Reviews

Of all bad movies in the world, "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" is one of the worst. Now, certainly that's basically what makes it worth seeing.

To appreciate it fully you ought to get drunk and pretend you're in a seventies' drive-in theater. The (psychedelic?) soundtrack is just lovely.

Al Adamson was the best competitor for the space that Ed Wood left after his death. Old-time horror veterans J. Carrol Naish and Lon Chaney, Jr. act in their most terrible (well, in a double sense) rôles which unfortunately were their last ones respectively as well. The ridiculous story is completely unimportant, what matters is the cast: next to Naish and Chaney the producers assemblied Angelo Rossitto, Anthony Eisley, Russ Tamblyn, and Jim Davis! Of course, Forry Ackerman isn't missing, and the monster is played by the late John Bloom... Other, er, important parts are carried out (no more than that) by Adamson's ensemble players Bud Cardos, William Bonner, Greydon Clark, and busty Regina Carrol as a Las Vegas singer who is in search of her sister.

None of the crew's jobs were done with the endeavour to fulfil the audience's most unassuming expectations of lower standard horror at least, from camera work to special effects. Only effort seems to have been to put as much sex and gore in it without being x-rated. The (would-be) gross scenes are in strange contrast to the try at distinguished acting by Naish (in a wheelchair). The recall of classic horror topics in the title is simply for money purposes; there are more connections to Adamson's rocker/biker dramas, oddly interwoven with a smart mad scientist storyline.

Among Italian peplums of the period around 1960, there were some concerned with Roman legend, including "Coriolano, eroe senza patria", which was also helmed by Giorgio Ferroni. "Il colosso di Roma" is another example.

After having overthrown their king, Tarquinius Superbus (Massimo Serato), Rome is a young republic. Tarquinius tries to regain his throne with the military assistance of the Etruscan king, Porsenna (Roldano Lupi). Film sets in with Romans suffering from hunger, and top-notch soldier Mucius first securing the arrival of a corn transport, then deciding to kill Porsenna. In the king's camp he kills the wrong man, is captured, but proves his boldness by voluntarily burning his right hand in an open flame. The tiny, but crucial story about Roman bravery, which originally has a noble youngster as the failing killer, is generously embellished and furnished with a muscular experienced military leader as Mucius instead, played by ex-Tarzan Gordon Scott.

As the story progresses, it is interwoven with another heroic character from Latin legend, Cloelia, who is presented as Mucius' fiancée. She is among the hostages produced to secure the peace with Porsenna, but organizes the escape across the River Tiber when they find themselves betrayed. Her rôle is performed by one of the countless second-rate beauties of Italian screens, Gabriella Pallotta.

Although it may be deemed interesting to illustrate a national saga of yore, the film's pathetic hero-worship seems out of date for the mid-sixties. Still, monumental adventures were fashionable, and Italy's writers happy with any adaptable material. It is almost surprising how much of the legend's original idea can be recognized.

Expectations of a grand epic, as nurtured by the heavily orchestrated opening credits of nearly three minutes, are not at all lived up to by the following 82 (in the version I saw) minutes. Achievements are hardly average in all categories, although cinematography (Augusto Tiezzi) and score (Angelo Francesco Lavagnino) come from peplum's most experienced artists. Not even its best-hated villain, Massimo Serato, is really credible as Tarquinius. Fighting scenes are well staged, although some of the material seems to be taken from other films, too.

That "Il figlio di Spartacus" is one of the better sword'n'sandal flicks of the main period (1958-64) is basically due to two aspects: a fluent storyline and original sets in Egypt.

