Reviews

Insert trying to insert but t can't in this new fat format alex Viewed at the Lodz film school this turned out to be a one-of-a-kind masterpiece known in Polish as "Sanatorium pod Klepsdydra", or in English as "Sanatorium under the Hourglass". In Poland the hourglass, which marks time by allowing sand to sift one grain at a time from an upper chamber to a lower one through a narrow opening, is associated symbolically with the sands of human life running out, and is often seen as a symbol accompanying obituary reports. The film is based on a highly symbolic novel, dealing among other things with the death of Jewish culture in Poland -- written by the Polish-Jewish writer, Bruno Schulz, who was murdered by the Gestapo in WW II. While literary adaptations are quite common in Poland, this bizarre Schulz tale was long considered to be so abstract as to be unfilmable. Has not only found the images and the narrative style to bring Schultz's words to the screen, but in the process created a film that is so spectacular that it out-Fellinies Fellini in "Juliet of the Spirits" - in short, one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. "Klepsydra", one of the most extraordnary films ever made in Poland, is about a middle aged man who comes to visit the sanatorium where his aged father has recently passed away and there encounters the father's ghost who leads him through a series of personal and philosophical revelations as they move from room to room in the gloriously cluttered premises. Cobwebs and junk are everywhere, but this is the debris of the collective unconscious. Early in the picture the bemused visitor - played by handsome actor Jan Nowicki, who radiates a bit of the aura of a Polish Paul Newman -- dons a golden fireman's helmet which he then wears throughout, an odd touch which we soon accept as par for the course in these fantastically colorful surrealistic surroundings. Towards the end of the film the man finds himself wandering through the dreamy streets of a resurrected Jewish village and is swept up in a traditional public celebration of some kind which is going on all around him. This is presumably a reference to writer Schulz's own Jewish childhood in Drohobycz, but in Has' film it becomes a mystical epitaph for the entire Jewish culture of Poland which was ruthlessly eradicated during World War II. The entire atmosphere of the film is dreamlike -at times a little nightmarish -but never off-putting, because Has' narrative style keeps things flowing and the visuals are so lush that the eye is constantly delighted. All-in-all a unique, dazzling, and thought-provoking motion picture

Viewed at the Polishfilm sch Viewed at the Lodz film school this turned out to be a one-of-a-kind masterpiece known in Polish as "Sanatorium pod Klepsdydra", or in English as "Sanatorium under the Hourglass". In Poland the hourglass, which marks time by allowing sand to sift one grain at a time from an upper chamber to a lower one through a narrow opening, is associated symbolically with the sands of human life running out, and is often seen as a symbol accompanying obituary reports. The film is based on a highly symbolic novel, dealing among other things with the death of Jewish culture in Poland -- written by the Polish-Jewish writer, Bruno Schulz, who was murdered by the Gestapo in WW II. While literary adaptations are quite common in Poland, this bizarre Schulz tale was long considered to be so abstract as to be unfilmable. Has not only found the images and the narrative style to bring Schultz's words to the screen, but in the process created a film that is so spectacular that it out-Fellinies Fellini in "Juliet of the Spirits" - in short, one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. "Klepsydra", one of the most extraordnary films ever made in Poland, is about a middle aged man who comes to visit the sanatorium where his aged father has recently passed away and there encounters the father's ghost who leads him through a series of personal and philosophical revelations as they move from room to room in the gloriously cluttered premises. Cobwebs and junk are everywhere, but this is the debris of the collective unconscious. Early in the picture the bemused visitor - played by handsome actor Jan Nowicki, who radiates a bit of the aura of a Polish Paul Newman -- dons a golden fireman's helmet which he then wears throughout, an odd touch which we soon accept as par for the course in these fantastically colorful surrealistic surroundings.

