Reviews

Maybe not as chilling as Psycho, or not as perfect as Vertigo, but anyway: this is Hitchcock at his very best. Among the great, classic scenes are the opening shot at the train station, Hedren stealing (classic suspense - even if you see the film for the tenth time and KNOW what's gonna happen, you still wonder if she will get caught or not), the scene with the thunder and lightning in Connery's office and the ending (classic horror, with Bruce Dern in a small but excellent part) The acting is excellent, by the main characters (Hedren and Connery) as well as by all others actors (the beautiful Diane Baker is perfect as Lil, Connery's sister in law), and Bernard Herrmanns music is good as ever. Great costumes by Edith Head, great, witty Jay Presson Allen-dialogues ('You Freud, me Jane'), great editing, great camera-work by Robert Burks… No doubt: it's another masterpiece from the master.

Very strange movie by Harry Kumel, by far Belgiums most talented director. One wonders what the hell went through Kumels mind when he decided to mix several great, incredible, Visconti-like scenes (e.g. Van Ammelrooy and Van den Berghe by the fireplace, or the scene with Van Ammelrooy in the lake) with awful, overacted and - worst of all - unfunny comedy. In interviews Kumel called this film a satire on the bus-load of (mostly) awful rural films Flemish directors made through the years ('boerenfilms'): though this film IS clearly a satire on these bad movies, the satire part is the most uninteresting part of 'Het Verloren Paradijs' - unless you consider VERY bad film-making as good satire on bad film-making. The dialogs and acting are - just like the film itself - extremely uneven: Willeke Van Ammelrooy is delivering some really great acting here, Hugo Van den Berghe is impeccable and the little boy is OK, but Fred Van Kuyk, Bert André and most of the bit parts are really god-awful. Good camera-work by Ken Hodges.