Writers Adriano Bolzoni, Bruno Corbucci and Giovanni Grimaldi (plus perhaps director Sergio Corbucci) have scripted a plot that continues the story of Spartacus where Stanley Kubrick left off in 1960 in his Hollywood production with Kirk Douglas. While Kubrick certainly stuck to the historical facts, the follow-up is complete fiction. Tough daredevil Douglas is replaced by smart bodybuilder Steve Reeves as his son, although this was not the worst choice. Reeves, the original Hercules performer of 1958, does quite well in the rôle of Randus, a Roman centurio (this seems to be considered as the highest military rank in "peplums"!), who is confronted with the fact that he seems to be the son of the legendary slave leader, Spartacus, who had once been smashed and crucified by the Roman consul, Crassus. Reeves' good looks distinguish him from Douglas very remarkably, but there's his Germanic combatant Verus (Franco Balducci), who is styled like Douglas two years ealier.

They needed to change history to a considerable extent (the story takes place in 48 B.C. when the real Crassus was already dead for five years) so that the fictive Randus could be 23 (Reeves was 36 by then) and Caesar could be involved. Note that the Sphinx has already lost its nose (which it did only 1850 years later) while serving as a likeable background to a talk between Caesar (Ivo Garrani), his adjutant Verulus (Renato Baldini, who has almost nothing to say), and Randus. Choosing the Egyptian landscape, including desert, oases and the pyramids of Gizeh, for the outdoor scenes adds greatly to the picture's atmosphere.

Corbucci manages to handle the camera positions and angles very well, almost experimentally for a production like this. Director of photography was Enzo Barboni, the later standard director of the Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movies. There is a foreshadowing of the spaghetti westerns not only in the techniques, but also with a surprisingly high level of brutality as depicted by Corbucci.

The story's main idea has Randus in the dilemma of being a Roman officer on the one hand and having the experience of being enslaved on the other. Only in this situation, he feels into the slaves' minds and puts himself at the head of the revolt against Crassus. The rest is a bit stealing from the "Zorro" idea, including the "S" (for Spartacus) mark. As Western European ideology would have it (we're at the climax of American-Russian confrontation) before a revolutionary attitude became fashionable in Italo westerns, Randus fights for freedom (from slavery), not for redistribution of capital.

Gianna Maria Canale, leading actress of many a peplum since the earlier days (playing the title rôle in "Teodora", among others), is fine as Crassus' love interest. But Claudio Gora can give all he can as the terrible Crassus, right down to an exaggerated paranoid Nero-like figure.

It's worth while, anyway.

Narrating from the Bible, director Marcello Baldi took the Book of the Judges and turned its best-known chapters 6-8 (about Gideon) and 13-16 (about Samson) into a film. Well.

As a statement on responsibility and how people grow with their tasks, the first episode about Gideon's conversion to help his suppressed people fulfils its mission. Fernando Rey as the angel and Ivo Garrani as Gideon are equally effective. Garrani lends a touching element to the character of a simple farmer who is challenged to make the move from indifference to substantial leadership.

The second episode, as opposed to that, doesn't click at all. While "Gideon" has mostly outdoor scenes, "Samson" seems to have been restricted to the studio (Cinecittà, by the way). Yes - Rosalba Neri is duly ambiguous as Delilah, and Spanish veteran actress Ana María Noé is fine as Samson's mother - but muscular Dutch Anton Geesink reminds of a groggy Rocky IV. The concluding action scenes, though, were directed pretty well.

Remains unclear, what sense the picture had. Emilio Cordero's production company San Paolo, of Rome, financed three Old Testament filmings, apart from this one, "Giacobbe, l'uomo che lottò contro Dio", and "Saul e David", all directed by Baldi in 1963-4. If they were meant for people's spiritual edification, they probably didn't get off the ground as much as a service in St Peter. Italian release date, Oct 8, 1965, didn't quite support that idea, when most Bible flicks normally premiere around Christmas.

Another puzzle is the question who directed. Italian-language credits open with "un film di Marcello Baldi" and close with "regia: Francisco Pérez Dolz." It might be possible that either helmed one of the episodes, even more so because they are rather different in style.

The odd narrative technique (kind of a double feature, if you will), if appropriate to the Bible's episodical structure, tends to prove that the story of only one Israelite hero didn't fit the ninety-minute format, so, for the love of it, they put two stories together, presumably regardless of the fact that episodical films were alla moda in the mid-sixties.

