night games ( 1966 film )
what
night games
is is not pornographic, nor shocking, but for 1966, it certainly wasn' t everyday viewing. …
former child star shirley temple black quit the board of the san fransisco film festival to protest its decision to show nattlek (night games). she regarded it as pornography .
with the headline: screen:' night games' on view at festival theater; mai zetterling' s movie a deliberate shocker licentious and explicit scenes stressed .
unrelated to the persona video games, although jungian psychology is a major theme in both .
in a sense ,
night games
provides a measure of the permissiveness explosion, or whatever newsweek is calling it this week. when the film was first exhibited at the venice film festival in 1966, it was considered the most daring ever made. the police closed the theater to the public, and the judges saw it at a private screening .
the joker (cesar romero) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .
the penguin (burgess meredith) - 19 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie .
though
night games
, directed by mai zetterling had been on my watchlist for about two years as i worked to find a copy anywhere, i never bothered to try and find a review, i' d rather go into a film as blind as possible .
nearly three years later, with
i am curious (yellow )
on the horizon ,
night games
can be seen for what it is: not a sexploitation film in any sense, but a serious attempt to get inside the mind of this character .
night games has patience and an eye for detail. it lets moments arrive organically, and faces are framed in a way to emphasize their uniqueness. it' s often gorgeously shots, and certain moments are incredible. the newspaper castle sequence should be taught in film classes .
was a thirty - minute prime time, live - action television series broadcast by the abc network between 1966 and 1968 .
mai zetterling' s
night games ,
which opened at the festival yesterday, is the swedish film that the directors of this year' s venice film festival considered too raw for public showing in their urbane festival hall. (it was shown to the jury in private, and did not win an award .) view full article in timesmachine »
mai zetterling' s
night games
is an absorbing, even brilliant film, but it fails to evoke much of an emotional response. it is a film made entirely in the mind, as if the heart were no concern, and it can be seen that way - - as a cold, aloof study of human neurosis. but not for a moment did i care about any of the characters .
so, i was unaware of its
notorious
past of having been
banned
at the venice film festival in 1966, only being seen by the judges and made available to the press, and that shirley temple - yes, she of the good - ship lollipop - walked away from the sf film fest over the inclusion of the film, feeling it was pornographic .
night games
- jan fights impotence (literal and symbolic) and anguished childhood memories in a decadent swedish castle where risqué parties and daring scenes defy 1960s' movie censorship, reaffirming the ground - breaking role of swedish films in helping advance adult, sexually concerned themes in international cinema .
the riddler (frank gorshin and john astin) - 11 episodes with a cameo appearance and the 1966 movie. astin plays the role for a single season 2 storyline .
message body (your name) thought you would like to see the film quarterly web site .
this film is not currently playing on mubi but 30 other great films are. see what’s now showing
the searing film exhibited a fine sense of pacing, comic timing, and gripping buildup in a series of emotional climaxes. the film follows the structure of albee' s play, delineated by three acts :
nattlek, or night games, is a 1966 film by swedish director mai zetterling, based on her own novel. zetterling' s background was peculiar for the time: she had actually been an established actress and continued to act throughout her directing career, which isn' t that common even today. i had actually meant to watch her aristophanes' adaptation, the girls, but my computer decided to quit on me, so i went with this controversial work instead. jan (keve hjelm, who had just appeared in bo widerberg' s love 65) brings his fiancée mariane (lena brundin) to his old family mansion and, once there, starts having flashbacks or dreams — or maybe a little bit of both — about his childhood; the film then unfolds…
clinically moody arthouse thats so aesthetically sumptuous and beguilingly structured.' nattlek' aka' night games' directed by swedish mai zetterling (who sadly made more films as an actress than she ever got to do as a director), shares the iconoclast sensibilities of luis bunuel with the craftsmanship and eye for detail of jean cocteau. its an extremely cold tale of a man…
so begins, without further preamble, the romantic comedy our souls as night, adapted from kent haruf’s quiet, deeply thoughtful final novel. it could have been made as a very different film for festival and art house audiences. here the casting dominates the story, sacrificing some of the novel’s density and depth for the much wider appeal of reuniting robert redford and jane fonda onscreen since the chase (1966), barefoot in the park (1967) and the electric horseman (1979) .
a 1966 psychological drama by ingmar bergman, starring bibi andersson and liv ullmann. as with much of bergman' s filmography, the movie rides heavily on symbolism and philosophy. its plot is... hard to explain .
the black - and - white film, masterfully directed by mike nichols (in his directorial screen debut), captured probably the greatest performance ever of elizabeth taylor' s career (she won her second academy award as well as best actress praises from the new york film critics, the nat' l board of review and the british film academy) .
