Sueli's piece to be recovered -- but the latter had already shared it among her work mates. Once all confusion generated by the chase after the ticket's pieces is over, Arminda and Sofia return to their homes, after Anacleto vows to end his womanizing ways."
A slightly different synopsis is given on Wikipedia, and I have translated it also:
"Anacleto and Frederico are partners at Pardal & Pardal high fashion house. Both frequently quarrel because Anacleto married Arminda, to whom Frederico had been engaged. Furthermore, Anacleto is an incorrigible womanizer and, on account of both bearing the name Pardal, Frederico is constantly getting beat up by mistake by men who get angry at his partner's harassment on their wives. Anacleto buys a lottery ticket and distributes fractions of it among his "conquests": he gives one to humble employee Sueli, two to singer Sofia, and a few more to chorus girl Marlene and manicurist Virgínia. When the ticket wins the right to run for a sweepstake's grand prize, Arminda gets word of his misdeeds and, [aiming to give him a lesson], demands that Anacleto show him the ticket. Anacleto goes after the women to recover the ticket's fractions, not knowing that Arminda [follows him] to avoid that he gets them back."
Note: parts which I find doubtful or debatable I have placed between brackets []. In particular, I would like to point out that Arminda states that her real purpose is to learn from other women what she needs to make her desirable to Anacleto, rather than to just "give him a lesson".
This comedy has a few implausible points in its plot, in particular the sum of money which Arminda is willing to spend to recover the ticket fractions, but let's perhaps credit this to her possible innumeracy or to her obsession. Aside from that, it is another Brazilian comedy with the same kind of lowbrow humor which abounded in comedies of that era in Brazil. This one has a considerably smaller amount of musical numbers, and, perhaps as a consequence of that, the repetitiveness of the plot becomes rather tiresome around the last third or so of the movie.
Rating:32
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