Random Thoughts

Hm… is that the right aspect ratio? Isn’t the Earth supposed to be, like, round?

Oh, that’s better! This is an anamorph DVD. You don’t see that very often – they usually just letterbox it, which means fewer pixels. Nice.

There’s Always Tomorrow. Douglas Sirk. 1956.

I’ve been looking forward to watching this movie: I’m such a great fan of Douglas Sirk’s weepies that I bought the DVD twice.

And it’s a flawless melodrama. It’s such a small, contained story; just about relationships and emotions and stuff. Nothing Earth-shattering, but kinda perfect.

I should watch all of Sirk’s films one of these days. Of course, Sirk was rediscovered a few years after this and hailed as an auteur by the French, which is totally understandable. He’s got a way of making you feel the tiniest bit of emotion in the material. It’s overboard, but it’s fantastic.

The DVD also has a French documentary from 1982 (filmed on VHS). It’s fascinating. Sirk seems, to no great surprising, to be smart and interesting.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

The Seven Year Itch. Billy Wilder. 1955.

I’ve seen this before, of course, but it’s been a while, I think. I wondered whether I would find it creepy this time over. I mean, it’s an entire film about some nerd creeping on Marilyn Monroe.

And there certainly are some icky scenes in here, but Monroe is splendid, as usual.

It’s enjoyable, but I think Billy Wilder did more successful variations on the theme in a couple of other films.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

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.