Another French rarity: La Fille Aux Yeux D'Or (1961)

A beautiful girl without a name...! WHO was the mysterious rival who kept her captive in a world of luxury?

THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES - This routine film by novice director Jean-Gabriel Albicocco handles the subject of a relationship between women, set in the haute couture world of Paris circa 1960 - so it is naturally tres chic, though the story implies that if a man falls in love with a lesbian she can change her sexual orientation. Loosely based on a novel by Honore de Balzac, a skirt-chasing fashion photographer and "modeliser" who seduces models like the young Francoise Dorleac (while his friends listen as it is tape recorded) meets a mysterious young woman who captures his interest immediately. She is not wholly forthcoming, but after a period of time, he realizes that he is in love with her — she is not just another conquest. It takes awhile before he also realizes that she is the partner of his female associate who is possessive, at the very least.

Paul Guers is the attractive hero (he was in the Bogarde A TALE OF TWO CITIES as well as Demy's BAY OF ANGELS, Demy label), Francoise Prevost is the chic lesbian (she was also in the English PAYROLL with Michael Craig in '61, and the female part of the triangle in Griffi's IL MARE, in 1962 - review at Italian label). The Girl herself is the marvellous Marie Laforet, who dazzled me as Marge in Clements' PLEIN SOLEIL the previous year (see label on that...). Marie sings as well as acts and is still working now.



The drama here escalates as the three characters grapple, and a knife comes into play .... Chabrol did more of the same 6 years later with his popular LES BICHES, the first of his successful series with Stephane Audran. THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN EYES is photographed by the director's father, Quinto Albicocco, and must have been quite daring for its time. My friend Jorge advises that the film's director, Jean-Gabriel Albicocco, abandoned the director's chair in the early 70s to live in Brazil, he fell in love with the country, and opened several art cinemas in Rio and in São Paulo. This is certainly an oddity to see now.

3 more legendary R.I.P.s ...

I could hardly ignore Vaclav Havel (1936-211): Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last president of Czechoslovakia (1989–92) and the first President of the Czech Republic (1993–2003).

Also Cesaria Evora (1941-2011: the "barefoot diva" from Cape Verde;

Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic for Vanity Fair among so many others, and of course a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits; whose trenchant opinions will be sadly missed as per the glowing tributes. Another defiant smoker too .....

Moreau: Eve & Nathalie Granger

"Welsh writer Tyvian Jones (Stanley Baker) seems to have it all, 60s style: an international best seller, an apartment in Rome, holidays in Venice, a lovely fiancé Virna Lisi, but he is bitter anyway, He meets his existential match in ennui in the mod seductress Eve, played by Jeanne Moreau, who was never more cynical or iconic. Decked out in pointy pumps and heavy eyeliner, listening to Billie Holliday on scratchy LPs as she counts lire and smokes endless packs of cigarettes in strangers’ bedrooms, she is the epitome of frayed glamour. An emotional tyrant, Eve’s cruelly casual maneuvering forces Baker to confront his past – and his weaknesses – as a man and as an artist.

When the Hakim brothers (the notorious producers of PLEIN SOLEIL and BELLE DE JOUR) handed Losey a fat contract and a pulp potboiler by James Hadley Chase, Losey was sure it was his break. After years of tighly budgeted British programmers he hoped EVA would be his ticket to the glossy world of international cinema. But while Losey’s final cut was hailed by critics as equal to his masterpiece THE SERVANT, it was barely released and remains largely unseen after 30 years.Losey disowned the producers’ version, 15 minutes shorter than his own,

Losey’s original version (titled EVE) is now included on dvd, along with the Hakim’s cut. The only surviving print of the original longer version is a Swedish/Finnish release print with Swedish/Finnish subtitles and English dialogue."