Perhaps the weirdest bit about the movie lies in its resumption of the "Sansone" character, who, as a muscleman, had haunted Italian (and foreign) screens from "Sansone" (1961, with Brad Harris) to "Ercole Sansone Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili" (1964, with Renato Rossini). This one, however, is the only real Samson, although possibly the worst of all. It's like with the Bible: you've gotta believe in it...

If you are pretty mediocre as a director and they want you to make a film with only very little money, what's the outcome? - "I due gladiatori" is an excellent example of the cheap-produced Italian historical pictures of the early sixties. Relying partly on models such as "Ben-Hur", one could call them monumental, only there was nothing monumental left in 1964.

For instance: when a man is holding a rat that has been hunted by the hungry crowd, the next take shows a juicy meal, and, as the camera zooms, we see it being brought to the emperor at a small party. Nice idea so far, but we can be sure that Mario Caiano would have loved to show a vast orgy in consequence, but there's nothing more to eat than the bit that has just been carried in, and there's just a small number of guests standing around. As more examples, the arena fighting scenes are reduced to taking place at the 20-foot front of the stadium's wall, and what is supposed to be a battle between Romans and - Gauls (did I get that right?) is merely a skirmish of some 30 against 30.

The story, however, is somewhat interesting though not new at all. It is based on the true fact that emperor Commodus (180-192 AD) used to fight as a gladiator himself from time to time. Writers Amendola and Brescia also made use of the fact that Commodus had a twin brother (who died early); here, he survived and grew up unknowingly. - Now that emperor Mark Aurel has died (awkwardly dated into 191), his son Commodus succeeds to the throne and turns out to be a despot (that idea is poorly established). Loyal senator Tarrunio gets on his way to seek the twin brother he once was ordered to kill but saved. This man, Centurio Crassus, follows Tarrunio to Rome (hey, what about the Gallic invasion?) in order to overthrow the tyrant.

A couple of the ideas, especially the setting, are taken from Anthony Mann's "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1963, with Christopher Plummer as Commodus), while the linking of brothers Commodus and Crassus reminds of Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston's doomed relationship in "Ben-Hur" (1959) - "closer than brothers", as Boyd says.

Handsome Richard Harrison is a poor replacement for Boyd (in "The Fall..."); but especially the task of writing effective women's rôles into the story remained unaccomplished. (Moira Orfei is a beautiful temptress as ever, though.) Giuliano Gemma and Alvaro de Luna as Harrison's faithful friends add to the hero's nonchalant bravado. Mimmo Palmara is an excellent fighter (as he has often proved in the genre), but as Commodus he is colourless. Peplum's classic heavies Piero Lulli and Alberto Farnese do well as the emperor's sinister advisors Cleander and Leto. Yet, it is not enough to make this cheap flick average at least, in a genre that had lost most of its momentum and magic anyway. Composer Carlo Franchi, too, has contributed better scores before.

(Version reviewed is the 95-minute showing on ARD on July 24, 2001. There seems to be a scene excluded with Hildegard and Cpt. Lindner telling the story as a flashback. Film has no credits at all.)

Dr. Harnack, once a resistance member himself, shot a fabulous, never boring picture, eleven years after the attempted assassination of German "Führer" Adolf Hitler. Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg (Wolfgang Preiss in an appropriate rôle), a leading member of the secret regime resistance group around Goerdeler and Beck (played by veteran actors Paul Bildt and Werner Hinz), decides to kill Hitler soon after his installment as chief of staff of Eastern replacement troops. After a first try has failed - General von Tresckow says: "That guy (Hitler) has even chance on his side" - , Stauffenberg himself places a time bomb in Hitler's headquarters in Eastern Prussia. Then follows a minute description of the main events of the rest of the day, July 20, 1944.

Authors Weisenborn, Lüddecke and Harnack extended the depiction of events to a preacher and a civilian resistance group in Berlin. The frequent change of perspectives, though, was an unfortunate choice.

