Cleopatra (1963)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on March 12, 1992

Egyptian queen takes Roman general Julius Caesar as lover; after he dies she replaces him with another Roman general.

Impressive historical drama, which makes use of modern concepts such as "romantic" (actually its roots go back to the Middle Ages, I think) love and psychoanalysis -- and a bit of modern dance too -- to weave its tale of love and politics. The result is not bad, though at times it becomes a little too melodramatic, like when Anthony abandons his fleet during a battle to follow Cleopatra, and then develops a guilt complex. The version I watched this time is certainly longer (4h06) than that of my earlier viewing; for a theatrical viewing that would be impossibly long, even with the intermission, but on streaming one can pause and resume at will. Also, I had possibly seen it in a Portuguese-dubbed version, whereas this time I saw it with the original audio. Too bad they cropped the frame to fit into a 16:9 TV.

Rating: 62 (up from 49)

Adriana Lecouvreur (1989)

 Opera performance. Music by Francesco Cilea; libretto by Arturo Colautti based on the 1849 play Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé. First performed in 1902.

The plot is inspired by the rumors surrounding the death of a real actress (same name as the source play's protagonist's). It's one of the bizarrest operas I've seen, though I confessedly haven't seen that many. I kept expecting the appearance of one Miss Duclos which never happened. The third act is comprised mostly of a ballet and a recitation of a scene from a play. The protagonist dies from smelling or kissing a poisoned flower (it must have been a very potent poison). The singing here sounded stupendous, though I am not really the most qualified person to give such assessments. The sets, too, were stunningly beautiful.

I don't give ratings to this kind of spectacle.

Gregorio y su ángel (1968)

 U.S. title: Gregorio and His Angel

The janitor in an orphanage is fired because of his alcoholism. A mysterious little girl follows him around, helping him earn money and urging him to stop drinking. 

Morality tale with Catholic themes. It's quite boring from start to finish, despite the main actor's fine performance.

The year of release is an estimate. IMDB says 1970, Mexican sources say 1966; there is a DVD release, and a few other sources, that say 1968. The actor who plays "Don Ramón" in the TV show El chavo del ocho (1973-1980) plays a small part here, as one of the baddies; he looks much younger here than in the show, which is another factor against the 1970 date, I think.

Rating: 28

Le roi de coeur (1966)

 U.S. title: King of Hearts

A British soldier is sent on a mission to defuse a time bomb left by the Germans that will blow a small French town up. By a turn of events, the internees at a local madhouse escape.

This is a film which should be watched exclusively for its elegant mise-en-scène, costumes, witty dialogue, and assorted fragmentary creativity. A few critics were quick to point out the flaws in the film's message, but audiences at large were not so picky and bought it hook, line and sinker, making the film a huge, albeit delayed, international success. There is a very explicit scene in the movie: the "general" is in bed with a prostitute, and imagines his ideal world as one of constant war. So, I don't see how a world ruled by these mad characters would be a peaceful one. It may be that the screenwriter yielded to the temptation to please the viewing crowds and ended up by romanticizing madness in a flagrant contradiction to himself. For that purpose, he also had to make the regular military into buffoons. To sum it up, it's an interesting -- occasionally brilliant -- movie whose central idea shouldn't be taken seriously.

Rating: 59

Le Jardin des Plantes (1994)

TV movie. U.S. titles: Tales from the Zoo; The Greenhouse

Paris, near the end of World War II. The head of the Botanical Gardens has a son who deals in the black market and gets along fine with the Germans (or so he thinks). The son is captured, along with a few other random people, and shot in reprisal for the killing of a German officer by the Resistance. He leaves a daughter which he was raising alone (the mother is an actress). The child is taken in custody by her grandfather the botanist, who doesn't tell her that her father died; instead, he lies that the latter is a Resistance captain and is in hiding.

Dramatic comedy with a historical setting. The plot is quite childish, and not necessarily because it has a child as one of the protagonists. All the same, it is well structured and eventful enough that it doesn't become annoying. Overall, a competently done but ultimately silly movie which vaguely reminds one of Jorge Luis Borges's story Theme of the Traitor and the Hero (1944), and, from another angle, the movie Life Is Beautiful (1997).

Rating: 46

Un ballo in maschera (1980)

 First shown under the TV program Live from the Metropolitan Opera.

Filmed opera performance. Music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto by Antonio Somma. First performance of this opera was in 1859. It was based on the libretto by Eugène Scribe for the opera Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué.

Set in colonial era U.S., this has the Boston governor and his secretary's wife falling in love with each other. The secretary finds out about it and joins the revolutionaries in revenge.

I can't find much to say about this opera, none of whose tunes I recognized. The plot is pretty banal, and the proceedings are somewhat enlivened by a bizarre page character played by a woman (though the character is male). The singers are very good, but I always appraise them so, because my ears are not of a refined connoisseur kind.

No rating is given, because I only give them for movies (with rare exceptions).

Color Me Dead (1969)

 A notary is poisoned and has at most a few days to live. He sets out to find his killer, whose motive is connected to a bill of sale for a stolen uranium bar.

This remake of D.O.A. (1950) has no screenwriting credits, except for the original source. I frankly find the premise quite odd -- since when do burglars get their transactions notarized? Anyway, aside from this, the film is watchable though not noteworthy in any way.

Rating: 38

Panic in the City (1968)

A man falls unconscious in the street and they detect an abnormally high amount of radioactivitiy in his body. After some investigation, it is found that foreign agents are building an atomic bomb and intend to blow Los Angeles up.

Low budget thriller. It's quite decently written and filmed, and succeeds in entertaining despite some minor implausibilities.

Rating: 51

El indulto (1960)

English title: The Reprieve

A woman tries to get away from her violent husband, with help from the latter's brother, for whom she develops feelings.

Melodrama. While not especially remarkable, it's not totally devoid of interest either. As a depiction of the atmosphere of a small town and of male oppression (a theme which is still relevant in some parts of the world) it's passable; at some point it becomes a prison movie, and moderately entertaining at that. Another plus is the good performance by the actor who plays the villain.

Rating: 38

Lohengrin (1990)

Filmed performance of the opera by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. It is based on a character from novels by medieval writer Wolfram von Eschenbach.

After a boy disappears, his sister is accused of having murdered him. The king establishes that there must be a trial by combat between the accuser and anyone who will step forward to defend the woman accused. An unknown stranger volunteers.

This is a rather fatiguing three-hours-and-a-half viewing experience, and I must avow to having failed to see much sense in the premise. I think it's rather absurd that knights in charge of guarding the holy grail should be allowed to get married in foreign lands but not be allowed to reveal their names and identity. Anyway, I guess this is all about the singers, and the plot is left for intellectuals to invent the silliest explanations they can come up with. And the singers here have performed magnificently, or so my untrained ears have decreed. As for the music, I am equally unskilled to emit an opinion: I was bored most of the time, and when some recognizable tune came in (which here happened only in the third act) I felt slightly entertained.

(Unrated, as this is not a standard movie.)

Jetlag (1981)

 Alternate title: Vértigo en Manhattan

U.S. title: Jet Lag

A woman living in Barcelona travels to New York with the intention of seeking out a former boyfriend; he is now in a new relationship and does not want to see her.

This is one of those films where the protagonist's mental state is revealed gradually, and we only get the full picture of her condition by the end of the movie. It's not a very interesting movie, but it's fairly well done and not exactly painful to watch.

Rating: 40

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

 An American casino owner in Cuba is hired by counter-revolutionaries to transport some gold which they stole from the Treasury. He plans to get rid of his employers and steal the gold for himself. To achieve that goal, he concocts a plan involving a sea monster.

Comic adventure with horror elements. Its funniest thing is probably the humorous voice-over narration. Overall a slightly amusing film, very cheaply made. There is a version made for TV which has three additional sequences which were apparently made after the film had been completed; they are slightly amusing in themselves.

Rating: 36

Last Woman on Earth (1960)

 The planet suffers a sudden temporary shortage of oxygen which kills most people. Three Americans (a dishonest businessman, his wife, and his lawyer) are scuba diving in Puerto Rico during the incident and survive. They now must plan for their livelihood and living arrangements.

This cheap love triangle drama with a "science"-fiction premise does not have much to offer in terms of excitement or ideas, but flows passably well through dialogue and some scenic location sequences. The shorter version in color is the real thing; the black and white version has two additional sequences which do not really add much and were apparently shot later, given that the actress has a different appearance (she seems to have dyed her hair or something).

Rating: 34

Permanent Vacation (1980)

 A young jobless man wanders from place to place in New York City. He visits his girlfriend, then his mother who is in a psychiatric institution, then goes to a movie theater but just stays in the lobby, then steals a car and sells it, then boards a ship to Paris.

This movie's protagonist is often explaining himself. He is also very implausible as a character, because among other things his source of livelihood is not very clear. He is not rich, as may be inferred by his opportunistic car theft. Yet, he doesn't seem to be a habitual criminal, because that would somehow make him less of a "permanent vacationer"; after all, crime is a profession too. The musical score is well done, but not much else in this movie is. I wish I could say better things about it, but unfortunately cannot.

Rating: 28

Battlestar Galactica: miniseries (2003) & Season One (2004-2005)

 Based on the 1978-1979 TV show of the same title.

Human-created cyborgs lead a devastating attack on humans, killing most of them; the few survivors escape on spaceships in search of a new planet. But the cyborgs have the ability to mimic the human appearance and have infiltrated the crew of the escaping fleet.

I didn't like this show much, and am not watching the remainder of it. While its subject matter (AI takeover) is interesting, the dramatics here is far less interesting. If I had to point out a positive aspect of it, however, I'd say that the producers did succeed in gathering an attractive collection of female characters, spanning all profiles (sexy femme fatale, rebellious tomboy, tender-hearted with a dangerous psychological ambivalence, middle-aged sage, middle-aged slut).

