I Just Watched...

[LawrenceA]

Thanks, guys. I think I'll just compose my reviews using only emojis.

?❤️?❤️?+⚔️=?

[LawrenceA]

Black River (1957)

Japanese drama from Shochiku and director Masaki Kobayashi. The story follows civil engineering student Nishida (Fumio Watanabe) as he moves into a slum apartment building near a U.S. army base. His fellow tenants struggle to survive by doing all sorts of unsavory things, while Nishida simply tries to keep his head down, concentrating on his studies, and staying out of trouble. Things get complicated when he falls for nice-girl waitress Shizuko (Ineko Arima), who has also caught the eye of young gang leader Killer Joe (Tatsuya Nakadai). Also featuring Isuzu Yamada, Tomo'o Nagai, Keiko Awaji, Eijiro Tono, and Natsuko Kahara.

Director Kobayashi's film is meant as an indictment on post-war Japanese decadence and corruption, with a very critical eye toward the continuing U.S. military presence. Various concessions made for the comfort and convenience of the troops lead to poverty and squalor for the neighboring Japanese citizens, many of whom turn to petty crime and prostitution for survival. I think the director's message gets lost a bit in the love triangle, though. Watanabe makes for a passable lead, while Arima turns in another good turn, although not as impressive as that in Tokyo Twilight, which I watched yesterday. The real star is Nakadai, one of my favorite Japanese actors, here in his breakthrough role. He's menacing and compelling, while also imbuing what could have been a one-note psycho-thug with some depth and nuance. The film features excellent, moody cinematography, and the oppressive heat of the summer season is depicted very well.    (7/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[Hibi]

On 8/26/2018 at 3:19 PM, kingrat said:

MissWonderly, thank you for an excellent review of Something Wild, which I find as weird and disturbing as you do. Not a film I'd want to see again, though it does treat the subject of rape more honestly than most films of the time. I also agree that the location shots in New York are effective, though the streets are awfully deserted, even for 1961. Calvin, thanks for the additional perspective.

Rayban also has a good point about Carroll Baker being an effective sexpot in Sylvia, which, as he says, is not a particularly good film. Really good black & white cinematography, though. One of the imdb reviewers points out that briefly there was an attempt to turn George Maharis into a movie star, but none of the films hit big. Maharis was a good-looking guy, and perhaps in an earlier era he could have become a second-level leading man.

 

I caught Sylvia for the first time over the wknd. Boy, was it BAD!!!! Though I found the last segment with Baker/Maharis involving. Bad dialog and soapy plot. Maharis just wasnt a very good actor. Not enough to put this story over at least..........

[LawrenceA]

A Dancer's World (1957)

Short, 30-minute documentary originally made for public television. Dance legend Martha Graham hosts and narrates thoughts on dance and the mind of a dancer, while various members of her dance troupe perform in an unadorned rehearsal space. This is too brief and shallow to shed much insight into either Graham or the art of dance itself. It works only as a mildly pleasant time-waster, despite it's pretensions. Graham wears an outfit that looks straight out of Star Trek, though.    (6/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[LornaHansonForbes]

3 hours ago, LawrenceA said:

After trying the new format for the last several days, which type of reviews should I continue with?

A - The longer, individual reviews that are more detailed and posted after watching each movie.

B - The single bulk post that has multiple, very short reviews, posted once daily.

C - I don't care because I don't read any of that garbage, anyway.

D - **** off already, nerd.

I like B, but not *too* short

[midwestan]

7 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

weird things are going on with TCM ON DEMAND. Several titles keep disappearing and reappearing, and at times it says that i "do not have permission" to watch them...even after i'VE started watching them earlier in the day, but whatevs...

there is a trio of PETER LORRE flicks that this applies to- FACE BEHIND THE MASK, THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (which is really delightful and which has disappeared before i could finish it) and ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN, which I was able to see in entirety)

the last is a pretty tame ISLAND OF LOST SOULS ripoff without the genetic mutations- although there is a (delightful) running plot point about a PET MONKEY THAT LORRE DESPISES ("GET THAT MONKEY AWAY FROM ME!!!! ARRRGHAH!!!!")

LORRE USES HIS REAL (JACKED UP) TEETH IN THIS ONE!!!! He is also restrained for the most part, which makes him even creepier. There are worse ways to kill time than this pic, but it's nowhere as good as MAD LOVE or BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS or STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR or any of Lorre's other early solo horror parts.

