438. Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie/The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)

Running Time: 180 minutes
Directed By: Wojciech Has
Written By: Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, from novel by Jan Potocki
Main Cast: Zbigniew Cybulski, Iga Cembrzynska, Elzbieta Czyzewska, Gustaw Holoubek, Stanislaw Igar
Click here to view the trailer

ONE STORY CREATES ANOTHER...AND THEN ANOTHER

"The Saragossa Manuscript" has been sitting on my desk for at least ten days, waiting for me to watch and send it back to Netflix. When I received it in the mail and got a look at it's whopping three hour running time, not to mention it's less than stellar sounding plot, I was not chomping at the bit to watch it. However, the thing I love most about watching movies from THE BOOK is the pleasant surprises that always sneak up on me.

To dictate the films plot, in its entirety, wouldn't be impossible for me, but it would be a overwhelming task, so I'll just outline the basic premise and we'll go from there. The main character is Alfonso van Worden (Cybulski), a captain of the Walloon Guard, during the end of the 18th Century. Near the films beginning, van Worden and his troops cross an area of terrain that is said to be haunted. Despite the warnings from his troops, van Worden forges ahead. Eventually, van Worden separates from his troops and winds up at an inn called Venta Quemada, where he is approached by two sisters, Emina (Cembrzynska) and Zibelda (Joanna Jedryka), who invite him to dine with them. Later, they tell van Worden that they are his cousins and that in order to continue the bloodline of the family and produce male heirs, he must marry them. van Worden doesn't seem to concerned with this information, but rather, more concerned to have found two female companions. Eventually the sisters seduce van Worden and at the end of the night, after drinking from a chalice, van Worden awakens, finding himself lying in the dirt, under the gallows. This happens again, the next night and later van Worden finds himself recalling his life story to an elder, religious hermit. Part One ends.

Part Two is much more complex and van Worden becomes less of a focal point here, as the viewer is pleasantly subjected to the stories of an introductory character, a gypsy. Through the use of MULTIPLE flashbacks, another story unfolds and the story takes on an almost slapstick comedy quality, as coincidences, mistaken identity and other mysterious comedic tales unfold, through the recollections of many characters.

To be honest, the film was actually quite confusing and for me to fully digest the entirety of the plot, I'd definitely have to watch it, at least once more. However, every movie in THE BOOK only gets one chance and thus, I'll base my opinions on that one viewing. I've got to say, though, that the film really picks up in Part Two, so as a word of advice, stick it out if you ever give this one a go. In Part Two, as I said above, we hear the stories from a gypsy, who when telling one story, recalls being told a story and so during one flashback, we flashback again. And then within the flashback within a flashback, we end up getting a third flashback and then slowly we start to come back to reality as the tales fold up into a neat little pile. While doing a little research for this film, I read someone comment that the film reminded them of a Russian doll and that's really true. You get into one story and then suddenly, you've got many stories on your hands.

I think any dislike that I harbor for the film, is really just preconceived on my part. When taking into account the time frame which the story depicts and the types of elements it deals with, it just doesn't equal something that is normally my cup of tea. I'm not a fan of films set in previous centuries, nor am I fan of odd tales about princess', ghouls, sheiks, gypsies, noblemen or demons. While all of these words are conjured up during the duration of the film, none of them weigh that much on the actual story. When you strip away all of the fancy 18th Century "garb", what you're left with is a really intriguing and clever tale, that is both a comedy and a mystery. I must reiterate how shocked I am to have enjoyed this one as much as I did, as I really was dreading it and it will be nice to give this one another chance someday, going in expecting something instead of nothing.

Give this one a shot. Don't be hesitant, because there is really a lot to enjoy out of this one. Stick with it though and don't be too hasty to shut it off. I think you'll find that by the time "Koniec" appears, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

RATING: 6/10 Now normally, a '6' isn't the greatest of ratings, but for this film a '6' is FANTASTIC, especially considering I had it pegged for a '1'.

MOVIES WATCHED: 378
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 623

December 28, 2011 12:09am

Bergman Week - COMING SOON

101. DODSWORTH (1936)

Running Time: 101 minutes
Directed By: William Wyler
Written By: Sidney Howard, from novel by Sinclair Lewis
Main Cast: Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Mary Astor, Kathryn Marlowe

Note: For those of you playing the home game, I decided to substitute this in the place of "Vidas Secas", as per the tentative list that I posted yesterday afternoon. No reason really, just decided to switch things up a bit. "Vidas Secas" will still be included in this 100. Also, for those of you who have been following me from way back, you may remember the trouble I had tracking this one down, back when I was still moving through THE BOOK in chronological order. It ultimately ended up as a "saved" movie on Netflix, but TCM aired it months ago and I managed to record it. Now then...