Another plot is about two fictitious characters, Hildegard Klee (Annemarie Düringer) and Captain Lindner (Robert Freytag), who is a dedicated Nazi officer. When both watch how an innocent Jewish doctor is brutally arrested, the officer states: "These are excesses only. But the front isn't part of it. The front is clean!" - "But you're fighting for it!" Hildegard answers. - It's supposed to make clear why German resistance consisted of (aristocratic) officers to a large extent. - Lindner is finally convinced when he reports about witnessing the killing of women and children when he is back at war again.

Although there have been controversies among historians about the (would-be) assassins' motives, and research has been done for over forty years since, the film is still a fine history lesson. There is an indication of the different aims in one scene when socialists and monarchists quarrel at a secret meeting until a philosophical Maximilian Schell settles the conflict. The narrator later declares that the July 20 action was "about the destruction of illegitimate tyranny and about the honor of the German name."

In consequence, when Stauffenberg ponders over what he is resolved to do, Harnack lets him view scenes of bomb attacks, tanks approaching and soldiers wounded before his mind's eye (all archive material), but there is only a very short take of what might be a KZ barbed wire fence: the fate of millions of Jews appears not to have been a motive.

Although very well done, "Der 20. Juli" is not a stand-out cinematographically. It was produced in competition with G. W. Pabst's "Es geschah am 20. Juli", which premiered a trifle earlier. Of the actors, Ernst Schröder is very efficient as the relentless hunter of resistant fighters, credible and far away from the caricatures in some American and British war movies. Likewise, Düringer, Freytag and Preiss do fine jobs.

Hubert Schonger (who also did some nudist pictures) made another fairy-tale-to-screen transfer in 1959 with "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten", directed by a certain Rainer Geis. The pictures all have some amateur charm, to say it nicely. This one, as a later attempt, is better than others. In his struggle for the young cinema goers, producer Schonger had to compete with Fritz Genschow, who also filmed a number of fairy tales in the 50's.

Having actors dress up as the four leading characters (donkey, dog, cat and rooster) was the choice Schonger took (like in "Der Wolf und die sieben Geißlein"), and it was probably the best way to get around the problem of presenting animals alongside humans in the film. After all, in the Brothers Grimm fairy tale the animals represented human beings, too.

The story has an old donkey resolving to break away from the unbearable hardships of working for a fat miller (Alfred Pongratz). By and by, he recruits three more unsatisfied animals and convinces them to accompany him on his way to Bremen where they want to become musicians. Fighting off some robbers in a forest house then becomes an important part of the story. Strangely, the well-known repeated phrase of the original, "Come along with us, something better than death can be found anywhere" (also appears in Käutner's "Der Hauptmann von Köpenick" of 1959) is not included in the film. The fairy tale's obvious social criticism, though, is rendered well enough, in particular in the persons of the miller and the farmer (Ludwig Schmid-Wildy, seemingly dubbed by Erik Jelde) who exploit their animals. The four robbers are portrayed as ridiculous as the original would have it.

The filming is completely dated in today's world of special effects animation. Question is anyway, if fairy tales should be filmed at all (as they are part of an oral folk-lore). Competitors Schonger and Genschow chose to present them like this, knowing that they were no Walt Disneys. The risk of stealing something from the magic of a fairy tale t o l d to children is of course high. As a result, we have a routine product with some nice ideas but greatly lacking spirit and imagination.

One effect of watching this one is that you will always read Frost's "Stopping By Woods" from a very different point of view.

No question, there's a whole lot of good acting in Don Siegel's "Telefon" (from Tyne Daly, for instance), but the story, from Walter Wager's novel, is, at least partly, ridiculous. Criticism of international secret policy comes off o.k., claiming that what intelligence agencies have always lacked most is intelligence. But it's more about suspense and action; especially the blowing up of a whole valley is staged with Siegel's dynamic perfection routine.

The film has got Charles Bronson in its center and he does his usual fine job as an ultra-cool Soviet major smuggled into the U.S. in order to exterminate a fellow KGB agent (Donald Pleasence) who has gone crazy there and is now endangering the whole Cold War balance system.