King Kong (1933)

 Fourth viewing, probably; previously viewed on December 11, 2014; once or twice between 1983 and 1986 (if once, then there may have been another viewing on an earlier date).

A movie producer-director takes his cast and crew on a sea voyage to an uncharted island where he intends to shoot a picture featuring a gigantic ape. They end up not making that film, but instead bring the ape to America. The ape can't resist a blonde, and that spells his downfall.

This film has been a recurrent source of entertainment for me, but his charms have faded somewhat along the years. It's a triumph of technique, and its simple plot has some grandiose connotations, but coolly considered it's basically just an exceptionally well made adventure movie for kids (maybe I'm getting old?). To be fair, it is also a self-referential story about the disadvantages of location shooting: the film within the film, as planned, is roughly the same storywise as the film we watch, but completely antagonic as a filmmaking procedure. Thus, King Kong extracts its poesy from the human need for adventure and realism, but expresses this poesy by resorting to artifice and deceit. That's sort of fascinating in itself.

Here's my earlier review from 2014.

Rating: 59 (down from 69)

The Emperor Jones (1933)

 A black man kills another in a fight and is sentenced to a labor camp. He escapes and boards a ship, taking refuge in a small island. After some time in the island, he overthrows the local ruler and takes his place. After some more time the people get tired of his tyranny and prepare to overthrow him in turn. He flees the palace, intending to leave the country. He must cross a dense forest in his way to the port.

This cinematic adaptation of a one-act play considerably expands it. I didn't like the play much (based on a reading), but I found the movie reasonably enjoyable and mostly well done. I can't find much to say about it, though, as its characters and situations are built in a quite straightforward and explicit manner.

Rating: 51

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Third viewing; previously viewed on December 15, 1990 and May 9, 2013.

George is on the brink of suicide and is helped by an angel who gives him a new perspective on his life. The core of his problems is the greed of a banker who wants to take over George's small town.

This fantastic drama is generally viewed as a sentimental parable about self-sacrifice and the value of the individual, but there is another side to it which is equally important and perhaps more interesting, namely the dramatization of the perennial debate between free-marketeers and keynesians (or to a certain extent socialists). This aspect of the movie hasn't aged much, and one can see this issue being still being debated on books and on the opinion pages of newspapers. There is one detail, however, which somewhat obfuscates that economics issue: the State is complete absent from the movie's dramatic equation; that places all the burden on private actors. At no point in the movie its protagonist, or anyone else, considers running for office or otherwise engaging State institutions. While this allows for the specific dramatics here to develop, it's also the source of its more implausible elements. Further considerations about this movie may be read on my 2013 review. Perhaps I should add that the notion that bankers are lonely and frustrated creatures is another deeply flawed notion which has no counterpart in the real world.

Rating: 63 (unchanged)

 

The Next Voice You Hear... (1950)

 People start hearing someone on the radio claiming he's God. He delivers edifying speeches, always at the same hour, during one week. No one seems to be able to identify who is speaking and how he managed to transmit his voice on the radio. The plot centers on a suburban family (father, mother, son) expecting a second child. Familial conflicts and work frustration occupy the mind of the father.

This film may look as the most preposterous piece of silliness ever to fill a screen, but at least it shows some degree of self-consciousness when it has one character remark: "People silly enough to believe in God are silly enough to believe God's talking on the radio". But, just like the voice on the radio, this character comes and goes without explanation; I mean, officially he is still there, has the same name, and the same job as boss in the factory; but his ideas vanish late in the movie and he is suddenly a gentle person who's best friends with the protagonist's son and provides a refuge for the boy when he is disgusted with his father; also, he now replies a "God bless you" in kind. I'd say a film is problematic -- or I am -- when the two characters I find most interesting are the supposed villains, namely, the protagonist's old friend he meets in a bar and a woman in that bar. Paradoxically enough, it is an easy-to-watch movie which may be watched with an eye for involuntary comedy.

Rating: 38

Meet John Doe (1941)

 Second viewing; previously viewed (probably in a dubbed copy) between 1983 and 1986.

A newspaper columnist writes a suicide note which she attributes to a character she makes up and publishes it as if it were real. Thousands are moved by it and the newspaper's new owner convinces her to go on with the lie, even hiring a real person to pass off as the note's author. This John Doe becomes the object of a national following. People believe the things he says, though he only reads out loud what the columnist wrote for him; furthermore, the newspaper's owner has his own personal political goals in mind.

This is tremendously confusing from an ideological standpoint, which makes for a somewhat frustrating yet curiously fascinating viewing experience. Is this an anarchist manifesto? At some point it looks like the "movement" is making government superfluous. On the other hand, the "people" don't seem to have much craving for autonomy, and their cohesion disappears when their leader is revealed to be not exactly what he said he was. Also, there is a sinister streak here that seems to demonize an attempt to build a third party with some relevance in the United States. The funder of the movement, an oil magnate, is revealed to have fascist tendencies. But did he have to be that way? Why couldn't he be a normal guy with legitimate political aspirations? Is it the fact that he was a liar what makes him bad? But the "good" guys were liars too, and the film gives them a chance to come clean and redeem themselves. Why doesn't the magnate have the same chance in the script? On the other hand, I don't deny that this film is really entertaing, perhaps even in a kind of oneirical manner.

Rating: 63 (down from 67)

Aventuras com Tio Maneco (1971)

English title: Journey to an Unknown World

Maneco, an adventurer, takes his nephews to visit the boys' grandfather. Upon arriving at their destination they find no trace of him and spot a flying saucer with two extraterrestrial beings who tell them that the old man was  kidnapped by a robot from their planet. The robot is trying to locate a flower which it has the mission to destroy. Said flower has the power to liberate the alien people from the dominion of intelligent machines. Maneco and the children go into the jungle in search of the missing grandfather and the flower.

Kiddie adventure which alternates live action with animation. It was filmed in location in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. There's little to remark about it except that it's one of the earliest films to tackle the theme of AI takeover. That aside, it's a poor production with little artistic merit. It spawned a TV series and three cinematic sequels, which leads me to believe that it must have done relatively well at the box office.

Rating: 28

The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976)

Inspired by the play Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, which premiered in 1913.

A prostitute is invited by a writer to take part in a contest which awards every year a woman considered remarkable for her sexual skill. She takes lessons from the writer in the love-making art as a preparation for her challenge.

This pornographic comedy is mostly a failure; it has a very low erotic charge, and as a comedy it is poor, even cringeworthy occasionally; a few witty dialogue lines and above average production values make it somewhat less unbearable than the usual product in this line.

Rating: 30

A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)

An American diplomat returning home on a ship finds the woman with whom he had spent an evening while in Hong Kong hiding in his apartment. She is a stowaway and wants to emigrate to America.

Romantic comedy in a style which is close to those screwball comedies of the 1930s -- not surprising, since the screenplay was written around that time. It's an agreeable film which flows nicely and even warrants some laughter, in spite of a few dissonant chords -- e.g. the valet's "wedding night" which tries to be funny but fails. When you think about it, this is a kind of Madame Butterfly without the racial issue, and thus minus the tragic element.

Rating: 58

The Marriage of Figaro (2019)

 Filmed performance of the opera Le nozze di Figaro, music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte, composed in 1786, based on the play La folle journée, ou le mariage de Figaro, by Pierre Beaumarchais, written in 1784. This performance occurred in November, 2018, in London, and was made available to stream in January, 2019. Since August, 2020 it is freely accessible.

The barber to a rich gentleman wants to marry one of his employer's house staff. Said gentleman wants to have the privilege of being the first to sleep with the bride. They devise a scheme to foil the (not so) gentleman's plans.

This is probably one of the most famous operas of all times, and I must confess to not having had such a great time with it. It simply was not intellectually stimulating to me, alas, what with all that plot full of coincidences and hackneyed devices. The music is considered great, but, again, I must confess that Mozart belongs to a period of relative musical simplicity which, while superficially agreeable, is not wholly satisfactory to me. The sets and costumes are gorgeous, and the staging was faithful to the original intent of the composer and writer, and to the period in which it is set. I wouldn't have it any other way. The singers were OK to my untrained ears.

Not rated, since this is not exactly a standard movie.

The Count (1916)

 Third viewing; previously viewed on: January 24, 1990; June 18, 1996.

A tailor finds a letter in a customer's jacket addressed to a woman who is giving a ball. He decides to attend the ball impersonating said customer. The tailor's former assistant, by a coincidence, happens to be at the premises.

Passable short comedy which has some inventive moments and also some formulaic slapstick bits. Curiously, this is not exactly a satire of rich people. It's more like a conflict between the petty bourgeoisie and the lumpenproletariat, here personified respectively by a tailor and a guy who was fired by him for being completely incompetent. Due to it happening in a party of rich people, they get some collateral damage from the abovementioned conflict, which somehow adds to the comicity. A funny review of it can be read here.

Rating: 47 (unchanged)

A Woman (1915)

Second viewing; previously viewed on March 3, 2006.

(*spoilers*) Several people are in a park during an afternoon: a womanizing husband, his wife, their adult daughter, a pretty pickpocket lady, a tramp, a policeman, two idlers. The tramp gets into trouble with all the males in that cohort; he then escorts the womanizer's wife and daughter to their home, and is invited to enter. When the husband and one of the park idlers arrive there, the tramp tries to fool them by disguising himself as a woman.

While not exactly original, this short comedy is somewhat better than my excessively harsh previous review (linked above) assessed it to be. The park segment, while somewhat cliché, has its funny moments; the second part is just standard slapstick, though the main actor in drag is remarkable at his performance -- quite refined and miles away from crude caricature.

Rating: 46 (up from 34)

The Champion (1915)

Third viewing; previously viewed on January 28, 2006 and January 20, 2007.

 A homeless man employs himself as a sparring assistant to a boxer. Armed with a horseshoe in his glove, he knocks the boxer out and, viewed then as a promising fighter, accepts to challenge the world champion.