GOING BACK IN TIME

I must say it was a nice little change of pace re-visiting the 1930s. As I moved through the book in chronological order, going directly through the 1930s and into the 40s, I developed a bond with that time period and this was another knockout film from the days when Hollywood made films for adults.

When the film opens, we see Samuel Dodsworth (Huston), automobile industrialist, at his last day as head of Dodsworth Motor Company. We soon find out that Sam has sold the business that he built and plans to retire and see the world with his younger, thirty-five year old wife, Fran (Chatterton). Fran is thirty-five, but lives as though she's twenty-one, almost refusing to accept the fact that she IS aging and that eventually she'll be an old woman. As the story progresses, Sam and Fran hop a luxury liner for Europe, where they plan to see England and Paris. Aboard the vessel, Fran gets a bit promiscuous, flirting with other men, while Sam acts his age, filling with the excitement at the mere sight of lights from the shore of England. Months later, when their vacation is about to come to an end, Fran expresses her desire to stay in Europe and "live a little" without being tied to Sam. Sam, wanting nothing but happiness for his wife, obliges her and returns to the United States, a separated husband. Months later, Sam returns to Europe, to retrieve Fran, but finds that she's still not ready to settle down and is devastated when she announces her plans to marry one of her suitors.

SPOILER ALERT!

The book makes note that Wyler was careful here not to make Fran a total villain, but instead allow the audience to sympathize with both characters, at different points of the film. I agree with this, to a point. When Fran initially announces her intent to stay behind, in Europe and basically "sow some oats", you feel bad for Sam, but you also still respect Fran, because she announced her intentions, before actually following through with them. As the film progresses, Fran becomes less and less appealing, until the point that she comes crawling back to Sam, near the end of the picture. At that point, she's lost all her appeal, as her selfishness shines through and you really just want to reach through the screen and choke her! Normally I would argue that the end of the picture is a little too sappy and too cliche, but the character of Sam was so lovable that you just can't help but be glad that things, for him, turned out for the best. There are so many layers to that character and you really get where he's coming from, whether you totally agree with him or not.

At one point, Sam exclaims "old habits are hard to break", when trying to reason with his new girl, Edith (Mary Astor), on why he's returning to Fran, after she betrayed him. You feel so sorry for the guy, because he loves this girl so much so that he'll allow her to walk all over him and he'll still take her back at the end of the day. The scene where he leaves her, at the train station is heart wrenching, his final words to her being "have I told you today how much I adore you?", as he leaves the woman that he loves, but who wants to divorce him. You realize quick, that here's a man who was great at conducting business, but couldn't hold his own when it came to conducting himself socially or handling his marriage. You also realize that Fran was more than likely nothing but a gold digger, who married the head of Dodsworth Motor Company, but when it was sold off, she wanted nothing more to do with the former-head of said company.

"Dodsworth" is a film rife with insinuation. I mean, obviously it was made in the 1930s, so they're not going to come right out and say what Fran is doing behind Sam's back. Hell, I was surprised that they'd even insinuate some of the things they were insinuating. Couples separating and divorcing, promiscuous sex, it was all very taboo for the time period, if you ask me. In fact, this is one classic piece of cinema that I wouldn't mind seeing remade. I think it would really translate well to the screen today, as situations like these occur on a regular basis nowadays and men of a different time act a different way. Men in the 1930s didn't break down into tears because their beloved wife was leaving them. Men were tougher and more hard skinned back then. Today, I think the film could be a little more on the emotional side and I think if given to the right person, this could be remade into a really fantastic film. However, THE BOOK reminds me that the Hollywood of today doesn't really cater to adults, but rather teenagers and this wouldn't be material that a teenager would appreciate.

RATING: 8/10 Surprisingly a really good movie. I say surprisingly, because to be quite honest, I wasn't expecting much. Never expect anything, and you'll always be shocked when you get something.

MOVIES WATCHED: 377
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 624

December 26, 2011 3:02am

Ringing In 2012 with Godard - COMING NEXT WEEK

Just wanted to put up a quick "coming soon" post, letting everyone know that "Godard Week" will be kicking off next week. I have four more films on the radar to watch and then we'll slip right into a week dedicated to one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. For the record, I'm not THAT familiar with Jean-Luc Godard. The only film of his I've ever seen is "Breathless", which I watched about a month before I started this blog and honestly, I don't remember thinking much of it. However, my tastes have drastically changed since I started my journey through THE BOOK, so I'm hoping for the best and maybe, just maybe, Godard will have some sort of impact on my TOP 20.