in 1967 a one minute film was created for the central office of information. the information film was filmed kenning, london and showed batman played adam west taking a break from fighting crime and helping children with their technique of road safety .
her work in this film led to a notorious libel suit involving the future novelist graham greene, then employed as a film critic by the magazine night and day. at a cocktail party, after what he later described as “a dangerous third martini” greene dreamt up the idea of deflating the temple balloon, but he peppered his review of her performance in wee willie winkie with such litigious terms as “dubious coquetry”, “dimpled depravity” and “mature suggestiveness” .
as for
night games ,
it is a movie based almost entirely on technique and intellectual calculation. miss zetterling seems to be influenced by fellini; we get orgies attended by grotesque people who play themselves as if they were trapped inside. and we get the hero, grimly picking his way through this maze, trying to figure out what went wrong. but his problem is the movie' s problem: no heart .
premiering on january 12, 1966, as a mid - season replacement, the series featured actor adam west as the perennial character of batman, while burt ward donned nylon stockings and fairy boots for his portrayal of the erstwhile sidekick, robin .
the shocking content - the dramatic portrayal of the destructive, sado - masochistic, and cruel battles in one couple' s tempestuous, love - hate relationship during a late night (2 am) to dawn brawling encounter while victimizing another young couple - was thought to be too vitriolic, frank, explicitly blasphemous and foul - mouthed for the film screen. [ note: it was the first american film to use the expletive' goddamn' and' bugger'. ] the mpaa ratings board gave the film a seal of approval after warner bros. appealed and made a few cuts of the most extreme profanity (such as
screw you
). it was the first film to be released with a
suggested for mature audiences
warning .
male frontal nudity: the montage of surreal imagery that starts the film includes a brief shot—less than a second, but still recognizable—of an erect penis .
melting film effect: trope codifier at the least, as this is just one of the ways bergman reminds you his movie is only a movie .
and that is a fairly good argument, i suppose, for the freedom filmmakers are currently enjoying films like
night games
or
i am curious (yellow) ,
by expanding the limits of allowable subject matter, open up large areas behind them where serious filmmakers can seriously consider the way we live. eventually this freedom trickles down into the mainstream product, and you get
goodbye, columbus
or last year' s
the graduate ,
playing to enormous audiences who hardly care about the pioneers .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
born in the theater: the famous moment in which the film appears to crack and melt right after elisabet and alma are about to have a confrontation .
what will people say, after all, when they get wind of their unusual arrangement? addie is articulate and daring; louis is tongue - tied, formal and a bit boring, not as prepared as she is to make a leap into the unknown. the first night that he shows up at her house, he brings his pjs in a brown paper bag and discreetly comes round the back. that night their mutual nervousness isn’t very conducive to conversation or companionship, yet there is a delicious sense that these two weathered souls are boldly breaking a worthless taboo as they climb into addie’s big bed together, in full night clothes. by the time louis finally settles down to make a few remarks, she is already fast asleep .
as a result, for years, only the 1966 batman film represented the tv series on vhs, laserdisc, dvd and, later, blu - ray formats. in the 2000s, a two - dvd set called holy batmania was released featuring archival interview footage, rare promotional items, and also never - before - released screen test footage from pre - production of the series. in the late 2000s, adam west also released a special dvd in which he discussed each episode of the series. bootleg dvd versions of the series itself, featuring episodes recorded off tv broadcasts and of wildly varying quality, became common place at science fiction conventions. return to the batcave: the misadventures of adam and burt was also released on dvd, though as noted above the film was only able to utilize 1966 movie footage (including a sequence paying tribute to julie newmar' s catwoman that only features footage of lee meriwether) .
impaled palm: one of the surreal inserts that opens and closes the film is a shot of a palm getting a nail pounded through it jesus - style .
catwoman (julie newmar and eartha kitt) - 15 episodes with two cameo appearances and the 1966 movie. newmar plays the character for season 1 and 2, but due to film commitments was unavailable for the movie and season 3 and was replaced by lee meriwether for the movie, and kitt for season 3. the casting of african - american kitt as catwoman marked the first time in american television that two actors of different race were cast as the same ongoing character .
minimalist cast: there' s only four or five (if you think the boy from the prologue is meaningful) characters in the whole film. it' s only alma and elisabet who are onscreen for the great majority of the film, with the head doctor and elisabet' s husband being in it very briefly .
on the night before his marriage, a young man and his fiancee return to the castle where he grew up to find out why he is impotent. in flashbacks, it is shown that his aristocratic mother indulged in nearly every sexual perversion known to man .
