IT'S ALL TRUE (1993)

Trust me...I'm a film director!

Boasting several directors including Orson Welles and his associates Richard Wilson and Norman Foster as well as the guys who put the whole thing together, this doctumentary tells the story of the film that Orson was making at the behest of the U.S. Goverment's Good Neighbour scheme during WW2 and which was directly responsible for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS being taken away from Welles. Like most unseen footage by Orson the film has almost mythic status. But while welcoming the chance to see it and hear the story I found nothing here to get me very excited and, if anything, the documentary is a little dull in its attempts to make something out of very little. Best is the very beginning with Orson in bullshitting mood telling of his encounter with a Brazillian voodoo priest. Much better might have been a full length documentary telling the full story of The MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS debacle if only to see Robert Wise (and I do have a certain amount of sympathy for Wise here) squirming his way through an explanation of his betrayal of Welles. Rating ***

Choking the Alligator!

Just like to draw your attention to a new addition to my link list. CHOKING THE ALLIGATOR is a pretty cool movie blog by Sarah Janet. I loved it and I think you will. Please go take a look.

Horror Chamber of Georges Franju....

I first encountered Georges Franju when I was at school when the school film society screened his famous short film LE SANG DES BETES. I must have been fourteen or fifteen at the time and the film nearly turned me into a vegetarian. The film is a "poetic" evocation of a day in a Paris abattoir. Some of the images haunt me even today, the slaughter of a beautiful horse, calfs on a conveyer belt having their throats cut before air is pumped into the still writhing bodies to create veal (something I still cannot eat today) and all done quite casually by workers who might just as well be opening cardboard boxes. I vividly remember several of my schoolmates passing out during the screening yet, horrified as I was (and nothing could induce me to watch the film again) I already had a sense of cinema that made me continue to subject myself to the images on the screen. Even hating the film one has to admit that it is a powerful piece of film-making. Franju made a whole series of highly regarded documentaries before moving into feature films with his masterpiece LES YEUX SANS VISAGE (Eyes without a Face).A few years ago I watched this film again and decided to catch up with some of the other Franju films like THERESE DESQUEYROUX, JUDEX, THOMAS L'IMPOSTER and NUITS ROUGES. BUT NONE WERE AVAILABLE!!!! Only EYES WITHOUT A FACE in circulation - even in France : a national disgrace, I thought. Now, the situation has been somewhat improved because on August 25th a DVD is being released which contains not on his 1963 remake of Feuillade's JUDEX but NUITS ROUGES (a thriller also known as THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE). Hopefully, more Franju films will follow including the bizarre thrillers he made for French television towards the end of his career.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

EIJI TSUBURAYA

1901 - 1970

Somewhere out in monster land...

SOMMARNATTENS LEENDE/Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

B

Directed at a faster pace, Bergman's SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT would have turned something like a French farce. But Ingmar Bergman's pace is slower and more studied so than instead of a frantic farce we get an elegant comedy of manners, a comedy of carnal confusion. It is well known that the great director was going through a particularly painful period in his personal life and credits this film with saving him from suicide. A group of people living in Sweden at the turn of the last century are involved in a series of convoluted relationships. Everything comes to a head when they are all invited to spend a weekend at the mansion of a famous actress. I hardly need to mention (after all this is a Bergman film) that the acting is first class throughout and the ensemble cast (led by the great Gunnar Bjornstrand) are superb. This film was the basis for Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (filmed twice) and was spoofed by Woody Allen in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SEX COMEDY. The film (like the previously reviewed TORMENT) ends with one of the great life-affirming moments in the cinema, all the more effective because it comes from Ingmar Bergman. Rating *****

TORMENT/Frenzy (1944)

Directed by Alf Sjoberg from a script by Ingmar Bergman, TORMENT is an engrossing film. Part school drama, part rites of passage story and part thriller, with none of the elements overpowering the others. A student preparing for graduation is tormented by a sadistic teacher. One night after returning from a trip to the cinema he sees a woman seemingly unwell in the street. It turns out she is drunk and is a local shopgirl who also seems to be working part-time as a prostitute (in 1944, even in Sweden, this is not actually stated). The boy goes to her assistance and ends up spending the night with her. They begin an affair but the girl lives in terror of one of her "visitors" who turns out to be the the sadistic school master. To tell more would be unfair as this is an engrossing film with several surprising twists. Performances are excellent throughout with the lovers played by the young Alf Kjellin and Mai Zetterling. But it is Stig Jarrel as the teacher who steals the film. He reminded me of a cross between Walter Slezak and Anton Walbrook. I've commented before on this blog about the moments of pure gothic horror in many of Berman's films and there is a real heart-stopping moment in this film, which, although Sjoberg is the director, I must believe was in Bergman's script. The film ends on a real moment of hope which is beautifully conveyed. Rating ****

Maria! I've just met a robot called Maria......

Great news for all movie buffs, especially fans of the great director Fritz Lang. Just as Kino International has completed its restoration of Lang's masterpiece METROPOLIS for 2009 release, a complete print of the film has been discovered in Argentina. The newly discovered print runs for nearly three and a half hours - much longer than any print in circulation today. Although badly scratched the film has been shown to critics and Kino International hope to include the newly discovered footage in their 2009 release.