sevisan Reviews

We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)

Clichés and cheap psychology.

[2/10 · 29 June 2011]

Ettore Scola films were always sentimental, pretentious and self-important, full of laborious gimmicks, big themes and immortal phrases. The ambitions were huge (remember "The night of Varennes", "The terrace", "The family", etc.). Sadly, the achievements were mediocre and inversely proportional to the ambitions. Sometimes, only the actors were bearable and help a little (here Manfredi and Sandrelli, Loren and Mastroianni in "Una giornata particolare").

In "C'eravamo tanto amati" we have also big themes, but Risi in "Vita difficile" did first and better. Immortal phrases: "We wanted to change life, but life changed us". Stereotypes: the leftist becomes corrupt and capitalist, the money bring no happiness, the idealist movie critic is too impulsive, etc. Gimmicks: the actors talk to the camera and think aloud, colour and b.w. alternates. Besides, the homages to the Italian cinema are crude and obvious. Scola seems to be blackmailing us: "If you don't like my movie, you don't like Fellini, Antonioni and De Sica".

I saw this movie many years ago and didn't remember it. I just got today the DVD via Amazon, I have seen 90 min. of the film and I have thrown the DVD to the wastepaper basket

Chance Meeting (1959)

Disjointed Losey.

[6/10 · 7 August 2010]

The DVD I bought via amazon.uk is "cheap" and has not any kind of subtitles. I read English well, but I don't understand spoken English very fluently. So, I didn't feel very comfortable with this item (or must I put the blame on the film itself?).

Main assets: ChristopherChallis cinematography, Micheline Presle, intelligent use of the sets.

Main weakness: absurd script (Kruger does not recognize the dead woman, his character is sometimes hippie sometimes "macho", the "establishment gentlemen" wear black suit and bowler hat, and Baker has sinusitis).

Definitively, Losey did better than this one.

O. Henry's Full House (1952)

The Fox team at his best. Negulesco wins.

[8/10 · 16 December 2009]

This is perfect example of the Fox look in the beginning of the fifties, prior to the Scope. Here are the directors, actors and actress, cinematographers,musicians (Alfred Newmann), etc., under contract. Jean Peters, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Jeanne Crain, Marilyn in her beginnings, etc.

What a pair of wonderful actresses in the moving "The last leaf", directed by Jean Negulesco with an almost expressionist style! Really, he was an very underrated director with good film as "Three came home", "The mask of Dimitrios", "Humoresque".

In "The gift of the magi" Henry King puts grace and gusto in some sweet Christmas commonplaces. This is also a good episode, perhaps a little marred by the overacting of Jeanne Crain.

Also very watchable "The clarion call", directed by Henry Hathaway in a dry and concise style.

In "The cop and the anthem" we have a memorable line by the lovely Marilyn: "He called me madam!"

The Hawks episode is the only drawback in the film, but one can forgive it in front of the other good four. And, above all, the sublime "The last leaf".

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Make love, not war.

[4/10 · 5 October 2009]

Antonioni's movies have not aged well. What always surprised me about them is that, besides an unquestionable plastic beauty, there is a dull and didactic "psychology" of the characters and situations. Remember, for instance, the conversations between Mastroianni and the "wicked capitalistic" that wants sing up him in "La notte", or Monica Vitti laughing at the peasants flirting in the train in "La aventura", or Ferzetti dropping the glass of ink at the end of the same film.

I have reviewed yesterday "Zabriskie Point". In this film there are a lot of nice and elaborate shots of the Rod Taylor office, the streets and highways of L.A., the publicity advertisements, the deserts,etc., that show the fascination of the author in his American journey, in the same way than Wim Wenders years later. Unfortunately, there are too a lot of hippie-leftist clichés that spoil the movie: - The boy leaves the meeting, steals an aeroplane and flies over the desert in order to liberate himself and find "something different". - The executives in grey suites speak all the time about speculation. - The girl looks at the "object women" in the swimming pool and leaves because she wants not to be like them. - The couple of fat middle-class in the caravan speak, in front of the beauty of the nature, of building a hotel and earning a lot of money. - Last but not the least, a lot of couples making love in the desert. What a hippie platitude!

Sorry, today, half a century after the "revolution" of "La Aventura" we can see that the king is naked, and his films (except "Le amiche" and perhaps "Il grido") are only a handful of aestheticism and commonplaces.

