FilmFanatic.org

Synopsis:
While visiting his girlfriend (Françoise Dorléac), a private (Jean-Paul Belmondo) on leave from the army becomes unwittingly caught up in a kidnapping tied to a deeper plot involving a professor (Jean Servais) with obsessive ties to a Maltec figurine.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• French Films
• Jean-Paul Belmondo Films
• Kidnapping
• Search

Review:
Philippe De Broca directed this Bond-inspired action-adventure (with an Oscar-nominated screenplay by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Ariane Mnouchkine, Daniel Boulanger and de Broca) that became the fifth highest earning film of the year. It’s fast-paced, colorful, and entirely innocuous thriller taking us from Paris to Brazil, with suave but goofy Belmondo performing many of his own stunts, and Dorléac perfectly cast as his carefree girlfriend.

As noted in Jeff Stafford’s article for TCM, “The James Bond film craze of the early sixties inspired an endless stream of pale imitations and parodies but occasionally a gem could be found amid the rubbish heap” — including this “tongue-in-cheek adventure tale that spoofed 007-like heroics while paying homage to everything from matinee serials like The Perils of Pauline to movie icons like Tarzan and Harold Lloyd.” The influence of Belgian cartoonist Hergé (creator of Tintin) is clear, and the final scenes — taking place in the jungles of Brasilia — evoke vibes of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Romancing the Stone (1984).

Watch for French movie icon Jean Marais in a crucial supporting role as sinister Professor Catalan, who is bound and determined to locate a specific historic figurine at any cost.

While this one isn’t must-see, it’s recommended if you’re curious to see well-crafted adventure fare from this era.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Jean-Paul Belmondo as Private Adrien Duforquet
  
• Françoise Dorléac as Agnès
  
• Numerous well-crafted gags and stunts
  
• Fine use of location shooting
  

Must See?
No, but it’s certainly recommended if this is your cup of tea. Listed as a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Time Out Capsule Review
• NY Times Original Review
• TCM Article
• DVD Savant Review

Synopsis:
A middle-aged man (Marcello Mastroianni) about to get married reflects back on how he met his dying mistress (Sophia Loren), who was once a prostitute — but he soon learns there is more to come in the story of their life together.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Flashback Films
• Italian Films
• Marcello Mastroianni Films
• Prostitutes and Gigolos
• Romantic Comedy
• Sophia Loren Films
• Strong Females
• Suffering Mothers
• Vittorio De Sica Films

Review:
Sophia Loren’s third film for Vittorio De Sica — after Two Women (1960) and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963) — was her seventh out of fourteen made with her beloved co-star Marcello Mastroianni, and earned her a second Academy Award nomination as Best Actress. Unfortunately, the storyline hasn’t aged well, coming across like a dated romantic melodrama without the much-needed dark humor or social critique of its similarly named counterpart, Pietro Germi’s Divorce, Italian Style (1961). With that said, Loren is a dominant and glowing force throughout, from her earliest moments striding down the street with confidence:

… to later sequences when she becomes a fierce Mama Bear at all costs, wanting nothing more than to provide for her kids.

Unfortunately, Mastroianni is a real pill throughout, making it hard for us to root for their relationship in any way:

… and the narrative tension in the final section regarding Loren’s kids is forced at best. This one is primarily worth a look simply for Loren’s Oscar-nominated performance.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Sophia Loren as Filomena
  
• Roberto Gerardi’s cinematography
  

Must See?
No, though it’s worth a one-time look.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TV Guide Review (spoiler alert)
• Time Out Capsule Review
• Once Upon a Screen Review

Synopsis:
At a remote desert pump station run by a dictatorial German (Peter van Eyck), the sudden appearance of a sultry woman (Carroll Baker) and her husband (Biff McGuire) stirs tensions among the bored men — including a quiet Spaniard named Santos (Mario Adorf), a recently arrived German named Martin (Jörg Felmy), and a Scotsman (Ian Bannen) who takes pleasure in baiting an Englishman (Denholm Elliott).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Carroll Baker Films
• Denholm Elliott Films
• Deserts
• Femmes Fatales

Review:
This German-British co-production about boredom, power dynamics, and sexual rivalry at a remote work station in the Sahara Desert was directed by Seth Holt, and co-scripted by Brian Clemens and Bryan Forbes, adapting a 1938 German film based on a play by Jean Martet. The first half of the movie slowly builds tension as we see how these five men manage their hours in the broiling heat under the leadership of a petty martinet (van Eyck), who insists they all play poker with him each day according to his rules.