Thus went the cover notes on the combinded dvd of EVE and EVA, Joseph Losey's 1962 film set mainly in a wintry Venice. Catching up with it is a fascinating experience now. Losey had done those thrillers like THE SLEEPING TIGER, TIME WITHOUT PITY and the excellent BLIND DATE in 1959 (which I like a lot, as per Losey label), and also THE CRIMINAL and that Hammer oddity THE DAMNED. EVE / EVA is his third with Stanley Baker (who would also co-star with the other Losey regular Dirk Bogarde in ACCIDENT in 1967) and Moreau was at the height of her European stardom. It seems though like a very disjointed odd film - perhaps Losey imagined he too could do an arthouse "sick soul of Europe" movie in the style of Resnais or Antonioni - then the height of intellectual cinema. EVE now though looks and plays like a parody of an early 60s arthouse flick.



Large parts of it seem unintentionally funny, Baker glowering and occasionally hitting Moreau when she provokes him too far - there is no logical ending or conclusion to their story, as it looks like she is going to keep on humiliating him as he keeps coming back for more. One extended sequence fascinates - as Baker and we the audience watch her arrive in her hotel room, she puts on the Billie Holliday record, messes up her hair, lights a cigarette, plays with a cat and finally goes to bed ... then Baker's hands encircle her throat - we wonder briefly if this is real or a fantasy or is he going to finally kill her ... but no, on and on they go. He turns out to be a hollow man - is it really his brother's book he is passing off as his own? How many admirers does she have at all those endless casino nights? There is too a wintry funeral in Venice, anticipating Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW a decade later. Moreau is a fully realised character in films like LA NOTTE and BAY OF ANGELS, (reviews at Antonioni and Demy labels), and in those Malle and Truffaut films, but here she is merely a cypher whom we do not get to know or understand at all. It points the way to Losey's next film though: THE SERVANT where all his themes of class and decadence would come together perfectly - lots of mirror shots here too. Later after he and Bogarde and Baker had gone as far as they could in British cinema, he teamed up with the Burtons for another pair of oddball films and thence to Europe to Delon and Romy Schneider, Montand (and Moreau again in MR KLEIN). Losey - a martinet and a sadist, according to critic Alexander Walker who knew him well - made so many interesting films which remain fascinating viewing - EVE or EVA certainly is. As I relate in other posts on him, I saw him and the Burtons on stage in 1970 when they were furious that SECRET CEREMONY which had been a box-office disaster had been recut and sold to television!

NATHALIE GRANGER - Marguerite Duras's 1975 puzzle film; to some it is a tedious boring mess, others find it a rivetting minimalist drama. I only know after watching it one remains in its unique mood for ages afterwards. It creates an atmosphere of unbearable tension, depression, grief, apprehension, as we watch two women living with some unexplained trauma, in a waiting that never ends (though the film is quite short). Something to do with the mother's anguish over a violent, abnormal daughter who is Nathalie Granger (whom we hardly see). The radio announces that the police are looking for a pair of depraved teenage boy killers on the loose in the local woods. Did they kill someone in the family? Or are they perhaps family members? Do the two women know something about these boys that the police don't? The shots suggest the house and garden is being watched ... A numbed mood separates them from the world outside in front of the house, and the equally claustrophobic garden at the back where they dully burn leaves. Great actresses are denied the opportunity to act, as they sit around staring dully into space or move from room to room in a trance. By bizarre contrast, the young Gerard Depardieu drops in as an awkward vacuum cleaner salesman who tries to sell them a hoover, as they blankly stare at him - it is like something out of Pinter or Beckett commenting on the futility of life.



Moreau - usually the protagonist in her films, seems to do nothing here, she just sits and observes and she is just titled the Other Woman - is she a friend, neighbour, lover of Lucia Bose who seems to be the owner of the house? Good to see Bose again here after catching the re-issues of those first two Antonioni features this year (CHRONICLE OF A LOVE AFFAIR, THE LADY WITHOUT CAMELIAS). A fascinating experiment then in what looks like real time from the ever-fascinating Marguerite Duras (author of THE SEA WALL - both versions of which are reviewed here, Silvana Mangano and Isabelle Huppert labels).