Somewhat below average comic short which lacks really inspired ideas but is reasonably well done. As I remarked in my first review (link above), it's mostly aimed at kids.

Rating: 44 (down from 62)

Tôkyô nagaremono (1966)

 English titles: Tokyo Drifter; The Man from Tokyo

A former gang member goes straight after his boss disbands their gang. He not only refuses a job with a rival gang but keeps getting in the way of their evil plans. After a while, he decides to leave Tokyo so as to stop causing trouble for himself and others, but his enemies send a hitman after him.

Both the Italians and the Japanese were heavily influenced by American culture (by a strange coincidence, both were in the losing side in World War 2), and their cultural industries are not all that dissimilar in that respect, except that Japan seemed to prefer the urban criminal genre, and Italy had a taste for Westerns. While very sloppily edited, and perhaps even occasionally sloppily filmed, and as a consequence excrutiatingly hard to make sense of at some points, this film shows a flair for uncanny imagery, and I guess that makes it watchable despite its flaws.

Rating: 35

The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914)

Third viewing; previously viewed on May 29, 1996 and January 6, 2006.

A bum walks into a bar and tells his story: he was once a painter who fell in love with a woman and she traded him for a man whose portrait he was painting.

This is a (purportedly) comic adaptation of a (then) famous poem. The main actor enlivens the piece, and that's the film's main attraction. But the film has some intelligent ideas, like making the man who stole the protagonist's loved one fat and middle-aged (and rich) instead of handsome and young. That, and the encounter in the park, are what one could call the reality touch.

Rating: 56 (down from 63)

Ambrose's First Falsehood (1914)

(*mild spoilers*) Ambrose is reluctantly taken by another man (a friend? a stranger?) in a car ride with two young women. They enter a cabaret where Ambrose gets involved with a performer, incurring the rage of the place's owner (the performer's husband?). Ambrose's companion had sent a note to Ambrose's wife saying he traveled on business; when the wife reads in the paper that there was a train wreck, she thinks Ambrose died.

Mildly entertaining short. Due to its antiquity, and multiple later uses of this same plotline, one could attach a certain historical importance to it.

Rating: 40

His Trysting Place (1914)

Title displayed on the card: His Trysting Places.

Second viewing (at least); latest previous viewing was on January 7, 2006.

A married man with an infant son goes out to buy a bottle for the child and inadvertently switches overcoats with another man. This causes a misunderstanding with his wife on a account of a letter which she finds in the overcoat's pocket.

Above average short comedy with many interesting individual sequences done with great ability (e.g., the initial kitchen sequence).

Rating: 56 (up from 54)

Saved by the Belle (1939)

 Series: The Three Stooges

Three American salesmen are selling their products in a Latin American country. They happen into a plot to overthrow the current dictator and are dragged into the middle of it.

Relentlessly inventive and funny short comedy, done to perfection.

Tassels in the Air (1938)

 Series: The Three Stooges

A housepainter is mistaken for a prestigious interior decorator and hired, along with his two bumbling assistants, to redecorate a house.

This funny short brims with ideas and is expertly directed.

Nertsery Rhymes (1933)

 Short. A man is pestered by his three sons into telling them bedtime stories.

This is a rather like a vaudeville act, I suppose. It reuses two musical numbers from other films. The comic bits are funny and the musical numbers are good. I watched this because it was the first screen appearance of a famous comic trio. More info: Wikipedia page.

Lord of the Flies (1963)

 After a war breaks out in England, all English children are evacuated to an unspecified place. A plane carrying a bunch of them crashes near a deserted island. Only the children survive. On the island, most of the children revert to savagery.

Though it, or rather the novel on which it is based, and which I haven't read, has inspired its share of intellectual elaborations or interpretations, I couldn't honestly see that it warrants anything deeper than the truism that boys will be boys. I watched a 1990 remake in 2001, and liked it better than I liked this 1963 version twenty years later. I don't know whether my relative judgments would hold if both films were watched closely in time. Anyway, the plot development is sketchy, and the concepts the film toys with are handled in a very arbitrary way. I couldn't understand why the majority of the boys didn't seem to care much about being rescued. Even unruly boys have a certain rationality to them. All in all, not a terribly serious movie. The cinematography is good, and the island landscapes are truly gorgeous.

Rating: 40

It's a Date (1940)

 A famous actress wants to play the lead in a new play, but she is too old for the part, and it gets offered to her daughter. Both women vie for the heart of a middle aged bachelor, but he prefers the older one.

Dramatic comedy. The plot has an interesting symmetrical structure illustrating the theme of age: the mother is too old for a certain part and the daughter is too young for a certain man. Of course this resolves itself in the happiest manner for everyone involved. The leading actress is also a lyrically trained soprano, and so she is made to sing an assortment of musical numbers which are not really essential (and occasionally not even connected) to the plot development. Overall, not an especially attractive film, but not an especially unpleasant one either.

Rating: 40

Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Inside a ship casino the band leader is murdered. The ship's owner is the prime suspect. A detective couple is among the people on board. Pretty much everyone linked to the deceased is a suspect too.

Mystery thriller with comedic undertones. The satire of bohemian slang is one of the highlights of the movie; from a modern perspective it shows that nothing looks as antiquated as what passed off as modern in an earlier age. The mystery plot is well devised and grabs the viewer's attention to the very end. While the film is nothing out of the ordinary, it's agreeable enough.

Rating: 51

Night and Day (1946)

 A rich guy drops out of law school to become a full-time composer. He becomes very successful, but due to his devotion to his work he neglects his wife.

Fake biopic ("based on the career of" is priceless) which is merely a vehicle for the songs of one composer. Amid the generally poor dramatics, the greatest flaw is that the protagonist lacks personality aside being a compulsive worker. The musical numbers, on the other hand, are competent, occasionally great.

Rating: 36

The Toast of New Orleans (1950)

 An opera singer is visiting a small fishing village. Her impresario sees singing potential in a young fisherman and offers to coach him. He accepts and falls in love with the singer.

I hate to be harsh with this movie because there's fine singing in it. But my criterion here is interesting script or imagery,  which this film lacks. So...

Rating: 34

Valley of the Kings (1954)

 A woman hires an archaeologist to search for the tomb of a pharaoh who allegedly was an early monotheist.

Adventure which apparently was derived from Freud's Moses and Monotheism, though they changed the biblical character to Joseph, yet placing him in a period which was actually closer to that which has been hypothesized for Moses. The plot is very conventional and the location shooting in Egypt provides some interesting sequences.

Rating: 35

The Formula (1980)

 A police lieutenant investigating a murder finds that it is linked with a race for the possession of a secret formula for the production of a synthetic fuel from coal.

This monotonous thriller has a few plot holes and is apparently based on a false premise: the technology for synthetic fuel already exists and is of public knowledge: Synthetic fuel - Wikipedia. The film has some interesting dialogue and competent actors, but is not otherwise engaging or convincing.

Rating: 34

The President's Analyst (1967)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on May 16, 1998.

A psychoanalyst is summoned by the Intelligence agencies of the U.S.A. to treat the President. After some time performing his duty, he decides he can no longer withstand the stress caused by his new job.

Political satire. One of those films which seem to be a compendium of its era's quirks. Its approach is naïve and superficial, and, in at least one specific segment (the one with the suburban family), also bigotted under the guise of anti-bigotry. While rather inconsequential overall, it's easy to watch and mildly curious. I had no recollection of having watched it previously, and only became aware of that fact when I checked my personal notes. Also surprising was my favorable opinion of it on that earlier occasion.

Rating: 45 (down from 65)

Norma (1981)

Exhibited under the TV programme Great Performances. The performance took place in May 4, 1981, at the O'Keefe Centre, in Toronto (today it is called the Meridian Hall).

Opera with music by Vincenzo Bellini and libretto by Felice Romani, based on the play Norma, ou l'infanticide by Alexandre Soumet. Both opera and play came to light in 1831.

The action is set in Gaul around 100-50 BC, when that region was under Roman occupation. A high priestess has an forbidden affair with a Roman proconsul. He then tires of her and starts an affair with a younger priestess.

Now, this is madness at its awsomest. I honestly don't know how much of this is based on real customs of the time and place, but I found the whole thing totally ridiculous. The soldiers want to rebel against the occupiers but must wait for the permission of a zany woman who not only has an affair with the enemy but has had two (!) children with him (where does she hide them, for Christ's sake?). But absurdity piles on absurdity here: now the younger priestess, who is also in love with the same guy (which society would survive with a religious class like this -- oh wait!), for some obscure reason renounces him in favor of her older rival. I will not proceed  with this; suffice it to say that there is a marvellous dreamlike quality to all this nonsense, and that the music is beautifully soothing.

I really can't assess the performances; for my taste they were all just perfect. The video quality is not very good, and the subtitles are absent for most of the duration. The filming of the thing seems to have some terrible framing flaws at times, but it could be a defect of the DVD transfer.

I will not give this a rating because it is not really a regular movie.

The War Game (1965)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on October 31, 2005

In 1966, the U.S. drops an atom bomb on Vietnam; the U.S.S.R. and China declare war on the U.S. and Western Europe. This film describes what happens in England when it suffers a nuclear attack.

Anti-armamentist propaganda with a fictional plot told in a documentary form. It's well made and effective, though at one or two occasions it overplays the sarcasm note in the intertitles. Films like this are generally held in very high esteem and acquire a somewhat sacred aura. I myself was quite moved when I first saw it. But now I wonder whether it has actually prevented any war. I suppose everyone but the very uninformed knew pretty much what nuclear war entails. Politicians, who are the only ones with the power of deciding wars, certainly know it beter than most. And I suspect that the premise is a bit silly (a nuclear attack on Vietnam), and in retrospect nothing of the sort happened in the real Vietnam war. An interesting sequence of the movie shows some common English folks being interviewed about whether they favored retaliation in case of a nuclear attack. They all answer affirmatively. This may look shocking, and possibly that was the filmmaker's intention, but he is being dishonest here. This interview is shown after the point in the narrative where England retaliates, but it is somehow disconnected from the line of events narrated. So, from a game theory angle, it makes sense to answer 'yes', because of the principle of mutual deterrence. But *after* an attack the situation would be completely different, and mutual deterrence would no longer make sense.

