Word: affair
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Communication during the production of the album was something of a scattershot affair. Producers Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman brought Jones into the recording studio, corralled some of the best musicians in town to play behind her, invested four or five patient months until the album was done. "Lenny and Russ could appreciate a ... um . . . wild and unusual personality," says Rickie Lee. "They gave me complete space...
...wonder, then, that the Cannes Festival is a perfect subject for Director Michael Ritchie, a satirist who has previously assaulted such institutions as competitive sports (Downhill Racer), beauty pageants (Smile), political campaigns (The Candidate) and est (Semi-Tough). For his new film, An Almost Perfect Affair, Ritchie went to the 1978 festival to record the goings-on in all their vulgar glory. He eavesdrops on the manic deal making that transpires daily on the Carlton Hotel terrace, the pretentious black-tie screenings, the endless parade of female pulchritude for commercial purposes. Such real-life luminaries as Rona Barrett, Edy Williams...
Unfortunately there is more to Affair than Ritchie's delicious documentary footage. The backbone of the film is a fictional liaison between Hal (Keith Carradine), a precious young independent director, and Maria (Monica Vitti), a married, middle-aged movie star. When this odd couple first start fooling around there are some amusing cross-cultural jokes, as well as touching erotic interludes in dreamy Riviera locales. But the affair quickly becomes a high-toned soap opera that devours the movie. By the end, the hero and heroine are adrift at sea in a stalled motorboat, screaming platitudes at each other...
...appealing that it is hard to know why Vitti would forsake him. Whether he is arguing on the phone about Burmese distribution rights or comforting his wife in a time of need, the serpentine Vallone is a grand old charmer. We want to see more of him, but once Affair shifts from satire to bathos he fades away. There are too many such missed opportunities. Like other visitors to Cannes, Michael Ritchie arrived with good intentions, only to get so distracted that he forgot why he came in the first place...
...some seven centuries. Cindy, alas, is not quite the innocent she was in her past lives. She divides her evenings between the discos and one-night stands, popping uppers and downers as if they were Good & Plenties and generally leading a thoroughly disorganized life. She has been having an affair with her analyst (Richard Benjamin) for years, but both are beset by the modern inability to make a genuine commitment. He, it turns out, is a descendant of Dr. Van Helsing, Dracula's old nemesis from the book, play and sequels. The analyst perceives his beloved's peril...