I haven't noticed too many problems with In Demand, although I had to start "Green Fire" on three separate occasions as it froze up on me twice.  The story wasn't particularly good, but I did enjoy the interaction between Grace Kelly and Stewart Granger and Granger with Paul Douglas.

I'm sure "The Face Behind the Mask" has been shown on TCM before, but I've never seen it here.  When I watched it Friday morning, it was the first time I'd seen it in 47 or 48 years!  I remember as a kid I practically cried after the car blew up, because the service animal got whisked away to doggie heaven.  ?

I too watched "Island of Doomed Men" and got a kick out of Peter Lorre's performance.  With apologies to Rick James, you could say Lorre's character here was a super creep, super creep, he's super creepy....yow!

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, LawrenceA said:

A Dancer's World (1957)

Graham wears an outfit that looks straight out of Star Trek, though.    (6/10)

...Hast thee the rights of the Vulcan High Council, T'Pau?

[LawrenceA]

Danger Stalks Near (1957) - Japanese comedy from Shochiku and director Keisuke Kinoshita. A trio of inept crooks case out a house that they want to rob, believing that there's money inside. Meanwhile, the residents of the house, including a husband, his wife, their young child, and the husband's cantankerous mother, get into various predicaments that cause other relatives, friends, repairmen, and salesmen to continuously come and go from the residence. Featuring Hideko Takamine, Keiji Sada, Akiko Tamura, Koji Nanbara, Toshiko Kobayashi. Shinji Tanaka, Hiroko Ito, and Masako Arisawa.

I found this mildly amusing, with an escalating tempo as more and more people arrive at the house and clashes keep flaring up. None of the performers really stand out, although I wouldn't say any were bad, either. Director Kinoshita, active in the Japanese film industry since the war years, exhibits some slightly experimental touches here and there, with rapid-cut close-ups, and off-kilter juxtapositions between characters.   (7/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[speedracer5]

11 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

there is a trio of PETER LORRE flicks that this applies to- FACE BEHIND THE MASK, THE COMEDY OF TERRORS (which is really delightful and which has disappeared before i could finish it) and ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN, which I was able to see in entirety)

I watched Comedy of Terrors.  I can't decide if I thought it was good or not.  It definitely had its moments and the cast was a lot of fun: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone.  Vincent Price's character was such a jerk, but he was hilarious.  Price really knows how to turn a phrase.  It was fun to see Rathbone in a comical role.  It was also nice to see Karloff, though I would have never known it was him if I didn't know it was him.  Karloff's voice was softer than I've heard prior.  I was waiting for "The Grinch" to start talking. 

[LawrenceA]

I Am Waiting (1957) - Japanese noir from Nikkatsu and director Koreyoshi Kurahara. Ex-boxer Joji Shimaki (Yujiro Ishihara) runs a small waterfront diner. He's saving up money to move to Brazil, where his brother has a farm. One night Joji meets Saeko (Mie Kitahara), a cabaret singer who thinks she may have killed a man. Joji takes her back to the restaurant and gives her a job, and just as the two start to fall for each other, her past comes calling, with some surprising ties to Joji's, as well. Also featuring Isamu Kosugi, Kenjiro Uemura, Hideaki Nitani, Ken Hatano, and Kojiro Kusanagi. 

The first half of this plays like a moody romance between two lost souls. At roughly the midway point, the story shifts into a murder mystery and journey through Japan's sordid underworld. I wasn't very aware of lead actor Ishihara before this, but I've read that he was a major star in Japan. His performance is an interesting balance of nice-guy openness and tough guy menace. Kitahara has great eyes for projecting haunted guilt. I also liked Kosugi as an alcoholic doctor.    (7/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[speedracer5]

Re: Pride of the Marines

Look at the movie poster.  What did the illustrator do to John Garfield's face? It looks nothing like him! 

[Tikisoo]

Maybe they mis-read it as "Gay Pride of the Marines" and tried to make him look trans?

[LornaHansonForbes]

11 hours ago, speedracer5 said:

I watched Comedy of Terrors.  I can't decide if I thought it was good or not.  It definitely had its moments and the cast was a lot of fun: Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone.  Vincent Price's character was such a jerk, but he was hilarious.  Price really knows how to turn a phrase.  It was fun to see Rathbone in a comical role.  It was also nice to see Karloff, though I would have never known it was him if I didn't know it was him.  Karloff's voice was softer than I've heard prior.  I was waiting for "The Grinch" to start talking. 