Please note the important rôle telephones play throughout the whole film, not just for Pleasence's ambitions. And watch out for Roy Jenson as his last victim, a man who has played lots of minor parts in major movies. - And don't forget listen to the film, as Lalo Schifrin's score is very fascinating once again.

German tries at horror and science fiction other than in silents have been rare and usually exceedingly flat - here's a fine example for this category.

Scripted by one Vladimir Semijow (spelling according to the credits), the story is vastly purloined from Universal's "The Invisible Man Returns" (1940) and would basically be a crime drama, were it not meant to be sci-fi horror and thus something different from the successful Edgar Wallace and Dr. Mabuse series of the days.

The formula works, though, as far as invisibility goes, with a guinea-pig first, then with the young scientist (Hannes Schmidhauser, also assistant director) himself. As luck will have it, there's a burglary into the factory he works for at the same minute, and, worst of all, a slaying, so that his brother (Hans von Borsody, with a greased quiff like Jack Lord in "Hawaii Five-0") has to prove the innocence of the disappeared. Elusiveness of Schmidhauser and of the story's sense go hand in hand.

For complexity's sake, but rather to the filmgoers' confusion, a whole bunch of characters is introduced. Together with Swiss Schmidhauser, there are more players from the country of producer Leo Höger, namely Charles Regnier (as the leader of the burglars) and Heinrich Gretler (as the inspector, often overplaying). Of the women, blonde Nielsen is there to provide the mysterious sex-appeal while dark Schwiers is responsible for the more trustful erotic as Borsody's g.f. But it's Regnier's henchmen trio who almost steal the show: Raoul Retzer in probably his only gangster rôle, Herbert Fux just spiteful as ever, and fat Jean Thomé plays a doomsome harmonica to it all (though somewhat contrasted to Bronson's in "C'erà una volta il West" five years later). Ilse Steppat, Herbert Stass and Ivan-Desny (hyphenated in the credits) walk a fine line as major suspects.

If you like a whodunit touch, an early sixties b/w flair and a laugh every now and then at things that are meant to be completely serious, "Der Unsichtbare" is a must-see. Don't expect too much from special effects.

Film wavers between ridiculing the dull German militarism of around 1900 and glorifying the old-time antagonism between Bavarians and Prussians. Moreover, it has elements of the German/Austrian "Heimatfilm" of the 50's and the basically unfunny "Lümmel" comedies of the late 60's.

Hansi Kraus had already starred in three "Lausbubengeschichten" comedies based on Ludwig Thomas's well-known local colour stories about a renitent young boy who uncovers his contemporaries' bigotry and blind dependence on authorities in an "Eulenspiegel" tradition. This one being the last entry to that movie series (1964-7, with one reprise in 1969), only loosely based on Thoma, Kraus was soon to become the star of the even more successful 7-part "Lümmel" school series (1968-72).

The little that can be called really humorous here is rather coarse and bulky, and in addition to that there are a couple of plots (screenplay by producer Franz Seitz), which are not connected tightly enough. Basic idea has Prussian troops manoeuvering near a Bavarian village in connection with the otherwise seldom-regarded necessity of billeting which serves to generate some funny situations.

While the scripting is rather poor, technical achievements are completely reliable, and so is the acting, thanks to the usual assembly of first-rate comedians such as Georg Thomalla. Funniest scenes are yielded by inimitable Hubert von Meyerinck and the late Hans Quest as two helplessly stiff Prussian officers, the latter also being the director of thirteen post-war comedies and two "Heimatfilms" of the 50's.

The story of a meticulously-planned race track hold-up is a stunner in every minute you watch it, and the film's progressive use of a partly documentary style has often been acclaimed as uniquely supporting the dramatic goings-on. It definitely put a modern touch to the somewhat out-of-fashion film noir in 1956, but still greatly relied on its basic rules.

A fine new note was the neat distinction between the gang's members' motives, ranging from repaying underworld debts (De Corsia) and hope of offering a better life for his ill wife (Sawyer) to the vain ambition of pleasing his vamp wife by doing something special (Cook).