Towards the end of the film the man finds himself wandering through the dreamy streets of a resurrected Jewish village and is swept up in a traditional public celebration of some kind which is going on all around him. This is presumably a reference to writer Schulz's own Jewish childhood in Drohobycz, but in Has' film it becomes a mystical epitaph for the entire Jewish culture of Poland which was ruthlessly eradicated during World War II. The entire atmosphere of the film is dreamlike -at times a little nightmarish -but never off-putting, because Has' narrative style keeps things flowing and the visuals are so lush that the eye is constantly delighted. All-in-all a unique, dazzling, and thought-provoking motion picture

DYBBUK -- THE JEWISH EXCORCIST



In Poland today, "Dybbuk" is regarded as much a Polish film as a Jewish one and is often revived.

Michal Waszynsaki's "The Dybbuk", Poland, 1937, is probably the most widely known, if not necessarily the best liked, of all Yiddish films. Like Ulmer in America Michal Waszynski was an accomplished mainstream director with numerous non-Jewish films to his credit, but this film is considered his masterpiece even by the Poles. The prominent Warsaw writer, Alter Kacyzne, worked on the screenplay of what is easily the spookiest Yiddish movie ever made.

In the opening scene two young Hassidim, close friends, vow that if they both have children one a boy and the other a girl, these children will marry. An ominous other worldly messenger (Meshulach), who appears and disappears at will, warns that no-one has the right to vow for unborn children. Already the die is cast. One of the friends is lost in a storm rushing to the bedside of his wife who is giving birth to a boy. The wife of the other Hassid dies in childbirth leaving a girl behind. Eighteen years pass. The boy, Chonen, is now an impoverished talmudic scholar. The girl, Leah, has been adopted into a wealthy family. Chonen becomes a tutor in the same family. The two are immediately drawn to each other and fall in love but are unaware that they were promised to each other long ago. The solemn vow is broken when the girl is betrothed to another.

Chonen, versed in the arcane mysticism of the Kaballa, invokes Satan's aid but dies in the process. On Leah's wedding day Chonen's spirit enters the new bride's body as a "Dybbuk" and possesses her. To the horror of all, only his voice comes out of her mouth. The famous rabbi of Wielopole is called in to exorcise the evil spirit from the girl's body. Only when the spirit is threatened with excommunication from the Jewish community, even in the other world, will the Dybbuk leave the body of his beloved, but, when he does she too dies to join him forever in the Other World. An impressive work with many ritual set pieces, this is a one of a kind Yiddish film of The Occult. A classic originally written in Russian by the Jewish playwright S. An-Sky. "Dybbuk" has been performed in many languages on the stage and was remade as an Israeli-German film co-production in 1968. If "The Golem" is the Jewish Frankenstein the Dybbuk, rich in ancient mysticism and folklore, must surely go down in film history as the Jewish Exorcist. (The Hollywood "Exorcist" was made, incidentally, by a Jewish director, William Friedkin).

One of the things that made the film so impressive were the professionally choreographed ritual dances, and an eminent Jewish historian, Dr. Meyer Balaban, was hired to assure accuracy in the presentation of religious detail. Lili Liliana and Leon Liebgold (he, of "Yidl Mitn Fidl" and "Tevya" ) are the star crossed lovers and not long after, as if to confirm their heavenly union in the film, became man and wife offscreen in flesh and blood.

Avrom Marevsky is the Great Exorciser, and Max Bozhyk also appears, but the role that is likely to remain longest in memory is that of The Ominous Messenger as played by Isaac Samberg. Waszynski, a Ukrainian Jew whose original name was Moishe Waxman, was only 33 and Polish cinema's reigning wunderkind when he directed "The Dybbuk" in 1937. In Poland today, "Dybbuk" is regarded as much a Polish film as a Jewish one.

