Word: films
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Based on the play by John Osborne, Inadmissible Evidence has made a triumphant transition to the screen, with all of its claustrophobic intensity, venom and quinine-bitter laughter intact. In his scenario for the film, Osborne has speeded the tempo by slimming the monologues; Director Anthony Page has gained added power by close-ups that pore over a human face desolate in its frustrations. As on the London and New York stage, the demanding role of Maitland is enacted by Nicol Williamson, a player of explosive passion. Williamson does not merely perform; he lays his life on the line...
Inadmissible Evidence is also a feast of literacy. At his best, John Osborne can make words spit, sing, keen and dance. In this film, he has something to say and knows how to say it. Nicol Williamson does the rest with abrasive splendor; one crease in his troubled brow is an abyss of anguish...
...good old ricky-tick days when movie directors wore riding breeches, a favorite cinematic sight gag was to reverse the film, which suddenly sent the actors waddling backwards through doors that closed behind them, putting their hats on instead of taking them off, and shoveling food out of their mouths instead of in. The kids, of course, like to do the same with home movies. Now from Czechoslovakia comes a whole movie that runs from end to beginning...
There is a wry philosophical idea behind Happy End: since everything in life normally goes from bad to worse, reversing the action will automatically ameliorate the human condition by making things go from worse to merely bad. Thus the film opens with a closeup of the hero's head in a coffin. The camera moves back to show that there is no body attached. Hands lift the head, and place it in a basket, from which it leaps upward to a guillotine where it attaches itself to a body, which takes a last look at the world...
Unashamedly queer characters are everywhere: in big films (Boom!), little films (P.J.), melodramas (The Fox) and comedies (The Producers). In a new documentary, The Queen,* they parade by the camera in a transvestite beauty . pageant. More of them are on the way to neighborhood screens. Staircase, a play about two aging male lovers has been bought by 20th Century-Fox; The Killing of Sister George, a tragicomedy concerning a tweedy lesbian and her baby-doll companion, is now being filmed by Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen) in London. Oscar Winner Rod Steiger's next big film, The Sergeant...