U.S. title: I Sent a Letter to My Love
A woman and her cripple brother live together. She places a personal ad under a pseudonym in the newspaper looking for a companion, and receives a reply... from her own brother!
This is one of those premises which look promising but seem to be difficult to develop into a complete story. Perhaps in the source novel it delves into some interesting points which in the movie got lost or were just implied. Anyway, it is all very frustrating.
Rating: 30
A cruise ship is transporting some beautiful models to a fashion show. Two stewards on the ship keep flirting with them. On the trip back, they meet again and the two men devise a plan to be with them on a supposedly deserted island which they happen to pass by on their route.
Terrible comedy which starts with a certain level of technical professionalism and falls into sheer amateurism after a while. Some really pretty girls and a mildly agreeable soundtrack are the only things that keep the movie from being totally unwatchable.
Rating: 11
Rocky is a previously unknown boxer who became somewhat of a celebrity after a fight with a world champion which Rocky lost by points. Being in dire need of money, what with his wife having their first child, Rocky accepts a rematch with the same guy.
The Rocky movies are noteworthy for two things: they have working-class characters, and they have an individualistic worldview. In a way, they do a reductio ad absurdum of individualism by implying that a guy must be punched to a pulp to escape his miserable condition. The big problem is that this irony is lost on most viewers, who get stuck in the enjoyment of very elementary emotions and come out of the movie with a sense of vindication for the poor hero. As a user review by one darin-wissbaum in IMDB very appropriately points out, around the sixth or so sequel "if you count how many times Rocky has been hit in the head and face he should either be dead or a vegetable". Anyway, this was 1979, and the next year Reagan was elected, marking a conservative turn in the U.S., so there you have it. The film is technically well made, and, though decidedly on the dull side, it is watchable, barely.
Rating: 32
Based on the homonymous 1948 film.
An orchestra conductor is married to a younger wife. Some apparently incriminating evidence is brought to him concerning his wife's activities while he had been on a trip. Further inquiries by him seem to point to a violinist who plays with his orchestra as her lover. He devises a retribution.
This begins as an examination of communication and the sources of its failure; in its final section, it is a contrasting of plans with their realization. So, the general theme seems to be Ideal vs. Real. I don't remember the source movie too well, but, from what I have read, the two do not differ a great deal in plot. That movie ascribed the misunderstanding to an artist's "creative temperament" (I take the words from Wikipedia). Well, explaining creativity through garbled communication is certainly intriguing. Anyway, this film is not an examination of paranoia: the husband was provoked by fortuitous misinformation; besides, the film implies that women do cheat, and so mistrust is not in itself unreasonable. Overall, it is a nice pastime, and the acting is very good.
Rating: 52
Alfie and Helena, an elderly couple, get divorced because Alfie wants to live as a young man. Helena starts consulting a fortune teller. Their daughter Sally is married to Roy, a writer. Due to financial pressures, Sally gets a job in an art gallery. Roy starts flirting with a woman he spots through his window. Sally becomes attracted towards her boss. Alfie marries a call girl.
Agreeable dramatic comedy which relies on somewhat overused themes and concepts, but still manages to entertain due to its polished text and its very competent cast. One of the central themes in the movie is the need for faith, and an amusing insight it displays is how peculiarly cruel the people under the spell of a particular creed can be.
Rating: 51
