Les enfants terribles - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Melville and Cocteau make for strange bedfellows in this oddball 1950 effort at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox in summer 2017 series "Army of Shadows: The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville" and, via the Criterion Collection DVD.

Can too much Cocteau be too much? Perhaps.

Les enfants terribles (1950)
Dir. Jean-Pierre Melville
Scr. Jean Cocteau & Melville
Starring: Nicole Stéphane, Édouard Dermit, Jacques Bernard, Renée Cosima

Review By Greg Klymkiw

God knows I love Jean-Pierre Melville, but sitting through his gun-for-hire directorial effort Les infants terribles is a bit like what a colonoscopy used to feel like before they knocked you out with happy drugs. In fact, it's not dissimilar to suffering through any movie directed by the lumberingly precious Jean Cocteau (Le Sang d'un poète, La Belle et la Bête, Orphée). Well, surprise-surprise, Les infants terribles is based upon the novel of the same title (and co-screenwritten) by Jean Cocteau. Even more appalling is that Cocteau himself, with a nasal, mannered delivery, narrates the movie with his sarcastic, obvious, on-point jackhammered prose.

At times, the movie feels like a Gallic-tinged Howard Hawks comedy with rapid-fire delivery and a score comprised mainly of Vivaldi, which, I'll admit, makes it sound more engaging than it actually is.

But no, it's often painful.

That, however, might be the point and in spite of often detesting the movie, I found it compulsively watchable - mostly because of Melville's direction and in spite of Cocteau's writing (not so much the narrative and dialogue, but the aforementioned narration, which often serves to rip us out of the picture's forward thrust).

Things begin well enough in the opening scenes at an all-male Catholic school where a bunch of boisterous lads roughhouse after a fresh snowfall. The dashing pretty-boy Dargelos (Renée Cosima) is leading the charge and at one point, he hurls a snowball tightly packed round a stone at the fey, aquiline-featured Paul (Édouard Dermit). Smacking him in the chest, it winds him to such an extent that he crashes to the ground, rendered unconscious and suffering from bruised ribs.

Melville's direction during this sequence is dazzling. We feel like we're in the midst of a war-like skirmish on the fields of Flanders and it's as sprightly and engaging an opening as one could hope for in any movie.

Eventually we're ensconced in the cramped middle-class quarters where Paul lives with his sister Élisabeth (Nicole Stéphane) and their infirm Mother (Maria Cyliakus). It's here where the film's annoyance-meter ramped up for me.

The picture plunges us into the obsessive, seemingly incestuous sibling rivalry/love and the pair engage in a series of tête-à-têtes that eventually reveal themselves to be an ongoing, deep-seededly perverse game. Paul is ordered by the doctor to stay home and in bed and Élisabeth becomes caregiver to both him and his Mother. Needless to say, the claustrophobia of the situation allows for plenty of nasty game-playing. Obsession rules the day - Paul is obsessed with pretty-boy Dargelos and misses him desperately and one of his school chums, Gérard (Jacques Bernard) visits regularly. He's obsessed with both the brother and sister and their games, but he also provides solace to Paul with news about the naughty Dargelos.

Things perk up when Mom dies (a magnificent cut and shot, pure Melville, reveals her to us and the characters). Enter the beautiful Agathe (also played by Renée Cosima) who Paul falls madly in love with since she's a dead ringer for his beloved naughty pal Dargelos. And yes, it's here where the movie hits its stride and ploughs us into the kind of madly delirious melodrama that Melville did so beautifully in the much-better and genuinely great melodrama Le silence de la mer (1949).

It's here wherein Élisabeth becomes so terrified that her brother will eventually marry Agathe and leave her alone (and hence, without the madly incessant game-playing) that what the nutty sister does next is sheer, delicious nastiness.

And you know what? As much as I profess(ed) to hate this movie, I must humbly, shamefully admit (in spite of Cocteau's influence) that I've now seen the picture three times. Well, like the old adage goes, "third time's the charm" and I find myself wanting to see the movie again. What a journey!

Vive Melville!

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Les enfants terribles screens at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox in the summer 2017 series "Army of Shadows: The Films of Jean-Pierre Melville" and is available for home consumption via the Criterion Collection DVD which includes a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, an audio commentary by Gilbert Adair, interviews with producer Carole Weisweiller, actors Nicole Stéphane and Jacques Bernard and assistant director Claude Pinoteau, "Around Jean Cocteau", a 2003 short video by filmmaker Noel Simsolo discussing Cocteau and Melville’s creative relationship, the theatrical trailer, a gallery of behind-the-scenes stills and a booklet featuring a Gary Indiana essay, a tribute by Stéphane, an excerpt from Rui Nogueira’s "Melville on Melville" and drawings by Cocteau.

MILDRED PIERCE (1945) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Noir Meets Melodrama Via Criterion Blu

Loving mother, horrid daughter - Melodrama Meets Noir

Mildred Pierce (1945)
Dir. Michael Curtiz
Nvl. James M. Cain
Scr. Ranald McDougall
Starring: Joan Crawford, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Jack Carson,
Bruce Bennett, Zachary Scott, Butterfly McQueen, Lee Patrick

Review By Greg Klymkiw

James M. Cain wrote plenty of books with murder in them (The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity), but the novel upon which the film Mildred Pierce is based, is bereft of murder. We can thank studio Warner Brothers, director Michael Curtiz and screenwriter Ranald McDougall for thinking about inserting one glorious lollapalooza of a homicide as a sturdy bookend to the movie version. This delicacy of mother-daughter madness gets piquantly spiced-up with that one necessary ingredient, thus allowing for the roiling psychological complexity of the tale to meld melodrama with film noir styling.

A murder. In a house. By the beach. It's night. A woman flees the scene. She contemplates suicide on a wharf just outside of a sleazy dockside watering hole. She's picked up for questioning. She tells her story.

Such is the opening of Mildred Pierce. The aforementioned woman is the title character. She's played by Joan Crawford (not long after MGM let her go for becoming box office poison). After this picture, she was poison no more. She even won an Oscar. For good reason too. Nobody suffers like Crawford's character suffers in this grim story about a mother who loves her ungrateful daughter too much.

Mildred's first marriage to the hapless, unemployed sad-sack sap Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett) ends. His former business partner, the unbelievably agreeable, charming scumbag Wally Fay (Jack Carson), has always held a torch for her and tries to move in for some amorous gravy drippings. She spurns him and tries to make ends meet by home baking.

Eventually Mildred needs something more substantial than selling her pies, so she gets hired as a waitress by Ida (Eve Arden), the manager of a restaurant and wisecracking perennial bachelorette who eventually becomes her best friend. Our heroine tries to keep her job a secret from her daughters, 16-year-old Veda (Ann Blyth) and 10-year-old Kay (Jo Anne Marlowe). Kay would never have a problem with this - she's a total loving sweetie-pie. Veda on the other hand, is an absolute horror; a nasty, haughty socialite. Veda discovers Mildred's waitress uniform and bestows it upon the family's maid Lottie (Butterfly McQueen). Veda pretends to believe her Mom bought the outfit for Lottie to wear. She knows better. She is, in fact, ashamed and spitefully does this to make Mildred admit she works as a waitress.