REVIEW of "KEEPING THE FAITH " at KARLOVY VARY, 2000. Directed by and starring Ed Norton, his behind the camera debut at age 29. With Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Eli Wallach, and Ann Bancroft. Ann odd triangle between and among a young Catholic priest (Norton) a young rabbi (Stiller), and a drop-dead beautiful trim blonde Shicksa. This is a mildly amusing romantic comedy set in New York with lots of Jewish shtik and shtiklach. Stiller plays the mod rabbi with the tenacity of a Kosher Apeman, Italian-American Ann Bancroft as the mother is Jewish-motherly convincing, and Jewish Czech director, Milos Forman, does a cameo as an elder of Catholic church, while Eli Wallach, in a radical departure from the villain roles which made him famous in Spaghetti westerns, is an elder of the synagogue. Ed, the priest, should have won the girl but his vows of chastity rule that out. In the end, after many misunderstandings, she's all set to convert to Judaism and live happily ever after as the rabbi's future wife. Elfman is a real discovery and should soon become a leading presence in American mainstream flicks. she has the pristine purity of a Doris Day with a nineties awareness and style, all hung on a perfectly fitnessed framework: After all, she's a classically trained ballerina. Altogether this is an appealing if cliché-ridden feel-good flick with a strong theme-message of unself-conscious interfaith interaction, although some strictly Orthodox "frimme leute" may not care too much for the idea of a rabbi about to marry a Shicksa no matter how "shein" and lovable she might be. Ed Norton, who played in Forman's "The People versus Larry Flynt" is a special guest of the fest as is Eli Wallach. Mr. Wallach, a veteran of over 100 movies in a long and brilliant career and still active at 85, added a bit of living film history to the current festival and was roundly applauded by a spellbound collection of local media, newsmen, and film critics. Alex, Karlovy Vary, Thursday, July 6. 2000

BUDAPEST NOIR BY ALEX image1.jpeg

BUDAPEST NOIR is a murder mystery set in the German influenced Budapest of 1936 with Antisemitism on the rise. Superbly directed, acted, and beautifully lensed by master cinematographer Elemér Ragály. This is by far the Best Hungarian film of the year in what has been a very good year for Magyar cinema generally. In terms of genre the very first film of its kind from this country and an eye opener of the first order.

Zsigmond Gordon (Krisztián Kolovratnik) is a tough scruffy unflappable investigative reporter for the biggest newspaper in Budapest in Horthy's increasingly fascist dominated Hungary. He specializes in murder stories but when a nameless hooker he met the night before is found dead on Nagydiófautca ("Big Walnut Street", the heart of the whorehouse district) and he starts following up on this "fait divers" which nobody else cares about or wants to know about he finds he is on to something far bigger than he bargained for. The mystery moves into high gear when the corpus dilecti disappears from the morgue. The coroner blithely consumes his fresh lunch amidst the freshly dead bodies as Gordon plies him with questions. Meanwhile his ex-girlfriend, Krisztina (who once gave him a very hard time, returns from Germany and plunks herself down in his apartment. Gordon has reservations about resuming the relationship but she's a very good photographer and good pictures are just what he needs to back up his investigation. Dialogue: He: (Cynically) "What happened. Didja give another guy a hard time in Berlin?" She: (Dryly) "Yeah. His name was Adolph and he had a little mustache under his nose".

We soon gather that Krisztina's pictures showing the harassing of Jews got her into political hot water and she had to scram fast. However, she has received offers from Britain ... For the time being, since she is down and out, she is willing to work with Gordon to pay her way. The old flames are rekindled with a flourish of passion in a red dark room as critical pictures are developing and a rousing love scene ensues in the midst of all the noir anxiety and suspense. They are now a couple fighting crime together, but there is always an "if" in the air, because this is after all a film noir... with many surprising Jewish twists and turns (a Jewish ladies prayer book turns out to be a significant clue).

This remarkable movie has the feeling of a Dashiel Hammet or Mickey Spillane thriller time-warped to the mid thirties in central Europe. Kolovratnik is outstanding as the tenacious reporter. So scruffy and noir to the core that he seems to be mouthing pure wisecrack English and could pass for Mike Hammer or Sam Spade if he were a gumshoe instead of a journalist. -- Inspired casting. This hitherto little known actor was born for the role. He won't be little known for long.