Rating: 59 (down from 68)

P.S.: I chose to date it as a 1965 movie, instead of 1966. Although it was first widely exhibited in 1966, some BBC people saw it in 1965 (and banned it from TV because it was deemed too shocking).

Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975)

 The titular agent goes to Hong Kong to investigate a drug ring. She finds out that it is being run from a casino owned by an American woman nicknamed the Dragon Lady. Jones's two assistants are made prisoners, and it's up to her and some Chinese sidekicks to rescue them and foil the plans of the evil Dragon Lady.

Action thriller with a conventional plot which rides on the martial arts wave in the West which was set off by Enter the Dragon two years earlier. The complete inadequacy of the main character's outer demeanor for an action hero is perhaps here enhanced relatively to the first movie for humorous purposes; thus, she is made to wear impossibly encumbering outfits, which she conveniently disrobes when some physical action is required. She then engages in the fights with the usual lethargy, and invariably wins. Her Chinese sidekicks, on the other hand, are agility incarnate. The final action sequence at the casino is quite well done.

Rating: 33

Wrong Is Right (1982)

Second viewing; previously viewed between January 20 and February 02, 1983

Alternative title in some copies shown outside the U.S.: The Man with the Deadly Lens

A TV reporter gets involved in a complicated plot involving an Arab country. It all begins with the murder of an American reporter who was actually a spy; then the leader of that Arab country dies in an alleged suicide. The plot also involves some Arab terrorists and an American presidential election.

Political thriller. Purportedly a commentary on the ubiquitous influence and power of television, it also satirizes American politics. It was considered prophetical of some aspects of the September 11, 2001 attacks, but that is somewhat of a stretch, though admittedly another hypothesis is that the film may have instead inspired the perpetrators of that attack. The fictional plot includes the possibility of a false flag attack; this possibility has also been advocated by some in regards to the September 11 attack. Despite those exciting real life parallels, the film is actually quite bland and not very memorable. It's funny that I didn't change my overall assessment of it after 38 years, even though my understanding of the plot has been considerably better on this second viewing.

Rating: 49 (unchanged)

Cleopatra Jones (1973)

 The titular character is an American international anti-drug agent. In this film, however, she comes back to America to fight drug dealers and police corruption, after a police bust occurs at a charity rehabilitation center for drug addicts.

I guess this film is a way to deal with the age-long dilemma of whether the best way to handle the drug problem is to attack the production centers or to focus on the drug market. Here we have a super-agent who is proficient at both the CIA-like and the FBI-like angles, thus providing a two-pronged strategy. I guess the biggest problem with this routine actioner is that its leading actress totally lacks any appearance of dynamism which would be expected in a character like this. The filming is professionally done though, and the film may prove entertaining, provided one is not expecting much.

Rating: 34

The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922)

 A poor young man from a small village goes to Paris to be a musketeer. Once there, he is assigned, along with his three partners, a mission to return a jewel to the Queen in time for a ball.

Generally funny parody with lots of physical humor and witty intertitles. Probably slightly more fun to watch than its object of mockery, the film version released in the previous year.

Rating: 56

The Three Musketeers (1921)

 Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet, first published in 1844, and inspired in real characters.

In 1625, a young man from the province goes to Paris hoping to join the king's musketeers. There he befriends three musketeers and joins them in a mission involving a jewel which, through the machinations of the prime minister, could harm the relations between the king and the queen.

Bowdlerized version of the famous novel. The queen here does not have an extramarital affair (though it is implied that she has extramarital feelings which she represses); also, the protagonist's sweetheart is not an unfaithful wife but is unmarried and lives with her uncle. Furthermore, the prime minister's motivation is said to be  to neutralize the queen's influence over the king, but no mention is made of the prime minister's wish to cause a war between France and England. This renders the plot frustratingly vague, even if one doesn't mind the puritanical undertones. I suppose only children would experience a really unfettered enjoyment of this film. Adults should concentrate on the action and forget (or mentally correct) those plot elements. That is not so hard to do, really, since the film is well directed and the actors perform reasonably well.

I know of two versions of this film, one with 119 minutes and another with 142 minutes of length. The longer one seems to have a more natural frame rate, but I am not sure that it has any additional scenes in it. There seems to be a third version with 128 minutes of length, but I know nothing further about it.

Rating: 52

Warum läuft Herr R. Amok (1970)

 English title: Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?

A middle-class man, with a good-looking wife and a son, leads a mediocre life, dealing with pressures to get ahead professionally and other annoying features of social life among colleagues, relatives and neighbors. He shows no signs of psychological imbalance, until one day...

I was unsure whether to put a "spoiler" alert on top of this review, but decided it would make no sense, given that the film's title is a spoiler in itself. As reported by a cast member, this was mostly (or totally) improvised without a written script. And it mostly succeeds at achieving a reality look. Of course a film is always just a film, and manipulation is inevitable. I guess the film's main virtue is to work as a snapshot of early 1970s' zeitgeist, with capitalism taking over from the libertarian dreams of the 1960s. We see some reviews calling it "nihilistic", but this is probably coming from people who have no idea what those times felt like. Anyway, that kind of mood seems to be gone, which does not mean that new problems haven't appeared. A curious detail is that two writer-directors are credited, one much more famous than the other, but it seems established that the more famous one had absolutely nothing to do with the making of the movie.

Rating: 56

Be My Wife (1921)

*mild spoilers ahead*

 A man is wrongly suspected by his wife of having a date with another woman, and in turn suspects her of having a date with another man. The suspected rendezvous place (where in fact that double infidelity is actually happening with a friendly couple) in both cases is a clothes shop which clandestinely provides that kind of service along with equally clandestine alcoholic beverages (it's the Prohibition era).

I found this comedy quite mediocre, though by no means painful to watch. The mechanical transformation of the shop's fitting room into rendezvous room is kind of funny with the workers always in their respective positions. The most curious bit from a, say, social point of view is the fact that, judging from this film, people in those days called the cops to catch their respective spouses on the act of adultery. Not much else I can find to say about it.

Rating: 42

An Eastern Westerner (1920)

 A young man who leads an inconsequential life is sent by his parents to a Western ranch. His new environment offers him several challenges and an opportunity for love.

A formulaic yet very well done short comedy displaying fine physical comedy and a talented comic star.

Rating: 53

Les surprises de l'amour (1909)

English titles: Love's Surprises; The Surprises of a Flirtation

Second viewing; previously viewed on January 1, 2006

*spoilers ahead*

A family comprised of father, mother, and two adult sons are having a meal together. One by one, the men invent an excuse to leave the table and then surreptitiously evade the house. They all go meet their respective lovers, who are coincidentally one and the same, and, as the next one arrives, the one who is there is forced into hiding. Finally, another woman arrives and starts sadistically beating the hiding men. The men eventually flee the house and meet outside.

Short comedy which is half amusing, half puzzling, and 100% fascinating.

Rating: 42

Der Golem. Wie er in die Welt kam (1920)

English title: The Golem: How He Came Into the World

Faced with the impending expulsion of his community from Germany, a rabbi builds an automaton from clay to defend the Jews. The Golem goes berserk and endangers the community.

Fantastic drama with good special effects and an enjoyably simple plot which is reportedly faithful to the medieval legend it is based on. The characters are well-done caricatures: the rabbi-astrologer, his seductive daughter, the Golem himself, the unfortunate assistant, the hedonistic king, the effeminate courier, etc. The magnificent sets alone would make the film worth watching. 

The restored version is shorter (at 76') than some other versions which have been released; the (apparently) longest version (at 101') does not contain any scenes which alter the narrative in a perceptible manner, and lacks the scene where the little girl throws the "Golem-switch" star of David.

Rating: 57

The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 10, 1991

Based on the short story Babylon Revisited, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, written in 1930 and first published on February 21, 1931

An American writer returns to Paris, where his daughter is living with his in-laws since his wife died. He recollects his life in the French capital, the parties, and his conjugal quarrels. Now he is asking to take his daughter back, but will his sister-in-law agree?

Though some of the dialogue is copied from the short story, this is not a faithful adaptation. The period it is set in is after World War II, whereas in the short story it is 1930. Also, in the film the protagonist chooses one sister over the other, and the rejected one holds a grudge. When I watched the film for the first time, I hadn't read the short story, and perhaps that caused me to like the film better. Now, analyzing the changes, I think they render the film slightly absurd. There is nothing so special about the protagonist that should make them covet him so promptly and intensely. Furthermore, the sister-in-law was already dating someone else, and it is strange that she would simply disregard him nonchalantly. She would later marry her former suitor, who appears thus to be a real saint. The movie is not as depressing as the short story, but also makes less sense. The screenwriters filled it with witty one-liners, providing a continuous source of amusement, but detracting from the film's credibility (no one talks like that). It's mostly a phony drama, but somehow it conveys many of the short story's ideas, and it's never really boring.

Rating: 51 (down from 63)

Deliverance (1972)

Second or third viewing; previous viewing or viewings were between 1983 and 1986

Four men go river canoeing on a region that is about to be flooded for a dam. They have some unpleasant setbacks during their adventure, both from nature and from some locals.

Although I still consider this to be a memorable and remarkable film, it impressed me a lot less than on previous viewings. To begin with, this is clearly a sick fantasy which is unfair on the real people who live in the geographical region depicted in the movie. That being said, fiction has the advantage of always lending itself to a comical reading, and that struck me as the only approach that works with this movie (though previously I probably had a different, more naïve, reading of it). The key factor that made the film work as well as it did was Reynolds' brilliant performance.