Despite the film's qualities, Kubrick's treatment of the women's rôles seems more than old-fashioned today. Women here are either the homely and sweet type (Coleen Gray) or the Bette-Davis-eyed and cherchez-la-femme type (Marie Windsor). Both are accordingly taller or smaller than their respective partners by a head.

I should like to mention one of my favourite pans: that's when the bald philosopher-catcher walks up to Joe Sawyer's bar. Lucien Ballard's camera follows him all across the crowded tote hall, a take which must have been very difficult to organize and shoot. Later, the scene is repeated with Sterling Hayden.

This motion picture is also a monument for the great histrionic art of Elisha Cook, Jr., in a stand-out performance as the born loser. (German dubbing gives him the apt voice of Stan Laurel's speaker Walter Bluhm.) This little man never just did his job in unnumerable supporting rôles but has rendered effective homage to the tragic figure on the silver screen more than any other (non-comical) character actor I can think of. Regardless of his versatility in lots of different films, his impersonations of a likeable man who is doomed to fail make him unforgettable: take his lethal parts in "Phantom Lady" (1944), "Shane" (1953) or the likes, the audience's sympathy was always with this fine actor.

(Version reviewed is the 90-minute German-language showing on ARD on July 5, 2001.)

There are two rather unbecoming aspects about this movie, one being its blunt nationalism, the other one its odd casting. Where you would have expected, say, William Holden as the daring journalist and, well, Humphrey Bogart as the cynical hotshot, you get Jimmy and Spence. It's not that they don't act well, but the rôles just don't seem to fit. What a difference with handsome Mexican Gilbert Roland who is chosen perfectly (as Romano).

Journalist Royer (Stewart) gets his rival/friend Carnaghan (Tracy) out of prison with help from official sides (fine thesping by John Hodiak) for the good of the nation, that is, to haul all possible rubber out of British, but Jap-occupied, Malaya for the United States. Of course, the European land-owners give all assistance possible to support the sacred case, including a voluntary beating that Ian MacDonald gets from Tracy. America's raw nationalism was curiously carried right into the German translation: dubious Bruno Gruber (played by "Charlie Chan" Roland Winters) is named Marty Robber (or so) in German dubbing version of 1955, because a badman just couldn't have a German name to German audiences... This should be worth a correction, although the forgery effect is not as high as in the original 1952 dubbing of "Casablanca", that was corrected in a new version as late as in 1968. (Stewart, by the way, is synchronized well by Eckart Dux this time, not by regular Siegmar Schneider.)

Although film's humour is well-measured, it cannot conceal, but rather contributes to, the dare-devil chauvinism, four years after the war ended. Tracy played something of a contrary rôle in "Bad Day at Black Rock", as regards the U.S. relationship to the Japanese.

There's a lot of epigonism of "Casablanca", though not as much as in its immediate successors, in "Malaya". We have Richard Loo's Col. Tomura marching into the bar like Maj. Strasser; Italy's Cortese in the European female part (the story might have done without her, were there not some nice dialogues with Tracy); and the wonderful Sydney Greenstreet, who somewhat resumes his Senor Ferrari rôle (that parrot of his is a blue one, I suppose).

Despite this emulation, Frank Fenton's screenplay has something interesting about it that makes this movie agreeable after all. But it wouldn't have taken the famous leading players, close to miscasts, for something that appears like an MGM "B" production to me. - Worst thing is, I couldn't spot DeForest "Bones" Kelley anywhere around, although he is said to be there.

Whoever it may be to rightly claim that he invented the action thriller genre (Méliès, I suppose), Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Le salaire de la peur" is an indispensable milestone on the exciting route to the best films of that kind in the 70's, 80's and nowadays. In its tenseness, as symbolized by the danger of explosion of the lorries' loads, it has hardly been surpassed.

