Claude Rains, Marius Goring, Marta Toren, Ferdy Mayne, Herbert Lom, Anouk Aimee, Felix Aylmer.
Ph. Otto Heller in his very distinctive pallette.
Downright odd film (source: Georges Simenon), quite dream-like, with a most peculiar ending.
Wanted more Heller, though, so went straight into The Ladykillers. He has 235 film credits, from 1918 - oldest ones look Czech.
Jodie Foster, Terence Howard, Naveen Andrews (a bit).
Curiously uninvolving remake of Death Wish (maybe that's why) despite talent involved. Good vigilante film needed. Jordan puts film on too much of a tilt.
Ph. Philippe Rousselot, Panavision, very green.
Distinctive editing by Tony Lawson.
The guy from Changeling? No - Nicky Katt.
The sudden, brilliantly timed appearance of a friendly dolphin in a long sea / night take with Steve Guttenberg is worth the price of admission alone. Also fun are the shenanigans of the oldies, who are Don Ameche, Hume Cronyn (Lifeboat and Shadow of a Doubt early appearances), Wilford Brimley (looking too young really), Jack Gilford (Catch-22, lots on TV), Maureen Stapleton (Q correctly pegs her in The Money Pit; Plaza Suite), Jessica Tandy (Fried Green Tomatoes - Q again, Driving Miss Daisy, Garp, The Birds). Brian Dennehy (Belly of an Architect) is the strangely shaped alien.
Ingrid Bergman, Mario Vitale.
Music by Roberto's son Renzo, making me think a little of Herrmann. Ph. Otello Martelli.
Bleak but interesting - I don't blame her for wanting to escape. Amazing fishing scene. She attempts even to seduce the priest - scandal!
Talking of which, Bergman fell in love with Rossellini, became pregnant and was blacklisted in Hollywood for years.
Quite understandably there are only a few hundred inhabitants now. Hoping Lipari nothing like it!
Tough, grim way of life presented in neorealist style (non-actors etc.) Neorealism came out of post-war problems and dissatisfaction with film industry by a group of film critics, therefore obvious influence on French New Wave.
There is a funny alternate ending - she does make it over the other side, and there's a fun party town..
Matt Damon, Cecile de France, Rebekah Staton, Lyndsey Marshal (heroin mum), Frankie and George Mclaren, jay Mohr (Matt's brother), Marthe Keller.
Ph. very darkly by Tom Stern. Scr. Peter Morgan. Music by Clint.
I didn't really get it. Unfortunately the quotes from Dickens are better than anything in the screenplay.
Ann Todd, Norman Wooland, Ivan Desny.
Ph. Guy Green. Music William Alwyn.
Not quite sure why I didn't get on too well with this. Todd's performance somewhat petulant, makes her unsympathetic, in fact only her fiancé I liked. Certainly cinematic in places.
Written and produced by Lean, Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allen.
Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings, Kay Hammond (Elvira), Margaret Rutherford (energetic - 'That cuckoo's very angry,' 'How can you tell?' 'Timbre.')
The photography (Neame) and make up are very clever, especially in outdoor scenes. Love the realism of the garden backdrop (except when it doesn't move in storm!)
Maid Jacqueline Clarke also in The Way to the Stars.
Suffers from Coward's insistence to change not one detail from the play.
Unsurprisingly - sharing the same writers Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli - it comes across as a mini-Meglio Giuventu, setting a family saga within the mess of modern Italian politics, and charting the course of two brothers, Elio Germano and Riccardo Scamarcio, and how the former travels through Facism (egged on by substitute father Luca Zingaretti), communism, and finally honorable family man, in part down to love for Angela Finocchiaro.
Distinctive sounds courtesy Franco Piersanti. Ph. Caludio Collepiccolo.
Lea Massari, Benoit Ferreux, Daneil Géllu, Michael Lonsdale.
Ph. Richard Aronovich. Lots of Charlie Parker.
Not your average coming-of-age film, unpleasant story charts adventures of callous youth, whose mother is somewhat over-solicitous to him!
Maltin "Builds to a thoroughly delightful resolution"?? What film was he watching?
Scr Richard Hooker (& novel), Ring Lardner Jr.
Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen (Colonel), Gary Burghoff (Radar), Micahel Murphy, Jo Ann Pflug, Bud Cort.
Ph. Harold E Stine, Panavision.
Another film Q didn't want to watch then thoroughly enjoyed. Radar stealing Colonel's blood; dog in Sugar Lips line-up; Keystone Cop moments; overlapping dialogue; frequently pointless PA system; completely useless priest.
Bjarne Henriksen, Vivian Wu (The Last Emperor, many others). Linkun Wu (working as a bus driver when cast fo this, his first film).
Scr. Kim Fupz Aakeson.
Maybe a shade too gentle and slight. But fun. The first Chinese-Finnish co-production.
Stephane Audran, Michel Bouquet (an unforgettable performance), Maurice Ronet.
Beautifully simple.
Loved the giant Zippo!
Ph. Jean Rabier
Meryl Streep (AA), Kevin Kline, Peter MacNichol.
Ph. Nestor Almendros.
It wasn't all depressing, contrary to urban myth.
Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat were writers.
Will Hay, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffat (the three often appeared together; Moffat is the 'Seven Sisters sergeant' in Canterbury Tale.)
Funny gags at outset not sustained ('What happened to him?' 'I don't know, but I remember we sent a wreath') but good windmill and train chase scenes.
Ph. Arthur Crabtree.
Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens (his wife), Red Buttons, Roddy McDowell, Shelly Winters, Jack Albertson (her husband), Pamela Sue Martin, Eric Shea (her brother), Carol Lynley (the singer), Leslie Nielsen (difficult now to take seriously in anything).
I though the other preacher looked familiar - Arthur O'Connell from Anatomy of a Murder, written by Wendell Mayes, who also wrote this (with Sterling Silliphant). Music John Willimas.
It was more tragic than I remembered. And, therefore, not as much fun. The lengths some filmmakers will go to show off girls' legs...
Maurice Ronet kills himself.
Malle doing Bresson before Bresson.
Volker Scholdorff is assistant director.