Rating: 70 (down from 92)

Madame DuBarry (1919)

 U.S. release title: Passion

Fictionalized dramatization of the life of Louis XV's mistress.

This has a poor script, but partially makes up for it in spectacular scenes, both indoors and outdoors. The indoors scenes are impressive mainly because of the luxurious sets and the outdoors ones mainly because of the mob scenes during the French Revolution.

Rating: 47

O Profeta da Fome (1970)

*mild spoilers*

English title: The Prophet of Hunger

 The protagonist works in a circus as a fakir, eating metal objects. The circus soon is destroyed and, after a quarrel with another member of the troupe, he wanders off with his girlfriend in search of a town. He eventually settles in a small town where he crucifies himself for money. He is arrested and later released. He then sets himself up as an artist of hunger.

This film seems to have pretentions to saying something very important and deep, but it is impossible to know what it is, and actually even what it would be about. The cinematography is impressive, especially on the restored copy I saw it in, but even that did little to attenuate the dullness it causes on the viewer after the curious initial 10 minutes or so.

Rating: 25

What's Up, Doc? (1972)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

A man is in San Francisco with his fiancée for an interview for a grant for his research on the musical property of rocks. At the airport, he meets a woman who keeps getting in his way and disturbing his plans. That woman has a handbag exactly like his. Another man at the airport with an identical handbag has stolen secret government documents. At the hotel, a guest keeps her jewels at another identical handbag.

 Comedy emulating the screwball style. It has an inspired script, with more than a few funny moments. One might object that it is just an updating of something very old, but it's so consistently entertaining, and everything works so well, that it's hard really to criticize it for that.

Rating: 75 (down from 81)

Soninha Toda Pura (1971)

*spoilers*

A middle-aged woman is staying at her private island with her young male lover. Along for the trip are the woman's daughter and the latter's best friend.

Sexual drama. Not much to see here. The protagonist is a virgin who is seduced by her lesbian friend and in the end gets raped by her mother's lover. The girls do lots of gigling and running around on the beach, then rehearse Romeo & Juliet, do some kissing, and that's it. Mother and lover do extensive making out indoors while the girls are outside on the beach or upstairs locked in the bedroom. The dialogue is just what one would expect from this kind of set-up: cynical with the man-woman couple, juvenile with the girls. To see this in a restored copy eases the dullness somewhat.

Rating: 33

Paris nous appartient (1961)

English title: Paris Belongs to Us

A young student of literature is dragged into a group of intellectuals in Paris and investigates a supposed conspiracy which allegedly is killing its members one by one and has the potential to destroy the entire world.

The life of a student may be extremely tedious, and the allure of the theater world, especially when combined with intrigue and mystery, may provide an irresistible distraction. That is what happens with this film's protagonist. The events she seems to navigate have the same structure as the ones in a schizophrenic's mind, but we are never given a hint of a possible mental health issue. The cold war context in which those events are situated are a fertile ground for conspiracy. The external menace, in the person of a businessman who seems intent on destroying the leftist threat in the artistic milieu, is compounded by the internal threat, in the person of two disruptive Americans, an apparently paranoiac writer and his ex-girlfriend who specializes in seducing and abandoning people. For the protagonist, she is also a love rival. I could write more about this film, but watching it would be probably the only way to absorb all its layers and nuances. An intelligent film about political activism, big cities, and despair.

Rating: 68

Port of New York (1949)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on January 18, 1989

(*spoilers*) An agent from the Narcotics Bureau and another from the Customs Police join efforts to catch the head of a drug smuggling gang. Some legal shipment of narcotics disappears from a ship. A woman who had been a passenger on that ship and was an accomplice to the smugglers wants out. The police stakes out a locker in a railway station and finds the buyer. It's a nightclub comic. The two agents raid the bandits' storehouse one night, and one of them gets killed. The other one impersonates a drug buyer to get to the head of the gang.

Violent criminal documentary-style drama. Mildly entertaining.

Rating: 47 (unchanged)

The Mauritanian (2021)

 True story of a man who was dragged from a social gathering in his native Africa, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 New York incidents, and spent fourteen years in the Guantánamo prison. He was released thanks to the efforts of a lawyer who believed in human rights and the rule of law.

This is not really an excellent movie, but I can't say why exactly. I guess this story had many angles from which it could be told, and the one we see isn't the most exciting one. Be it as it may, it is an interesting and well acted movie about injustice and how one individual coped with it.

Rating: 58

Phantom (1922)

 A guy is run over by a carriage and the woman riding in it comes to assist him. He becomes obsessed with that woman, who belongs to a higher social class than his. He finds a substitute in a lookalike from a lower social class. To provide for his lover's expensive cravings, our hero takes a loan from his moneylending aunt. When the latter finds out how he is spending the money, she demands it back or else.

Romantic drama with expressionistic touches. There are some dull passages but overall it's interesting and visually striking.

Note: the version I watched was approximately 120 minutes long.

Rating: 57

Uma Mulher para Sábado (1970)

*spoilers*

Nando and Loco are long-time friends. Loco is a visual artist coming from a rich family; Nando gave up his artistic career and now works as a sales rep. Nando has a girlfriend but does not want a commitment. He meets Dorianne at a party and feels attracted to her. Loco sets up a week-end at his beach house with Nando and two women, one of whom happens to be Dorianne. Nando sleeps with Dorianne; Loco has no such luck with the other woman. After they return, Nando does not want to pursue a relationship with Dorianne. Loco decides to give in to his father's pressures and take a position at his company. He asks Dorianne in marriage. Nando goes back with his girlfriend.

This is a mostly badly directed film. It also has some very ludicrous dialogue, spoken in a strangely awkward manner (I wonder whether the actors were dubbed by other persons). In spite of that, the basic plot line shows some promise and we at least can imagine the better film this could have been.

Rating: 34

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Second viewing; previously viewed on September 20, 1987

An ex-student (Mark) on the run from the police for alleged involvement in the death of a policeman during a student riot steals a small plane and meets a young student (Daria) in the middle of the desert where they make love and talk.

This is curious as a record of an era and its sillinesses, which, come to think of it, are still our era's sillinesses, with a few changes. It starts very interestingly with an excellent sequence in a classroom where students debate their "movement"; then there are some riots and they go to jail; after that it shifts its focus to the two main characters, and it becomes a little dull.

Rating: 50 (down from 68)

Lua de Mel & Amendoim (1971)

 This film is comprised of two segments: (1) Lua de Mel & Amendoim. A womanizing middle-age man wants to have sex with his fiancée but she refuses to do it before they get married. He finally gives in, but has problems in the honeymoon. (2) Berenice. A young womanizer meets a woman who will not have sex with him as she does not approve of his lifestyle. He eventually falls in love with her.

A pair of thematically-related films, mildly comical in tone. The first one is set in São Paulo, and the second in Rio de Janeiro. They may be viewed today as a testimony on the morals of another era. The first episode depicts conservative values in their orthodox form; the second depicts a more liberal way of life, which nevertheless does not diverge a lot from the old ways: the independent woman is not keen on enjoying casual sex because that would not be emotionally satisfying and would not free her from being a sex object. Despite those interesting considerations, the film is poorly made, and not entertaining.

Rating: 26

Metropolis (1927)

Second viewing, probably; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

First viewing of the restored version lasting approximately 2h25. 

 In a future time, the city of Metropolis goes through some turbulence in connection to a mass movement centered on a prophetess and her promise of a "mediator" who would reconcile workers and capitalists. A capitalist's son feels attracted to the prophetess and claims the role of mediator for himself.

This is a lot longer than the version or versions I saw previously, so I jumped at the opportunity of seeing it. The most interesting thing about the movie is its political ideology of humane conservatism, which I suppose is something akin to social democracy, though a somewhat malicious reviewer could also make the case for a prefiguration of National Socialism, with the mediator as a kind of Hitler prototype. Admittedly the plot is not as exciting as its premise, particularly in its middle section. There is a strong religious component to the script, with the Maria-following exhibiting messianic characteristics (she embodies a conflation of the Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and Mary Magdalen), and its flipside personified by the apocalyptic preacher (he seems to be only a hallucination of the protagonist, and for some reason which escaped me is conflated with the Thin Man, a spy for the capitalist; it seems this is better explained in footage that was not recovered). The set designs and visuals in general are stunning, as is well known.

Rating: 67 (unchanged)

Dov'è la libertà...? (1954)

English title: Where Is Freedom?

*spoilers ahead*

A barber (Salvatore) is facing trial for having sneaked back into prison. He spent 22 years in prison for killing a man who, according to Salvatore's wife, had attempted to rape her. He was released on parole, but did not adjust well to life out of prison. First, he associated with a group of ballroom dancers, but they were swindled by their impresario and he must find another place to stay. He took a room in a boarding house, but was expelled when his room was needed for a richer customer. He then by chance encountered his former in-laws (his wife had died while he was in prison) who invited him to stay with them, and even encouraged him to take Agnese, a young friend of the family, out on dates. It turned out, however, that said young woman was pregnant by a member of the family and they wanted to find someone to marry her so as to evade legal responsibilities. Furthermore, Salvatore learned that his wife had not suffered a rape attempt, and that the man he had killed had been her lover. More sinisterly, during the war his in-laws had denounced a Jewish family to the Nazis and stole their money. They almost tricked Salvatore into killing the only surviving member of that Jewish family (Abramo), but when Abramo told him what really happened he backed down on his intentions. Then he concocted a plan to get back into prison. While the prison manager was sitting with friends in a café, Salvatore stole his overcoat and hat, and managed to impersonate him before the prison guards, who let him in. At the trial, the judge imposes a fine on him but no prison sentence. On the way out, he assaults his own lawyer, succeeding thus to be sent back to prison.