The plot is perfectly worked out from start to end, the leading players act in some of their best parts ever, the (almost) absence of music supports the brutal realism and the consequent choice of authentic outdoor settings contributed a lot to the film's deserved success. Historically, it ranges between neorealismo and nouvelle vague, and yet it is its pure action and suspense that make it worth watching for younger audiences who wouldn't go in for just the artistic way. - Only flaw I can see is the curious, rather artificial change in Vanel's character which has no comprehensible motivation, at least for me whenever I see it.

Apart from that, Clouzot's wife Véra (also well-known from his "Les diaboliques") plays to the "most breathtaking angles" gallery when she bows down to scrub the floor of Dario Moreno's gin joint. It's a man's world after all and there are male perspectives on human survival only. Well, it's existentialism, mates. Altogether, the black and white photography is gripping. The gun scene between Lulli and Vanel is one of the best montages in film history, and there is more excellent editing in "Salaire" (including the finale) that completely fits the hot atmosphere.

A strange movie. Seems like Curt Goetz couldn't quite decide whether to make a comedy or not out of his play because there's a whole lot of melodrama around. In the face of two world wars, Professor Prätorius, a philanthropist and a surgeon, wants to exterminate the one danger to mankind, the microbe of stupidity, as he states in a spontaneous lecture to his male and female students. Later in that speech he utters what great a gift it is to women to have children (enthusiastic acclaim from all listeners). - One of the oddest takes here has Prätorius unnecessarily derobe the corpse of a young woman down to her waist, a seldom-seen example of nudity in early German post-war cinema.

Story proceeds in the same erratic manner, with rather rare swings to the comic side. The parts with the pregnant woman who attempts suicide and the valet who had been sentenced to death before are not funny at all, but serious to the core. They could, in fact, include some unusual statements on abortion, unmarried motherhood and death penalty but that might just as well be way out of the storyline. There is no nightshift stress or professional errors, on the contrary, Prätorius has time enough to conduct a student orchestra (the conducting scenes unfortunately add some self-admiring pathos).

The sound quality is not so good, due to the pic's 50 years of age, but camera work (Fritz Arno Wagner) is very satisfactory. Bruno Hübner is a sight to see as Shunderson, a rôle which might likewise have been played by Fritz Rasp (as it was in the remake fifteen years later). Valérie von Martens (Goetz' real-life wife) and Erich Ponto give proofs of their versatility. (By the way, that's an uncredited Horst Tappert who hands Martens her purchases in a five-second appearance during the surprise photograph of Hübner.)

We have a lot of learned uprightness in the story of "Frauenarzt", generating with a well-off doctor, paired with some funny ideas, but it leaves you unsatisfied: a strange movie.

With the impressive surrealism of "Caligari" and the gross realism of "Potemkin," "Citizen Kane" remains a masterpiece of film history. Orson Welles, its 26-year-old creator, achieved a lot with his ensemble of fine character actors and actresses. Despite its age, there is still some touch of its near-to-sensational inventiveness to be felt, which is basically due to Gregg Toland's brilliant photography which combined low-key crime story lighting and grand melodrama camera craftsmanship. Art direction and special effects, too, are conducive to the whole. Although awarded only one Oscar, Welles established his reputation as a genius, and there is an ironic hint at his earlier "War of the Worlds" success when Kane warns a reporter in the beginning: "Don't believe everything you hear on the radio." Its working title being "American," the picture's original criticism of newspaper tycoon Hearst is worth more than a latterday footnote, although its omission seems to add to the timelessness of "Citizen Kane."

Of the players, I still couldn't make out Edmund Cobb (as a reporter), who appeared as the bad guy in some 170 or more B westerns from 1930 to 1950, plus a couple of A's such as "Winchester '73" and "River of No Return." I did actually discern Alan Ladd this time, I think. - Welles does a good acting job, too, as does his favourite, Joseph Cotten ("The Magnificent Ambersons," "The Third Man"). Moorehead and Sloane of the Mercury Theatre stock company are wonderful, but Ray Collins' short performance as Jim Gettys, virtually reduced to his voice as he hardly mimes and moves, is outstanding to me. This is a pic worth seeing a hundred times, not least because of its humanistic message.

