Word: montand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...comedy all too much of the time. In point of fact, this is a very dud avocado, indeed. Co-featured is a travesty of William Faulkner, plagiaristically entitled SANCTUARY. Don't expect to recognize the characters if you read the book. Lee Remick whimpers as Temple Drake, and Yves Montand is hopelessly miscast as her down and way-out croole lover. Daily from...
...picture combines, condenses and reshapes the main story elements of Sanctuary (1931) and its sequel, Requiem for a Nun (1951). Abandoned by her drunken date (Bradford Dillman) at a backwoods distillery, the 17-year-old daughter (Lee Remick) of the governor is raped by the resident bootlegger (Yves Montand) and dragged off to a sporting house in New Orleans, where he keeps her for his private pleasure-which also turns out to be hers. After some weeks he is reported killed and the girl goes sadly home to Papa, who soothes what he assumes to be her injured innocence...
...staunchly defends the arrangement: "If they don't understand, that's their problem." Understanding will scarcely be helped by the movie, My Geisha, although Scriptwriter Norman Krasna says he based it on real life-all about a star's husband (played by Yves Montand) who wants to make it on his own in Japan. Deadpans Shirley: "I've got to be good in this picture, or I'll make my husband look like a schnook...
Where the Hot Wind Blows (Titanus; Embassy). "Gigolo!" hoots a smalltime Italian racketeer (Yves Montand) when his son tries to run away with a wealthy married woman (Melina Mercouri). In shame the boy abandons her. His father then looks the woman over, approves of his son's selection and announces suavely: "You cannot go home. My room is at your disposal." Stunned, she follows him. In the room he grabs her, kisses her, slugs her, rips her dress away. "Please," she murmurs seductively, "turn out the light." Triumphant, he turns to do as she asks, turns back in horror...
...most of the blame for the rest, which is mildly but consistently awful. Adapted crudely from La Loi, Roger Vailland's fine Prix Goncourt novel of 1957, Hot Wind is laden with too many big European names (Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Pierre Brasseur, Paolo Stoppa, in addition to Montand and Mercouri). When not glumly stumbling over each other or aggressively hogging the camera, the actors all seem loyally determined to play down to Actress Lollobrigida's level, and with the help of the worst dubbing job since Mickey Mouse first spoke in Swahili, they just about make...