All other roles are just as sharply etched, notably "Moochy" Zoltan as a restrained informer minus his customary buzzmeg vocabulary, and Kata Dobó as the flaming red-haired madame of an upscale brothel named "Les Fleurs du Mal". A fancy nightclub called The Ring features female boxers in a real ring as the Floor show. The owner is a wealthy coffee importer with high level connections in Berlin. Here the plot begins to thicken. Set pieces such as the frame-up of the hero are so smoothly handled they more or less ooze from the script. Period decor and reconstruction is letter perfect while those familiar with Budapest will recognize many locations even if slightly modified.

The ending is a pure noir shocker which cannot be revealed here. Shrewd savvy direction by Éva Gárdos, a Hollywood industry veteran who directed the Hungarian American film "An American Rhapsody" with Nastassia Kinski and Scarlett Johansson in 2001, is impeccable. One wonders where she has been hiding all this time. Bottom Line: A perfect Hungarian film noir with kosher overtones but it took a Hungarian expatriate to make it! Splendid job. Ten stars are not enough.

image1.jpegk Hey Ram poster in Tamil HEY RAM!

2000, Starring, written, directed and produced by Kamal Haasan is both a landmark of the Bollywood cinema and a landmark in the career of Tamil superstar Kamal Hasaan. Basically an historical drama dealing with the background of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in early 1948 by a confused Hindu fanatic and an impassioned call for an end to communal strife between Hindus and Moslems in India, a never ending problem. In passing a call as well for an end to hostility between India and Pakistan, a single people separated by a line on the map.

Saketh Ram is an archaeologist by profession. We see him at the beginning on a dig at Mohenjo Daro but the excavation is stopped as the violence of Partition breaks out. Next we see him at a drinking party with old friends in Calcutta which is followed by a playful and somewhat naughty sequence with some hot bedroom action with his lovely wife (a most enticing Rani Mukherji). However their domestic bliss is soon destroyed during the "direct action day" riot in Calcutta following the 1947 Partition of India when a raging mob breaks into the house raping and killing his wife.

Saketh emerges hellbent on revenge and is soon convinced that Mahatma Gandhi who was against separation and preached tolerance of all religions including Islam is responsible for all the problems happening in the country. He is enlisted for the job of assassinating Gandhi by a young Hindu extremist, One of his best friends, Amjad Ali Khan (Shahrukh Khan) is a whiskey drinking Moslem and the two will have to protect each other later from raging Hindu and Muslim mobs as the film progresses.

At the time of the film SRK was 35 and well established as the "King of Bollywood" whereas Kamaal at age 46 reigned in south India as the King of "Kollywood" (the Tamil film industry). Interestingly SRK agreed to take a secondary backup role in this film but though he has far less screen time than Kamal he just about steals every scene he is in. More over, whereas Khan usually plays a Hindu in Bollywood films, here he gets to be his real self as a Muslim. This is a trilingual film with interplay between Hindi, Tamil and English. Lots of English because the two main characters do not understand each others languages (Tamil and Hindi) so they have to resort to English which is in fact the real situation even today when Tamils and North Indians meet. A lesser known actress, Vasundhura Das, (better known as a singer) is compelling as Saketh's second wife Mythili. Other featured Indian stars are Hema Maliini (Sholy, of Tamil origin) and Nasureddin Shah, veteran of the Parallel film movement, as Mahatma Gandhi. According to popular legend Ghandi is reputed to have exclaimed "Hey Ram" (Oh God!) as he was shot. Kamal discards the legend but retains it as his title. Gandhi did however say,"I will gladly accept a bullet if it stops the strife between Hindus and Muslims". He got his bullet but not quite his final wish. In the film the story is narrated by Ram to his grandson from his death bead half a century later on 6 December 1999, the 7th anniversary of the Destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, a landmark in Hindu hatred of Indian Moslems. The rest is flashback. Some concessions to the sing and dances of Masala films are made but this is overall a serious masterfully made historico-political drama that should be on the must-see list of any follower of the Indian cinema scene. Alex, Budapest, 28 November, 2017

