Random Thoughts

La Strada. Federico Fellini. 1954.

What an odd film. Fellini’s later film are more overtly artificial, but here it’s unclear what the panto-like performance of Gelsomina is meant to convey. Is she supposed to be 14? Slightly er naive? Why does she shift from being naive to knowing so often? Why is she blond(e)? Nobody in Italy are blond(e)? It’s the most befuddling thing about this film.

Other than that (I mean, she’s a wonderful wild card in the film) this is (duh!) pretty good. Anthony Quinn is flawless. It’s beautifully shot, and this is a really nice DVD restoration.

This film got the Oscar for “Best Foreign Picture” and rapturous reception everywhere in the world, but not in Italy.

It was apparently a controversial film on its release in there, where people heckled it. “Marxist critics such as Guido Aristarco rejected the film on ideological grounds, particularly objecting to what they considered Christian notions of conversion and redemption: “We don’t say, nor have we ever said, that La Strada is a badly directed and acted film. We have declared, and do declare, that it is wrong; its perspective is wrong.””

I kinda agree. It’s still enjoyable to watch.

Included on the DVD is a one-hour documentary about Giulietta Masina, who plays the problematic role in this film.  It’s really, really interesting.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Jack and the Beanstalk. Jean Yarbrough. 1952.

Hey! Abbott and Costello on the heels of Laurel and Hardy! Whenever some Oldz person writes about either of the pairs, they’ll make sure to mention how the other pair is better/worse. I can never remember which one they prefer. Probably Laurel and Hardy?

Based on the two L&H films, I don’t really see the connection. A&C aren’t doing the same thing at all? But this may be the first A&C thing I’ve seen beyond some shorts and skits.

Anyway, this is pretty amusing. And it has like a plot and everything. It’s really sweet.

But yeesh. Some cruelty to that poor hen, though. They must have gone through several iterations. That’s a thing that hasn’t aged well. Nobody on the set thought “Perhaps it would be more comfortable for the hen to be carried under his arm instead of by her feet upside down”? I mean, people aren’t psychopaths any more. Are they!?

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Slapstick isn’t funny if it looks like the guy is really suffering

Utopia. Léo Joannon. 1951.

The DVD transfer is rather beat. I almost looks like it was mastered from a VHS copy?

And Laurel and Hardy look really beat here, too. Hardy is sweating profusely in many scenes and Laurel looks like he’s at death’s door.

Time for research!

In 1950, Laurel and Hardy were invited to France to make a feature film. The film was a disaster, a Franco-Italian co-production titled Atoll K. (The film was entitled Utopia in the US and Robinson Crusoeland in the UK.) Both stars were noticeably ill during the filming.

Sayeth Wikipedia.

But it’s delightfully silly in parts, but some scenes seem more like abuse of the elderly than comedy.

It has an uneasy mixture of Hollywood romanticism and European cynicism. It devolves from a sweet screwball fantasy into Lord of the Flies in a really weird way.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

At War With The Army. Hal Walker. 1950.

Hay! What happened to the 40s? I skipped it, because I’m amassing a collection of 40s film for a future nefarious blogging project.

So we’re not in 1950, but with a comedy/musical/war film. With Jerry Lewis!

Oh! This has the scene that Monty Python referred to with their Spam Song? “Beans beans beans beans, beautiful beans.”

I had no idea!

Anyway, this is a very low-budget film. Most of it takes place inside a couple of rather dreary offices, so it all depends on how funny you find Jerry Lewis’ adenoidal charms.

Dean Martin squeezes in a couple of mellifluous song numbers.

I was amused throughout, but I didn’t, you know, laugh.

It’s sweet.

I’m cocktailing my way through The Savoy Cocktail Book, and man, people in the olden times sure liked their cocktails strong: Most of the ones I’ve done so far are basically just booze. The lowest-alcohol ingredient is at like 20%.

Perhaps I should skip to the coolers/planters/punches chapters to get some vitamins in.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

The Flying Deuces. A. Edward Sutherland. 1939.

Hey! That’s a gap of several years since the previous film! I thought I had more 30s DVDs… And I sort of have, but they’re all part of various box sets, so I’m skipping them for this blog series, which is All Single DVDs All The Time.

This may be the first Laurel & Hardy feature film I’ve ever seen. I’ve just seen some shorts as a child… I think we had one on Super 8? I may be imagining things.

So this isn’t anything like I thought it would be. I thought it would just be Laurel and Hardy bumping their heads into things for an hour straight. But there’s like a kind of plot in between the antics and stuff.

I wouldn’t say that it’s a good film… It’s not Marx Brothers. But it’s pretty amusing.

This blog post is part of the Century series.