Meanwhile, an intriguing subplot has Bannen offering Elliott an entire month’s pay in exchange for taking one of the letters he’s received from home, taunting him thereafter for having given up ownership of his own (unknown) news.

Stakes — and priorities — shift once again when Baker and McGuire come barreling up to the station, resulting in a car accident which leaves McGuire severely wounded and Baker conveniently ripe for pursuit. While Baker gives a deliciously unhinged performance as a femme fatale:

… the storyline doesn’t seem to have anywhere interesting to go with her, other than of course watching to see who may manage to seduce her (or not), and how her husband will react. It’s a disappointing trajectory for a film with such a unique setting and fine supporting performances by the cast (especially Bannen, Baker, and Elliott); this one is worth a one-time look but not must-see viewing.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Ian Bannen as Fletcher
  
• Carroll Baker as Catherine Starr
  
• Denholm Elliott as Macey
  
• Gerald Gibbs’ cinematography
  
• Ron Grainer’s score

Must See?
No, though it’s unusual enough to check out once.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TV Guide Review
• Spinning Image Review

Synopsis:
When a penniless carpenter (Jozef Kroner) with a disgruntled wife (Hana Slivková) in a Nazi-occuped Slovak town is given an opportunity by his Fascist brother-in-law (Frantisek Zvarík) to act as the “Aryan manager” for an elderly Jewish woman (Ida Kaminska) running a sewing shop, he develops an unexpected friendship and quickly learns how dangerous life is becoming in his country for non-Slovaks.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Black Comedy
• Eastern European Films
• Jews
• Nazis
• Race Relations and Racism

Review:
Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos co-directed this Academy Award winning Best Foreign Language Film of 1965 — co-written with screenwriter Ladislav Grosman, and funded (as all films were at the time) by the Czechoslovakian central authorities — about the absurdity of war, politics, and discrimination (specifically Aryanization). By pairing a patently uninspiring, henpecked protagonist:

… with a hard-of-hearing, perpetually cheerful old widow (who in actuality is being supported by her Jewish community):

… we are clearly able to see the insanity of the social upheaval creeping across Europe. I haven’t seen another film quite like this one in terms of depicting the gradual realization of what it means to displace others for one’s own gain — something far too easy to do when life is hard and resources are challenging to come by.

Zdenek Liska’s haunting, other-worldly score (it comprised the first Czech movie soundtrack released in the U.S.) adds an entire other dimension to the story, which builds to a horrific yet somehow inevitable climax. This one shouldn’t be missed.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Vladimír Novotný’s cinematography
  
• Ida Kaminska as Mrs. Lautmann
  
• Fine production design and sets
  
• Zdenek Liska’s unique score

Must See?
Yes, as a powerful foreign film.

Categories

• Foreign Gem

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Q Network Review
• TV Guide Review

Synopsis:
When he learns his 15-year-old daughter (Stefania Sandrelli) has been impregnated by the fiance (Aldo Puglisi) of his more homely daughter (Paola Biggio), the head (Saro Urzì of a large Sicilian family vows revenge upon his family’s honor.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Black Comedy
• Italian Films
• Morality Police

Review:
After the success of Divorce, Italian Style (1961) — which was largely responsible for sparking the genre of commedia all’italiana — writer-director Pietro Germi helmed this second in a trilogy of dark satires about social (specifically gender-based) mores in mid-20th-century Italy. The real-life scenario presented here is truly ludicrous: Sandrelli feels guilt for “allowing” herself to be seduced by Biggio, who promptly shuns her once he’s “defiled” her: now that she no longer a virgin (thanks to him), she’s a whore. The logical consequences of such a warped ideology are played out to the nth degree here, to the extent that responses to this film were mixed. As noted in Irene Bignardi’s essay for Criterion:

There was a sense that Germi had simply gone too far in this second installment of his “baroque trilogy,” in his piling up of twists, turns, and coups de théâtre, and that the tone of his satire veered toward the grotesque and cynical. And a ghastly piece of work it indeed is: a brilliant satire of a society totally devoted to appearances and to minding other people’s business, a dark farce about the cult of gossip and honor.

It’s nice to see beautiful Sandrelli given more of a central role (and a bit more agency) here than in Divorce … (though she’s still terribly objectified):

… and Germi’s imagery of a town all-too-ready to play along with toxic patriarchy is appropriately incisive.