Yeah, the souffle don't quite rise on this one- in spite of a promising start.

I have always avoided this movie because I despise B-Director Roger Corman; but I figured I'd give this a go even as I rolled my eyes at the pre-credits sequence which is a clumsy Keystone Cops-style send up, and then the credits ran and I saw that it was actually directed by JACQUES TOURNEUR- who did OUT OF THE PAST and THE CURSE OF THE DEMON (which is on TCM ON DEMAND and is excellent) and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE- he was a visceral, intelligent director, but this came at the end of his career (which was fraught with Blacklisting drama if I recall correctly) and he was clearly tired...

i imdb'd this one and in the trivia section it mentioned that KARLOFF's role was limited because he was suffering from crippling arthritis at the time...he makes the most of his part, but it's a somewhat token appearance slightly better than what BELA LUGOSI was relegated to in THE BLACK SLEEP. PETER LORRE died about three months after this was made, and while he is very amusing and lovable in his part, he looks unwell.

too much slack is thusly left to be picked up by VINCENT PRICE and BASIL RATHBONE, and you know that if a dish to pass is required, those two are gonna bring the ham big time.

the female lead (who was visually all wrong for the part) IS IRRITATING.

this was written by RICHARD MATHESON (sp?) who is revered in SCI FI circles for his TWILIGHT ZONE scripts and THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (also starring Price.)

it really, really could've used a rewrite....by someone else.

and a British director.

and to be shot in Black and White.

but it's still better than anything CORMAN would've done!

[LornaHansonForbes]

...OH AND...

This is not really a spoiler, but there is an effin WEIRD moment in this otherwise broadly slapstick comedy where VINCENT PRICE SMOTHERS AN OLD MAN TO DEATH IN HIS SLEEP AND THEN SINGS A SONG ABOUT HITTING A BABY'S SKULL WITH A HAMMER.

and then it's right back to pratfalls and slide whistles and (probably) seltzer bottles in the face.

[cigarjoe]

On 8/26/2018 at 11:41 AM, misswonderly3 said:

SOMETHING WILD

(Not the 1986 one, which is not a remake of this 1961 film.)

Hoo, boy, I honestly don't know what to say about this one. It's one of those films I'd always heard about and always been curious to see. So now I have. I can cross it off my list, I have no desire to see it again.

I would go SPOILERS , but honestly, there's not really enough plot to worry about giving anything away. 

Now, I have no problem with plotless films; a movie doesn't always have to be about plot, and there are loads of great films that prove that. However, it has to have something  - and no, I'm not making a pun on the title. In fact, it's the title that attracted me, I thought a film with a title like that would be fun, or at least interesting. But, despite the potential to be interesting (ok, once you find out the subject matter you know it's not going to be fun), I found Something Wild to be, well, rather dull. Certainly not engaging.

Briefly: A young woman on her way home one night is pulled into some bushes and raped. Her attacker immediately flees - he's not part of the story. The story, such as it is, is how this traumatized girl responds to what has happened to her.  Now back in 1961, a rape victim, as we all know, often felt she could not tell anyone what has happened to her, and this is the case with Mary Ann (played well enough by Carroll Baker.) She does not tell the police, she does not tell her mother , with whom she lives. That's understandable, nobody would tell such a thing to a mother like that - a woman who seems to worry more about what the neighbours will think than about her daughter's well-being. But Mary Ann doesn't seem to have any friends, no one to whom she can talk about her horrible experience.

She leaves home, finds a very sketchy, dirty-looking apartment with a creepy landlord and a noisy, crude woman who lives next to her flat. She gets a job at a Woolworth's , and tries to make a go of living on her own and getting over the brutal sexual attack. But because she has no one to tell about it, she becomes increasingly depressed. After a few days ( I think - the time line is not clear, and I suppose it doesn't really matter), she leaves her job in the middle of the day, claiming she's sick (her co-workers don't like her and have bullied her), and wanders onto one of those New York bridges overlooking the river (or the sea?) It looks as though she's about to throw herself over when a man rushes up to her and pulls her away.