Below, right: Duras with Moreau (who took to directing herself with the fascinating LUMIERE in 1975).


Soon: Moreau with Gerard Philipe in Vadim's 1959 LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, and those other Philipe films like THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA, THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK, POT BOUILLE, LES FEMMES DE NUIT, LA RONDE, FANFAN LA TULIPE etc; my favourite KNAVE OF HEARTS and LOVERS OF MONPARNASSE are reviewed at French and Gerard Philipe labels.

Anna / Mangano / Loren / Gold of Naples

A Silvana Mangano double feature, with Sophia Loren too !

1949's BITTER RICE was the successful Italian film which introduced Silvana Mangano to international audiences. I have not seen it yet (but will be shortly) - producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti who combined to produce all those Italian films of the 50s, repeated its success, along with co-stars Raf Vallone and Vittorio Gassman, with Silvana as ANNA in 1951, a torrid melodrama reuniting its 3 young stars (who would all have great international careers). As per my other posts on Silvana she was never an ambitious actress (like Loren or Lollo) but as Mrs De Laurentiis she headlined her husband's films. Also on the fast track then was the next Italian sensation, Sophia Loren, who had Carlo Ponti to guide her career. It is amusing seeing Sophia here in the more or less silent bit part as one of the nightclub girls (with Gassman, below left); 3 years later by 1954 Sophia (barely 20) was headlining those terrific movies I love like WOMAN OF THE RIVER and TOO BAD SHE'S BAD (where is SCANDAL IN SORRENTO ?) after working her way up in films like the amusing Sordi vehicle TWO NIGHTS WITH CLEOPATRA, by which time Gina Lollobrigida was also another major Italian star, heading for international movies.



Back to ANNA - this may well be my discovery of the year. Silvana is luminous as the indispensible hospital nursing nun (but she has not taken her final vows yet....) beloved by her patients and the surgeon she assists at operations, but what is her secret?
One night we find out as wounded Raf Vallone is brought in, Sister Anna rushes to the opera to get the head surgeon who is needed to operate and we see in flasback, that she was a nightclub singer and was going to marry country boy Raf, but her jealous lover Vittorio cannot let her go .... after tragedy she finds peace as a nun. Silvana gets to sing here, two delightful numbers which were released on disk and it seems they are still available (I shall have to investigate...). This is an engrossing drama that still works now - it is in fact an ideal "woman's picture" much better than any today. The three young stars in their youthful prime command the screen, Silvana framed by that nun's habit looks sensational - that face and profile, with that long nose and expressive eyes. The drama continues as Raf comes out of surgery, Sister Anna tries to evade his attention but can the lovers get back together or will her life at the hospital, as an emergency train crash victims arrive, prove too strong? Terrific stuff then. Alberto Lattuada directs - he also helmed Silvana's THE TEMPEST which I liked a lot back in 1958, the year Silvana did Clement's THE SEA WALL (THIS ANGRY AGE) with Tony Perkins (see labels for more on these), 1960 saw Martin Ritt's downbeat FIVE BRANDED WOMEN - all Laurentiis productions as was ULYSSES in '53 with Silvana as Penelope and Circe, 1954's MAMBO where Silvana also sings and dances up a storm in another torrid melodrama by Ponti-De Laurentiis but releases by Paramount, with Gassman and wife Shelley Winters; in this one though its Silvana whom Shelley has a yen for! ANNA though is a great discovery with great Lux film production values. I loved it.

After some 60s films like BARABBAS and the amusing IL DISCO VOLANTE (see post below) Silvana mainly worked for directors like Pasolini (OEDIPE RE, TEOREMA) and Visconti (DEATH IN VENICE, LUDWIG, CONVERSATION PIECE) in the 70s, she had more or less retired from cinema as Vitti and Cardinale took centre stage; a heavy smoker she died in 1989, aged 59; one of her final appearances being in De Laurentiis's DUNE.