The Outlaw and His Wife (1918)

The Kino DVD: Only 70 min.

[2/10 · 29 August 2008]

Most silent films, damaged by the course of the time, exist in different versions with different running times, but when a DVD is released, is supposed to be in the most complete version existing (for instance, the Flicker Alley DVD of "La roue").

Well, this is not the case with the Kino "The outlaw and his wife". This is a very truncated version and shouldn't have been released in such conditions. Its running time is only 70 minutes, when nowadays exists a 105 min. version that I have seen in the Madrid Filmoteca and in the TV french channel Arte four or five years ago. Or is it a matter of wrong speed, 24 i.p.s instead of 16 i.p.s.?

The truncated Kino DVD version is, I suppose, the existing in the Kino shelves and released many years ago in VHS. That's very bad. (and the price of the DVD is 27 $ !).

Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

I live with melancholy.

[10/10 · 30 July 2008]

As Andrew Sarris said, "Preminger changes trash into art". Yes, and this film is the best proof. From a very dated novella from Francoise Sagan, we get a simple, subtle and elegant film.

THE SUNNY PAST: pink, blue and yellow colors (the shirts and bathing costumes, the sea "like velvet" as Cecile says), the umbrella falling and hiding Cecile and her boyfriend, the geometric lines of the house with its wonderful environment, the pine trees (you can almost smell them). Everything as the background of a drama that will soon burst.

THE BLEAK PRESENT: Grey Paris, the picture gallery, the "existentialist cave", Concordia Square, Les Halles, the luxurious apartment where is hidden a painful souvenir, and, above all, Cecile makeup in front of the mirror. Juliette Greco sings: "My smile is void of loving/my kiss has no caresses/I'm faithful to my love/my bittersweet tristesse".

Very god performances from Jean Seberg and David Niven (she is here much better than in "Lilith"). Cinematography: Georges Perinal, music: Auric (remember the Cocteau films), credits: Saul Bass.

Strangers When We Meet (1960)

I changed my mind about this film.

[8/10 · 29 July 2008]

In an earlier commentary I said that the only good things in this film were Barbara Rush and the final scene. Besides, Leonard Martin gives it only **1/2. Well, Leonard Maltin and I were wrong. I have just seen it once more and now I think it is a honest and real look at the dissatisfaction and crisis of the conjugal life in the middle class. The characters and scenes between Maggie and her husband are underwritten, Kirk Douglas overacts as usual, but:

Very intelligent the relation between Altar and Larry, being the first a counterpoint of the second. At last, Altar "did it" but he is alone and envies the conjugal life of his friend ("Don't throw everything away").

Very real and moving the crisis between Eve and Larry. What a good and wasted actress was Barbara Rush!, her character almost steals the show.

Other good moments: Larry stress and lack of control in the party at his home, his wife smiling and saying: "I want you sober", the fight between Larry and Felix under the rain, the cross cutting between Maggie in the kitchen as a housewife and herself putting her earrings in the motel "after the sin", etc., etc.

A great idea is the parallel between the building of the house and the love story, the beautiful visit at the house with the tape measure and the moving farewell in the already finished house.

Last but not the least, the visuals: The elegant use of the widescreen and the long takes, the smooth camera movements and tracking shots (for instance, the first scene in the Larry's kitchen or in the "tape measure" scene or at the very beginning of the film). The beautiful cinematography and color, always a pink or red spot in the frame (the Larry's jacket, a cushion in the Altar's apartment, the Maggie's dress, a fruit dish in the kitchen), etc.

Well, as you can see one can't trust his first impressions. I like this film

Mamma Roma (1962)

What is the difference between versions?

[7/10 · 17 June 2008]

Many years ago, I saw this film in a theater, and I remember the final scene: Mamma opens the window and shouts at the houses opposite "Where are the responsibles?", or something like that. Now, in the Spanish DVD (98 min. running time) she opens the window as if she were to jump and only stares at the houses opposite, but no shouting. Besides, in the Leonald Maltin book the running time is 110 min. Has this something to do with the "original" and "US" versions? I should be grateful if someone could explain me it. I know that in this commentary there are not 10 lines of text but, sorry, the next one will be longer, thank you.

Lilith (1964)

Too much metaphors.