This is a rather unremarkable little comedy with a very good leading actor, who is alternately funny and pathetic as the situation requires. The humor is for the most part obvious, and, while the premise may be somewhat unconventional, its development is not. It's not an unpleasant film, though.

Rating: 41

L'avventura (1960)

Second viewing; previously viewed on November 25, 2005; earlier still, I had read the published screenplay in June, 1995

English title: The Adventure

A group of friends are visiting a volcanic island and one of them (Anna) disappears. No one know what happened to her -- accident, suicide, or maybe she left on a boat with smugglers. Anna's boyfriend and Anna's best friend start a relationship which is somewhat troubled by the tragedy at its inception.

In theme and tone, this bears some resemblance to La dolce vita, which came out on the same year. The frivolity of the upper class is the object of critique. The psychological analysis is centered on Anna's best friend who seems to experience survival guilt related to the probable death of Anna. The absence of the death rites lends it a certain air of absurdity. They exist precisely to establish a separation from the dead one; they signal that life must go on. The atmosphere of boredom and luxury reflects a time of prosperity which Europe was going through at last after the horrors of World War II. But I guess every period has its own peculiar horrors. The film's reception seems to mirror its theme; people at first rejected it, and then probably felt guilty about it and overcompensated it by making it into one of the world's most lauded films. It's a slow episodic film with very nice imagery which border on gratuitous aestheticism. The IMDB site has some very funny reviews from users who gave it 1 and 3 stars; I couldn't bring myself to dislike this film that much, but can't deny that there is a grain of truth in them.

Rating: 62 (down from 79)

The Omen (1976)

 Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986

An American diplomat adopts an infant after his own son dies (allegedly) at childbirth. But strange occurrences keep happening which lead him to suspect the adoptee is an evil creature.

This is a mechanical horror movie which is very well filmed. It lacks internal logic as to the modus operandi of the evil forces at play: alternately, supernatural psychological action (the nanny), strictly natural physical action (Mrs. Thorn) and supernatural physical action (Jennings the photographer). Most horror movies tap into deep human fears, and this is no exception (fear of adoption and fear of nannies are two that come to mind). Its use of apocalyptic mythology, however, is clearly detached from the mainstream one; nowadays (and perhaps even at the time of the film) that book is associated with the New World Order, Globalism, totalitarianism, etc. We see nothing of that in the movie. Also, it has a certain naiveté regarding how the world works. For example, why would the Antichrist choose a diplomat as a means of making a fortune, instead of a business magnate or a stock market billionaire? Also, style is favored over common sense: why doesn't the main character buy a gun to protect himself? I guess that's because it would take it out of the horror domain and into a Death Wish-type action film. Of course a gun does play its part in it, eventually.

Rating: 38 (up from 29)

Se Meu Dólar Falasse... (1971)

*spoilers*

A socialite asks the owner of a shop in which she buys clothes to meet with the seller of a Chinese statuette and buy it for her. It's done. Next, the socialite asks the same person to deliver the money in payment for that statue. An accident occurs, though, and the box containing the money is thrown out with the garbage. Some bums who habitually scour the trash dump for food and valuables find some of the bills and, as they are in foreign currency, they exchange it at the bakery. Meanwhile, the shop owner is trying to locate the money. She decides to hire a detective, but he is dishonest and intends to keep the money for himself. After the payment deadline for the statuette is not met, the seller sends some thugs after the shop owner. A detail: the statuette is filled with cocaine.

Poorly made comedy with some famous names of Brazilian comedy. A few sequences are funny, e.g., the one at the psychedelic nightclub; on the whole the film is slightly curious but not very attractive.

Rating: 31

Hell Bent for Leather (1960)

*mild spoilers ahead*

 A man (Santell) is attacked in the desert by a fugitive (Travers) who approached him for water. While running away in his helper's horse, Travers drops his fancy rifle which is picked by Santell, who then goes to the nearest town and is mistaken for the fugitive. A marshal from another town who was after Travers decides he will capture Santell while pretending he did recognize him as Travers.

Western with some far-fetched plot turns. It might entertain those who don't regard logic as an essential attribute and are more interested in pace and action. The rocky landscapes are also impressive, lending the film some very nice visuals.

Rating: 31

Seven Years Bad Luck (1921)

 After breaking a mirror, a man fears he will have seven years of bad luck. He tries to avoid that curse, but everything he does only aggravates his problems. He quarrels with his fiancée, is robbed of all his money, and is chased by a train conductor for not having a ticket.

Enjoyable comedy which explores a theme which was (apparently) inaugurated by the Oedipus myth. It concerns a philosophical problem regarding prophecies and predestination, namely that a prophecy, to be successful,  must take into account all the events, including its communication and the ensuing efforts to prevent it from being successful. This film has numerous hilarious moments, and if I had to choose just one I would pick the absurdist interactions between Max and a housemaid (and fortune teller), which begin with palm reading and ends with Max turning his fiancée's house into a dancing hall.

Rating: 63

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé (1956)

English title: A Man Escaped

A member of the Resistance is imprisoned. He befriends several people in jail. His obsession is to escape. He finds a way to escape from his cell, and subsequently comes up with a plan to escape from the prison complex. The unexpected arrival of a cellmate poses a dilemma.

The book, which I read in 1996, is an account of a real prison escape in 1943; the film is a faithful adaptation and just as entertaining. It's really the opposite of Hollywood productions because there is no sensationalism and also, let's admit it, because this is no Alcatraz, but a shoddily guarded prison. The film's subtitle -- The Wind Blows Where It Wants, from the Gospel of John -- is the classical excuse that Christians bring up for God's apparent indifference to man's prayers; here the irony is evident, since the film's main character is a person of action in whose life God plays at most a secondary part. 

Rating: 66

Uma Verdadeira História de Amor (1971)

*serious spoilers ahead*

A middle-class man in his early thirties falls in love with a poor shoeshine boy. He adopts the boy and fights his desire for him, all the while feeling guilty for it, and suffering the anger and suspicion coming from his neglected rich fiancée and his pretty mistress. The boy, who appears to be in his mid-teens and has an androgynous appearance, is revealed to be really a girl and a little older than he looks.

Thematically close to Death in Venice, it explores the quandary of a man in an impossible emotional situation. Rather than taking the nightmarish labyrinth in which it puts its protagonist to its ultimate consequences, the film chooses to defuse the aporia by a last-minute plot switch (actually, attentive spectators will see it coming earlier through various plot details -- the cramps of which the boy complains, the bleeding in the bathrom, and the fact that he claims to not know his real age). A side issue which the film explores is social inequality in Brazil, though the choice of an actress with European features and soft skin to play a migrant from the poor Brazilian Northeast makes it somewhat less convincing. The film is rather lazily scripted, and some of the notions in it are intriguing, e.g. a selection for a directorship at the protagonist's company is decided through a car race where the drivers of the competing cars are their respective engine designers. The catchy musical theme ("Passion Love Theme") was released in a double-compact record and was a great hit in Brazil.

Rating: 31

Panca de Valente (1968)

 A gang of outlaws terrorizes a small town. They coerce a clumsy young man (Jerônimo) into becoming the sheriff. Jerônimo tries to rise up to the exigencies of his new job.

Dismal Western spoof which may at most entertain very undemanding kids. The actor who plays the leader of the bandits is quite good in this, though.

Rating: 23

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (1959)

English title: Picnic on the Grass 

An anthropologist advocating widespread use of artificial insemination is a favorite candidate for the presidency of the European Union. While in the country celebrating his engagement to a girl-scout leader, he meets a country woman with whom he falls in love.

Curious, and curiously dated, comedy which purports to be about the equilibrium between science and nature. It's a poorly written film, and, arguably, not exactly well directed either. It seems to conflate three concepts -- eugenics, the repression of emotions, and assisted reproduction -- for some reason which perhaps only people contemporaneous with the film could explain. To be fair, it is not exactly an unpleasant watch, thanks to its nice imagery and its -- once we dismiss the nonsensical details -- reasonable fundamental thesis.

Rating: 35

Nana (1926)

 A pretty yet talentless variety actress attracts several men but gives them nothing in return. Her stage career does not last. Rich men support her but she drives them to ruin. Her own fate is nothing enviable either.

While it is easy to point out flaws in this film, particularly regarding the protagonist's psychology, which is absolutely one-dimensional, the film is impressive for its lavish production values and is mostly well directed. The main actress is very effective in her role, especially when one recalls that her previous role in La fille de l'eau, in which she was also convincing, was the exact opposite of this one. In fact, all the cast is superb. The film is also impressive for its seminal role in spawning countless others featuring similar female protagonists, The Blue Angel being the most obvious one. Christopher Mulrooney has a fine review of sorts for this movie.

Rating: 60

La fille de l'eau (1925)

English title: Whirlpool of Fate

*mild spoilers ahead*

A young woman lives on a barge with her father and her uncle. Her father dies. Her uncle spends her inheritance and tries to force himself upon her. She flees and lives with some gypsies for a little while. They are forced to move and leave her behind. She becomes homeless until a rich young man takes pity on her and employs her as a maid. Her uncle comes back to torment her.

The misfortunes of the weaker sex were a very frequent theme of early cinematic productions. This one is not badly made, despite its rather clichéd script.

Rating: 40

Walking Tall (1973)

A former wrestler moves back to his hometown, and gets into a conflict with local gangsters. He runs for sheriff and is elected. He tries to clean up the place.

This film is not bad as a depiction of a certain type of personality. However, everything in it is exaggerated and caricatural, and the result is certainly amusing, to a certain extent. In an exchange between the protagonist and his black friend, the latter says that the secret to success is organized group action; we don't see anything of that sort in the movie, though. If we did, it would be a leftwing movie, instead of a rightwing one praising individualism. It is a very well directed film.