This one’s worth a look if you can stomach it.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Saro Urzì as Don Vincenzo Ascalone
  
• Fine location shooting in Sciacca
  

Must See?
No, but it’s recommended.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Criterion Essay
• TV Guide Review
• TCM Article

Synopsis:
When a Parisian maid (Jeanne Moreau) arrives at the country chateau of a man (Michel Picoli) with a foot-fetishing father (Jean Ozenne) and a frigid wife (Françoise Lugagne), she quickly learns that the groundskeeper (Georges Géret) is a Fascist; that the couple’s neighbor (Daniel Ivernel) is perpetually vindictive; and that a young girl (Dominique Sauvage) is at risk from predators.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Class Relations
• French Films
• Jeanne Moreau Films
• Luis Buñuel Films
• Murder Mystery
• Servants, Maids, and Housekeepers
• Strong Females

Review:
Luis Buñuel’s first collaboration with screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière was this loosely inspired adaptation of a 1900 novel by Octave Mirbeau, previously adapted by Jean Renoir (1946) with Paulette Goddard in the title role. It’s challenging to know what to make of the storyline here, which starts off as a fairly straightforward tale of a savvy working-class woman navigating bourgeois perversities:

… but takes a decidedly darker turn when one key character dies suddenly, another is brutally murdered, and Moreau shifts into an amateur detective role. Things certainly don’t end in a satisfying or conclusive manner, and we’re left (possibly intentionally so) feeling quite unsettled. Given that this is a Buñuel film, that’s not so surprising — though it’s all accomplished without any overtly surreal imagery. As noted in David Kalat’s review for TCM, “If there’s anything that ties Buñuel’s films together, it is their commitment to intellectual anarchy, their refusal to be tied down by anything so reductive as a simple interpretation.”

Note: A benefit of watching a number of foreign language titles in chronological order is feeling better able to place certain supporting actors who seemed to be cast to type — as is the case here with Françoise Lugagne playing a variation on the same kind of uptight wife she embodied in Claude Chabrol’s Bluebeard (1963).

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Jeanne Moreau as Célestine
  
• Fine cinematography and sets
  
  

Must See?
No, though it’s worth a look. Listed as a film with Historical Importance and a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Links:

• IMDb entry
• DVD Savant Review
• TCM Article

Synopsis:
When a White journalist (James Whitmore) takes pills to turn himself temporarily Black, his travels through the South begin to give him an approximation of systemic and individual racism across the American south.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• African-Americans
• Deep South
• James Whitmore Films
• Journalists
• Mistaken and Hidden Identities
• Race Relations and Racism

Review:
I’ll open my review of this unusual independent film by citing directly from David Sterritt’s article for TCM, where he notes that:

Black Like Me (1964), based on the book of that title by John Howard Griffin, tells the unlikely tale of a bold, flawed, and enduringly controversial experiment carried out by a journalist whose lack of training in social science was balanced by deep curiosity and a profound sense of indignation over some of the ugliest aspects of 20th-century American society.

Indeed, it should be noted that modern viewers will likely have a hard time swallowing the overall intent of this flick — and it doesn’t help matters that (as Bosley Crowther points out in his review) “Whitmore’s make-up does little to convince us he’s actually Black (he looks more “like an end man in a minstrel show”):

… and “Carl Lerner’s direction of the screenplay that he and his wife, Gerda, wrote is melodramatic and unsubtle.” However, also true is Sterritt’s assessment that while this is “not great cinema,” it’s “a compelling time capsule… offering a rough-and-ready sketch of the powerful passions and noble purposes that propelled the civil-rights movement in the crucial year of 1964.”

To that end, in order to contextualize this film within other cinematic efforts of the time, I turn to DVD Savant’s review, where he writes:

As socially conscious filmmaking moved into the 1960s, it became marginalized more than ever. Getting low-budget B&W pictures into theaters was an even tougher sell, and the watered-down liberal messages in TV meant that only a specialized audience went for films about social justice or race equality. The average person thinks that a successful liberal consciousness picture is the overly insistent The Defiant Ones or the feel-good Lilies of the Field or the glamorous Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Ironically, those glamorous and unthreatening Sidney Poitier pictures probably did more to convince nervous whitebread America accept the idea that blacks weren’t a scary “other”, than all the heartfelt confrontational movies put together. The nature of film distribution required that movies court a white audience. Sidney won over his audiences by playing characters of obvious virtue and integrity. Good actors like James Edwards and Brock Peters got plenty of bit parts and some that allowed them to express pride in their color, but Hollywood in general reacted to the Civil Rights advances with a dose of defensive tokenism.

With all this important contextualizing information in mind, Black Like Me is recommended for one-time viewing.

