manderstoke

Walter Brennan?

Since I just had a turn, perhaps someone else would like to have a go. Anyone?

Was the film SUNSET BLVD. with William Holden and Gloria Swanson? Originally, Wilder wanted Mae West and Montgomery Clift.

That's not a guess, that's a correct answer. Network recently released a beautifully restored print. (And it's not a monkey, it's a capuchin!")

Hello, anybody out there? More clues - film was made in Britain and released in 1942.

Another clue?

The film's director was intensely disliked by the actors and actresses who worked with him. In fact, one of the actors punched him in the nose.

Is it time for another clue?

Here's a clue. It's not a monkey, it's a capuchin.

Upon release, this film that could have fit into several categories (noir, horror, crime, melodrama) had three different names. Name this film's three names.

Stanley Clements?

Have you seen THE MAN BETWEEN, another Carol Reed noir with a doomed antihero who sacrifices himself for his lover? It's terribly underrated (everyone always whining about how it wasn't THE THIRD MAN - how tiresome, can't a film be judged on its own merits?) Anyway, your questions about why Kathleen would kill herself find echo in TMB. The ending is haunting in its affect (one individual described it as "a knife to the heart"), but would Ivo Kern really act this way?

Good questions and I don't know the answers. Perhaps, it was foreshadowing when she told Father Tom that she didn't fear for herself, but feared that Johnny would die alone. By killing herself, they went together. I know, it's not logical, but maybe it makes emotional sense. Maybe she simply loved him so much that she didn't want to live without him. One reviewer wrote that her feelings were less like that of a lover and more like that of a mother, and when they finally meet up, it resembles more a pieta than eros. Whatever her reasons, she has one thing in common with the police - a determination to have him, alive or dead. (Couldn't resist that.)

I don't see Kathleen as in any way weak. If anything, she has a will of iron. Almost immediately upon hearing that Johnny is on the run, she decides that the police will not have him. She will do anything to prevent that. Of course, her preference is that they escape on the ship, but she is prepared to kill him if that plan fails. She never wavers, she never hesitates - she gets the gun, and she single-mindedly carries out her intentions. One could make the case that suicide is a type of moral weakness (I don't see it that way), but actually doing it is way beyond my courage level. It strikes me that Johnny, Kathleen, and the Inspector are the only characters in the film who don't show weakness: Johnny in his determination to live, Kathleen in her total commitment to saving Johnny (by whatever means necessary), and the Inspector in his relentless hunt for Johnny.

"I find that type of weakness very unappealing." I don't understand this statement. What weakness? Whose weakness? Kahleen's love for Johnny is not delusional. She knows that he doesn't return her love. Give the guy a break! He is defending his leadership against Dennis' challenge to it and he is preparing to lead a raid on the mill that he has been organizing for several months. He is focused on his cause, his mission, and its operation. A motto of the IRA was "once in, never out." Kathleen would be familiar with this, and refers to it when she asks Johnny if he will ever be free. Note his evasive answer, "Maybe, someday." I think the film would work as a story of a poignant and tragic doomed love, but Reed had bigger fish to fry. He wanted to make a more universal statement about humanity's lack of compassion and care for each other. As an allegory, the film transcends the noirish crime caper genre and,in my opinion, succeeds on all levels. In a film notable for its relentless pessimism, the scene that, for me, epitomizes Johnny's outcast status is when he approaches the girls in the telephone booth. As he walks away from the camera and off the set, it is as if he has now left the world of humanity all together. The scene is almost unbearably sad and bleak.