Rating: 50

Une ravissante idiote (1964)

US title: Agent 38-24-36; UK title: The Ravishing Idiot; Other English titles: Bewitching Scatterbrain; The Warm-Blooded Spy; Adorable Idiot

After an English bank employee of Russian descent is fired he decides to spy for the Soviets. His new girlfriend is willing to help him steal a dossier from the house of an aristocrat by using her job at a gown shop of which the aristocrat's wife is a client. Unbeknownst to them, the dossier is fake and just a decoy for getting at the head of Soviet espionage in the UK.

Spy farce which is neither funny nor entertaining; though it's not badly directed, there is something quite boring about it.

Rating: 32

The Martian Chronicles (1980)

 This is a delayed logging.

Mini-series in three episodes:
(1) The Expeditions (viewed on May 24, 2020)
(2) The Settlers (viewed on May 25, 2020)
(3) The Martians (viewed on May 27, 2020)

Previously viewed in an abridged version on June 30, 1991.

IMDB shorter summary: "In the 21st century, Earth begins the colonization of Mars. However, things do not go as planned, at first due to the hostile Martian natives and later because of the self-destructive Earthmen."

Despite having better than average production values for a TV mini-series, I couldn't bring myself to like this, mainly due to my natural antipathy towards its literary author. I don't consider him a real science-fiction writer, seeing as his writing is guided mostly by his sentimental obsessions without much (or perhaps any) regards to real scientific or even political issues. The time lapse between my viewing and now makes it impossible for me to deepen my analysis.

Rating: 32 (up from 17, but not really comparable since I saw two different versions)

Golf (1922)

 Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 19, 2020.

*spoilers below*

A series of disasters and conflicts involving golf players. The central character this time is not the girl's boyfriend, but rather her brother. There are two suitors, one a plumpish guy who is reciprocated by the girl, and the other an even plumper one who is not reciprocated by her. The protagonist incurs in the plumper guy's wrath by playing golf upstairs while the other one is dining below. A whole in the floor is made to that purpose, causing the ball to fall on the downstairs dweller's soup. He tries to avenge himself later by inserting nitroglicerine inside his enemy's golf balls, but it hits an obnoxious player instead. In between those episodes there is, among other incidents, a fight with a gopher who keeps stealing the ball and even steals the protagonist's gun -- and fires it!

Unremarkable yet mildly pleasant slapstick comedy.

Rating: 43

La danse de mort (1948)

 A captain lives with his embittered wife and their daughter in an island where he is the commander of a military prison. The arrival of a physician who is an old friend of the couple shakes the already fragile foundations of their marriage. There is also a young prisoner who is summoned to work as a servant at the captain's house, and with whom the captain's daughter falls in love.

Interesting drama based on a theater play. The excellent cast is another great asset of the movie, which is never boring and manages to convey a claustrophobic atmosphere throughout its duration.

Rating: 54

Scamps and Scandals (1919)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

A guy wakes up with the telephone ringing. He'd given a party the night before and now he has a hangover and his house is in a state of disarray. His girl is on the phone. Her father disapproves of her boyfriend and makes her hang up. The guy then gets mixed in a series of unlucky incidents, some of them outdoors and some indoors, involving the girl's father, the police, and the girl's other suitor. There is a car chase in the middle section and the last act happens at the wedding ceremony which is about to be celebrated between her and her other suitor.

Slapstick comedy featuring some clichés of the genre and no apparent distinctive plot point or environment. Some continuity jumps and the rather abrupt ending makes one wonder whether some parts were missing.

Rating: 40

Passing the Buck (1919)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

Set at a hotel, the plot revolves around a suitcase full of jewels. A bunch of turbaned thieves try to steal it and the protagonist, who is apparently the hotel detective, endeavors to stop them from achieving their goal. Other characters are a guest couple who are also thieves, a janitor, a desk clerk, a cook, and a cat.

Poorly inspired slapstick, the highlights of which are the episode with a roasted chicken and the one on top of a building.

Rating: 35 (down from 45)

The Midnight Cabaret (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed (but not reviewed) on February 20, 2020.

A series of disasters and conflicts arise inside a cabaret. A frog jumps into a customer's dish, some bandits living upstairs from the cabaret steal food through a hole in the floor, older customers try to seduce a young dancer who is the protagonist's girlfriend, the protagonist splatters ink into a customer's face when he tries to communicate through a tube on the wall with his dancer girlfriend, a loud customer allies with the bandits and they start a bomb attack, etc.

Slapstick of a typical kind.

Rating: 37

The Gown Shop (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed without a subsequent review on February 20, 2020.

The film revolves around a series of accidents involving the gown shop's employees, the manager, and a few clients. The protagonist is a salesman at the shop who gets in conflict with his boss and with another employee. The incidents involve ladders, a pond with fishes and even a small alligator, a revolving door, a clothes iron, etc.

Routine example of the slapstick genre, with frantic action and the use of an indoor space, its configuration and objects as instruments of disaster.

Rating: 35

Bears and Bad Men (1918)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 21, 2020, but not reviewed.

The characters are two feuding rural families, some bears, a couple of actors, a newcomer who is bad at fishing. The protagonist spends the movie either running from the rival family's shots or running from the bears. In the last section he and the newcomer climb a hill and are chased by the bears.

The protagonist's relation to the members of his family is a little obscure. At first I thought he was the wife's brother, but IMDB gives him the same last name as the woman's husband. It seems he must be the couple's son, though he seems to be roughly the same age as them. The bears seem to pose no threat to humans: all they do when they get near one is lick him. Anyway, this is not a memorable piece of slapstick, but it has some imaginative sequences and is overall watchable.

Rating: 43

Horseshoes (1923)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on February 21, 2020 (unreviewed)

A boxing champion offers a prize to anyone who can withstand one minute fighting him without being knocked down. A guy wins the prize by putting horseshoes inside his gloves. A second act has our (anti)-hero meeting the boxer in a pool hall. In the third act there is a car chase.

Run-of-the-mill slapstick with the usual elements of the genre and nothing extraordinary about it.

Rating:34

Kid Speed (1924)

 Second viewing; previously viewed on February 22, 2020 (and not reviewed then).

A beautiful woman's father promises her hand to the man who wins an automobile race. Two rivals covet that prize: a thin man and a fat one. Prior to the race, the thin man loses control of his car, provoking a series of disasters. He then has a fight with his rival. The race occupies the last part of the movie, with the fat contestant trying to exclude his rival by dishonest means.

Routine slapstick which is not hard to watch and has some well filmed car sequences.

Rating: 37

Lightning Love (1923)

Second viewing; previously viewed on February 22, 2020 (and unreviewed at that occasion); both viewings were of the same incomplete version (I don't know whether a complete version of this film still exists)

Two rivals are visiting a young lady. One is thin, the other is fat. The other characters are the lady's father, who is ill with gout, a servant, a dog and a monkey. There is a storm which shakes and moves the house.

Apparently all that was missing from the version I saw was the mid-section, since the film seems to begin and end in the right place, but there is a jump in continuity in the middle. 

This is an utterly forgettable yet watchable slapstick comedy.

Rating: 32

Greater Love Hath No Man (1911)

 This is a delayed posting; I watched this film on December 7, 2020.

Set at a mining town, this revolves about a love triangle amidst a miners' riot. The details of the plot may be read at IMDB.

Though its details are not so vivid in my memory, I recall I didn't like this movie. It's a tale of sacrifice, with some action and a desert chase, if I remember correctly.

Rating: 20

The Girl in the Arm-Chair (1912)

This is a delayed posting; I watched this movie on December 7, 2020.

This about a young man who rejects a woman. Later, his addiction to gambling leads him to commit an embarassing act. The rest of the plot is at the IMDB page.

Though I didn't remember its details, a quick glance at IMDB's detailed summary was enough to refresh my memory and confirm that this film has a very questionable morality. I really didn't like it, except perhaps as a window to another era's ideology.

Rating: 15

Making an American Citizen (1912)

This is a delayed posting; I have watched this film on December 7, 2020.

I think this IMDB summary is accurate enough: "A recent immigrant learns several hard lessons about how husbands in America are expected to behave."

I remember not having liked this film, but cannot elaborate, mostly due to not having that viewing experience fresh in my memory.

Rating: 23

Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913)

This is a delayed posting. I watched this film on December 8, 2020.

I think this IMDB synopsis is accurate enough: "A man must marry by noon or lose his inheritance. It's 11:50 a.m. and he can't find his fiancée."

I remember not having liked this film, but the exact reasons are lost in oblivion.

Rating: 14

Discontent (1916)

 This is a delayed posting; I watched this film on December 8, 2020.

An old man living in a home for war veterans decides to move in with his relatives, but he is a divisive and chronically dissatisfied character and he eventually becomes intolerable to everyone around him.

This is sort of a moral tale, and I remember not finding it entirely uninteresting.

Rating: 38

The City Slicker (1918)

 This is a delayed posting. I watched this film on December 27, 2020.

The titular character employs himself at a small hotel and modernizes it, introducing some gadgets such as retractable beds, etc. There is also a love interest and a violent rival.

I wish I had done a review of this film immediately after I watched it. All I can say after 4 months is that I enjoyed it moderately.

Rating: 55

Kino-glaz (1924)

 Alternative spelling of the title: Kinoglaz

English title: Kino Eye

Documentary set in the Soviet Union. It mostly centers on the so-called Pioneers, who were children who served the Soviet regime mostly by spreading government propaganda and health campaigns and doing charity work; there are segments with other themes, .e.g., a depiction of a lunatic asylum, etc.

Mildly interesting documentary with some avant-garde affectations which consist in playing some sequences in reverse. The asylum segment is probably the most curious one.

Rating: 43

Staroye i novoye (1929)

 Alternative Russian title: Generalnaya liniya

English titles: Old and New; The General Line

In early 20th-century Russia, a poor farmer woman endeavors to form a cooperative. She must fight the State's unresponsiveness, the lack of cohesion and discipline of other poor farmers, the opposition of rich farmers, and the inclemency of the weather.