The man, played by Ralph Meeker, feels one of those "I've saved your life so now we're connected" things; also, he's lonely and somewhat dysfunctional himself, and he's attracted to the girl he's saved. He invites her to rest in his apartment, and - why does she do this?? - Mary Ann agrees. Once there, the man keeps her a prisoner. It reminded me a bit of a later British film, The Collector. A lonely messed-up man who can't connect in the normal way with women decides to keep a pretty girl prisoner, hoping she'll fall in love with him. He does not attempt sexual contact with her, except when he's drunk. He does attack her fairly early on in her imprisonment, but he's very drunk, she repels him by kicking him in the eye, which causes him permanent eye damage.

I'm afraid I'm going into too much detail on the plot, which I originally said didn't count for much. Ok, long story short, she escapes one day when he's forgotten to lock the door. She wanders around, enjoying her freedom. I thought she might return to her mother's place, but no, she just wanders around, falls asleep in Central Park, and then, presumably refreshed by her night under the stars, returns to her kidnapper and marries him ! 

Next scene, it's several months later, winter, Christmas time. Her mother has received a letter from her at last. The mother goes to her new home - the same appalling basement apartment she was held prisoner in -  meets her daughter's husband - the man who took her prisoner and at one point tried to rape her  - and is told that she's married, happy, and expecting a baby.

That's the end !

The reason I went into such detail on the storyline is to demonstrate how there are so many choices Mary Ann makes that don't make any sense. She's raped walking home alone at night, yet she chooses to move out and live all alone in a sketchy scary old building with a creepy landlord who openly ogles her. How would this move in any way make her feel safer? We know she has a poor relationship with her mother, but how is living all by herself surrounded by potential rapists any better?

Her school goals: she seems very young, I wasn't even sure if she was still in high school or attending college. College, I guess. It's not clear to me if she quits, or if it's just summertime and school's out for the summer. Why does she choose to quit (probably) and get a nowhere job at a five and dime? Ok, we know she's traumatized and not thinking straight. But we have to guess what she's thinking and feeling throughout the whole movie, since there's actually little dialogue from any of the characters, including Mary Ann, that would illuminate us as to their motives or who they are or what they're about.

Why would she willingly walk into a strange man's home? I don't buy it that she's exhausted and depressed and suffering the mental after-effects of a sexual attack, therefore she doesn't know what she's doing. There are so many things she does that don't make sense to me, and we never get to find out what's going on in her head. In fact, I felt I knew as little about Mary Ann, who she is, what she wants from life, why she makes the choices she does, at the end of the film as at its beginning.

I know Something Wild is supposed to be "different", and daring for its time, and edgy, and all that. But I just thought it was a bit dull, I did not like any of the characters - including Mary Ann - and a frustrating movie to watch. I'm not sorry I saw it, since I'd always wanted to, but I don't plan to ever see it again.

EDIT:  There was one thing about Something Wild I liked a lot: It's set and filmed on location in New York City, and you get a real sense of what NYC was like then, especially the less glamourous areas of it. There are lots of scenes of actual New York brownstone apartments, bridges, parks, gritty streets with funny little stores, subway stations, things like that. The on-location NYC shooting was the best thing about this film.

 

 

It's a Kitchen Sink Noir.

The tale is about a young woman Mary Ann (Baker). She still lives at home with her mother (Dunnock) and step father.  She is attending college in New York City. One night after riding the Jerome Avenue line subway back to Kingsbridge Road Station, she takes a shortcut home through St. James Park.

Near the Southeast corner she is grabbed from behind. Dragged into the bushes she is brutally raped up against a retaining wall by a grunting panting slob. Bruised, sore, and traumatized, she gathers up her books and belongings and runs home.

She quietly enters her house and tells no one. In her bathroom, frightened and shivering, she strips her clothes off, gets into a tub, and washes away all the evidence. She takes scissors and cuts the soiled clothes and undergarments into small pieces and flushes them down the toilet.

She hides the rape from her parents and tries to carry on with her life. She now recoils from physical contact with all people. While riding the subway to school, the crush of people in the morning rush hour is too much for her to bear. Felling sick she rushes from the train and faints on the platform of the 103rd St. Station. The NYPD brings her back home and her uptight, whining, insensitive mother who is always concerned about "what the neighbors think", is mortified that she has been brought home in a police car.