Our heroine decides she needs to move up in the world - especially if she is to keep showering her grotesquely mean, selfish and spoiled eldest daughter with everything money can buy. She cuts a deal with horny hunk of congealed drool matter Wally and ends up starting her own restaurant. It's such a success that she ends up hiring Kay as the manager and begins to open a small chain of eateries.

The only thing missing in Mildred's life is love. Though Wally is a bucket of slime, he's a charming and rich sleaze ball. Instead, Mildred settles upon Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott) a handsome (in a weaselly kind of way) high society playboy with plenty of assets, but no money and a pile of debts. Oh, he's going to make her pay. And suffer, of course. Veda takes a shine to Monte's dashing lifestyle.

In fact, she takes too much of a shine to the man her mother loves.

Naturally, there will be a murder.

One of the cool things (and there is so much about this movie that's cool - pure and simple) is just how strong and complex the female characters are (even naughty Veda). The men, however, are a piece of work - almost hilariously so. Given that the most attractive male figure is played by slightly pudgy Jack Carson probably says everything we need to know. However, it's probably worth noting that Mildred's eventual paramour is a moustachioed, wiry and bony scumbag and her "decent" ex-husband is a borderline castrato who eventually settles down with the hausfrau-like Mrs. Biederhof (Lee Patrick).

That Mildred eventually has to suffer the indignity of watching her child die of pneumonia before her very eyes in the home of the hausfrau while testicle-free ex-hubby looks on uselessly is the stuff of great melodrama and definitely the kind of thing most movies today would have no idea how to master. Well, Mildred Pierce more than rises to the occasion.

What's extraordinary about the whole affair is how director Curtiz (Casablanca) swathes the picture with the thick fog and dark shadows of post-war ennui and all that became film noir. We get plenty of sun-dappled Malibu to go with the melodrama, but we're also served up with dank cocktail lounges, cheap dressing rooms with gum-snapping songstresses who show just a little too much leg and cleavage on stage plus a delightful number of frauds, double-crosses and infidelity to fill several blacker-than-black crime pictures.

And, of course, we get murder.

Oh, glorious murder!

And then, let's not forget a mother's love for her daughter, albeit an ungrateful little missy-saucy-pants. A mother, you see, will do anything for her daughter, even if said progeny gets boned by the shitheel her mother loves.

In such circumstances, can homicide ever be far behind?

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-stars

Mildred Pierce is available on Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD with a new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a new conversation with critics Molly Haskell and Robert Polito, an excerpt from a 1970 episode of "The David Frost Show" featuring Joan Crawford, the terrific 2002 feature-length documentary "Joan Craw­ford: The Ultimate Movie Star", a Q&A with actor Ann Blyth from 2006, presented by Marc Huestis and conducted by film historian Eddie Muller at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, a segment from a 1969 episode of the Today Show featuring Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain, a trailer, an essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith and new cover art by Sean Phillips.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Russ Meyer Goes Criterion!!!

THIS IS MY HAPPENING!!!
AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!!!

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
Dir. Russ Meyer
Scr. Roger Ebert
Starring: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom, Edy Williams,
John LaZar, Henry Rowland, David Gurian, Charles Napier, Pam Grier

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"This is my happening and it freaks me out," declares rock impresario Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell (John LaZar) during his berserker Hollywood party replete with live performances by The Strawberry Alarm Clark, a bevy of boobilicious babes, all manner of fornication and bucket-loads of booze/drug consumption.

Z-Man wasn’t the only one freaking out. When Russ Meyer (Faster Pussycat Kill Kill, Motor Psycho, Supervixens, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens, Up!), the king of big-boob cinema extravaganzas, unleashed his first major studio picture Beyond the Valley of the Dolls upon an unsuspecting public, audiences, critics and the film’s major backer, Twentieth Century Fox, were freaked out to the max.

For good reason.

The opening few minutes of Meyer’s Roger Ebert-scripted dive into L.A. sleaze pits proceed to bash us in the face with Z-Man and Martin Bormann (Henry Rowland), Z’s loyal bartender, right-hand man and resident Nazi (nom-de-plumed as "Otto"), whilst the nutty pair malevolently chase scantily clad babes within a seaside mansion estate. In a climactic moment to end all climactic moments, we cut to a Luger sensually stroking the supple lips of a beauteous-sleeping-big-bosomed-babe until the deadly firearm is inserted erect-penis-like into her mouth, the wet maw eagerly – nay, greedily – accepting the cold-steel schwance-of-death as our dozing dame proceeds to suck it dry. Under the circumstances, who wouldn’t? Be freaked out to the max, that is.

(Oh, okay, and suck it dry, too.)

When Meyer and young film critic Ebert were hired by Fox to concoct a vague semi-sequel reboot to Mark Robson’s through-the-roof sex-and-soap-suds adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s bestselling novel Valley of the Dolls, the artistic pursuits of these perfectly matched reprobates flew under the radar of studio executives during the delightful beginnings of the oft-envied, late lamented and much-revered "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" days of American Cinema. The film was so low-budget by studio standards, nobody in the front office paid it much mind, but for Meyer, the budget might as well have been as large as Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra.

He did not waste one cent.

The Carrie Nations are united in SIN!!!

Plot wise, things are relatively simple and perfectly in keeping with Susann’s moronically simplistic rags-to-riches-to-rags soap opera. However, the incorrigible lads dole out a cinematic masterpiece of flagrant filth that’s anything but moronic and in its own strangely perverse way is rooted (so to speak) in a queer miasma of morality. If anything the film celebrates perversion to such a deliciously over-the-top degree that the tale cannot help but become a morality play. (That said, the film brilliantly manages to make the morality seem as old-fashioned as it deserves to be – it’s even vaguely derisive.)

So, the film focuses on the buxom Carrie Nations, an all-girl rock band comprised of Kelly MacNamara (Dolly Read), Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers) and Petronella "Pet" Danforth (Marcia McBroom). At first they’re infused with the down-home, corn-fed morals of the mid-western US of A, but in no time, they’re turfing their regular squeezes for a series of libidinous adventures with a variety of partners. One of the cuckolded beaus (David Gurian) even takes up with a porn starlet (Edy Williams) who drains him to such a degree that he eventually can’t even get it up.

Fun and games, for one and all – especially the audience – but as this epic of sin continues, the freedom of youth increasingly morphs beyond the "summer of love" antics, and the evils of both L.A. and show business in general give way to an unholy Walpurgisnacht that unravels during the film’s deeply dark finale.

The Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten proclaimed that the film was "true to life".

Who are we to argue with this?

Well, you don't see something like this everyday.

Ebert and Meyer created a work that’s drenched in lurid colour and the colours of sleaze, slime and scum, and we’re allowed to revel in the kaleidoscopic picture with all the giddy laughs it wrenches from us from beginning to end, along with the trademark Meyer montages of rapid-fire cuts – a chiaroscuro of madness and freakishness at its finest. This is sheer sex-drenched melodrama; as a director, Meyer might as well be Douglas Sirk on crack cocaine.

