Word: merimã
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Carmen. Made in Spain and directed by a Frenchman, this is the best of a half dozen film versions of Prosper Merim??e's mighty story. The reason is Raquel Meller (pronounced May-aire), the sorceress whose rich voice, ink-black locks, hands like moonstruck faces bewitched Manhattanites at $27.50 a head, two springs ago (TIME, April 26, 1926). She is a Carmen incarnate, and not a little carnal. No wonder poor Don Jose (Louis Lerch) became a thief and a murderer! No wonder the audience forgot that the photography was a trifle blinking...
...Carmen may have a handsome Don Jose, a swaggering Toreador, a wistful ingenue for Micaela, but if there is no soprano hot-blooded enough to ape an untamed gypsy and sufficiently magnetic to project her titillating arias across the footlights and into the far reaches of the theatre, Merim??e's story becomes cheap and long-drawn, Bizet's tunes trite and shop-worn...
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