Continuing in the following days to wallow in a morass of self deprecation and despair Mary Ann snaps. She just takes off from her Morningside Heights school, leaves her books on a sidewalk bench and walks downtown through Harlem, The Upper West Side, Times Square, Greenwich Village to the Lower East Side.

In the Lower East Side she rents, from sleazy slumlord (Kosleck), a five dollar a week flop in his rundown tenement, and finds a twenty-five dollar a week job at a five-and-dime. She has a loud, obnoxious, two bagger prostitute, Shirley (Stapleton) as a next door neighbor, who offers to fix her up with some "gentlemen friends."

Continuing her downward spiral she becomes increasingly alienated from the world and decides to end it all. To Mary Ann the conveniently nearby Manhattan Bridge has a big imaginary sign that says "JUMP ME." As she climbs up on the rail about to go over she is stopped by by Mike, an alkie, sad sack, slightly whacked in the head auto mechanic. Her knight in rusty armor has a few screws loose himself. He walks her back to the Manhattan side and talks her into resting at his place while he goes to work. He doesn't trust her in the condition that she's in, thinking that she try something again, so he locks her in his basement apartment. Mike, slow on the uptake, never quite understands why Mary Ann doesn't want to be held there against her wishes.

When Mike comes home late that night sloppy drunk he tries to get a little "friendly" with Mary Ann but with what she just went through and in the condition she's in she naturally totally freaks and kicks him in the eye. When Mike comes too the next morning he has no recollection of the night before thinking he got into a fight at a bar. He's a blackout boozer. He loses the eye as a result of her kick and has to wear an eye patch.

When Mary Ann tells Mike that she has to go back to work, he offers to match what her boss pays her at the store. So we ask ourselves why does Mike behave this way? Did he also contemplate doing a brodie into the East River? Is he aware, on some gut level, of the certainty that letting her go now in this condition would be fatal, but just mentally disabled enough not to realize the "benies" of getting her professional medical attention. He "knows" in some weird way that fate has bound them together. He  actually NEEDS her in his own twisted way.

So Mike continues to hold Mary Ann prisoner, telling her that he likes "the way you look here." She is held there in Mike's apartment for months having, at times, surreal nightmares. One night Mike does it up big, he cooks steaks, buys wine sets the table with flowers, and fixes a nice dinner for the both of them. He proposes to Mary Ann and she rejects him. She tells him that it was she who kicked him in the eye. Mike says that he didn't know, but insists the she is "his last chance." Mike is a damaged person also. He gets up heartbroken and goes out the door leaving it ajar.

Mary Ann grabs her coat and is out the door. Free at last she wanders the city eventually sleeping in Central Park. Her destructive funk is cured and she returns to the apartment to be back with Mike. These two damaged souls manage to find each other and bring into the equation what the other needed.

They get married and as our story ends Mary Ann has a bun in the oven. Life is strange indeed, there are a million stories in the Naked City.....

The cast is excellent, the first half of the film is pretty much all Baker, and besides the obvious iconic Classic Noir creds that Ralph Meeker brings to the table, watch for a bit of cinematic memory, Mildred Dunnock played Rossi's mom, the one that Tommy Udo sent down the staircase in the wheelchair in an iconic Noir sequence from Kiss Of Death.

 It chronicles a 1960 New York City still with heavy vestiges of the 40s and 50s. Depending on my mood a 7-8/10.

[cigarjoe]

On 8/26/2018 at 3:48 PM, misswonderly3 said:

But Something Wild gave us nothing - - we don't even have any idea what Mary Ann was like before she's raped. 

If you lived in NYC around that time Mary Ann had the signature "look" of a good Catholic school girl and all the baggage that went with that. Maybe you had to be there to get the visual clues. Her attire tells her back story and thousands like her.

Its a film ahead of its time in the depiction of a traumatized victim of rape, who has know one to turn to, as another poster (calvinnme) said. 

[laffite]

Can someone tell it again?

[LornaHansonForbes]

I’ve seen SOMETHING WILD And I understand why everyone wants to recap the plot...it’s like RASHOMAN Everyone witnesses the same events differently. It’s a very strange, unsettling and disturbing movie. And we all take different things away from it.

[LornaHansonForbes]

It’s kinda Like witnessing something crazy on the street, and turning to everyone to ask if they saw the same thing you did

[LornaHansonForbes]

also also,

SOMETHING WILD is a great name for a movie, just not this PARTICULAR movie.