Besides, what other movie features (again, from the highly quotable Z-Man) one of the greatest lines of dialogue in movie history: ‘You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!’

Black sperm, indeed.

Years ago, I met Ebert as a young lad and proceeded to geek him out with my love for the film. He took me for donuts and we spent an hour together talking about it. His final words to me were thus: "Never, ever feel ashamed to admit how much you love Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

And if you’re listening up there, Mr Ebert, I am not ashamed.

I’m infused with pride to declare my utter, deep passion.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five Stars

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls gets the full Criterion Collection treatment on Blu-Ray and (if you must) DVD with a high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray, 2003 audio commentary featuring screenwriter Roger Ebert, 2006 audio commentary featuring actors Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Harrison Page, John LaZar, and Erica Gavin, a new interview with filmmaker John Waters, 1988 episode from "The Incredibly Strange Film Show" on director Russ Meyer, a Q&A about the film from 1992 featuring Meyer, Ebert, LaZar, Read and actors David Gurian, Charles Napier, Michael Blodgett, and Edy Williams, a 2005 interview with cast members, five 2006 about the making of the film, featuring the cast and crew, screen tests, trailers, a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Glenn Kenny and excerpts from a 1970 account in the UCLA Daily Bruin of a visit to the film’s set, plus gorgeous new cover art by Jim Rugg.

This review of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls originally appeared at Electric Sheep.

Read my review of Valley of the Dolls HERE.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Soap, Sex, Sin and Susann on CRITERION

In the Valley of the Dolls, there are BABES, BOOZE, BEDS
and CATFIGHTS - Oh, the Catfights! The glorious catfights!

Valley of the Dolls (1967)
Dir. Mark Robson

Scr. Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley
Starring: Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, Susan Hayward,
Paul Burke, Martin, Milner, Toni Scotti, Lee Grant, Alexander Davion

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Oh, glorious melodrama! Glorious, glorious, glorious melodrama! How Do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways! Or rather, forget that! I'd be sitting here counting all goddamn day! Why? Because I love melodrama - a perfectly legitimate storytelling form that too often gets the bad rap of knee-jerk dismissal, like it's a dirty word or something. Screw THAT! In my books, there is only good melodrama and bad melodrama. Sometimes, there's even GREAT melodrama, and Mark Robson's gorgeous film adaptation of the pot boiling Jacqueline Susann bestseller is nothing if not great melodrama.

I will admit, as would any red-blooded lad growing up in the late-60s-early-70s, to reading the book upon which this film was based. What self-respecting suburban mother didn't have a copy of this novel in her library of fine literature? What self-respecting 10-year-old boy wouldn't secret the paperback away to peruse its contents late at night under a blanket with a flashlight? It's a dirty book, eh.

Mark Robson's movie is one lollapalooza of sudsy filth!

Susan Hayward replaced Judy Garland. PERFECT!!!

Susann's book was a compulsive piece of trash that had made-for-the-movies written all over it. Her swill was done proud by screenwriters Helen (National Velvet, I'll Cry Tomorrow) Deutsch, Dorothy (Pal Joey) Kingsley and - I kid you not - Harlan (A Boy and His Dog) Ellison. He's uncredited for a reason. He had his name removed from the credits due to the studio-imposed "happy" (though plenty melancholy) ending.

The whole affair, as it were, was clearly under the watchful gaze of the stylish Canadian-born-raised-educated Robson who not only served up some of the finest Golden Age Cinema in the form of a clutch o' terrific Val Lewton horror items, most notably the super-creepy-super-scary The Seventh Victim, then the great film noir boxing pictures Champion and The Harder They Fall, and eventually delivered first-rate slam-bang commercial entertainments like the mega-soap Peyton Place and the two-fisted Sinatra WWII adventure of Von Ryan's Express. (Years later Robson would give us the pinnacle of disaster movies, Earthquake, which amongst its ridiculously huge all-star cast, featured Lorne Greene as Ava Gardner's father.)

Robson directs Valley of the Dolls with a perverse blend of poppy 60s psychedelia and an old fashioned studio-style stodginess. It works perfectly for this sex and soap saga.

In a nutshell, we follow the lives of three "dolls" (mega-babes) through the "valley" (all the highs and lows of life) of the "dolls" (pills of every mind-altering stripe and colour).

Anne Welles (Barbara Parkins) shows up in New York from her sleepy hometown in New England, immediately lands a job as a secretary in a show business agency, has a torrid affair with Lyon Burke (Paul Burke), the agency's chief lawyer and perennial bachelor and eventually succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease the pain of emptiness.

Neely O'Hara (Patty Duke) is about to break out in a supporting role in a big Broadway musical, but is fired by the jealous wrath wreaked by the boozy old star of the show Helen Lawson (a great Susan Hayward in a role Judy Garland was supposed to until she was fired for succumbing to booze and drugs in real life). Neely's agent/boyfriend Mel Anderson (Martin Milner) works his butt off and she becomes a huge nightclub sensation and movie star. Mel's career eventually dissipates in the shadow of Neely and she not only has a torrid open affair with the swings-both-ways Ted Casablanca (Alexander Davion), but succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease the pain of emptiness.

We didn't see THIS on "The Patty Duke Show".

Jennifer North (the late Sharon Tate, victim of the Manson Clan and Roman Polanski's beloved) has only one talent - her body. She eventually falls in love with nightclub crooner Tony Polar (Tony Scotti) and for the first time in her life, she knows true happiness (in spite of Tony's domineering sister/manager played with bile-spitting aplomb by Lee Grant). Unfortunately, Tony is stricken with Huntington's Disease and poor Jennifer is reduced to "acting" in French "art films" (pornography) to support her beloved. Naturally, she succumbs to booze and "dolls" to ease her deep, deep pain. She turns out to be the purest and least "empty" of the trio.

Oh, how they all suffer.

And oh, how gloriously.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

Valley of the Dollars has been released on a sumptuous, extras-laden Criterion Collection Blu-Ray (and, if you must, DVD). The whole package includes a new 2K digital restoration, with 3.0 LCR DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray, a 2006 audio commentary featuring actor Barbara Parkins and journalist Ted Casablanca, new interviews with writer Amy Fine Collins about author Jacqueline Susann and the costumes in the film, footage from "Sparkle Patty Sparkle", a 2009 gala tribute to actor Patty Duke at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, two promotional films from 1967, a 2001 episode on the film from the television program "Hollywood Backstories", screen tests, trailers, a booklet featuring an essay by film critic Glenn Kenny, gorgeous new cover art by Phil Noto and BEST OF ALL, a superb, passionate, informative and deliciously over-the-top video essay by film critic Kim Morgan. Morgan's appreciation is so heartfelt it's deeply moving.

My review of Russ Meyer's insane "sequel" Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is HERE.