"To Be or Not to Be" starring comedian Jack Benny, 1942 image1.jpeg

A wishful thinking absurd wartime comedy about Dumb Nazis and Smart Polaks. Plot: A bad Polish actor is appearing on stage as Hamlet when the war breaks out and Warsaw is occupied by the invading Germans. His wife has had the annoying habit of entertaining young Polish officers backstage during his "To be or not to be" soliloquy. When one of these officers comes back from England on a Secret Mission to thwart the Gestapo the actor takes charge and comes up with a plan for them to harass the Germans and escape to freedom.

In 1942 Nazi Germany under Hitle r had conquered most of Europe including France and American morale was at a low point. As a kind of followup to Chaplin's prewar The Great Dictator (1940 prior to America's entry into WWII in Dec. 1941) this was mainly a Jack Benny vehicle. Benny, Jewish, was the most popular American radio comedian of the time and only appeared in a few movies, but this is his one famous leading role and worth a look-see if only for that. His wife in the film, Carole Lombard, was a very popular Hollywood star married to the "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable (Rett Butler in "Gone with the Wind"). Lombard was killed in a tragic airplane crash returning from a troop entertainment tour just before the movie was released.

In the film Benny is the Polish ham actor playing Hamlet in occupied Warsaw. He and his theater company dress up as German soldiers to bamboozle the German military command and thwart Gestapo's efforts to wipe out the the Polish underground leadership. At one point Benny impersonates Hitler himself on a visit to Warsaw, phony mustache and all. Director Lubitsch, known for sophisticated comedies, was a refugee from Hitter Germany and obviously relished the idea of making fun of the Nazis on screen but the public at this stage was in no mood for fun and the film, unlike the big success of Chaplin's earlier Dictator, was a flop at the box-office despite the star appeal of Benny and Lombard.

In retrospect it can be seen as a World War II Hollywood landmark that is funnier now than it was then. Both comedic and dramatic with certain languors here and there it still stands the test of time fairly well and is certainly a picture of some historical importance. The film was produced by famous British Hungarian film impresario Alexander Korda (The Thief of Bagdad) and the script was written by expatriate Hungarian writer Melchior Lengyel. A digitally restored print was shown in a series or restored classics here in Budapest last month, (October, 2017) Alex, Budapest

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PLAYING KETCHUP. WITH Hollywood FLIXX. MISSED IN L.A.

Behind The Candelabra was viewed in Budapest on August 20, 2013. At long last, the Liberace Story, starring Mike Douglas as Lee-Berace and a bleached blonde Matt Damon as his younger lover, with Debbie Reynolds as Liberace's mother, also Rob Lowe as a sleazy pretty-boy dietary and beauty adviser looking too young to believe. A lush-plush Weinstein production that was surprisingly good. Viewed at the Pushkin Mozi in Budapest in a nice intimate 77 seat theater. This is the best work Douglas has done since Wall Street - kind of an amazing comeback for an actor who was on the ropes both career-wise and physically with cancer only two years ago. Douglas is spot-on as Liberace all the way and Damon is a sufficiently convincing bi-sexual lover. -- 180% removed from his usual Action Hero screen persona. The film was probably rejected by many people who just couldn't see ordinarily macho heroes like Douglas and Damon on screen as gay lovers, but director Sonderbergh makes the most of this counter to expectation casting. Damon also played a non action character in Sonderbergh's last film about fragging ...so it looks like Matt is now trying to be accepted as an actor, not just a star.

There is plenty in this pic for the gay audience to chew on but aside from that this is a slam-bang biopic of one of the most flamboyant and popular entertainers of the mid XX century -- now perhaps largely forgotten because sexual gaieté has become so mundane that many may have forgotten how outrageous it was was for a figure so much in the public eye as Liberace was to flaunt it back then. Today this would be a story about gay marriage -- back then the issues were much more complicated.

