'Strictly Business' or, 'Delovye lyudi' which I'm assuming is the Russian translation into English characters for the IMDb, is one of those virtually unknown masterpieces, as it seems, being that it has but two votes and reviews as of this writing. The film is actually a trio of stories, however they really seem to flow nicely into one another. The first two segments are very promising and hold the viewer's interest well, displaying O. Henry's unique style and range of writing, which is something that you can clearly see he has passed down to countless writers, Stephen King being the most successful. His talents as a writer were clearly diverse in being able to write stories that invoke so many different emotions at once, one after another as if you were really living it. The black and white aspect doesn't bother me one bit, although it's slightly puzzling because color film was available at the time, and the film doesn't ever come off as being too cheap to have been available to afford color print.
The film is delightfully light-hearted and slapstick comedy a lot of the time, but there are certain images which are scary, and I would say remain frightening even to this day, fifty years after the film was made. It's like watching Buster Keaton in 'The General' hanging out with a couple of Russian cowboys, and that bratty kid from 'Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory' remixed with hints of 'An Andalusian Dog'. That being said, I thought the film was great, but the third story of the film is by far the longest and becomes slightly tedious to make it through to the end, when the whole time I had high expectations for some sinister twist to it. Overall, very good unknown film, and mad props to the obscure and faded Russian characters who brought us this piece of goodness. Hopefully there can be a revival in schlock like this, because it was great.
STRICTLY BUSINESS, or DELOVYE LYUDI -----8/10
The film is delightfully light-hearted and slapstick comedy a lot of the time, but there are certain images which are scary, and I would say remain frightening even to this day, fifty years after the film was made. It's like watching Buster Keaton in 'The General' hanging out with a couple of Russian cowboys, and that bratty kid from 'Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory' remixed with hints of 'An Andalusian Dog'. That being said, I thought the film was great, but the third story of the film is by far the longest and becomes slightly tedious to make it through to the end, when the whole time I had high expectations for some sinister twist to it. Overall, very good unknown film, and mad props to the obscure and faded Russian characters who brought us this piece of goodness. Hopefully there can be a revival in schlock like this, because it was great.
STRICTLY BUSINESS, or DELOVYE LYUDI -----8/10