as a ingrid thulin fan, thanks for the superior picture quality of this decadent film, and your swift mailing! now i am your fan too ...
in 2013, dc began publication of batman' 66, a comic book series telling all - new stories set in the world of the 1966 - 1968 tv series. jeff parker writes the series, which features cover art by mike allred and interior art by different artists each issue. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ]
la story... lauren bacall and humphrey bogart in the film version of the big sleep. photograph: allstar collection / cinetext / warn / sportsphoto ltd. / allstar
all psychology is freudian: averted — as the title suggests, psychology in this film is primarily based on jung' s ideas, which the viewer is apparently expected to know all about .
i' m starting to think bergman' s single largest contribution to swedish film was to mess up its critical economy. can we talk about zetterling, sjöström and stiller, too, please ?
the film' s title refers to virginia woolf (1882 - 1941), an influential british feminist writer who pioneered the' stream of consciousness' literary style while examining the psychological and emotional motives of her characters. [ note: perhaps the' fear' of vw refers to the film' s characters who are suffering marital discord in the emotionally - draining film, and who may have' known' that she suffered from mental illness and ultimately went insane and committed suicide. ] the title is also a parody of who' s afraid of the big bad wolf? , a tune sung in disney' s three little pigs (1933) animated short film. the names of the two major characters, george and martha, are those of the first us president and his wealthy wife - a marriage of convenience .
in addition to the fantastic sets and costumes, the series also featured a number of james bond - inspired gadget - filled vehicles: batmobile (which had originated in the comics), batcycle, batboat, and the batcopter. the batmobile donor car was a 1955 lincoln futura that george barris customized in only three weeks. two batcycles appeared on the show; the first was a barely modified harley davidson, and the second was a highly modified yamaha. the batboat was built by glastron. some of the specialty vehicles - in particular the batboat and batcopter - were constructed under the budget for the 1966 film .
george won' t allow martha to play
blue games for the guests
when they kiss and she moves his hand down onto her breast :
everything in its place martha, everything in its own good time .
honey asks again about the most sensitive subject of the evening - their son. the feuding couple use the imaginary son as a weapon in most of their arguments :
now we sec his head, now hers, and over and over they turn, rolling and writhing in bed. have the movies invented a new position? or has the phrase
a roll in the hay
been taken literally? kids who learn about sex at the movies are in for a miserable time if they try the roll. and that seems to be the trouble with the hero of night games, one of a number of movies in which the rotating slows down enough for us to see anguished faces. then we know that although the lovers have certainly been trying their calisthenic best, they have not succeeded. as these are all too likely to he serious movies, we can' t very well…
who' s afraid of virginia woolf? (1966), a famous and shocking black comedy, was based on edward albee' s scandalous play (ernest lehman' s screenplay left the dialogue of the play virtually intact). it was first performed in new york in october of 1962, and it captured the new york drama critics circle award and the tony award for the 1962 - 63 season .
although its elements point towards nailbiting tension, this isn' t so much what lift to the scaffold is about; it draws more on the blanket fatalism of film noir rather than the savage irony so often associated with the genre. key to this is jeanne moreau as tavernier' s lover, florence; in the film' s signature sequence her man fails to turn up, so she walks the streets trying vainly to find him. filmed on the fly without professional lighting, accompanied only by miles davis' s brilliant, melancholy score, these few minutes capture the bleak and beautiful essence of malle' s film. dw
woolf won five academy awards from its thirteen nominations: best actress (elizabeth taylor), best supporting actress (sandy dennis), best b / w cinematography (haskell wexler), best art direction and best costume design. the other eight nominations included best picture, best actor (richard burton), best supporting actor (george segal), best director (mike nichols), best screenplay (ernest lehman), best sound, best original music score, and best film editing. [ note: the film became noted as the only one in academy history up to that point to be nominated in every eligible category. it was also the first film to have every member of its cast receive an acting nomination. ] as compensation for his defeat this year, director mike nichols won the best director oscar the next year for the graduate (1967) over norman jewison, the director of the best picture victor in the heat of the night (1967) .
they have returned at two o' clock early on a sunday morning from one of her father' s
goddamn saturday night orgies ,
according to george. as they bicker at each other, it is revealed that george is a tired, defeated teacher, married for twenty years to the daughter of the president of the college .
she alternated these performances with small parts in now forgotten feature movies such as the red - haired alibi (1932) and to the last man (1933), opposite randolph scott. while filming a second series of shorts for educational under the title frolics of youth, she and her mother were approached by the much bigger fox film corporation (later twentieth century - fox) with a view to shirley featuring in the film stand up and cheer (1934). she passed the audition and was signed up for $ 150 a week. when the film opened, she stole the show with the song and dance routine baby take a bow .
