Monthly Archives: September 2017

Reach for Glory
Directed by Philip Leacock
Written by Jun Kin, John Kohn and John Rae from Rae’s novel
1962/UK
Blazer Films
First viewing/Netflix

[box] War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. THOMAS MANN, attributed, This I Believe [/box]

British schoolboys behave eerily like Hitler Youth as they dream of glory in WWII.

In a small English coastal town,  home boys and evacuees from London and farther afield can hardly wait to be old enough to go off to war.  In the meantime, they are drilled three times a week in use of firearms, etc.  Unfortunately, the basic anti-Semitism of their parents hasn’t escaped them and bullies will be bullies even in wartime.  The teens’ war games go tragically amiss.

This was an uncomfortable watch with few likable  characters.  Doesn’t make it a bad movie though.

Trailer

Almost Angels
Directed by Steve Previn
Written by Vernon Harris; original story by Robert A. Stemmle
1962/USA
Walt Disney Productions
Repeat viewing/YouTube

[box] My voice? Yeah, well, I used to drink a lot of beer when I was a kid and I sounded like a drunk in a choir. I don’t drink anymore. Eric Burdon [/box]

This is a fun family movie about the Vienna Boys Choir – more so if the family loves beautiful music.

The plot focuses on two boys.  One is a working-class lad with great talent who is just starting out.  The other is a star singer whose voice is beginning to change and must deal with the new guy getting all his best solos.

My mother took us to see this in the theater and I remember it to this day.  The story is cute but it is the music that sells it now. I hope mom is hearing the angels sing it in heaven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuCcLs8t9P4

Clip

Sundays and Cybele (Les dimanches de Ville d’Avray)
Directed by Serge Bourgignon
Written by Serge Bourgignon and Antoine Tudal from a novel by Bernard Eschasseriaux
1962/France/Austria
Fides/Les Films Trocadero/Orsay Films/Terra Film Produktion
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “If we can forgive what has been done to us . . /. If we can forgive what we’ve done to others . . ./ If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villians or victims./ Only then can we maybe rescue the world. ― Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted[/box]

This is a beautifully shot movie but doesn’t really ring my bells.

Pierre (Hardy Krüger) has blocked out the memory of a bombing raid in Indochina that left a young girl dead.  His amnesia for the event hasn’t made him any happier.  One day, he sees a young girl (maybe 12?) being left off by her father at a convent school.  The father promises to visit on Sundays but Pierre witnesses something that lets him know Dad won’t be coming back.  So Pierre convinces the nuns he is the father and starts spending each Sunday with Francoise.  Their afternoons together are idyllic.

But something about the relationship strikes other adults as creepy.  Reality slowly intrudes its ugly head.

I’ve seen this twice now and it didn’t wow me either time.  Something about it just drags for me.  Your mileage may definitely vary.

Sundays and Cybele won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.

The Grim Reaper (La comare seca)
Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Sergio Citti
1962/Italy
Cinematografica Cervi/Cineriz
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] What you want from a movie when you begin it is 150,000 miles from what you reach at the end. Moviemaking is a process. You end with something different; that’s what gives it life. I cannot plan a film as a script or as a storyboard. I need the camera; I need the actors. I can’t do it on a desk. I need the reality to whisper to me. If you leave the door open to reality, the smell of reality is so strong, it adds so much. It attacks and enters and infiltrates, that’s what I enjoy. — Bernardo Bertolucci[/box]

Bertolucci didn’t make his name for murder mysteries.  This is an OK one with an interesting premise.

The police (never shown on camera) are investigating the murder of a prostitute found dead in a Roman park.  They question many people who were in the park at the time of the murder.  We get the version of events given by the witness accompanied by shots of what the witness was actually doing.  Most of what anyone tells the police is a lie.

The film covers the same time period several times with a sudden rainstorm and the prostitute’s preparations for work tying the pieces together.

This didn’t rock my world or anything.  It’s an ingenious way of storytelling and there are some beautiful shots.  Bertolucci was only 20 years old when he shot this film so we can cut him some slack.

Ben Mankiewicz intro

Light in the Piazza
Directed by Guy Green
Written by Julius J. Epstein, story by Elizabeth Spencer
1962/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Meg Johnson: Nobody with a dream should come to Italy. No matter how dead and buried you think it is, in Italy, it will rise and walk again.

The scenery of Florence and the appeal of Olivia De Havilland rescue a most improbable tale.

Meg Johnson (De Havilland) and her 26-year-old daughter Clara (Yvette Mimeux) are on an extended holiday in Florence.  Husband and father Noel (Barry Sullivan) remains in America making millions.  Meg is very protective of Clara who has suffered brain damage.  It is the kind of movie disease that preserves the sufferer’s beauty, speech and motor function.  We are told Clara’s mentality is that of a 10 year old, though she also becomes fluent in Italian in nothing flat.  Any way, the handsome and cultivated Fabrizio (George Hamilton) soon falls for Clara in a big way.

Clara is soon head-over-heels for Fabrizio and his wealthy family approves of her whole-heartedly.  Meg is left with a dilemma.  She tries to solve her problem by leaving Florence and calling her husband on an emergency basis to Rome.  But Noel’s solution to the whole situation is to put Clara in an institution and there is no way Meg will agree to that.  What to do? With Rosanno Brazzi as Fabrizio’s father.

Trailer

Mamma Roma
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1962/Italy
Arco Film
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] The mark which has dominated all my work is the longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn’t lessen, but augments this love of life. – Pier Paolo Pasolini[/box]

I loved my introduction to director Pier Paolo Pasolini.  I’m looking forward to the rest of his work.

Mamma Roma (Anna Magnanni) is a successful streetwalker and force of nature.  She finally ditches her pimp who has gotten married.  Mamma now has saved enough to buy a nice flat and market stall and to bring her son back from the countryside where he has been raised by a respectable family.

Unfortunately, Mamma’s pimp is not cut out for married life and will not leave her alone. The story follows the journey of her son from innocent to criminal and Mamma’s heartbreak.

I didn’t know what to expect and was a little nervous knowing that Pasolini also directed Salo.  I needn’t have worried.  This is a beautiful combination of sublime classical music and cinematography with unflinchingly gritty real life. It is one of the few movies where the largely non-professional cast is totally convincing.  I thought this was one of Magnanni’s best performances in a career full of great ones.  Recommended.

Clip – no subtitles but not really needed

Siberian Lady Macbeth
Directed by Andrzej Wajda
Written by Sveta Lukic, story by Nikolai Leskov from a play by William Shakespeare
1962/Yugoslavia
Avala Film
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “All causes shall give way: I am in blood/ Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,/ Returning were as tedious as go o’er.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth[/box]

This is more like The Postman Always Rings Twice than Macbeth but doesn’t work all that well as either.

Beautiful Katerina lives on a pig farm with her cranky father-in-law who berates her constantly for having no children.  Her husband is away on business.  The farm is always looking for strong workers and hires serf Sergei when he shows up looking for work.  He is a likely lad and soon is having an affair with Katerina.  At her instigation, the couple systematically does away with anybody who gets in the way of their love or money.

I’ve loved everything I’ve seen so far by director Wajda but this left me cold.  The characters aren’t well developed and it drags. He seems to have been meant for his native land and contemporary themes.

Clip (no subtitles)