The hardships of rural life have been the subject of great movies, but this is not one of them. It has some striking imagery, but its narrative virtues are scant. Being a propaganda piece for the Soviet Union, one wouldn't expect a balanced approach from it, but even for a propaganda piece this is abusively didactic. The funny thing is: despite all that, I just do not think it is effective as propaganda. The poor are depicted in such a way that one simply cannot believe that they could be successful at farming. Unfortunately, reality would prove that the hard way, and the Soviet collectivization process resulted in massacres and starvation.

There is more than one version of this film. I have watched the version entitled Old and New; there is also a version entitled The General Line; with the help of a book, I located the parts which were supposed to differ and watched them; the differences were small, except for the ending which is very different in the two versions.

Rating: 34

Neobychainye priklyucheniya mistera Vesta v strane bolshevikov (1924)

 English title: The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks

An American executive travels to the Soviet Union. He takes a bodyguard dressed in full cowboy outfit with him. From U.S. magazines he had acquired the notion that the bolsheviks were violent and dangerous. In the Soviet Union he falls prey to a gang of hoodlums who stage a false kidnapping in order to extort money from him.

Pretty awful propagandistic comedy which has absolutely no political insight and fails miserably even as mere slapstick. The main actress looks exactly like (or is made here to look exactly like, perhaps) Olive Oyl, the character who appeared in 1919 in the comic strip Thimble Theatre.

Rating: 20

La belle américaine (1961)

 English titles: The American Beauty; What a Chassis

*spoilers ahead*

A factory worker (Marcel) is thinking of buying a motorcycle from a friend, but instead buys an expensive car from a rich widow for a ridiculously low price (she is avenging herself on his late husband's mistress to whom the car had been bequeathed). Marcel sees his life suffer a complete turnaround after the purchase. His boss feels humiliated and fires him. Next he falls victim of the swindled mistress who wants him to sell her the car. She locks him in the trunk and, after a while, abandons him and the car in a deserted road. She then warns Marcel's wife who comes to his rescue. After many failed attempts to get the trunk open, he is saved by a thief who breaks it open and runs when he sees there is someone inside. Marcel then takes the car to a service station but instead of putting gas in it they wash it and get Marcel and the car completely soaked.  At a VIP party to where he is led by a series of traffic incidents, he is then mistaken for an important person and meets the Secretary of Commerce. After that, he loses the car after he parks it and forgets to set the brakes on. The car slides on its own until it enters a barge which takes off. It is eventually found, but Marcel gets in yet more trouble when he surprises an activist in the act of painting some anti-American words on the car. The police arrives and takes Marcel by mistake thinking he is the one doing the painting. Marcel goes to prison and they only set him free when his wife arrives with a letter from the Secretary of Commerce. At home, a final disaster happens when Marcel's wife is trying to move the car but unwittingly sets it in reverse, thus destroying her brother's ice cream stand. Marcel then has an idea: he converts his car into an ice cream stand. The film ends at a horse race where Marcel is selling ice cream from his converted car. He decides to buy his friend's motorcycle when he has made enough money from his ice cream business.

*end of spoilers*

Agreeable comedy with a bland type of humor and enough incidents to make it entertaining. It's very well done in terms of staging and acting, and, though there is nothing very deep or groundbreaking about it, its depiction of a certain working class milieu at a certain time is certainly of some sociological value.

Rating: 51

Conte d'été (1996)

 English title: A Summer's Tale

Gaspard is spending his vacations at the beach. He expects to meet Léna with whom he had struck a fragile relationship a while ago and who went on a trip to Spain. He then meets Margot, an ethnologist working a summer job as a waitress at her aunt's restaurant. They become close friends. Since Léna does not appear to be coming to meet him, Gaspard starts to date another girl he met through Margot.

Story of a guy who gets in some trouble over his romantic affairs. As was his use in some of his past movies, the author could have chosen a proverb to illustrate this story, say "The weak man is like a leaf in the wind" or something like that. The succession of events, punctuated by some long stretches of dialogue, is competently crafted but, while not exactly disagreeable to watch, rather banal in essence, resembling a soap opera in style. The encounter of the protagonist with his awaited girlfriend, supposed to be the film's climactic point, was badly handled, with the girl's character coming across as somewhat caricatural. It's hard for the viewer to understand how she could arouse any man's passion.

Rating: 45

Manina...la fille sans voile (1952)

 English titles: The Girl in the Bikini; The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter

A student hears about a Phoenician sunken ship containing a treasure; coincidentally, he had found a jug while diving at the same spot where that ship supposedly sunk. He makes a deal with a cigarette smuggler to take him by boat to that place so that he can search for the treasure. He reencounters a girl he had met on his previous visit, and falls in love with her.

Awful adventure-cum-romance story which is only made watchable by the lovely landscapes of Corsica and Tangiers, its pretty (though here incompetent) leading actress, and one slightly amusing sequence in a classroom.

Rating: 21

My Six Convicts (1952)

 A psychologist leads a pioneering study among inmates of a big prison, measuring IQs and assessing skills. He has to use prisoners as assistants, and eventually wins their confidence. An escape plan puts him in danger.

Second-rate prison drama, with surprisingly little exploration of the actual experiment being performed. The plot focuses instead in the relationship between the psychologist and the inmates. The script is very unrealistic in a juvenile way. Certain details intrigued me, but since I don't know the prison rules which were applied in that place and time, I can't make an informed judgement. For example, there is a subplot in which an elaborate plan is put in action to smuggle the wife of an inmate into the prison so they can see each other. I wonder why she couldn't have just visited him. Weren't visits allowed? Anyway it's a poor film, both as entertainment and as a depiction of prisons.

Rating: 31

Fric-Frac (1939)

 An employee (Marcel) at a jewelry store meets two thieves -- a man (Jo) and a woman (Loulou) -- at the races. Marcel feels attracted toward Loulou and she in turn thinks he may somehow be useful to them in a robbery of the jewelry store. It so happens that the jewelry store's owner's daughter has her mind set on marrying Marcel.

Comedy which depicts the Parisian underworld. Its excellent cast enlivens a serviceable but otherwise not especially remarkable script. The opening sequence is set during a motor-paced racing event. It's funny that that sport exists since the 19th century and I had never even heard of it.

Rating: 53

Anzio (1968)

 Italian title: Lo sbarco di Anzio

A war correspondent follows the assault on Anzio in Italy during World War II. He goes through several adventures, first with a battalion, then with a small group of soldiers who see their outfit be destroyed.

Mildly entertaining war drama which according to some IMDB user reviews departs considerably from the real events it purports to depict. The script, especially the dialogue, is amusing in a style that was customary in Italian cheap movies of that era. In fact, the screenplay (based on a novel) is attributed to an English guy, but some Italian names are credited with the "adaptation". It is unclear who did the original work, the English guy or the Italian ones. One actor (Falk) is said to have written his own lines, and his lines are equally amusing, in that same style of the rest of the movie. In the latter part of the movie, there are pseudo-philosophical asides from the protagonist about man's motives for making war; they are very amusing, in the same manner of the rest of the movie.

Rating: 39

Nightfall (1956)

 The protagonist is chased by two criminals and watched by an insurance investigator. They want a suitcase full of money stolen from a bank by those two criminals. Through flashbacks we are told how the protagonist ended up with that suitcase. He was camping with a friend when the two criminals suffered a car accident in the vicinity.

The plot, especially in what regards the characters' behavior, does not make much sense, and the film's watchability is due primarily to location shooting in some interesting locales, both urban and rural.

Rating: 34

Hardcore (1979)

*mild spoilers ahead*

The young daughter of a businessman disappears, and he hires a detective to look for her. The detective discovers that she was in a pornographic movie, and shows it to the girl's father, who is shocked. The detective continues his search, but is eventually dismissed due to a lack of results, after which the father himself sets out to find his missing daughter. He begins to investigate the underworld of pornography, and, having obtained some photos of the other actors from the film in which his daughter appeared, he starts looking for those people in the hopes some of them can provide some information about his daughter's whereabouts. He persuades a prostitute to help him in his quest, in exchange for a pay.

Despite its potentially shocking subject matter, this film failed to ellicit any kind of emotion in me. The progression of the plot is quite predictable, and the dialogue and characters are not very interesting. It seems to have been thoughtfully written, in regards to the social and psychological issues which it tackles, and which are not devoid of interest in themselves, but somehow the end result just does not come across as particularly realistic or insightful.

Rating: 32

Julietta (1953)

*spoilers ahead* 

A young woman (Julietta) is engaged to be married to a prince (Hector). This is the end of her seaside vacation, which she is spending in the company of her mother and her sister. They are bound for Paris, where the prince awaits them. She is not eager to meet him, because she doesn't love him. At an intermediary stop, a passenger (André) gets off, but forgets his cigarette case. Julietta notices the forgotten object, and tries to restore it to its owner. She reaches him at the station, but the train leaves without her. André now must find a place for her to stay until she can catch the next train in the following day. The problem is that, due to a convention, all the hotels are full. So, Julietta must stay with André in his big mansion. This will lead to further complications as André brings his fiancée (Rosie) to spend the night with him in his mansion. André hides Julietta in the attic. Julietta becomes enamoured of André, and does not make things easy for him while she is there. An interesting coincidence which spices things up is that Rosie is best friends with Hector, and invites him to have dinner with them at the mansion. Of course, in the end, André falls in love with Julietta, and Rosie finds in Hector her ideal man. 

Romantic comedy which feels a little antiquated today, but probably was less so in 1953. The goings-on are a bit repetitive, with the title character provoking a series of troubles for the male protagonist, and the latter having to come with implausible excuses for his strange behavior. Overall, a rather weak film. Though not exactly disagreeable to watch, it is not really interesting in any way.

Rating: 31