At the heels of World War II in Argentina, family patriarch Lee J. Cobb, after an all-night celebration with favorite grandson Glenn Ford, gathers his family in a dinner party consisting of his two daughters... one married to a German (an intense Paul Lukas), the other a Frenchman (a regal Charles Boyer)... soon to be divided by borders and ideology...
So by the time Cobb's grandfather checks out of the picture, an entire first act is done: and with so much over-the-top energy, the remaining characters can only reveal themselves in a comparably subtle fashion...
Including Ford himself, a flaky and, despite his age, still youthfully handsome artist and womanizer, who falls in love with married Frenchwoman Ingrid Thulin, nothing new to CASABLANCA cuckhold Paul Henreid as her patriotic husband...
Who's the polar opposite of Ford, wanting nothing to do with taking sides, even as the Germans approach France in bombed-out scenes shown with darkly nightmarish visuals from director Vincente Minelli, deliberately contrasting against his otherwise colorful, sophisticated living-room melodrama...
Then there's Ford's cousin Karlheinz Böhm, back from German schooling and a polite (for the time being) Nazi, whose previous dead-eye conversation with grandfather Cobb basically put the old man in his grave... right before hallucinating the titular Book of Revelations HORSEMAN racing through dark clouds...
Meanwhile young sister Yvette Mimieux has joined the French Resistance to the chagrin her passive brother, whose affair with Thulin is more intriguing and philosophical than Harlequin cliche romantic, and their talky downtime before dealing with the encroaching German takeover provide the best scenes since Ford plays the romantic charmer far better than the inevitable surreptitious Resistance member: and he wouldn't remain a youngish leading man for long.
So by the time Cobb's grandfather checks out of the picture, an entire first act is done: and with so much over-the-top energy, the remaining characters can only reveal themselves in a comparably subtle fashion...
Including Ford himself, a flaky and, despite his age, still youthfully handsome artist and womanizer, who falls in love with married Frenchwoman Ingrid Thulin, nothing new to CASABLANCA cuckhold Paul Henreid as her patriotic husband...
Who's the polar opposite of Ford, wanting nothing to do with taking sides, even as the Germans approach France in bombed-out scenes shown with darkly nightmarish visuals from director Vincente Minelli, deliberately contrasting against his otherwise colorful, sophisticated living-room melodrama...
Then there's Ford's cousin Karlheinz Böhm, back from German schooling and a polite (for the time being) Nazi, whose previous dead-eye conversation with grandfather Cobb basically put the old man in his grave... right before hallucinating the titular Book of Revelations HORSEMAN racing through dark clouds...
Meanwhile young sister Yvette Mimieux has joined the French Resistance to the chagrin her passive brother, whose affair with Thulin is more intriguing and philosophical than Harlequin cliche romantic, and their talky downtime before dealing with the encroaching German takeover provide the best scenes since Ford plays the romantic charmer far better than the inevitable surreptitious Resistance member: and he wouldn't remain a youngish leading man for long.