This German star flick concentrates on the crazy love story between an English barrister and a young Austrian baroness who - together with her father - steals jewelry from ladies' necks by applying the "one and a half finger system" invented by her grandmother. As stars, Senta Berger and Joachim Fuchsberger fulfil their jobs well, with "Blacky" lacking some credibility due to resuming his cool Yard inspector image from Rialto's (or respectively CCC's) Edgar Wallace series. Senta hands in some of her usual full-force sex appeal and a wilful "I know what I want" attitude when she makes her way to London to see her darling Robert (Fuchsberger). Authored by writer team Keindorff/Sibelius as a later one of their 38 contributions to German post-war film history, together with a "Peter Lambda", the story has Senta's father (reliable as ever: Martin Held) trying to prevent her from turning away from their successful family business. The plot is interesting and somewhat new but laughs are few. It sets off in the fashionable oriental setting of a Caesarea hotel and goes on in Vienna and London, though practically reduced to indoor scenes. A nicer bit has Robert addressing the jury when Senta Berger stands accused but his lengthy plédoyer for love, altogether, fails to click. Some nice humour comes from real-life couple Irene Meyendorff and James Robertson Justice (appropriately dubbed by Erik Jelde) as Robert's parents, although treating large-scale arms trade as a funny vocation seems more than awkward nowadays. CCC owner Artur Brauner assembled his successful "Edgar Wallace" team alongside director Vohrer: Karl Löb's colour photography is fine while Martin Böttcher couldn't keep from presenting a soundtrack of the fickle type once again. Some of the film's effectiveness is owed to Miss Berger's costumes (and Blacky's suits). Supporting players include some well-known faces in shorter appearances such as Schoenfelder's and Schündler's. (And, er, yes, that's a mute Wolfgang Völz standing behind Fuchsberger at the police station.) The likeable rôles of Sammy and Sarah (in something that could have been a Shakespearean sub-plot) make you wonder why Walter Wilz and Helga Sommerfeld disappeared from the screen in the late sixties.

(Version reviewed is the 100-minute showing on tm3 on June 23, 2001.) Expectations of a spaghetti western will be disappointed: director Rudolf Zehetgruber (aka Cehett Grooper, according to the Italian-language opening credits) helmed a somewhat anachronistic picture in the style of American 50's horse operas as regards story, cinematography and music. Its basic asset is founded on the plot, sending seven w o m e n through an Arizona (or, actually, Southern Spain) desert after having survived an Indian raid. Their adventures on the road are surprisingly exciting enough to keep the spectator awake to the end, although unexpected turning points fail to appear. The seven characters are finely distinguished (down to the costume colors) but lack some convincing sympathy except for Baxter's rôle; best acting, apart from Baxter, is turned in by Maria Perschy (as the Austrian Ursula whose child is killed at the beginning but who regains her strength during the march) and Perla Cristal (as the Spaniard Pilar, the tough "lady in red"). Jorge Rigaud has two cameo-like scenes as a slowly nodding Indian, whereas Gustavo Rojo's strong male lead (appearing as late as 54 minutes into the film) seems rather detrimental to the storyline. There is something (pseudo-)feminist about the story, even more because the crew mainly refrained from presenting hot girls in sweat-soaked blouses as one might have foreseen. (There are, as a matter of fact, some unhistorical decolletés.) Editing of this picture is pretty odd at times. The well-staged action scenes, the one-dimensional portrayal of American natives and a singular pseudo-philosophical dialogue between Baxter and Rojo support the emulation of American 50's westerns. Director Grooper will have been well aware of the fact that he did not create a "Fistful of Dollars" or a "Once Upon a Time...", neither is there a touch of "The Magnificent Seven" as the Spanish title seems to imply. This is an unspectacular, if solid, western with women in the central rôles - an idea that does not change much after all. (German dubbing includes the fine male voices of Rainer Brandt (Rojo), Thomas Danneberg (Hilbeck) and Friedrich Joloff (Clarke).)