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tonyodysseus
Reviews
The Sign of the Cross (1932)
an antique with a lot of merit
This is an interesting movie. The similarities with Quo Vadis are striking and the ultimate provenance of the script may owe something to that other book/movie. I find it interesting to see how two movies made at different times deal with similar material. TSOTC has the piquant tang of Hollywood pre-code, with over-the-top depictions of Roman depravity. QV has a wild-party scene but nothing like that. QV has the technicolor look and feel of Ben Hur and basically conforms to standards of conduct which would not be challenging in America after the Second World War. Robert Taylor and Fredric March play parallel roles of the Roman aristocrat in love with a Christian woman. March was a much better actor than Robert Taylor, who was at times wooden (not exactly Richard Burton in The Robe). Taylor was a great deal older when he played this role and he seems kind of a strange choice for the "love interest" opposite Deborah Kerr. March was young and his performance was not as nuanced as what would evolve in A Star is Born and The Best Years of Our Lives, but he is still extremely good to watch; he never throws away a line. The sadism of the TSOTC colosseum scene beats anything in QV; the most interesting aspect is the expressions on the faces of the crowd. Ustinov versus Laughton as Nero is instructive. U. must have known L's performance and riffed on it; there do seem to be correspondences, but U's performance is more nuanced. TSOC seems to suffer all around from the newness of the talkie medium; the acting seems out of silent films with much wordless gazing, either love- struck or in horror. Elissa Landi's articulate Christian conviction may owe something to the first-generation of mass-media evangelicals (e.g. Amy Semple McPherson) who were making a big splash then. All in all, TSOTC is fine specimen of the toga picture.
How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)
surprisingly good
This is a very well written movie. I missed the very beginning. I wasn't prepared for the articulate war of the sexes theme. Some people might consider it too talky. At times it sounded like a George Bernard Shaw play. Sometimes it seemed that Dino was sleepwalking and this much wordplay was a little too much for him. Perhaps the interesting dimensions owe something to the participation of Wallach his wife. Movies from this period project a particular mise en scene of imperial America at its zenith of hubris and naivitee. The characters Martin and Wallach play are unselfconsciously "upper class" and enjoy the life of extreme privilege without any consideration if they deserve their good fortune. The US was up to its neck in Vietnam at the time and modern consumer society was being born. A nice old chestnut from a time we can remember fondly but not aspire to emulate.
Kismet (1944)
Kismet exquisite
To be bothered by he fact that all the principals of this movies were Western is to miss the point. This is a document of a given time and place (Hollywood in 1944). Ronald Coleman was born to play the part of the poetic beggar prince. Who could be better to declaim the bits of Omar Khayam in the script. It's a little like his take on Francois Villon in "If I Were King". Marlene Dietrich is magnificent as a Macedonian princess in the Grand Vizier's harem. She does a beautiful and seductive dance. Edward Arnold supplies real menace as the heavy just as he did in "Meet John Doe". The whole premise of a movie like this is naive and unhistorical but the production was so ambitious and sumptuous that it transcends that shortcoming.