the series spun - off a motion picture in 1966 featuring most of the tv cast. after its cancellation, west and ward continued to portray batman and robin in voice only for several saturday morning - cartoon versions of batman, and appeared on screen once more as the dynamic duo in the two - part comedy special
legends of the superheroes
which aired in 1979 and also featured frank gorshin returning as the riddler .
on the other hand, it’s hard to imagine two better - matched people sharing pillow talk. she says she always thought of him as a good man — a judgment that not all the townspeople share when it comes out, on their third night together, that he once left his wife and daughter for a brief affair with a fellow teacher .
double vision... a still from the coen brothers' film blood simple, set to be remade by zhang yimou as a woman, a gun and a noodle shop. photograph: sportsphoto / allstar / cinetext collection
in the sloppy kitchen in a famous sequence in which she munches on a fried chicken leg and puffs on a cigarette, she repeatedly - with a deep whiskey voice - berates her husband for not remembering the film the line is from :
what' s it from, for christ' s sake? ... some damn bette davis picture, some god - damned warner bros epic .
exasperated at her criticism of his cocktail - party behavior, he inquires :
do you want me to go around braying at everyone all night the way you do ?
the voiceless: elisabet has been sent to recuperate after suddenly deciding to stop speaking; the number of times she speaks during the film can be counted on one hand and all of them may just be imagined by the characters .
the plaintiffs won; $ 5, 250 punitive damages were awarded to fox, $ 7, 000 to the actress and night and day folded. but as a postscript to the episode, the mature shirley temple bore the novelist no grudge. in 1989, she sent him an inscribed copy of her autobiography, child star, and invited him to tea .
she was acting in pictures from the age of four and rapidly captivated filmgoers with her blonde ringlets and dimpled charm. dolls, books and games were named after her in a merchandising campaign matched only by walt disney and mickey mouse. yet her talent was modest. she sang off - key and cynics dismissed her dancing as “mere jigging up and down”. she liked to do impersonations but her acting was generally regarded as cute rather than compelling .
mai zetterling' s night games is reminscent of joyce' s _ ulysses _ wherein is to be found the memorable line ,
history is the nightmare from which i am trying to awake .
this is a nightmare from an unusual perspective, a nightmare of unbridled female psychic destruction. zetterling' s courageous look at what happens to a woman who has none of the usual economic constraints on her psychic development in a context of european spiritual decline is compelling to say the least. unfortunately, this print seems to be one in which the infamous orgy sequence which was purported to contain actual sex is truncated or cut entirely. (imdb lists the original running time at 105 minutes and this one comes in at 101 .) but the transfer to dvd is pretty good and the strange and even shocking turn of events is otherwise preserved .
but the film is essentially the story of a jerky guy recalling how his mom was kind of crappy and how that' s the reason why he is shitty to women these days (but he' s trying to change). not interested .
suddenly voiced: elisabet, who spends most of the film in silence, speaks in three instances, though it may not have happened. it' s interesting to note that the camera avoids showing elisabet' s mouth moving in the first two instances .
in 2016, an animated feature film named batman: return of the caped crusaders was released to celebrate the show' s 50th anniversary with adam, burt and julie reprising their classic roles, as well as a sequel; batman vs. two - face .
juxtaposed halves shot: alma and elisabet in the climax of the film. their faces are juxtaposed to show that their individual identities have become indistinguishable from each other (or they' ve melded, or they were each other all along, or something) .
she had the child star’s built - in self - destruct mechanism — what had seemed peachy in a moppet became arch in adolescence. attempts to extend her career into young womanhood were unsuccessful and she made her last film in 1949 — washed up in hollywood at 21 .
nicholas ray' s astonishingly self - assured, lyrical directorial debut opens with title cards and lush orchestrations over shots of a boy and a girl in rapturous mutual absorption :
this boy … and this gir … were never properly introduced … to the world we live in …
a shriek of horns suddenly obliterates all other sound – their shocked faces both turn toward the camera, and the title appears: they live by night .
the film opens under a moonlit sky in the middle of the night on a small new england college campus (in the town of new carthage - an allegorical name). under the credits, an academic couple walk through the deserted campus - george (richard burton), a 46 year old, bespectacled history professor, and his 52 year old wife martha (elizabeth taylor), a large, boisterous, blowsy woman with heavy wrinkles. martha' s drunken laugh acutely punctuates the title
who' s afraid of virginia woolf ?