The pic only deals with the late career of this amazing showman from 1977 to 1985 when he died of AIDS. A newspaper headline announcing the early death of macho actor Rock Hudson Is seen momentarily to underline the fact that LIberace's demise from AIDS marked a turning point in public perception of this plague - especially in the entertainment world.

Douglas is simply excellent -- arguably his best film ever!--but I would attribute Damon's success in portraying a gay to Sonderbergh's direction. The whole picture has class, while it could easily have been a cheap portrayal of a screaming drag queen catering to the Gay&Les crowd, which it most certainly is not! Some of the nude in bed scenes, man to man kissing scenes and the discussions between the actors of who gets to do whom and why in masculine love making may make some male viewers cringe, but this is one of the many things that makes this picture so true to life -- too true in fact for it to have been the box office smash it should have been. Also, the reconstruction of Liberace's on stage performances in Vegas with some amazing keyboard pyrotechnics is alone "worth the price of admission" and Douglas shines in all of these scenes -- to the point where you forget that this is the actor Mike Douglas! Bottom Line: One of then best pictures of the year, and Mike Douglas deserves the Best Actor Oscar without a doubt. If he doesn't get it somebody ought to eat their shoe ...

Viewed The 2007 Jewish Film Festival in Seattle at the massive CINERAMA Theater down town, as part of a slam-dunk opening gala double-header, (films from USA and Israel). "The Belly Dancer", (LIRKOD) director and producer, Marek Rosenbaum, Israel, 2006 (90 Minutes) was an eye-opening discovery starring blonde bombshell Meital Dohan. This is a partially tongue-in-cheek Jewish gangster film, with a very cute young gun moll who is a passionate devotee of Turkish belly dancing, and is the femme fatale of the title, around whom this surprise-a-minute comedic thriller revolves. Except for the fact that the main guys were all talking Hebrew this could, for all intents and purposes, have been a French "polar" (with echos of Godard) or even, a recent American job. This film takes you on a ride with so many unexpected twists and turns that you'll come out saying "This TOO is Israel???" --"Belly Dancer" looks to me like a sharp new turn for Israeli film - one that may signal the kind of New Direction caused by "Diva" in French film at the beginning of the eighties. Hope it gets around, because "Dancer" is really a winner and introduces a whole new mini- pantheon of Israeli movie actors. by Alex Deleon, Seattle Friday, March 17, 2007

World Premiere at 2017 Venice film festival.

George Clooney has outdone himself with a superb satire of middle American suburbia in 1959. But there are résonances of relevance to the America of today as well. Matt Damon, all but unrecognizable except for the nose, disappears into the skin of a pudgy middle class middle American psychopath on a murderous death insurance scam with sister-in-law Julianne Moore, true to life as ever as his partner in crime. Best scene of many good ones cleverly linked together is the unwelcome visit of scumbag insurance claim adjuster Oscar Isaac (the Armenian hero of The Promise) "sniffing out" improprieties in the claim on deceased sister who was actually murdered before the film began. Sparkling dialogue between Isaac and Moore and the subtle gathering of tension building to a blowup make this the most memorable single scene in this spine tingling thriller. An ongoing subtext of the film is the rampant racism of the local populace when a nice middle class Afro-American family moves in to this lily white community. Kudos also to juvenile actor Noah Jupe as the terrorized child who is a pawn in all the complex familial machinations after his mother is snuffed and a central figure of the intrigue. Coen Brothers collaboration on the script may account for some of the hairiness and over-the-topness of the action but, overall Suburbicon is an absolute winner all around that transports Mr. Clooney to the next level of savvy film directorship. Bravo. PS: Beefed up bespectacled Matt Damon may be heading for another Oscar nomination with this radical departure from his hitherto clean scrubbed heroic images.

Shootout at the Norskie Corral is the grand Finale of Snowplow Opera "in Order of Disappearance". Old Bruno Ganz is still full of P. and V. and Stellan Skarsgard is literally awesome.

