By Lee Pfeiffer
The niche market video label Code Red continues its distribution alliance with Kino Lorber, which is a very good thing for lovers of obscure retro movies. Case in point: "Story of a Woman", a 1970 drama that I will admit I was unaware of until receiving a review screener. The film is a truly international affair, shot in Europe by Italian director/writer/producer Leonardo Bercovici and starring two American male leads and Sweden's Bibi Andersson as the female protagonist. Andersson was making a name for herself in English-language cinema after having appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman classics. She plays Karin Ullman, an adventurous young Swedish woman who has left her home to study piano at a music conservatory in Rome in 1963. Here, she meets cute with Bruno Cardini (James Farantino), a hunky and charismatic medical student who has the good fortune of inadvertently causing a fender...
The niche market video label Code Red continues its distribution alliance with Kino Lorber, which is a very good thing for lovers of obscure retro movies. Case in point: "Story of a Woman", a 1970 drama that I will admit I was unaware of until receiving a review screener. The film is a truly international affair, shot in Europe by Italian director/writer/producer Leonardo Bercovici and starring two American male leads and Sweden's Bibi Andersson as the female protagonist. Andersson was making a name for herself in English-language cinema after having appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman classics. She plays Karin Ullman, an adventurous young Swedish woman who has left her home to study piano at a music conservatory in Rome in 1963. Here, she meets cute with Bruno Cardini (James Farantino), a hunky and charismatic medical student who has the good fortune of inadvertently causing a fender...
- 2/12/2022
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
“Lurid Love And Noir”
By Raymond Benson
Film historian Jeremy Arnold, who provides the excellent audio commentary as a supplement for the terrific Blu-ray release of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, says the movie’s title is remarkably “lurid.” The Production Code people obviously had a problem with the title and tried to get it changed, but an appeal from up and coming star Burt Lancaster, whose newly formed production company (co-founded with Harold Hecht) made the picture, resulted in the “lurid” title staying in place.
The film does not live up to the implied sensationalism. While we do get a dark, at times brutal, and cynical piece of film noir, we also get an atypical love story at the picture’s heart.
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, from 1948, is based on a novel by Gerald Butler, and was adapted by...
“Lurid Love And Noir”
By Raymond Benson
Film historian Jeremy Arnold, who provides the excellent audio commentary as a supplement for the terrific Blu-ray release of Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, says the movie’s title is remarkably “lurid.” The Production Code people obviously had a problem with the title and tried to get it changed, but an appeal from up and coming star Burt Lancaster, whose newly formed production company (co-founded with Harold Hecht) made the picture, resulted in the “lurid” title staying in place.
The film does not live up to the implied sensationalism. While we do get a dark, at times brutal, and cynical piece of film noir, we also get an atypical love story at the picture’s heart.
Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, from 1948, is based on a novel by Gerald Butler, and was adapted by...
- 8/21/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.
Portrait of Jennie
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann
Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by William Dieterle
Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...
Portrait of Jennie
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann
Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan
Produced by David O. Selznick
Directed by William Dieterle
Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...
- 10/10/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...
- 9/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"I felt the past closing around me like a fog, filling me with a nameless fear..."
A cinema tragedy: the phrase can probably best be exemplified by the fact that Charles Laughton directed only one film, and that film is so great that one can only wonder at what we've been deprived of.
Another actor, Martin Gabel, a character thesp with a bulbous head and a genuine talent for playing creeps, likewise directed one film only: the blacklist put paid to his career. The level of tragedy is harder to assess, since Gabel's only movie as director is very good, but not a masterpiece on the level of Night of the Hunter. But The Lost Moment (1947) is mysterious, romantic, atmospheric and altogether intriguing; and if Gabel were set to build on this starting point and improve still further, we may well have been deprived of a truly major cinematic talent.
A cinema tragedy: the phrase can probably best be exemplified by the fact that Charles Laughton directed only one film, and that film is so great that one can only wonder at what we've been deprived of.
Another actor, Martin Gabel, a character thesp with a bulbous head and a genuine talent for playing creeps, likewise directed one film only: the blacklist put paid to his career. The level of tragedy is harder to assess, since Gabel's only movie as director is very good, but not a masterpiece on the level of Night of the Hunter. But The Lost Moment (1947) is mysterious, romantic, atmospheric and altogether intriguing; and if Gabel were set to build on this starting point and improve still further, we may well have been deprived of a truly major cinematic talent.
