Imagine it: one of the biggest superstars in the world...a silver screen icon who had recently won an Oscar...a director whose films had won countless awards and become favorites the world over... What could go wrong? In a word, everything. First and foremost, when it comes to discussing the myriad reasons why this surefire hit was a flop for the ages, one need look no further than the studio behind it: American International Pictures. Like The Cannon Group/Golan Globus Productions in the 1980's, AIP had a problem: they were proud purveyors of grindhouse fare - lots of sex, bikers, horror, action, and cheap gore - but longed for respectability, something they thought they finally had with Vincent Minnelli and a fairy-tale sort-of-musical fantasy. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Minnelli - the man who helmed such classics as "Meet Me In St Louis", "The Clock", and "Gigi", just to name only a few - was long, LONG past his prime, as evidenced by the production problems during the filming of the 1970 Barbra Streisand and Yves Montand musical, "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" (which also featured a fantasy angle). As had happened on that musical, Minnelli's initial finished product ran roughly 3 hours and was wildly overbudget, resulting in that studio (Columbia) to wrest the film from him and trim it without his input. Fast-forward 5-6 years and a repeat performance: his final film was removed from his control and reedited by the studio. Oftentimes, it's bewildering why a studio hires a visionary, only to get cold feet when said visionary creates something; however, upon viewing "A Matter of Time" (or "Nina", as it was known in some European countries), it's all too easy to see why AIP had gotten scared, for the final product is, I'm so very sad to say, a mess. The Cinderella-esque fairy-tale story of a simple hotel maid who befriends an old Countess and is then discovered by a movie producer and becomes a star has been told numerous times, and should provide every opportunity for movie magic yet again, especially considering the talent both behind and on the screen; alas, it's all for naught: where the story should be light and magical, it thuds. Where there should be wonder, there is bewilderment. Whatever powers Minnelli once possessed to bewitch an audience have seemingly disappeared because everything has the distinct feeling of being JUST THAT LITTLE BIT 'OFF', and that extends to the dubbing. Being a co-production of Italy and America, a most definite European flavor is weaved throughout the film, and, like so many Italian features, the dubbing is all-too-obvious and quite poorly done, an issue not helped by non-existent sound effects (apparently, people in this movie don't breathe, make sounds when moving about, no one chatters in the background, etc.). Making matters so much worse is the cinematography: at least on the copy I've seen (Amazon Prime Video and other locations), it's viewable only in 4:3 aspect ratio (at one time known as 'full-screen' on older DVD's) and alternately impossibly grainy and weirdly blurry (Minnelli's films often had that Vaseline-lensed look that worked impeccably in the past to give a dreamy quality), spoiling the effect of the quite-obvious glamour on screen, as well as the fantasy itself (it's hard to feel wonder when what you're seeing looks bedraggled). As for the stars - and, really, despite the other folks sharing the screen, this belongs to its leads, Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman (Charles Boyer does show up briefly but, honestly, doesn't make much of an impression beyond lending some class and movie-star clout to the proceedings) - Bergman comes off best as the Countess, a woman at one time the toast of Europe and now reduced to living out her days in an old hotel; she plays the part big but doesn't overdo it, for the most part, and her costume is effective; Liza isn't quite as successful here, though she's still charming and gives it her all: her performance is a bit scattershot. To be completely honest, there's the impression that she is at once so proud to be finally making a film with her father and yet overwhelmed by what surely had to have been the realization the troubles he was having (he later died of Alzheimer's and it's quite possible some of those symptoms were already on display); she overplays some scenes, as she sometimes did in other films, but, as stated, she's also clearly thrilled to be making a movie with her dad. Sadly, the poor cinematography and occasional glitches in costuming (the Venician fantasy sequence where she is adorned in a black curly wig) aren't always flattering for Liza, and while it's nice that her buddies Kander and Ebb lend a couple of songs here for her, neither of those is at all memorable. The overwhelming sense one gets throughout every frame of this film is that of the missed opportunity: what should have been Minnelli's beautiful swan song instead is a lead balloon, a misfire, a miscalculation, but one that wasn't all the fault of American International Pictures, who took, and retain, the position of The Bad Guy, stealing the film from a venerable old master and chopping it to bits. No, the saddest part is that the film was doomed from the moment Minnelli became involved, for while this master had created so many indelible scenes throughout the previous decades, his talents - once so prodigious - now seemed at once lost and terribly and irrevocably outdated. It joins the number of other misbegotten 1970's musicals, such as "Lost Horizon", "At Long Last Love", and "The Blue Bird", that remain cinematic curiosities directed by great directors at the end of their careers as well as 'should-have-been' classics that never were.
Review of A Matter of Time