Some more apt titles for the story would be: THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT; NERVOUS SECLUSION; YOU IN DANGER, GIRL...

[LawrenceA]

A King in New York (1957) - Uneven but amusing comedy from Attica Film Company and writer-director Charles Chaplin. He stars as King Shahdov, a recently deposed European royal who arrives in NYC with very little money left in the bank. He gets manipulated by advertising exec Ann Kay (Dawn Addams) into appearing in a TV commercial, and after it proves very successful, he agrees to several more commercials, as well as other public appearances, in order to refill his coffers. He also gets entangled with a young boy (Michael Chaplin) who's a political radical. Also featuring Maxine Audley, Jerry Desmonde, Oliver Johnston, Sidney James, Joan Ingram, and Phil Brown.

Made in the U.K. after Chaplin became an exile from the U.S., he mocks those same anti-communist hysterics that contributed to his becoming persona non grata back here. Some scenes don't work, but more do, and I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. I particularly enjoyed the little boy radical played by Chaplin's 11 year old son. This film would prove to be Chaplin's final lead acting role.   (7/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[EricJ]

8 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

A King in New York (1957) - Uneven but amusing comedy from Attica Film Company and writer-director Charles Chaplin. He stars as King Shahdov, a recently deposed European royal who arrives in NYC with very little money left in the bank. He gets manipulated by advertising exec Ann Kay (Dawn Addams) into appearing in a TV commercial, and after it proves very successful, he agrees to several more commercials, as well as other public appearances, in order to refill his coffers.

Basically, we have Chaplin slipping in his comments on television, just like we get the joke about Chaplin trying to watch wide-widescreen Cinemascope/Cinerama at the theater, and watching a Western showdown like a tennis match.

When the old comics start Shouting at Clouds about current entertainment tropes, it's usually time to retire.  At least Buster Keaton could keep up with the new kids.

[LawrenceA]

Les Girls (1957) - Musical rom-com from MGM and director George Cukor. A court hearing involving a case of slander provides the framing device for this tale about three dancers (Kay Kendall, Mitzi Gaynor, and Taina Elg) who worked for American dancer Barry Nichols (Gene Kelly) in Paris. Each girl has her own special relationship with Barry, and their varied viewpoints are explored to comedic effect. Also featuring Jacques Bergerac, Leslie Phillips, Patrick Macnee, and Henry Daniell.

The color CinemaScope images are vibrant and eye-catching, and there are some entertaining dance numbers. Kelly seems a little bland, though, overwhelmed by his trio of leading ladies, all of whom turned in a good performance. As usual for me with musicals, it goes on a bit too long, but it looks nice. The movie won the Oscar for Best Costumes (Orry-Kelly), and it was nominated for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound.   (6/10)

Source: FilmStruck.

[LawrenceA]

Les Mistons aka The Brats (1957) - 18-minute short French film from director Francois Truffaut. A group of young boys follow around the older girl (Bernadette Lafont) that they all have a crush on. She tries to enjoy her summer with her boyfriend (Gerard Blain), but the boys' teasing is an annoyance. Eventually the summer ends, as does their idyll. 

Truffaut exhibits many of the themes and stylistic choices that he'd use in his feature debut The 400 Blows in 1959. He has an eye for the anarchic mischief of boys at the border between childhood and manhood. I thought this was an excellent sketch of what could be a broader subject.   (7/10)

Source: FilmStruck

[rayban]

"Star 80" - Bob Fosse - 1983

This true-to-life, but extremely ugly film is based on the lives of Dorothy Stratten and her husband, Paul Snider.

It is essentially the portrait of a young hustler (Eric Roberts) who discovered a great beauty (Mariel Hemingway) whose fame and fortune left him out in the cold.

Eventually, sinking slowly into despair and hatred, Paul kills his wife and himself.

The magnificence of this film rests on the talented shoulders of Eric Roberts and Mariel Hemingway, who convince you that you are watching cinema verite.

This film, as directed by Bob Fosse, is that good.

But, as I said, it is an "ugly film" - one you probably would not want to see again.

Neverthess, the film should have established Eric Roberts and Mariel Hemingway as genuine stars.

But, somehow, it did not.

The film has a superb supporting cast, which adds greatly to the cinema verite feeling.

It included Carroll Baker, as Dorothy's mother, a woman who did look kindly on her daughter's "opportunity".