THE KID - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Charlie Chaplin's immortal tear-wrencher on Criterion

JACKIE COOGAN is THE KID (1921)

The Kid (1921)
Dir. Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance, Tom Wilson, Carl Miller

Review By Greg Klymkiw

When a poverty-stricken unwed mother (Edna Purviance) is spurned by the father (Carl Miller) of her newborn baby, she decides, in desperation, to abandon the child so it will have a chance at a better life. She doesn't place it on any old doorstep, however, but finds a fancy car in front of a huge mansion. She places her babe in swaddling clothes gently in the backseat and forces herself to leave before she changes her mind. 

Unfortunately, she does change her mind, but her timing couldn't be worse. Upon her return, she discovers that the car's been stolen by two thugs. Upon discovering the baby, they abandon it in the streets, smack dab in the middle of a slum.

Who then happens upon the child?

Who else?

A funny-looking little tramp (Charlie Chaplin). Yup, this kid is going to have a very interesting life. If you're abandoned in a slum, there's probably no better surrogate Dad to bring you up and teach you the ways of the dirty, mean streets.

And so begins The Kid.

It's such a terrific picture, I have three fervent proclamations:

1. If The Kid doesn't have you squirting Old Faithful-style geysers of tears from thine ocular orbs, releasing Niagara Falls-like streams of mucous via your nasal cavities and most importantly, weeping (in the parlance of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now) "like some grandmother", I hereby charge that you are not human.

2. If The Kid doesn't have you howling with laughter until you bruise your knees from slapping them so hard, shred your throat until it's raw and bleeding from your mirth-filled shrieks and coming close to soiling yourself with heavier matter "down below", I furthermore charge that you have no sense of humour.

3. If you are a parent and have not yet screened The Kid for your children, you deserve to be reported to a Child Welfare Agency in your jurisdiction.

Charlie Chaplin's The Kid is that great. It's also technically his first feature length film and by 1921 when it was first released, it was, at 53-minutes, his longest film. Prior to this he'd made innumerable one-reelers and two reelers for companies like Keystone, Essanay, Mutual and First National but needing more creative control, the ability to financially back his own work and generate even wider releases, he joined forces with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford in 1919 and created the distribution company United Artists.

Lots of laughs, tears of sadness, tears of joy,
All of it, sublime

The Kid was his first film for United Artists and it proved to be a major box-office success. It's not surprising why. Chaplin pulled out all the stops on this one by tackling such issues as the place of women in society, child poverty and homelessness, but he did it with humour, sentiment and considerable aplomb, crafting a film that hit things the "everyman" could relate to, but wrapping it up in a bow that could provide hope that the impossible could happen, that dreams beyond one's wildest dreams could, in fact, come true.

Offering people hope is certainly not the worst thing an artist can do and with The Kid, Chaplin doled it out like some philanthropic madman serving free ice cream to poor kids in the slums.

However, before we (and the characters) get to experience hope, Chaplin puts us through a major ringer. There are, of course, plenty of laughs as the tramp and cute-as-a-button 5-year-old (Jackie Coogan) pull a variety of scams, always barely escaping the watchful eye of a beat cop (Tom Wilson). The funniest of these scams has the kid hurling rocks through windows and the tramp conveniently showing up as a repairman to fix them up.

But then, we get the tears.

Illness, orphanages and overall heartbreak follow. How can it not? This is Chaplin, after all. As a baby, the kid was wrenched from his mother, and now, as a little boy, he is wrenched from the surrogate Dad who loves him.

Chaplin creates a cruel and unfair world that the poor and disenfranchised are forced to live in. Chances are good that he drew considerable inspiration from his own childhood and, as it always did, these personal elements add considerably to this film (and so many others). His filmmaking mastery is already prevalent in this early work and whether he generates either humour or sadness, the result is sublime.

And yes, there is also hope. That might be the most sublime element of all.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The Kid is one of the best Criterion Collection Blu-Rays in years. It features a new 4K digital restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s 1972 rerelease version of the film, featuring an original score by Chaplin, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray; a new audio commentary featuring Chaplin historian Charles Maland; Jackie Coogan: The First Child Star, a new video essay by Chaplin historian Lisa Haven; A Study in Undercranking, a new program featuring silent-film specialist Ben Model; interviews with Coogan and actor Lita Grey Chaplin; excerpted audio interviews with cinematographer Rollie Totheroh and film distributor Mo Rothman; deleted scenes and titles from the original 1921 version of The Kid; “Charlie” on the Ocean, a 1921 newsreel documenting Chaplin’s first return trip to Europe; footage of Chaplin conducting his score for The Kid; Nice and Friendly, a 1922 silent short featuring Chaplin and Coogan, presented with a new score by composer Timothy Brock, a whack of trailers; and an essay by film scholar Tom Gunning.

A SPECIAL DAY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Italian Kitchen-Sink Love Story now on Criterion

A gay dissident. An overworked housewife.
Can happiness, no matter how brief, be far behind?

A Special Day (1977)
Dir. Ettore Scola
Starring: Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, John Vernon, Françoise Berd

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Writing about A Special Day is a somewhat bittersweet experience for me. Until watching the gorgeously transferred Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, I hadn't laid eyes upon the picture since 1977 when I saw it first-run on a big screen.

I saw it with my late mother. She loved Sophia Loren and was really looking forward to the movie. It didn't disappoint. It became one of her favourite movies. From time to time she'd mention it agreeably, almost wistfully. I offered, on several occasions, to get it on home video for her, but she always declined. She wasn't one to see movies more than once, even if she loved them. (Her exception to this rule was Gone With The Wind.)

For me, I recall enjoying it well enough in 1977, but I was eventually swayed by Pauline Kael's hilarious pan in The New Yorker. She referred to it as "a strenuous exercise in sensitivity" and described director Ettore Scola's style as "genteel shamelessness". In spite of my Kael-influenced position on the picture, I always maintained a positive stance whenever my mother brought it up. I tried not being a pretentious smart-ass with her.

Seeing it again, I marvelled at what an exquisitely crafted love story it really is. Yes, the picture wears its emotions on its sleeve and the political backdrop now seems somewhat obvious in how it front loads the love story which transpires twixt Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. But, on this viewing, none of these almost-machine-tooled elements mattered to me. I appreciated Scola's genuine artistry and the film's obvious merits as a first-rate weepy.

All through this screening, though, I couldn't help but think about my Mom.

I think this is a valid critical response to the film. Good movies almost always hit one on a personal level and what I admired, beyond reflecting upon my late Mother's love for it, is what a superb star vehicle it was for its leads and how the film must have resonated with audiences all over the world - especially all those Moms who related to the character Loren played so exquisitely.

The kitchen sink, laundry and Hitler
are powerless against two lonely people
finding happiness, no matter how brief.

Sophia is cast against type as Antonietta, a traditional housewife living in poverty with her brutish husband (John Vernon) and slaving over her six kids (of all ages) whilst living a life of drudgery and servitude - cooking and cleaning ad infinitum. Of course, like star vehicles the world over, Sophia's not really cast against type in the sense that she's the most gorgeous drudge in the history of movies - even without makeup. Why should it be any other way? I imagine my own Mother seeing aspects of herself in the film, but being able to do so with Sophia Loren standing up on the silver screen in her stead.