- 11/21/2012
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
On its way to Italy the title of this little known 1952 film about an American reporter in Paris got changed from Assignment - Paris to Destination Budapest. Perhaps, in the midst of the cold war, Budapest was more alluring and dangerous than Paris, which certainly suits the typically dramatic artwork of the great Anselmo Ballester (1897-1974). What Leonard Maltin describes as a “fitfully entertaining drama of reporter Dana Andrews trying to link together threads of plot between Communist countries against the West” looks, in Ballester’s hands, like the most torrid of noirs. As in his great poster for Affair in Trinidad, Ballester renders his male lead in monochrome, all the better to highlight his leading lady, here resplendent in a tight yellow sweater and a shimmering green skirt (who ever painted the folds of women’s clothes more transcendently than Ballester?).
The Ballester website maintained by his grandson Claudio...
The Ballester website maintained by his grandson Claudio...
- 4/13/2012
- MUBI
Every time the Preacher hits a rocky patch in his sermon, the Preacher's wife cranks up the choir to uplift his ramblings. So too does the rousing gospel singing of Whitney Houston lift up "The Preacher's Wife" when it hits some story flat notes and dull patches. Starring Houston and Denzel Washington, this holiday-time fantasy will surely warm viewers' hearts and fill up boxoffice stockings despite its patchy narrative.
Based on the 1947 film "The Bishop's Wife", this Buena Vista release of a Samuel Goldwyn Jr. production is an old-style, family fantasy chilled over with the hard realities of contemporary urban life. In this '90s rendition, Houston stars as a choir-singing preacher's wife, Julia, whose marriage to her husband, Henry (Courtney B. Vance) has become stale. The sparks that once kindled between them have now been doused by Henry's workaholic tendencies. The Preacher is a good man, to a fault. By taking on all the woes of his parish, he has not only unwittingly neglected his wife and son Justin Pierre Edmund), but in the process, has become less effective as a minister. In a moment of desperate candor, the Preacher prays for help and, lo and behold, it arrives in the form of an angel, a dapper, gray-coated gent named Dudley (Washington). Although appreciating that God works in mysterious ways, the Preacher is skeptical about the viability of so charismatic and smooth-talking an angel.
What Dudley brings that is most valuable to the Preacher's household is his luminous smile and good-hearted intentions. He soon becomes a hit with the kid, and Mom, of course, notices. Verily, she sparks to his good works. The movie is at its most fun and most magical in the scenes between Washington and Houston as the effervescent Angel brings the good wife out of her day-to-day doldrums.
It's hard not to root for them to get together and somehow lose the stuffy hubby. Houston and Washington are a radiant screen couple and when paired on the screen, the story sizzles.
Screenwriters Nat Mauldin and Allan Scott's updating of Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici's "The Bishop's Wife" script is episodically structured as Dudley assists the Preacher and his wife in their personal and parishional woes, sometimes pulling a few angelic tricks out of his overcoat's sleeve. Eventually, the story kicks into a solid dramatic gear in a battle between the Preacher and a slick developer (Gregory Hines) over saving the church. The film's narrative here is similar to that of a musical, serving mainly as a line to string together Houston's glorious gospel singing.
Although the pacing sometimes drags, director Penny Marshall has nicely colored the production with a number of offbeat human moments. Marshall's direction is particularly strong in her work with the supporting players. As the minister of drudge, Vance is well-cast.
The supporting cast -- credit to casting director Paula Herold -- brings life and energy to the production. Particularly entertaining are Jenifer Lewis as the preacher's sassy mother-in-law and Loretta Devine as his lively secretary.
THE PREACHER'S WIFE
Buena Vista Releasing
Buena Vista, Touchstone Pictures
and the Samuel Goldwyn Co. present
A Samuel Goldwyn Jr. production
In association with Parkway Prods.
