Is there really such a thing as “The Perfect Crime”? In theory the plot might seem infallible but what about the unforeseen surprise that could wreck the whole thing? It could be the benign interference of a neighbor or a stranger or even an accidental mishap involving the architect of the crime. An excellent example of what could go terribly wrong at the last minute can be found in The Hidden Room (aka Obsession, 1949) directed by Edward Dmytryk.
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Who said Hollywood holds the patent on the disaster film genre? There have been numerous contenders from other countries that are fine specimens of the form such as Submersion of Japan aka Tidal Wave (1973) by director Shiro Moritani, Ian Barry’s doomsday thriller The Chain Reaction (1980) from Australia, and Renzo Martinelli’s Vajont – La Diga del Disonore (2001), based on the 1963 flooding of Longarone, Italy after the collapse of the Vajont Dam. One of my favorites, however, is a variation on 1970’s Airport and its sequels entitled Ekipazh (English title: Air Crew, 1980), directed by Aleksandr Mitta. It was made in the Soviet Union during the final decade before it became the Russian Federation. The film, which is equal parts soap opera, suspense thriller and disaster epic, focuses on three pilots and assorted crew members who embark on a flight to rescue survivors from an earthquake in a mountain mining town.
“Fellini’s work is like a treasure chest. You open it up and there, right in front of your eyes, a world of wonders springs up – ancient wonders, new ones, provincial wonders and universal ones, real wonders and fantastic ones.” – Martin Scorsese
The Oscar nominated director of Raging Bull (1980) and Goodfellas (1990) is just one of the usual suspects (along with Woody Allen and Paul Mazursky) rounded up to pay homage to the great Italian director in The Magic of Fellini (2002), a 56-minute documentary written and directed by Carmen Piccini.
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Among the slew of Hollywood movies that followed in the final days of the Vietnam War and used that as the subject, Rolling Thunder (1977) is a fascinating aberration. On the one hand, it flirts with serious issues and societal problems addressed in such post-Vietnam dramas as Coming Home (1978) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) but it is also a violent revenge film that exploits a Vietnam veteran as an avenging angel.
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Who says trying to run away from your problems can’t be therapeutic? Sometimes you just need some time alone in a completely different environment to sort yourself out and get a different perspective. That is exactly what Joanna does. An aspiring artist who is stuck in a dead end existence in Athens, Greece, she takes a one month vacation away from the city. It is also a brief escape from living with her depressed father, who is still grieving over his wife’s death. Joanna takes a ferry to the island of Santorini and it is there that she opens up to new possibilities in her life as well as a renewed desire to make art again. This is the basic set-up of May Sarton’s 1963 novel Joanna and Ulysses but the 1966 film version entitled Steps (Greek title: Ta Skalopatia) takes numerous liberties with the story and turns it into something much more ambiguous and unresolved, courtesy of screenwriters Vassilis Vassilikos, Glenn P. Wolfe and Leonard Hirschfield, who also directs. It would be Hirschfield’s sole directorial feature.
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While most of the world fell in love with The Beatles during their emergence in the early sixties, communist controlled countries like Poland viewed the band’s music as anarchic and a corrupt influence on the country’s youth. That is certainly the situation as presented in the 1985 film Yesterday, written and directed by Polish director Radoslaw Piwowarski, which focuses on four high school students who bond over their love of The Beatles, create their own band and defy school authorities and parents over their appearance (long hair) and behavior.
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Most fans of classic Hollywood horror films probably remember the first time they saw a Universal horror picture. My first exposure was at age 5 when my parents allowed me to stay up late and watch The Wolf Man (1941) with them. After that, a lot of those early years in Memphis, Tennessee were spent watching “The Late Show” with babysitters while my parents were either attending or giving a cocktail party. Every Saturday night some horror favorite from Universal would air and The Mad Ghoul (1943) was a particularly fond memory. But the one that really stayed with me was House of Horrors (1946) featuring Rondo Hatton as “The Creeper.”
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Cinema Sojourns 