As the title tells us, the film is set during that very special day in 1938 when Adolph Hitler came to Rome in order to celebrate Totalitarian collaboration with Benito Mussolini. Loudspeakers have been set up in every nook and cranny of the city to broadcast the events of the day, even though virtually every home and business has been drained of humanity to fill the streets for Hitler.

Antonietta is home alone. There's plenty of wifely duties for her to perform - Hitler or no Hitler. When her mynah bird escapes its cage and flies across the courtyard, it lands at the window of Gabriele (Marcello Mastroianni). With his help, the bird is rescued. Alas, all this activity has interrupted Gabriele's plans to commit suicide.

I'd assert that this might be the ultimate meet-cute.

In any event, we discover Gabriele is a former household name - a radio commentator who has been fired for his liberal views and who will, no doubt, be carried off by the Black Shirt Police to rot in prison. Antonietta is charmed off her feet by the dapper intellectual. He treats her with respect and encourages her to find time to exercise her mind with reading books. He's also a homosexual. This doesn't phase Antonietta. She's bound and determined to seduce him.

This is a special day in more ways than one. Two sad, lonely people make a connection. Come what may, for several hours they discover some glimmer of happiness in their momentary closeness. Though director Scola has visually etched a borderline neorealist world, he eventually builds to a fifty-hanky tear gusher. There's no mistaking that A Special Day is anything other than what it is; a touching, sentimental, gorgeously-wrought melodrama.

And yeah, I did shed more than a few tears on this go-round. I acknowledge many of them were probably in memory of my late Mom, but I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that the skillful manner in which the film wrenches emotion also worked its magic upon me. It's the same magic that worked on my Mom, sitting in a movie theatre on a Sunday afternoon with her teenage son some thirty eight years ago.

I suspect the picture will move whole new generations of movie lovers, thanks to the painstaking restoration efforts of Criterion. Like any well crafted love story, Scola did indeed create a picture of lasting value.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** 4-Stars

A Special Day is available on the Criterion Collection with to-die-for supplements including: a new, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Ettore Scola, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray; Human Voice, a 2014 short film starring Sophia Loren and directed by Edoardo Ponti; new interviews with Scola and Loren; two 1977 episodes of The Dick Cavett Show featuring Loren and actor Marcello Mastroianni (a mega-treat); the trailer; a new English subtitle translation; and an essay by critic Deborah Young.

THE DAUGHTER - Review By Greg Kymkiw - Ibsen-o-rama *****TIFF2015 TOP PICK*****

The Daughter (2015)
Dir. Simon Stone
Starring: Geoffrey Rush, Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie,
Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto, Anna Torv, Odessa Young

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"If you take the life-lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well." Henrik Ibsen, The Wild Duck

Though one seldom discovers sentimental bones in the body of Henrik Ibsen's greatest work, it's definitely imbued with the properties of melodrama, which many directors eschew completely, or worse, are unable to work with properly.

The Daughter, a contemporary film adaptation of Ibsen's "The Wild Duck," taken from screenwriter-helmer Simon Stone's stage production, strikes the perfect balance twixt the manufactured artificiality of the play's gloriously melodramatic form twixt the deep core of emotional and thematic truths pulsating under the surface. This yields a genuinely gripping and ultimately moving film experience.

Henry (Geoffrey Rush) is the richest man in town. He and several previous generations of his family have provided the local populace of a sleepy Australian hamlet with its entire reason for being. Unfortunately the devastating emotional downturn of recent years has forced him to shutter his formerly lucrative pulp and paper mill; in turn forcing most of the area's citizenry into seeking employment elsewhere and as such, potentially turning the community into a ghost town.

Ghosts have been lying dormant there for years. A ghost town might be an ideal place to house these hidden spirits as the film contrasts Henry's deeply-entrenched ruling dynasty and that of the working class family headed by Oliver (Ewen Leslie), wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto), daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young) and reclusive grandpa Walter (Sam Neill).

Out hunting for sport (as the rich are wont to do), Henry wounds a beautiful wild duck. He hasn't the "heart" to put it out of its misery. Somewhat ironically, he's happy to maintain his vast fortune rather than operate his company at a loss to save the life of the community, but he indeed sees a way to save the life of his prey. The duck is dispatched to Grandpa Walter who runs an unofficial animal sanctuary with Hedvig, the latter of whom develops a special attachment to the beautifully feathered creature and its desperate need to fly in spite of a severely wounded wing. (And yes, Hedvig reveals a deep emotional wound later on, which also requires "flight".

Though the recent travails of the mill shutdown wreak considerable devastation upon nearly everyone, our central working class characters seem happy enough to grin, bear it and hope for something new. This element quickly comes in the form of Henry's prodigal son Christian (Paul Schneider) who's lived 15 years in America. It's his first time back since he left and he's grudgingly in attendance for his father's wedding to the very young housekeeper of the estate.

He is, however, extremely delighted to spend time with his old school chum and best friend Oliver, taking a special liking to the whole family - almost taking the place of his own fractured family life.

Here is where the magic of Ibsen and Stone's direction really come to the fore. Slowly and compellingly, the very existence of heretofore repressed secrets are made clear and each major story beat imparts answers which tantalize, but also beg more questions. Stone's direction is intelligent and assured, but he's especially gifted in parcelling out several exquisite melodramatic (in the very best sense of the word) set pieces.

The final third of the film becomes such a powerfully charged and exquisitely wrenching melodrama, that most audiences will be compelled to squirt copious tears in the direction of the big screen. And, of course, the terrible truth behind Ibsen's great line of dialogue rings so sadly and evocatively true, in spite of the film's attempt to yank something vaguely positive out of the whole affair. As far as I'm concerned, THIS is the heart and soul of the film, the play and life itself:

"If you take the life-lie from an average man, you take away his happiness as well."

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half-stars

The Daughter is a Mongrel Media and Mongrel International Release receiving its North American premiere as a TIFF Special Presentation at TIFF 2015. For tix, times, dates and venues, visit the TIFF website HERE.

THE LEOPARD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Magnificent, Heart-Achingly Romantic Visconti Epic @ TIFF Bell Lightbox Summer in Italy series & a gorgeous Criterion Collection BluRay

The Leopard (1963)
Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Christ Almighty, I love Luchino Visconti! Then again, what's not to love? The guy knocked us on our butts with one of the earliest forays into Italian Neo-realism, 1943's still-provocative Ossessione, his debut feature being the very first film adaptation of James. M. Cain's immortal crime melodrama "The Postman Always Rings Twice". With each subsequent picture, he progressively ladled on the most gorgeous, sumptuous compositions in service to increasingly melodramatic narratives.

Still, he almost never forgot his roots in the tradition that became far more synonymous with Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica. In spite of his penchant for the melodrama driving his epic of politics, war and romance, The Leopard (and so many subsequent films), neo-realism continued to be pervasive within Visconti's unflagging attention to detail, especially during both the battle scenes and lavish rituals of Sicily's ruling class which take breathtaking command of this stunningly great picture.