after drunkenly weaving their way home, they enter their home and switch the lights on. martha looks around the living room discontentedly and parodies bette davis' mannerisms, exclaiming :
mr. freeze (george sanders, otto preminger, and eli wallach) - featured in 6 episodes. he is very different from the way he is in the comics, though the later batman and robin film based the arnold schwarzenegger version of the character on the tv show .
kiss me deadly is the black - hearted apotheosis of film noir, and a key film of the 50s, embodying the profoundest anxieties of eisenhower' s america: it ends with the detonation of a nuclear device on malibu beach and, presumably thereafter, the end of the world itself. robert aldrich' s moral universe is so violently out of kilter that even his opening credits run upside down. his hero, mike hammer, is an amoral, proto - fascist bedroom detective and 1, 000% scumbag, but the villains he encounters are far, far worse .
two - face / harvey dent (william shatner) - eastwood was cast to play two - face in 1968, however the show was cancelled before any appearances. he is the main villain of
batman' 66: the lost episode
as well as the feature film batman vs. two - face .
jamie (well sketched by young iain armitage) is a quiet boy glued to the games on his cell phone. (the fact that the oldsters don’t own these new - fangled contraptions is a bit unlikely, but becomes a plot point later on .) his stay with grandma while gene tries to get his life together introduces the first real challenge to addie and louis’ arrangement, and their way around it is both sensible and amusing. the dynamics between the three characters is gently engaging rather than dramatic, and you can feel the energy shifting as rom - com is put on the back burner to family life, train sets, a new dog. opening the film up beyond the sleepy neighborhood and the house on cedar and 12th street, batra sends the trio on an idyllic camping trip in the colorado mountains, beside a breath - taking river. jamie and the dog in one tent. addie and louis in another .
cameron crowe called double indemnity
flawless film - making
. woody allen declared it
the greatest movie ever made
. even if you can' t go along with that, there can be no disputing that it is the finest film noir of all time, though it was made in 1944, before the term film noir was even coined. adapting james m cain' s 1935 novella about a straight - arrow insurance salesman tempted into murder by a duplicitous housewife, genre - hopping director billy wilder recruited raymond chandler as co - writer. chandler, said wilder ,
was a mess, but he could write a beautiful sentence
. noir' s visual style, which had its roots in german expressionism, was forged here, though wilder insisted that he was going for a
newsreel
effect .
we had to be realistic ,
he said .
you had to believe the situation and the characters, or all was lost .
parental neglect: one of the reasons for elisabet' s condition, recounted by alma in the film' s climax, is having a son she didn' t want and who she can' t bring herself to love. it' s said the son lives with relatives and elisabet only sees him sporadically and unwillingly .
unlike the earlier movie serials of the 1940s, this was the first batman project to feature batman' s rogues gallery of villains. cesar romero made numerous appearances as the joker, while burgess meredith reinvented the image of the penguin, with his crooked smile and trademark
squawk
. julie newmar provided catwoman' s rolling
r
s, only to be replaced later by lee meriwether for the 1966 movie, and again in the final season by eartha kitt. two men provided their talents to the role of the riddler - frank gorshin (in the first and third seasons) and john astin (in a one - off second - season appearance) .
louis malle' s first fiction feature, based on noel calef' s 1956 novel, occupies a very interesting space. it qualifies as film noir for its appropriation of us postwar cinema in its tale of lovers gone bad, but also heralds the imminent arrival of the french new wave. the director was in his mid - 20s at the time and clearly using the crime - thriller genre (something he never returned to) as a testing ground and not a strict template. perhaps that explains why his film is such a melting pot of influences, drawing not only on hitchcock but also the master of suspense' s overseas admirers, including henri - georges clouzot and his les diaboliques .
one of the most dramatic, riveting moments of the film blurs fantasy and reality. martha brings up another embarrassing wound from the past, questioning george' s manliness. she describes a public boxing match incident which her daddy orchestrated in his back yard. when george told his father - in - law that he didn' t want to box, martha got into the pair of gloves herself and punched george pow right in the jaw, sending him crashing into a huckleberry bush. during her story telling, george finds a shotgun in another room, stalks his prey, and takes aim at the back of martha' s head. when honey notices the gun, she screams in fright. martha turns her head to face him as he pulls the trigger - out blossoms a brightly - striped umbrella, a symbolic display of his weakness and sexual impotency in another of his games. he adds sound effects :
pow. you' re dead !
they laugh, mostly from relief and confusion .
one of the amazing things about the third man ,
steven soderbergh once wrote ,
is that it really is a great film, in spite of all the people who say it' s a great film .