Note: I found it especially intriguing reading more about Griffin himself in Sterritt’s overview for TCM, and highly recommend a fascinating 2011 documentary about him available for viewing on Vimeo.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• A most unusual social experiment brought to life on screen
  

Must See?
Yes, as a powerful (if perhaps inevitably flawed) independent film about racism.

Categories

• Good Show
• Historically Relevant

Links:

• IMDb entry
• TCM Article
• DVD Savant Review
• NY Times Original Review

Synopsis:
In post-WWII Parma, a bourgeois young man (Francesco Barilli) engaged to an apolitical beauty (Cristina Pariset) reflects on life, religion, politics, and the recent death of his friend (Allen Midgette) while beginning an affair with his young aunt (Adriana Asti).

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Bernardo Bertolucci Films
• Italian Films

Review:
Bernardo Bertolucci was only 22-years-old when he made his second feature-length film, with overt references to filmmakers he admired — including Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Unfortunately, Bertolucci’s Oscar-nominated screenplay — co-authored by Gianni Amico, and inspired by characters’ names from Stendhal’s 1839 novel The Charterhouse of Parma — doesn’t provide us with much to hold onto, with Barilli simply presenting as a callow youth whose crush on his aunt seems ill-advised at best:

… and Asti coming across as merely a wide-eyed, tortured cipher. While this film is lauded in 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die as an “astonishing” “elegy for those bourgeois lives doomed because they take place before the revolution,” showcasing “a perfect portrait of the generation who were to embrace revolt in the late 1960s,” most modern (non-Italian) viewers won’t have a good sense of which revolution is being referred to, or why any of this much matters.

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Aldo Scavarda’s cinematography
  

Must See?
No; you can skip this one unless you’re a Bertolucci fan. Listed as a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Village Voice Review

Synopsis:
A famous director (Marcello Mastroianni) in a creative slump seeks respite at a spa, but by inviting his mistress (Sandra Milo) and his wife (Anouk Aimee) to come visit — and inevitably being surrounded by people wanting something from him — he is unable to rest.

Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:

• Anouk Aimee Films
• Barbara Steele Films
• Claudia Cardinale Films
• Directors
• Federico Fellini Films
• Italian Films
• Marcello Mastroianni Films
• Midlife Crisis

Review:
Fellini’s hyper-existential 8 1/2th film was made after his first six features — Variety Lights (1950) (which he co-directed — so, it counts for half), The White Sheik (1952), I Vitelloni (1953), La Strada (1954), The Swindle (1955) [not listed in Peary’s GFTFF], Nights of Cabiria (1957), and La Dolce Vita (1960), as well as segments of Love in the City (1953) and Boccaccio ’70 (1962) — and thus was named after its own numerical placement in his oeuvre. As Alexander Sesonke notes in his review for Criterion, “8 1/2 is a film about making a film, and the film that is being made is 8 1/2.” Precisely.

Given how intentionally self-absorbed this project ended up being, I was pleasantly surprised by how easily I got caught up in Mastroianni’s travails — unlike in the much bleaker La Dolce Vita (perhaps in part because Fellini kept a note to himself by his camera saying “Remember — this is a comedy.”). Fellini very effectively conveys what it’s like to be so famous and beloved for your craft that you’re literally swarmed by people wanting a piece of it (and you):

… as you’re simultaneously trying to manage an escapist affair, keeping your wife and producers happy (or not):

… and flashing back continuously on memories from your childhood.

Fellini’s direction is seamlessly fluid, never giving us a moment’s pause before turning to the next distraction (much like his protagonist seems to feel at all times).

Watch for Barbara Steele as an inscrutable young American starlet in an early sequence:

… and Claudia Cardinale — at both bookends of the film — starring as Fellini’s (er, Mastroianni’s) “Ideal Woman”.

Note: Not surprisingly, this film spawned a number of imitators, including Alex in Wonderland (1970), All That Jazz (1979), and Stardust Memories (1980).

Notable Performances, Qualities, and Moments:

• Marcello Mastroianni as Guido
  
• Gianni Di Venanzo’s cinematography
  
• Many memorable scenes and moments
  
• Nino Rota’s score

Must See?
Yes, for sure. Listed as a film with Historical relevance, a Cult Movie, and a Personal Recommendation in the back of Peary’s book.

Categories

• Foreign Gem
• Historically Relevant
• Important Director

(Listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die)

Links:

• IMDb entry
• Criterion Essay
• TCM Article
• Movie Diva Article
• Washington Post (Desson Howe)
• Washington Post (Hal Hinson)