Based upon the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Visconti and his raft of screenwriters including himself, Pasquale Festa Campanile, Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa and Suso Cecchi d'Amico, craft the compelling tale of Don Fabrizio Corbera (Burt Lancaster), the powerful, respected and beloved Prince of Salina. Whilst many of his family members, neighbours and the estate's personal Catholic priest all fear the recent uprisings to unify Sicily and Italy, led by the savvy military genius General Garibaldi and his 1000 "redshirts", Don Fabrizio harbours a romantic kinship with the rebels. He even finances them and offers his unconditional blessings to his favourite nephew, the dashing, handsome Tancredi (Alain Delon) to join the "redshirts'" cause.

Don Fabrizio is more than happy to share his beliefs with those who will listen: the uprisings will ultimately mean everything and nothing. Yes, they will further unify Italy, but in fact, the "changes" are necessary to maintain the "status quo". Essentially, nothing will really change (at least in the immediate future) for Italy's aristocracy.

His relationship with Tancredi is especially close. The lad takes the place of the son he's always wanted. His love for Tancredi is such that he pooh-poohs the notion of his own daughter marrying the gorgeous swashbuckler since he's well aware of the fact that such a young man (his estate squandered by Fabrizio's brother) will require a wife of considerable wealth. Fabrizio has dowries to offer, of course, but with seven daughters, none of them will come close to adding up collectively to what he feels Tancredi will need for both himself and to solidify the power of the Corbrera Dynasty. Fabrizio is as politically and financially astute as he is a romantic.

In addition to the astonishing battle sequence involving the fall of Palermo to the "redshirts", Visconti continues to soar as a filmmaker with two key set pieces in the 3-hour-long film. One involves the family's journey to their country palace in Donnafugata and the other, a grand ball involving the presentation, or "coming-out" (if you will) of Tancredi's wife-to-be, the drop-dead gorgeous and mega-wealthy Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).

Though the pace of the film is as stately as the lives led by these Italian aristocrats, there is never a dull moment in the proceedings thanks to Visconti's eye for beauty and his knack for detail. (The astounding cinematography of the great Giuseppe Rotunno and the grand orchestral Nino Rota musical score are no slouches, either.)

From a luscious picnic on the way to Donnafugata, through to the traditional processions and celebrations in the town (if anyone wonders where both Scorsese and Coppola received considerable inspiration and cinematic tutelage, they need look no further) and finally the fascinatingly complex negotiations twixt Fabrizio and the somewhat vulgar landowner seeking "legitimacy" by marrying his daughter off to Tancredi, Visconti dazzles our hearts, minds and eyes with drama and images that are simply unforgettable.

One of the magnificent directorial touches is the subtle, almost heart-aching manner in which Visconti captures Fabrizio's passionate, though unrequited love for the stunning Angelica. Handled with looks and glances, along with Burt Lancaster's soulful performance, we feel the ultimate consummation of his desires within the vicarious thrills he enjoys through that of his dashing nephew. As Fabrizio's love flourishes, Tancredi's virtually explodes, and then during one of cinema's greatest ballroom dance sequences, Visconti allows us to bear witness to one of the most wildly romantic scenes in all of cinema history.

Angelica catches one of Fabrizio's glances and in a stunning moment of cinematic glory, we're witness to a sense of her looking into the handsome, distinguished visage of what she herself will grow old with once she marries Tancredi. She asks Fabrizio for a dance. He agrees, but only if the orchestra plays a waltz.

And then, as if the Heavens have parted to grant them their wish, a waltz strikes up and we feel the gooseflesh and tears rise within us as this grand, old Prince takes the stunning princess-to-be for a spin on the glorious dance floor under the majestic chandeliers of the palace and the admiring eyes of all who surround them.

As the film winds down, as the grand ball comes to a fitting end, Visconti allows us to follow the departing Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina as he slowly walks into the night air, disappearing into the darkness as a new generation takes command of the light.

As The Leopard so beautifully proves, things never really change. The cycles of life and love continue, long after we're gone - not forever, but swallowed by our eternal memories and those which supplant our own and create memories anew.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

The Leopard is part of TIFF's 2015 Summer in Italy series and also available on a gorgeous Criterion Collection Blu-Ray which includes a new high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno and presented in the original Super Technirama aspect ratio of 2.21:1, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition, the 161-minute American release, with English-language dialogue, including Burt Lancaster’s own voice, an audio commentary by film scholar Peter Cowie, A Dying Breed: The Making of The Leopard, a terrific hour-long documentary featuring interviews with Claudia Cardinale, screenwriter Suso Ceccho D’Amico, Rotunno, filmmaker Sydney Pollack, and many others, video interviews with producer Goffredo Lombardo and professor Millicent Marcus on the history behind The Leopard, original theatrical trailers and newsreels, a stills gallery of rare behind-the-scenes production photos and a lovely booklet featuring a new essay by film historian Michael Wood.

THE CHILDREN ARE WATCHING US - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Haunting Vittorio De Sica Classic screened on rare 35mm print at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinematheque series "MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF: REDISCOVERING THE FILMS OF VITTORIO DE SICA", programmed by the inimitable James Quandt (also available on a lovely Criterion Collection DVD).

The Children Are Watching Us - I bambini ci guardano (1942)
dir. Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Emilio Cigoli,
Luciano De Ambrosis, Isa Pola,
Adriano Rimoldi, Giovanna Cigoli

Review By Greg Klymkiw

On a narrative level, the cruelty and selfishness of a young mother is what lies at the heart of Vittorio De Sica's The Children Are Watching Us and as such, seems an especially appropriate element for the rich and consistent mise en scène to present the entire story from the perspective of a 5 year old child. There are many powerful aspects to this classic motion picture, but the fact that director De Sica wisely places his camera eye-level to the child in question is almost gruelling in terms of the pain he wrenches from the story and the emotion he extracts from the audience.

Though the film slightly pre-dates the period of Italian neorealism which began with Luchino Visconti's Ossessione in 1943 and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City in 1946, De Sica is already playing with a stark element of realism in the storytelling. We might crave a happy ending, but it would be false, not unlike so many pictures generated in pre-War and wartime Italy.

The Children Are Watching Us was filmed during wartime in 1942, but its politically and socially restful qualities come from the fact that the bombing and shelling did not shock the country into fear and despair until the fall of that year. In addition to utilizing many real locations in tandem with realistically dressed/designed Cinecittà studio work, De Sica cast his central player, Luciano De Ambrosis as the sensitive child Pricò from a non-traditional background. De Sica used the child's already heightened sadness over his mother's recent death to astounding effect in this tragic tale of maternal betrayal.

The film is neatly and boldly divided into 2 parts quite literally as De Sica provides "Part One" and "Part Two" titles to signal the film's two key movements. In the first part, we learn that Pricò's mother Nina (Isa Pola) is engaged in a love affair. When she leaves her husband Andrea (Emilio Cigoli) and essentially abandons her child for the handsome smarmy lover Roberto (Adriano Rimoldi), both father and son are devastated.

Though the loyal housekeeper Agnese (Giovanna Cigoli) is a bedrock, Andrea feels Pricò might be better off with female relatives, but neither of these arrangements come to happy endings and the child is reunited with his father. After a few days of carnal abandon with Roberto, Nina sheepishly returns after ending the affair. Andrea grudgingly allows her to stay for the sake of son needing a Mother. Though he's curt towards her, Andrea allows his bitterness to subside and decides a family vacation at a seaside resort away from Rome is in order.

