Daily Archives: September 9, 2015

The White Sheik (Lo sceicco bianco)
Directed by Federico Fellini
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, and Ennio Flaino
1952/Italy
OFI/P.D.C.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marilena Alba Vellardi: Real life is the life of dreams.

Wanda Giardino Cavalli: I’m always dreaming. [/box]

Fellini’s first solo directorial effort is pure farce.

Newlyweds Wanda (Brunella Bova) and Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) Cavalli have just arrived for their honeymoon in Rome from their village in the countryside.  The thoroughly middle-class Ivan has every minute of their stay in Rome planned out.  Most of it is to be spent with his uncle, who is an employee of the Vatican, and his family.  The highlight will be an audience with the Pope.

Wanda heads upstairs while Ivan is on the phone and gets a dreamy look in her eyes when she looks over the city.  Before we know it, she asks to take a hot bath then sneaks out of the hotel.  She is headed to the studio where her idol Fernando Rivoli (Alberto Sordi), better known as the “white sheik”, works.  She has written Rivoli several fan letters signed “Passionate Dolly” and he wrote back asking her to visit if she ever happened to be in Rome.

The company is leaving for a location shoot by the sea and Wanda tags along.  Amazingly enough, Rivoli remembers these letters well and is taken by the starstruck Wanda.  The ego maniac pulls out the all stops in his efforts to seduce the honeymooner.  Meanwhile, Ivan has the unenviable task of covering up Wanda’s defection from his family during their elaborate sightseeing schedule.  Everything that conceivably go wrong for any of our characters does and in outrageous fashion.  With Giulietta Masina in a small part as the prostitute Cabiria who attempts to cheer up Ivan during his night of woe.

I like this film a lot.  A little bit of Trieste’s mugging goes a long way but Sordo and Bova are hilarious.  Fellini has no message to deliver here.  The entire thing is played for laughs. This was the first pairing of Fellini and Nino Rota and the score, as always, is a high point.

TV trailer – montage of clips

Phone Call from a Stranger
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Nunnally Johnson, story by I.A.R. Wylie
1952/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you? — Walt Whitman [/box]

When you have a movie where Bette Davis does not appear until 10 minutes from the end you know you have something different.  It turns out that this film was something special as well.

I knew exactly zero about this film going in and I think it worked well that way.  I will give only a very sketchy plot synopsis.  As the film begins, Lawyer David Trask (Gary Merrill) is seen talking on a pay phone to his wife.  He had written her a letter saying he was leaving her and followed up with the call to let her know he wasn’t planning to do anything rash. She begs him to reconsider but he says he just cannot live with the knowledge he has of her.

Trask gets a ticket on a “local” flight to Los Angeles.  The weather is terrible and the passengers are stuck in the airport for a while.  It is the first flight of actress Binky Gay (Shelley Winters) and she latches on to Trask to calm her nerves.  While the two are talking the airport coffee shop, they meet two other passengers – physician Dr. Robert Fortness (Michael Rennie) and obnoxious traveling salesman Eddie Hoke (Keenan Wynne).  Early on Hoke shows the others a photograph of his wife in a bathing suit.  This is a picture of a young(er) Bette Davis.

The passengers board the flight but it continues to be plagued by weather. In the course of the long flight, both Binky and Robert confide the most private secrets of their lives to Trask.  I will stop the plot synopsis here.  With Beatrice Straight in her screen debut and Hugh Beaumont.

Well, this was a very pleasant surprise.  It’s very well written and acted and had me from the get-go.  Some people might think it was manipulative or corny but I did not.  It even made me tear up.  If there is anything that appeals to you about the plot or actors, I would say to go for it.

I couldn’t find any appropriate clip to post but the entire movie is currently available on YouTube.