"In Order of Disappearance" (Kraftidioten, or "Power freaks" in German) directed by Hans Peter Moland is the surprise of the week at Berlin 2014. Stellan Skarsgård is a snowplow driver who will stop at nothing to reap revenge on his son's drug lord killers in this wildly rib-tickling Norwegian crime thriller. In a followup to his sympathetic listener in Nymphomaniac senior Swede thespian Skarsgård is suddenly a powerful star presence at age 61. Elderly Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, now 71, also amuses as an unlikely gun-toting Serbian Mafia godfather. The film title is a take-off on the familiar cast credit introduction: "in order of appearance". In this film the cast members are not named at the beginning, but as each one is knocked off in creatively brutal gangland fashion the name appears ~ in order of disappearance! ~ on a black screen as a death notice, with a small cross -- in one case, a Star of David as one of the victims happens to be Jewish (Horowitz). The body count is enough to fill the entire screen at the end -- nearly everybody who appears gets killed and disappears.

Not only is this a rip-roaring actioner but also a heady satire of right wing politics, left wing politics, especially the socialist welfare state, and the very conventions of the Godfather genre. For example, the main villain is a tall handsome clean cut leading man type who is a practicing vegan and has all his henchman drinking bio fruit juices. "Graf", as he us called, is a totally callous killer but weeps tenderly when his his own son is kidnapped. This picture has it all, fast action, thrills and spills in a breathtaking setting of arctic snowscapes, raw and subtle humor, terrific deadpan acting, high concept everything and was applauded wildly for something like ten minutes at the end. In my book this should be the Golden Bear hands down with Stellan Skarsgård a shoo in for best festival actor with two outstanding performances back to back -- this and Nymphomaniac. However Berlin is not noted for awarding crowd pleasers, no matter how well made. Morose depressers with unknown actors destined for quick oblivion have a much better chance for prizes here -- however, as a certain Dirty Harry might say, "In Order of Disappearance" made my day and justified suffering through two other soporifics on Berlin festival day number 6.

American SHADCHEN (American Matchmaker)' Edward G. Ulmer, 1940

This, the last of Ulmer's Yiddish quartet, is probably the funniest of all Yiddish comedies and the humor holds up quite well even today. With the German Blitzkrieg occupation of Poland in 1939 Jewish film production there came to a screeching halt but there was still a large Yiddish audience in New York and what they wanted was escape, not realism. American Shadchen fit the bill perfectly and was the last Yiddish box-office hit although a few more Yiddish films were still to be made.

The basic situation is that of a very handsome and well-off Mama's boy, Nat Silver, whose mother has been trying to get him married off without success, because the fastidious young man always finds some fatal fault with every potential marriage prospect. He is also afraid, although he is classically tall, dark, and handsome, a true Jewish Adonis -- that women are only interested in him for his money. The life style we see in the film is that of upper crust nouveau-riche New York Jewish society with all the trappings -- butlers, maids, chauffeurs, and luxurious apartments in the best part of town. The Jews depicted in the film are the "all-rightnik" type trying to act as American as possible by liberally salting their down-home Yiddish with the latest English slang. The butchered English we hear throughout is in fact one of the main sources of the humor of the film, which still works today, probably even for non-Jewish audiences. Moreover, even though this is basically a Yiddish language picture, there is enough English -- or rather "Yinglish" -- scattered throughout, so that the story line is pretty much clear even without the information supplied by the English sub-titles.

The hero, Nathan, or "Nat" Silver, decides that he is so experienced in matchmaking -- having been involved in so many mis-matches himself --the he would probably make a pretty good Shadchen, or matchmaker, on his own. So, he changes his name from Silver to Gold! -- sets up a matchmaking office, puts out a classy Yiddish shingle, and goes into business. This is also a way of escaping from the clutches of his overbearing Jewish mother. He is indeed very successful and soon acquires a reputation as the best Jewish matchmaker in New York City -- so successful, in fact, that the other envious shadchens picket his office with protest signs in Yiddish claiming that he is monopolizing the trade!