The second movement is marked by a gradually touching reconciliation between husband and wife. When Andrea confidently returns to work in Rome, he allows Nina and Pricò to remain for a few days in the idyllic hotel with its lush sun-dappled beaches. The happy Hubby feels like some quality time between Mother and Son will be a positive thing and he also secretly decides he'll replace the old curtains (which Nina always detested) with lush new drapes in their flat's boudoir.

Alas, a male dog will always come sniffing around and a bitch in heat will respond in kind. Roberto shows up at the resort and Pricò is left alone whilst Mom willingly receives her lover's prodigious root.

Hell breaks loose in two ways. One is expected, the other is not. Both are unbearably shattering.

De Sica more than superbly handles the performances and scene blocking with the skill of a fine craftsman, but as an artist, he excels with the kind of visual touches that only a filmmaker infused with celluloid in his DNA can do.

We never forget the title for a moment. Our eyes are ultimately drawn to Pricò in virtually every scene as the actions of the adults allow us to naturally shift our focus to the child's gaze. The child, it seems, is not only watching, but always watching, so much so that when Pricò stops training his gaze upon his mother, lulled into a kind of happy complacency during a magic act in the hotel ballroom, we're initially unaware that his eyes are not where they've been for the whole film. Once we realize this, our hearts do indeed sink, and the narrative does not "disappoint" us in this respect when Pricò's eyes shift back to his mother's activity.

It's a heartbreaker of monumental proportions.

De Sica also never lets us forget the eyes of the child with the intelligently placed camera, always at Pricò's eye level, whether we're with him in a specific shot/scene or not. This allows us to always view the dramatic action as if we are indeed the child and that what we see is both what he sees and how he sees it. Again, we are Pricò, and though it's an intermittently joyous perspective, it is, more often than not, a devastatingly sad point of view.

This mise en scène is never oppressive nor heavy-handed. De Sica's touch is pure gossamer in this respect. However, at one point, De Sica uses Pricò's point of view to deliver one of the most haunting nightmare sequences ever committed to film, brilliantly framed in the reflections of a train's window as it speeds along a pitch-black night. The images here are as utterly devastating to us as they would be to a child like Pricò.

As if that isn't powerful enough, De Sica maintains this position during a scene where Andrea begs and finally begins to order Pricò to reveal the truth about Nina's indiscretions - closeups of eyes at a child's eye-level have never been more emotionally calamitous.

Eventually, when De Sica presents the final moments of Nina begging for forgiveness, the camera's position remains fixed as it always has been, only this time we experience how physically tiny, yet infused with strength this child is.

And in spite of this strength, De Sica forces us to experience the child being swallowed up by a world he knows he must face alone. It's a knockout, just as the picture itself ultimately is. The children are indeed watching us and De Sica has crafted one of the most devastating reminders of that fact, one that none of us should ever forget.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

The Children Are Watching Us plays this summer at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on 35MM. For dates, times and tickets, visit the TIFF website HERE. If you aren't in Toronto for this wonderful experience, the Criterion Collection DVD presents a fine transfer of the film along with two superb added value features, an interview with an Italian critic, but most astoundingly, a great interview with the actor who played Pricò.

Feel free to order the Criterion DVD directly from the following links. You'll be supporting the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner if you do so.

In Canada, order HERE
in the USA order HERE
and in the UK order HERE

SANDRA (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Electra Myth Sizzles as magnificent melodrama under Luchino Visconti's masterful rendering, screened on ALL-NEW 4K restoration at TIFF Bell Lightbox Cinematheque series "SUMMER IN ITALY", programmed by the inimitable James Quandt.

Sandra - Vaghe stelle dell'orsa… (1965)
Dir. Luchino Visconti
Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Jean Sorel,
Michael Craig, Fred Williams, Marie Bell, Renzo Ricci

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I can think of few juicier morsels of grand melodrama than Luchino Visconti's Sandra (Vaghe stelle dell'orsa…), a modern re-imagining of the Greek myth involving Electra, the Princess of Argos, who, in cahoots with brother Orestes, spins a mad plot to avenge the death of their father King Agamemnon at the hands of Queen Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

Visconti, however, never content to merely ape his inspirations, takes the aforementioned narrative base and careens wildly into the territory of an opera plunged into the deepest depths of genuinely perverse sexual obsession. (A layer of wartime collaboration, Auschwitz and a reclamation of Jewish Heritage is stirred in for good measure along with attempted rape and suicide for those so inclined.)

With the astoundingly baroque black and white cinematography of Armando Nannuzzi, Visconti spins a (seemingly) measured yarn which mounts ever-so broodingly to a shocking, over-the-top climax and a denouement which is as fraught with irony as it is deeply moving.

Beginning at a swank cocktail party in Paris and winding up amongst petty bourgeoisie squabbling within an ancient, crumbling, family estate in the provincial Italian enclave of Volterra, Sandra is a grandly entertaining belly flop into a pool of madness and incest. It makes the sordid spectacles of Giuseppe Verdi at his most floridly, bombastically romantic seem quaint and subtle.

Where Sandra deviates from the Elektra myth is in substituting the sexuality of Daddy worship (and competing with Mommy for Daddy's love) to a deep sexual spark between the sister (ravishing Claudia Cardinale as the title character) and brother Gianni (dreamy Jean Sorel) as a reaction to the siblings' joint belief that their long-dead Jewish scientist father was betrayed to the Nazis and Fascists by their Antisemitic concert pianist mother (Marie Bell) who has now gone completely insane and the mad matriarch's blusteringly petty lover and eventual second husband (Renzo Ricci).

Add to this mix Sandra's loving, but clueless American husband (Michael Craig) and the hunky town doctor (Fred Williams) who still carries a torch for her and we've got ourselves a heady brew, indeed.

Much of the action is centred within the family estate. Sandra and her hubby are visiting to convene at a special ceremony honouring her late father who died at Auschwitz. It's a nice enough tribute, but its reason for being is that the family fortunes are dwindling and the once massive grounds can no longer be cared for. They've been taken over by the town as a Memorial Park dedicated to Sandra's Dad.

There is much in the manner of slinking and skulking about the corridors, corners and shadows of the once grand old house, along with all manner of hushed whispers, most of them related to the unholy relations twixt Sandra and Orestes. The only time vocal timbres gush out full throttle are when we meet Mad Momma who screeches out her various hatreds and regrets with considerable bile and lung power.

The centrepiece of the entire picture is the voluptuous, pouty-lipped, big-ole-dark-eyed Claudia Cardinale, who manages to acquit herself as both a fine actress and ravishing camera-loves-her sexpot.

As is his wont, Visconti allows us to wallow in the majestic mire of the melodrama to our hearts' content, but for those seeking added noggin stimuli (the noggin that thinks, of course), Visconti handily invests the movie with moments of sheer visual poetry and much in the way of historical, social and class-related ruminations. Happily, one can take one's pick or go for the fully loaded big banana split of sex, sin, art and politics.