Finally one can see GOLD OF NAPLES (L'ORO DE NAPOLI) De Sica's 1954 portmanteau collection - which he followed in the 60s with his segment in BOCCACCIO 70 and the Loren-Mastroianni hit YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW. GOLD OF NAPLES though showcases Naples in all its vibrancy and is where director De Sica spent his first years, this is a collection of Napolitean episodes : a clown (Toto) exploited by a gangster, he is even paid to say prayers at the grave of the gangster's wife, its richly comic when the worm turns; an unfaithful pizza seller (Sophia) losing her emerald ring - and the young Loren is sensational walking through those Neapolitan streets; the funeral of a child; the gambler Count Prospero (Vittorio himself) defeated by a kid; the unexpected and unusual wedding of Teresa (Silvana), a prostitute, a touching tale, Mangano has a long climactic close-up. With Eduardo De Fillipo and scripted by De Sica regular, Cesare Zavattini. Bliss to finally catch up with now. Like Rossellini's VOYAGE TO ITALY it captures that early 50s Italian scene perfectly. and now for BITTER RICE .... see Italian label for more on all these; Vittorio's return to Naples in the first segment of YESTERDAY TODAY & TOMORROW being particularly choice, (and whose locations seem the same as the Toto episode here in GOLD OF NAPLES), also his Loren segment of BOCCACCIO 7O, and those other Italian portmanteau 60s films like LE BAMBOLE and LE FATE, with Vitti and Lollobrigida..

5 BRANDED WOMEN: Mangano, Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes, Carla Gravina; TEMPEST - Agnes Moorehead ideal as Mangano's mother.

Gilbert Adair, R.I.P.

Gilbert Adair (1944-2011), who died last week at the age of 66, was a novelist and well-regarded film critic. His movie reviews each week for the London "Independent" were pithy, often withering assessment of that week's most eye-catching release; incrementally, his reviews amounted to a defence of his beloved cinema, but may have been too elitist (or too highbrow for the mainstream) for some.

As he pronounced upon, damned and just occasionally approved of the week's offerings, he did so in a voice that deprecated its owner's undeniable cinephile authority. His fiction ranged from Agatha Christie pastiches to literary thrillers. Three of Adair's books themselves became films: LOVE AND DEATH ON LONG ISLAND (which I have been meaning to write about in connection with other "gay interest" titles), a comic recasting of "Death in Venice", where his stuffy professor wanders into the wrong cinema at the multiplex and becomes infatuated by the teen star on the screen; his somewhat autobiographical account of his days in 1968 Paris, "The Holy Innocents" (filmed as THE DREAMERS by Bertolucci); and "A Closed Book". There was also an impressive body of non-fiction, among which his quite personal history of the cinema, "Flickers", and "Movies", the anthology of film writing that he edited, are still rightly remembered. Adair was one of those very readable (even if one did not agree with him) critics like Pauline Kael or Alexander Walker.

A 50s snapshot ....

If one had to select roughly 10 movies from each decade, I am sure these 20 would feature in quite a lot of 50s lists ... (30s, 40s, 60s, 70s to follow in due course). The 50s of course was that great era for dramas as well as musicals, epics, westerns and most genres really and the heyday of the post-war stars, both American and European ... how can one leave out Peck, Clift, Day, Kerr, Simmons, Hepburn, Hudson, Newman, Douglas, Lancaster .... or Lollobrigida, Mangano, Magnani; or Mastroianni and Bogarde (who would claim the 60s).

And for that essential '50s glamour, its back to the old favourites: LES GIRLS, THE RELUCTANT DEBUTANTE, DESIGNING WOMAN, THE OPPOSITE SEX, Romy's SISSI, Gina as Esmerelda, Silvana and Tony Perkins in THE SEA WALL.