[6/10 · 1 April 2008]

O. K., very good b. and w. cinematography, and a good acting by Beattty, but no so much of Seberg. She was very good in "Bonjour Tristesse", for instance, but not here. The blame: ¿director?, ¿awful dialogue? Metaphors and symbols are obvious: Seberg playing the flute is an "enchantress", the grid in the window is the "spider web" where Beatty get trapped, Beatty was in love with his mother and Seberg was in love with her brother, the doctor and Kim Hunter are his actual father and mother, the water is the death, the dirty water is the sin (Seberg and the lesbian in the cottage), the ubiquous lesbian woman is the evil, Beatty entering in the woods (first shots of the film) is descending into the hell, Hackman and Harper "are not happy in their marriage", etc., etc. ¿Rossen's remorse by his behaviour in front of the Mc Carthy commission?

In any case, ¡too much!

Remember the Day (1941)

Not the best of Henry King

[6/10 · 8 November 2007]

Henry King did some masterworks: Stella Dallas, Tol'able David, Alexander Ragtime Band, Ramona, etc., but also some impersonal films (The Black Swan, King of the Kyber rifles, etc.). I think that "Remember the day" lays in between these categories, and I am a bit confused by its positive reviews in IMDb. First of all, there is no chemistry between Colbert and Payne. Here, Payne overacts and looks misplaced as a romantic hero (think of his character portrayed by Power or Fonda). We all think of Payne, instead, as the cynical heavy in the films of Phil Karlson or Allan Dwan. Besides, too much time and sugar is dedicated to the romance between he a she, and too little time to the love of the boy Dewey for his teacher, not to speak of the awkward and abrupt final scene and the horrible actor ¿John Shepperd? who portrays adult Dewey. The direction of Henry King is, except in that final scene, smooth and fluid as ever, but the problems of the film are Payne and the script. The character of Dewey, mainly adult Dewey, should had been more developed.

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

The best of Sirk.

[9/10 · 7 October 2007]

I have always had mixed feelings about some of the Sirk melodramas. "Imitation of life" is "cool" in the wrong sense of the word, with a bad cast (Lana Turner, Sandra Dee, etc.), poor sets and a general look of fifties sitcom. "All that heaven allows" also has its flaws: a "politically correct" tone, a postcard look (that awful final shot of the deer) and a horrible and unveliable Rock Hudson.

On the contrary, I think "Magnificent Obsession" is the most poignant or Sirk's films. It has a restrained, "less is more", mood very different, for instance, from the frenzied and mad bursts of "Written on the wind". Take, among others, the sublime scenes of the "insomnia night" and its dark tones, the reading of comic strips by the lake or the sweet and serene ending. Here, Hudson and Wyman show a real insight with their characters and are really moving. The paced mood and the soft, pastel colors contrast with the hard driven and violent tones of "Written ..." (the red car and dresses, the aggressive performances of Malone and Stack, the "lubricious" dance,etc.). These two very different films are, in my view, the best of Sirk: "Obsession" tender and moving, "Written" violent and crazy.

I Am Cuba (1964)

So bad that it is good.

[6/10 · 24 August 2007]

This is a perfect example of displaced kitsch, a pachyderm monument of propaganda with Eisenstein-Welles look and Stalin aesthetics of the thirties. How did they dare to make such a film in 1963?. The Yankees chew gum, the prostitute repents and cries, the students throw cocktail Molotov, the old man sweats and burns his farm, the camera pans down the swimming-pool and over the roofs, the palms and clouds are shot in short focus against the light, the peasant's conscience awakes and he joins the guerrilla, and the chief of police is fat. Everything is so outdated, schematic and overblown that eventually becomes naive and moving. No wonder that Coppola and Scorsese rediscover this film and call it a masterwork.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

High camp.

[7/10 · 5 September 2006]

Billy Wilder always liked the obvious and easy things. For instance, Jack Lemon is the "middle American everyman", Marilyn is the dumb girl, Stanwyck is the blonde wicked vamp, Stroheim is "one of the three grands directors of the silent era", Swanson disguised as Chaplin, etc. His films are often overwritten (lines like "next time I'll write "The naked and the dead", "who wants to see a film about the civil war?", etc.). "Sunset Boulevard" is a typical Wilder film, full of obvious and overblown things like that, but is a film that it gets better as the decades pass by, I don't know exactly the reason. It is a film that is "so bad that is very good". Perhaps in ten years, another awful "wilderiana" as "The big carnival" (almost worse than SBoulevard) will be also redeemed by its campy flavor.