It's the Visconti way, God Bless Him.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *****

Sandra is playing in Toronto at the TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX. For dates, times and tickets, visit their website HERE. For those who cannot make it to Toronto, a gorgeous import DVD from Italy is available through Amazon. One hopes it's merely a matter of time before the 4K restoration will be available for sell-through on Blu-Ray.

The Region 2 Italian Import of Sandra can be ordered directly via the links below (and as such, contribute to the ongoing maintenance of The Film Corner).

In Canada order HERE

In USA order HERE

In UK order HERE

LIMELIGHT - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Classic Chaplin Melodrama on Criterion Blu-Ray

Limelight (1952)
Dir. Charles Chaplin
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Claire Bloom,
Nigel Bruce, Sydney Earl Chaplin, Norman Lloyd, Buster Keaton

Review By Greg Klymkiw

It's 1914 and Great Britain will soon enter World War I. The great clown Calvero (Charles Chaplin), once the toast of the entertainment business, is now an unreliable alcoholic whose agent must beg even the most ramshackle music halls to book his client on the bottom-feeding end of the billings and under vague pseudonyms so that no theatre booking agent or the lowliest of audiences will think they're getting an unfunny stumblebum.

One fateful evening, Calvero enters his modest rooming house and though two sheets to the wind, he is still able to make out the overwhelming smell of gas emanating from a first-floor suite, its door locked and the landlady with the pass key nowhere to be found. The pie-eyed codger manages to break the door down in the nick of time to find its beautiful tenant Terry (Claire Bloom) on the verge of death by her own hand, the open gas oven blasting its deadly fumes into the air.

Calvero revives the destitute out-of-work dancer, then discretely summons a doctor from round the corner and moves the addled missy upstairs to his own room to recuperate. When she realizes she's been saved, her sorrow seems even greater. Calvero, however, is full of understanding and seems to know exactly how to gently admonish the young miss and set her straight. When she questions the meaning of life and indeed the very notion that there is any meaning at all, Calvero supplies just the right verbal balm. "What do you want meaning for?" he chides ever-so gently. "Life is a desire, not a meaning. Desire is the theme of all life!"

And so it is.

And so begins one of the greatest movies of all time - written, produced, directed, scored and starring the Little Tramp himself. Deep into the latter stages of middle age and exiled to Switzerland after being refused entry to the United States on spurious grounds by the House of Un-American Activities, Charles Spencer Chaplin (Charlie, to the world) gave us one of his sweetest gifts. Limelight began its life as a novella, however, it read so much like a movie script that it seemed inevitable Chaplin would go ahead and make the picture.

This is also a movie that should have been one of Chaplin's greatest box-office triumphs. Alas, theatre owners in the United States were vigorously lobbied by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover to not exhibit this "propaganda" by the suspected communist. Most acquiesced to the desires of the House of UnAmerican Activities. Though the film played in a mere handful of American theatres, mostly in liberal enclaves, it still managed to gross over a million dollars in the USA. In European territories, Chaplin's film did fine business and grossed in the neighbourhood of eight million dollars.

Its appeal made sense. Chaplin fashioned a work that was as sophisticated and mature as it was simple and sentimental - appealing to both highbrow and general audiences. (That the film was essentially suppressed for two decades in America, the aforementioned numbers in 1952 currency are pretty astounding.)

And it's such a great and compelling story. Chaplin juggles a few threads of plot here, but the main one involves his unconditional support to Terry and how he provides her with the inspiration and drive she needs to make it to the top. As he optimistically tells her, "Think of the power that's in the universe! And that's the same power within you. If you'd only have courage and the will to use it."

Of course, their relationship is more than a trifle complicated. There's deep love that grows between both of them. The father-daughter and teacher-student love makes the most sense given their huge age difference, but Terry (even though she's attracted to a young composer played by Chaplin's real-life son Sydney), feels conflicted about her feelings for Calvero and thinks she loves him the way a potential wife would love her husband. She even proposes marriage to him.

As Calvero keeps plummeting to the bottom, Terry rises to the top - a familiar enough A Star is Born-like trajectory, but Chaplin is wise enough to throw a few wrinkles and surprises in the mix so that we're more often than not, fed a few morsels which twist and turn the narrative handily. One of them involves the great Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes) as a theatrical impresario whose respectful acknowledgement and belief in "the old days" allows for a joyous fork in the road to open up for all concerned.

Initially via Calvero's dreams and reminiscences, the film also allows us to see both the character and Chaplin himself, performing a number of classic comedy routines. Seeing this great master go through his creative paces is infused with considerable two-for-the-price-of-one delights. In particular is one major highlight of comedic genius. Chaplin had always been obsessed with nailing an idea he had for a sketch involving trained fleas and he finally delivers the goods here with considerable gusto.

Eventually, the tale allows Calvero/Chaplin the opportunity for a full-blown vaudeville show before a huge, appreciative audience. This sequence is not only hilarious, but induces the kind of happy gooseflesh one can only get when bearing witness to sheer virtuosity. Astonishingly, we're also treated to a classic comedy routine between Chaplin and Buster Keaton (the only time the two of them ever shared screen-time). To say the entire routine is a joy would be an understatement of the most egregious kind.

The film's exquisite humour induces plenty tears of laughter, but it wouldn't be Chaplin if the picture also didn't wrench our hearts with the kind of emotion that forces us to completely lose it emotionally. Luckily, this happens on several occasions.

As the greatest have always proven, there's nothing sadder than a clown.

And there's nothing sadder and greater than Chaplin as a clown in his twilight years, a character still so vibrant, yet also driven by the kind of self-sacrifice, that he inspires the cycle of life and death to come full circle.

At one point Calvero says, "I believe I'm dying, doctor. Then, I don't know. I've died so many times." It's a beautiful moment that fills us with joy. We know Calvero will never really die, just as Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin through the great gift of cinema, lives forever.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** 5-Stars

Limelight is available on a gorgeous Criterion Collection Blu-Ray which is overflowing with hours worth of materials which provide added insight as well as sheer entertainment value. Amongst the myriad of interviews, all of them worthwhile, I was especially delighted with those involving the wonderful actress Claire Bloom who offers plenty of greats stories and insights which are far too modest with respect to herself, but also give us a unique window upon Chaplin's genius. This is one of the best Criterion efforts of the year (though it seems one can say this with each new release from this visionary company). The new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray is of the highest quality and in addition to outtakes, trailers, a booklet with a Peter von Bagh essay as well as an actual on-set piece by Henry Gris, there's a lovely video essay by Chaplin biographer David Robinson which places the whole film within Chaplin's personal and artistic process. It's extremely informative and moving. There are new interviews with the aforementioned Claire Bloom as well as Norman Lloyd, a 2002 documentary on Limelight, a delightful audio recording with Chaplin reading excerpts from his novella "Footlights" (wherein the film blossomed out of) and most magnificently, two silent shorts by Chaplin, one of which is an unfinished piece which first introduces the brilliant and funny trained flea act. The case is gorgeously illustrated with a beautiful new cover by Bill Nelson. All in all, a must-own Blu-Ray.