Scheduled Godard Week films include:
-Breathless (1959)
-My Life to Live (1962)
-Contempt (1963)
-Alphaville (1965)
-Pierrot le fou (1965)
-Masculine-Feminine (1966)
-2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
-Week End (1967)

Next four films (tentative):
-The Saragossa Manuscript (1965)
-Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
-Z (1969)
-Vidas Secas (1963)

Hope everyone reading this has/had a safe and very happy holiday!

December 25, 2011 3:27pm

693. A Christmas Story (1983)

Running Time: 93 minutes
Directed By: Bob Clark
Written By: Leigh Brown, Bob Clark, Jean Shepherd, from the novel In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash by Jean Shepherd
Main Cast: Peter Billingsley, Ian Petrella, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Jean Shepherd (voice)
Click here to view the trailer

"YOU'LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!"

This Christmas, since I had the time to squeeze it in amongst the family festivities, I decided to tackle one of the two legitimate Christmas movies from THE BOOK - "A Christmas Story". By the way, I actually rented this one and did not base my review around one of the twelve showings of this film, today, on TBS.

The time period is the 1940s and the setting is a typical household, in Chicago, as a typical American family gets ready for Christmas. The main character is Ralph Parker a.k.a. Ralphie (Billingsley), who, throughout the film, tries to scheme up ways to con his parents into buying him a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. However, while the film takes place entirely during Christmas time and while the child's desire for a BB gun is the main plot, there are other plots too and the whole movie kind of unfolds through a series of subplots or episodes. Ralphie's mother (Dillon), father (McGavin) and kid brother (Petrella) are also dominant characters as well, as we hear about the "Old Man's" never ending battle with the furnace and his acceptance of a "major award" in the form of a lamp, shaped like a woman's stockinged leg. Ralphie's mother washes his mouth out with Lifebuoy soap when he says the dreaded "F dash-dash-dash" word and peels him off of the neighborhood bully when he's finally had enough and decides to fight back. Ralph's little brother Randy is just an odd child, who refuses to eat his dinner, but rather play with it and who falls asleep in the middle of a pile of wrapping paper, on Christmas morning. All of the escapades of a typical nine-year-old boy at Christmastime are chronicled here, in "A Christmas Story".

Is it just me, or is it everyone who can't help but remember their own childhood and maybe even their personal favorite Christmas memory when watching "A Christmas Story"? For me, I don't just think of Christmas, but also my escapades as a young boy and shoot, even my Dad fought with the furnace a time or two. Through the years "A Christmas Story" has become so played out, that when watching it tonight, it was kind of drag to have to pop it in AGAIN! For the unaware, there's a cable station here in the States called TBS and every Christmas they play this movie twelve times IN A ROW!! Every year my television, at some point, for some reason, manages to stop on that channel and throughout the day and in pieces, I somehow manage to catch the whole thing. Anyway, when popping it in tonight, despite the fact that it was Christmas and I was in the spirit, I just didn't want to sit through this one, yet again. However, as the film moved forward and I watched the film consecutively, as it was intended, I realized that it wasn't a half bad picture. Sure, it's played out and sure, it's not the most technically or artistically sound film in THE BOOK, but it does work to propel you into an even greater aura of Christmas spirit and it's a whole lot of fun too.

The film flows along quite nicely and it seemed like no time before the Parker's were eating their Christmas dinner at Chop Suey Palace and the credits were rolling. It's not hard to see why the creators of the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book included it as an entry, because really, this is one that everyone should see, at some point in their lifetime. It works for the young and old and again, I defy you not to remember your own childhood when watching this one. The actors do a fine job, but that really doesn't matter, because it's the mood and subject matter of this one that are important, not the quality of the acting chops on the actors involved. I don't have a whole lot else to say, so I won't waste your time droning on. If you have NEVER seen this one, then "YES", give it a go! Of course, for maximum effect you should wait until Christmas or thereabouts to do so. If you have seen it, then you probably either hate it or love it and from there, there's probably no swaying your opinion.

RATING: 7.5/10 I don't know if it's so good that it will make the TOP 20, but for this reviewer on Christmas 2011, it worked and it gave me an enjoyable night at the movies. Merry Christmas everyone!