and Mundy Lane Entertainment
A Penny Marshall film
Producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
Director Penny Marshall
Screenwriters Nat Mauldin, Allan Scott
Based on "The Bishop's Wife" screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood, Leonardo Bercovici
Executive producers Robert Greenhut,
Elliot Abbott
Co-producers Debra Martin Chase,
Amy Lemisch, Timothy M. Bourne
Director of photography Miroslav Ondricek
Production designer Bill Groom
Editor Stephen A. Rotter, George Bowers
Costume designer Cynthia Flynt
Music Hans Zimmer
Casting Paula Herold
Gospel music producers Mervyn Warren,
Whitney Houston
Associate producer Bonnie Hlinomaz
Sound mixer Les Lazarowitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dudley Denzel Washington
Julia Biggs Whitney Houston
Henry Biggs Courtney B. Vance
Joe Hamilton Gregory Hines
Marguerite Coleman Jenifer Lewis
Beverly Loretta Devine
Jeremiah Biggs Justin Pierre Edmund
Britsloe Lionel Richie
Saul Jeffreys Paul Bates
Osbert Lex Monson
Running time -- 125 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Based on the 1947 film "The Bishop's Wife", this Buena Vista release of a Samuel Goldwyn Jr. production is an old-style, family fantasy chilled over with the hard realities of contemporary urban life. In this '90s rendition, Houston stars as a choir-singing preacher's wife, Julia, whose marriage to her husband, Henry (Courtney B. Vance) has become stale. The sparks that once kindled between them have now been doused by Henry's workaholic tendencies. The Preacher is a good man, to a fault. By taking on all the woes of his parish, he has not only unwittingly neglected his wife and son Justin Pierre Edmund), but in the process, has become less effective as a minister. In a moment of desperate candor, the Preacher prays for help and, lo and behold, it arrives in the form of an angel, a dapper, gray-coated gent named Dudley (Washington). Although appreciating that God works in mysterious ways, the Preacher is skeptical about the viability of so charismatic and smooth-talking an angel.
What Dudley brings that is most valuable to the Preacher's household is his luminous smile and good-hearted intentions. He soon becomes a hit with the kid, and Mom, of course, notices. Verily, she sparks to his good works. The movie is at its most fun and most magical in the scenes between Washington and Houston as the effervescent Angel brings the good wife out of her day-to-day doldrums.
It's hard not to root for them to get together and somehow lose the stuffy hubby. Houston and Washington are a radiant screen couple and when paired on the screen, the story sizzles.
Screenwriters Nat Mauldin and Allan Scott's updating of Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici's "The Bishop's Wife" script is episodically structured as Dudley assists the Preacher and his wife in their personal and parishional woes, sometimes pulling a few angelic tricks out of his overcoat's sleeve. Eventually, the story kicks into a solid dramatic gear in a battle between the Preacher and a slick developer (Gregory Hines) over saving the church. The film's narrative here is similar to that of a musical, serving mainly as a line to string together Houston's glorious gospel singing.
Although the pacing sometimes drags, director Penny Marshall has nicely colored the production with a number of offbeat human moments. Marshall's direction is particularly strong in her work with the supporting players. As the minister of drudge, Vance is well-cast.
The supporting cast -- credit to casting director Paula Herold -- brings life and energy to the production. Particularly entertaining are Jenifer Lewis as the preacher's sassy mother-in-law and Loretta Devine as his lively secretary.
THE PREACHER'S WIFE
Buena Vista Releasing
Buena Vista, Touchstone Pictures
and the Samuel Goldwyn Co. present
A Samuel Goldwyn Jr. production
In association with Parkway Prods.
and Mundy Lane Entertainment
A Penny Marshall film
Producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr.
Director Penny Marshall
Screenwriters Nat Mauldin, Allan Scott
Based on "The Bishop's Wife" screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood, Leonardo Bercovici
Executive producers Robert Greenhut,
Elliot Abbott
Co-producers Debra Martin Chase,
Amy Lemisch, Timothy M. Bourne
Director of photography Miroslav Ondricek
Production designer Bill Groom
Editor Stephen A. Rotter, George Bowers
Costume designer Cynthia Flynt
Music Hans Zimmer
Casting Paula Herold
Gospel music producers Mervyn Warren,
Whitney Houston
Associate producer Bonnie Hlinomaz
Sound mixer Les Lazarowitz
Color/stereo
Cast:
Dudley Denzel Washington
Julia Biggs Whitney Houston
Henry Biggs Courtney B. Vance
Joe Hamilton Gregory Hines
Marguerite Coleman Jenifer Lewis
Beverly Loretta Devine
Jeremiah Biggs Justin Pierre Edmund
Britsloe Lionel Richie
Saul Jeffreys Paul Bates
Osbert Lex Monson
Running time -- 125 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 12/9/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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