he' s right. it' s one of the greatest, in fact: a witty, elegantly shot and steadfastly compassionate thriller suffused with the dreadful melancholia of the finest noir. it' s set in allied - occupied vienna, where writer holly martins (joseph cotten) pitches up at the invitation of his old chum harry lime. except that when martins arrives, lime turns out to be dead. at least that' s the prevailing wisdom at his funeral .
it’s fascinating as well as heartening to see that their chemistry and sex appeal are still intact as they circle 80, and one imagines this netflix original film will prove irresistible to the older demographic. premiering on the big screen in venice, it made an appropriate, historic salute to the ageless pair who are being awarded twin gold lions for their career achievements .
when they get back, trouble is waiting in the shape of gene. schoenaerts brings deep - rooted resentment and brooding to the film’s sole dramatic role, creating some much - needed motivation for the final scenes and the choice addie makes between louis and her family. given the lightness that has preceded it, the thoughtful ending feels like reality has brusquely broken in .
the robert e. parilla performing arts center is the hub of cultural activity at the montgomery college rockville campus. for the 2018 – 2019 season, patrons can select from a wide variety of performances including music, drama, dance, and art - house films. discover the guest artist series, children’s series, college performing arts series, music series and film series .
in his screenplay, robert towne develops two dominant metaphors; the first centres on water. during a period of drought someone is dumping water from local reservoirs, and it becomes clear that this most precious of human resources is being manipulated by land speculators in their own interests. the name of evelyn' s husband, hollis mulwray, evokes william mullholland, the los angeles engineer responsible in the 20s for the deals that, in the old western phrase ,
made water flow uphill in search of the money
. the name noah cross suggests the protective old testament patriarch played in the 1966 blockbuster the bible by john huston, but here reprised in a less benevolent mode as a self - righteous plutocrat who has harnessed the flood in his own interests .
gainax ending: alma and elisabet packing up to leave, a ghostly elisabet caressing alma in the mirror, alma leaving alone as elisabet seems to have disappeared, brief shots showing alma seemingly acting out the memory of a stage play that was elisabet' s. then a shot of ingmar bergman filming the movie, and a shot of film running out of the camera and the arc light going out .
perhaps that was because the film' s hero does not care for himself. the story concerns a young man who brings his fiancée back to live in the gloomy manor where he spent his own childhood. the house is saturated with the presence of his late mother, a domineering woman who smothered his emotional development. his idea is to return to the scene of his crippling and try to break through his hang - ups .
atmosphere from bergman, psychology from freud, pictures from fellini, and politics from marx coalesce into this, a piercing psychological drama about confronting your past as the only way to reinvent your future. zetterling pushes her film forward like a mad symphony, simultaneously dissecting both the oedipus complex and the decadent upper class. and the clever one - liners (which, by the sheer number of them, seem to have been shot onto the manuscript page through the barrel of a shotgun) !
kiss me deadly opens with a woman, naked under a raincoat, fleeing headlong and barefoot down a highway at night. rescued by hammer, then un - rescued by her faceless original captors, she dies screaming under gruesome torture with pliers (aldrich was always at the vanguard in his use of violence). thereafter, hammer finds himself on a terrifying hunt through the criminal underworld of los angeles, from his gleamingly modern office in posh brentwood to the dilapidated flophouses of bunker hill, as he bludgeons, browbeats, blackmails and brutalises his way inch by inch towards a resolution that will destroy everyone and everything, all in search of the elusive
great whatsit
– a deadly, molten, much sought - after package that' s grandfather to the suitcase in pulp fiction and the chevy nova in repo man .
somehow all the planets aligned for ray, a novice director with an achingly poetic - realist vision of depression - era texas and the determination to implement it wholesale: a perfect source novel, edward anderson' s thieves like us; and exactly the right combination of producer (john houseman), studio (rko) and sympathetic studio head (dore schary). the result is luminous in its imagery, highly sophisticated in its musical choices (the folk song i know where i' m going succinctly and repeatedly stresses that they don' t know anything at all) suffused with romantic fatalism – they' ll die by night, too; you know it from the start – and enriched by ray' s total identification with his characters' doomed trajectory. ray' s first masterpiece, and a pinnacle of poetic noir. john patterson
it' s set in a castle in sweden and it features the kind of depraved upper - class partying at which the question
don' t you wish you were dead ?
is answered by
i' m dead already .
a jazz ensemble plays as ingrid thulin gives birth (to a dead child, of course), and at a wedding - night party the groom (keve hjelm), who can' t make it, gets up from bed, lets the birds out of their fancy cage and puts the cage on himself. and he vomits great gushing torrents - - i. e. , his whole past life. at a final party, he dynamites the castle which, because it is where his childhood took place, is presumably the block to his potency. he literally blasts through. it all seems like…
the near perfection of roman polanski' s chinatown starts with diener / hauser / bates' s haunting art nouveau poster for the film: an emblematic hokusai wave breaks against jack nicholson' s silhouette as the smoke from his cigarette floats up to merge with faye dunaway' s medusa - like hair. the movie ends equally unforgettably with the line ,
forget it jake, it' s chinatown !