MOVIES WATCHED: 376
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 625

December 25, 2011 1:04am
Merry Christmas

392. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Running Time: 123 minutes
Directed By: John Ford
Written By: James Warner Bellah, Willis Goldbeck, Dorothy M. Johnson
Main Cast: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien
Click here to view the trailer

"PRINT THE LEGEND"

I had only seen "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" one prior time, before tonight. Yet, this evening, when I decided to give it another go for the sake of THE BOOK, I only needed to walk to my DVD shelf, because that's how much I liked it upon first viewing.

Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) is riding, by coach, to the town of Shinbone, where he plans to begin a law practice and see what life out West has in store for him. He doesn't even make it off the coach, before it's held up by a gang of outlaws, headed up by the meanest, nastiest one of them all - Liberty Valance (Marvin). Stoddard is beaten pretty good, robbed and left lying in a pile of dirt, as Liberty Valance rides off. When Ransom is finally found, it's by Tom Doniphon (Wayne), who takes him to the restaurant of Hallie Ericson (Miles) to be nursed back to health. Since Ransom is now broke, with no way to establish anything, Hallie and her family allow him to stay at their quarters, washing dishes at the restaurant, until he can get back on his feet. Meanwhile, Tom is busy charming the pants off of Hallie, in hopes that she'll one day marry him. Ransom sets up shop at the building that houses the Shinbone Star, the local newspaper and it's publisher Dutton Peabody (O'Brien). However, Ransom can't forget what Liberty Valance did to him and despite warnings from nearly everyone telling him to buy a gun if he plans to hold his own with Valance, Ransom intends to fight Liberty with the law.

As much as I enjoyed my "tete a tete" with Bunuel, sometimes it's nice to shed all of the surrealism and hidden meanings, kick your feet up and head out onto the open range with John Wayne and enjoy the Old West. John Wayne was such a larger than life personality, that when you throw Jimmy Stewart into the same picture with him, it's almost too much star power for a single strip of celluloid. To even behold these two grandiose actors, showing off their skills in the same picture is a sight to behold in itself and add to that the fact that this is actually a very good movie in it's own right (plot wise). The thing I really like about "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" is that it gives us three powerhouse actors to keep our eyes on and three really combustible characters. At no time do these characters/actors step on each others toes and everyone is kept in line, knowing their place in the grand scheme of things. We have John Wayne - the macho, stereotypical, Western hero. He's the guy that makes us get a little giddy when he shows up. He's the one that during his scenes, when he's eye to eye with Liberty Valance, demanding that his Valance remove his steak from the floor, we get goosebumps (or at least I did - great scene!). Then you have Jimmy Stewart and he's the one that I like to watch just flat out be himself. He's the bookworm and he's the one that can make the speeches and get riled up, eventhough he doesn't pose much of a physical threat. He becomes our reluctant hero when John Wayne isn't onscreen.

SPOILER ALERT!

Then you have Lee Marvin, one of the baddest movie villains in the history of cinema, calling people "dude" and wielding a silver baton, which he uses to beat his prey senseless. He's the guy you love to hate and kind of the guy you don't want to see die, because you know the movie isn't going to be quite as fun with him in a pine box. He's also the one that forced John Wayne to step into the shadows, when he gunned him down - now that's tough! Lots of great characters, a love story and then you have a kind of ridiculous plot piece that involves elections, delegates, statehood, open range and a whole lot of other malarkey . This was just an anchor for the picture, as far as I'm concerned, as they had a perfectly good movie in an everyday Joe who wanted revenge on an Old West bad guy and the Old West good guy who gives him a hand. Lee Marvin is really stepping up on my radar and it's getting so that I really look forward to the movies he's in. He's a fantastic bad guy and whether he's wielding that silver baton or throwing coffee into the face of dames, he's just a fun guy to hate.

The film isn't quite as perfect as I thought it to be the last time I watched it, but it still holds up just fine. If you're someone who thinks you might like to give the genre of Westerns a try, this would be an ideal place to start, as it's one of the first Westerns I saw and it made an impression on me. Heck, you even have John Ford at the helm and it doesn't get more Western than John Ford. For me, when I first saw this movie, it worked because it had Jimmy Stewart. At the time, I wasn't much into older films and I especially wasn't much into Westerns, but Jimmy Stewart acted as the friend that you go to the party with, even though you're not going to know anyone there. He made me feel more comfortable and in-turn introduced me to guys like John Ford, John Wayne and the genre of Western in general. Check this one out, whether you're a fan of old films or someone who wants to be.

RATING: 8/10 I hope I can find a home for this one on my TOP 20, but the field is looking hot and there's only 20 spots!

MOVIES WATCHED: 375
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 626

December 22, 2011 10:49pm

Bergman Week - COMING SOON