Queen of the Roller Derby

Raquel Welch. Not a name that conjures up Oscar-winning movies. Instead, a vision of a cavegirl in a bikini comes to mind. Or maybe a buff female fitness instructor with a video line for women with titles like Lose 10 Lbs. in 3 Weeks. Yet, there was a time when Raquel tried to break the Playboy playmate stereotype and prove herself as a dramatic actress. The year was 1972 and the film was Kansas City Bomber. An attempt to cash in on the then-popular roller derby craze, the film was also the actress’s first bona fide attempt to create a real flesh and blood character – a struggling, single mom of two trying to make ends meet by plying her skating talent in the sports arena.

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Robert Bresson’s Parisian Reverie

The French film poster for FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER (1971), directed by Robert Bresson.

One wouldn’t normally associate Robert Bresson with such rapturously romantic, Paris-based films as Ninotchka, An American in Paris, Funny Face, Gigi, and Love in the Afternoon yet Four Nights of a Dream (Quartre Nuits d’un Reveur, 1971) is probably the closest the French director has ever come to making a film about love, longing and desire. You could even say it is almost a musical since strolling street musicians occasionally break into song at unexpected moments in the narrative.

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