, as lapidary a pay - off as scarlett o' hara' s ,
after all, tomorrow is another day .
the last four years of her screen career were an anticlimax. her infant precocity gave way to mere pertness (of which there is no shortage in hollywood) in such films as the bachelor and the bobby soxer (1947), that hagen girl (1947), with ronald reagan, and a kiss for corliss (1949), her screen swansong, opposite david niven. this period also included the first film in john ford’s cavalry trilogy, fort apache (1948), in which she co - starred, aged 20, with her husband .
metaphorically and cinematically, it' s a picture about crossing over – in one sumptuous camera setup we track the characters over the border. that shot is famous, but it' s no richer than the single setup in a cramped motel suite that proves how hank quinlan (welles himself) plants dynamite on the man he intends to frame. these scenes were a way for welles to say ,
i' m as good as ever
, but they are also crucial to the uneasiness that runs through the picture and the gloating panorama of an unwholesome society. the aura of crime has seeped into every cell of ordinary behaviour: the city officials are corrupt, the night man (dennis weaver) needs a rest home, and the gang that come to the motel to get susie are one of the first warnings of drugs in american movies. not least, of course, quinlan – a sheriff gone to hell on candy bars .
she was born on april 23 1928 in santa monica, california, the daughter of a bank teller. like many a proud mother, gertrude temple enrolled her child in dancing classes at the age of three and promoted her vigorously. a talent scout from educational pictures, a small company specialising in shorts, spotted shirley and invited her for a screen test, which led to her appearance in 1932 - 33 in a string of film spoofs known as baby burlesks. among them were the incomparable more legs sweetrick (as marlene dietrich), the pie - covered wagon and polly - tix in washington .
however, with studio boss jack warner' s insistence on keeping the integrity of the play, and the teaming of real - life husband and wife mega - stars elizabeth taylor and richard burton, the film was guaranteed success. the two portrayed an on - screen couple: a sharp - tongued but ineffectual professor (burton) and his complaining wife (taylor), in the company of a new professor (segal) and his mousy wife (dennis). [ note: the couple had originally been teamed in the mega - flop cleopatra (1963). robert redford rejected the role played by george segal. ]
as in so much film noir, the crux of the story is a case of cherchez la femme. in this case la femme is abby marty (frances mcdormand), wife of texas bar owner julian (dan hedaya). julian suspects abby of having an affair with one of his staff, and when private eye loren visser (m emmet walsh) confirms this to be the case, julian sets a murder plan in motion. for most directors this would be enough, but the coens embrace the full - on complications of the genre to create a genuine sense of an
easy
crime spiralling out of control .
as in that film, the story concerns a conspiracy to murder. ex - foreign legion soldier julien tavernier (maurice ronet), a veteran of french military misadventures in algeria and indochina, is planning to kill his boss, who is also his lover' s husband. on paper, the plan is seamless – tavernier secures his alibis and enters his victim' s office unseen, by means of a rope – but things soon get messy. on returning to the crime scene to retrieve a key piece of evidence, tavernier finds himself trapped in the elevator, leaving his car parked outside with the keys in the ignition .
taking its atmospheric title from a line in dashiell hammett' s hard - boiled novel red harvest (an allusion never explained), blood simple is perhaps the coen brothers' most straightforward movie, even though it is, ironically, not at all simple. in a manner that would come to be their stock - in - trade, the film is a cacophony of cross - purposes, in some ways a rehearsal for their breakout effort fargo, which also depicts a nefarious plan gone wrong. it also marks the use of literary genre elements in the
real
world, a formula that would later be refined by quentin tarantino .
but its gorgeous form makes it worth a watch nonetheless. the beautiful tones of the film, the playful shot compositions and the way jan slides from one time into another, going seemlessly from the present into the past and vice versa, solely changing his form from adult to child. it reminded me of juraj herz’s the cremator where kopfrkingl is sometimes like a hinge of two different spaces that pass around him in such a quiet manner that the viewer takes notice of it only after a while. with jan, on the other hand, the time change is obvious right away as he becomes a child again, while the space stays the same .
