Word: film
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...babyish and hysterical; Annie Girardot and Lucienne Bogaert as his wife and mother respectively are just demonic enough to explain his mental condition. In his short role as the gigolo, Gerard Sety is amusing and properly nervous in his frank scene that is the comic high point of the film...
Director Jean Delannoy gets the most out of the devious alleys of Paris. The murder scenes are particularly effective, showing only the killer's hands nervously clutching his belt as he awaits his victim. Delannoy's avoidance of full-face close-up shots emphasizes the realistic tone of the film...
Have just read your impressive write-up on MGM's great epic Ben-Hur [Nov. 30], but could not help wondering why no mention was made of Miss Haya Harareet, Israel's talented up-and-coming star, who has made her first appearance in a U.S.-made film as Esther in that movie...
Perhaps the main flaw in the film is the direction, the joint venture of Lev Kulijanov and Yakov Siegel. Although it is supposed to be a continuous story, the movie emerges as a series of different episodes--each one ending with a fade-out that lingers too long on a symbol. This effort at realistic symbolism fails because it is not consistent throughout the film. As soon as the viewer realizes that there will only be a symbol before every fade-out the imagery becomes obvious and uninteresting. The direction lacks subtlety and the camera work is fairly pedestrian...
...judges from this film, proletarian life in Soviet Russia seems to be the same as working class life in the U.S. (At least in their movie version). There is none of the sordidness that is found in Italian and French realist movies. But simple creatures, who are happy or sad according to the external conditions of their lives aren't very extraordinary. This Russian attempt at a Paddy Chayevsky "slice of life" story is not very exciting...