the screenplay was adapted by daniel mainwaring from his own novel, build my gallows high (the film' s uk title). but the sharpened splinters of dialogue also bear the mark of cain — james m cain, that is, the legendary author of noir landmarks the postman always rings twice and double indemnity, who performed vital but uncredited rewrites. according to mitchum' s biographer, lee server, it was cain who expunged kathie of any traces of lovability .
she can' t be all bad — no one is ,
one character remarks of her. to which jeff shoots back :
she comes the closest .
rg
a netflix presentation of a wildwood enterprises, wildgaze films production cast: jane fonda, robert redford, bruce dern, matthias schoenaerts, iain armitage, judy greer director: ritesh batra screenwriters: scott neustadter, michael h. weber, based on the novel by kent haruf producers: robert redford, finola dwyer, ted sarandos, erin simms coroducer: scott robertson executive producer: pauline fischer, sarah bremner, ben ormand director of photography: stephen goldblatt production designer: jane ann stewart costume designer: wendy chuck editor: john f. lyons music: elliot goldenthal casting director: avy kaufman venue: venice film festival (out of competition) 101 minutes
one of the first films to cement the nascent sundance film festival' s reputation, blood simple isn' t so much neo - noir as neo - neo - noir, using postmodern flourishes that still seem bold today. the most vivid is walsh as visser, presented more like a cold - blooded universal studios monster than a gumshoe, and the non - naturalistic lighting is often at odds with noir tradition, with the brothers allowing brilliant shafts of bright light to puncture the neon - lit dark. best of all is the use of the four tops' it' s the same old song as a motif – a neat touch that expresses genre familiarity with affection rather than cynicism. damon wise
swedish oddity, because 20th century swedish cinema has to be more than just bergman. when a boy is looking for his mother he visits the numerous rooms of a large mansion and finds odd groups and individuals; it is as if fellini was here. and of course the sequence, basically the first scene (well, second) segues into a celebratory birth watched by all those weird and numerous party guests. we’re off to a good start. the boy becomes a man and our male protagonist who brings a woman – dead ringer to his mother - to the mansion to show her his childhood. for he is, so he claims, still a child. and so much of the film is a…
martha: george' s biggest problem about the little... about our son, about our great big son, is that deep down in the private - most pit of his gut, he' s not completely sure that it' s his own kid. george: my god, you' re a wicked woman. martha: and i' ve told you a million times, baby... i wouldn' t conceive with anyone else, you know that baby. george: a deeply wicked person. honey (grieving and drunk): oh my, my, my, my, my... nick: i' m not sure that this is a subject for... george: martha' s lying. i want you to know that right now. martha is lying. there are very few things that i am certain of anymore, but the one thing, the one thing in this whole sinking world that i am sure of is my partnership, my chromosomological partnership in the... creation of our... blond - eyed, blue - haired... son... martha: ... george, our son does not have blue hair or blue eyes, for that matter. he has green eyes, like me. beautiful, beautiful green eyes. [ note: the black and white film didn' t betray the fact that elizabeth taylor' s eyes are in fact purple. ] george: he has blue eyes, martha. martha: green. george: blue, martha. martha: green you bastard .
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shirley temple, who has died aged 85, was the screen’s most popular child star of the 1930s, receiving at the age of eight 135, 000 birthday gifts from fans the world over .
throughout the depression years, her sunny disposition helped audiences forget their woes and a special oscar was presented to her for “bringing more happiness to millions of children and millions of grown - ups than any other child of her years in the history of the world”. it might have turned many a tiny tot’s head, but shirley had her mother constantly at her side to ensure she was kept on an even keel.
night games is a 1966 swedish movie directed by mai zetterling and starring ingrid thulin . the film premiered at the 27th venice international film festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private . the film was also the cause of former child-star shirley temple 's resignation from the san francisco international film festival . temple denounced the film as “ pornography for profit ” and was against it being shown at the festival . 
night games is a 1966 swedish movie directed by mai zetterling and starring ingrid thulin. the film premiered at the 27th venice international film festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private. the film was also the cause of former child-star shirley temple's resignation from the san francisco international film festival. temple denounced the film as “ pornography for profit ” and was against it being shown at the festival.
night games is a 1966 swedish movie directed by mai zetterling and starring ingrid thulin. the film premiered at the 27th venice international film festival where it was considered so controversial that it was shown to the jury in private. the film was also the cause of former child-star shirley temple's resignation from the san francisco international film festival. temple denounced the film as “ pornography for profit ” and was against it being shown at the festival.