Now comes the heart of the story. One day a very funny Jewish mother brings her very attractive Jewish daughter Judith (Judith Abarbenel) in to Mr. Gold's office to find a match but she, the daughter, finds herself very attracted to the matchmaker. The mother too "kvells" over him gushing like a fountain every time she sees him, constantly repeating the absolutely side-splitting English phrase: "Mister GoOld -- you're soOoo nice!" -- it's all, of course, in the way she says it, but a guaranteed crackup every time!

It takes a good while for the conscientious "Gold" to get the picture for he is so obsessed with carrying out his duty -- which is to say, fixing his client up with a proper marriage partner (other than himself of course) -- that he fails to take notice of the obvious moon eyes both Mother and daughter are directing his way -- all but falling over him physically. With numerous hilarious double-entendre exchanges along the way this is nothing but delectable non-stop rib-tickling screen comedy all the way. Matchmaker Gold does, of course, finally succumb to the combined charms of mother and daughter, but only after a sequence of truly risible situations in a film which is nothing but fun from beginning to end.

At the same time American Matchmaker is a good natured but nevertheless penetrating satire of the efforts of the nouveau rich Jews of the time to be "more American than Thou" in this Golden Land which has been treating them so well, far beyond their wildest expectations. Overall this picture is just one heckuvva funny old-time comedy very much in line with the Hollywood Screwball Comedy tradition of the thirties, but with an extremely Kosher twist -- also in passing, a goldmine for the social anthropologist, and, as far as mise-en-scene is concerned, unquestionably one of Ulmer's finest all around films. "Nat Silver" was played by Leo Fuchs. Actress Judith Abarbanel used her own first name for the role of Judith Aarons, the charming client who falls in love with the matchmaker, and, her mother, Mrs. Aarons, who nearly steals the show whenever she's on, was played by ROSETTA BIALIS.

Written for the 2008 Barbican Yiddish retrospective in London.

Viewed at the 2012 L.A. Jewish film festival, this documentary, entitled "Tony Curtis: Driven to Stardom", is a gem of the genre and traces the life of a mid century screen legend who was a driven man, forcing himself up from rags to riches, through movie star fame and fortune, a cocaine fueled fall from grace, and to ultimate resurrection as a painter of talent. What makes this documentary stand out is that it is not just a chronology of events during an interesting half century in Hollywood, but more than that a study of obsession, realization of dreams, and then having to deal with disillusionment in the midst of success. Curtis got into films basically on his good looks, quickly became a matinée idol and sex symbol in gobs of youth oriented B movies and was so incredibly handsome that it was a long time before he was taken seriously as an actor.

A point is made in the film of his androgynous "beauty" -- such a pretty boy that there was a feminine aspect to his sex appeal --but all his co-stars, among them Mamie van Doren, herself no slouch as a sex symbol in her time, attest vehemently to the fact that there was nothing "gay" about Tony, even when he played a female cross dressing male in "Some like it Hot" opposite Marilyn Monroe. The ladies found him irresistible and Marilyn was in fact one of his first Hollywood girlfriends when both were young unknowns, but by the time of Some Like it Hot he was so distressed by her pampered behavior on the set that he made the famous crack, "Kissing Marilyn was like kissing Hitler".

By his own admission Tony always wanted to be a star, not an actor, and never completely shook off an atrocious Bronx accent, but he was so good looking and so talented that it didn't matter. He had a gigantic fan following and eventually earned the respect of his colleagues in a diversity of roles from Hungarian escape artist Houdini ('53) to a trapeze artist opposite Burt Lancaster and Gina Lollobrigida, in "Trapeze" to the lowlife sidekick of Lancaster's in "Sweet Smell of Success" ('57}, a racist chain-gang escapee tied to Sidney Poitier in "The Defiant Ones" ('58) and finally displayed his comedic skills in Billy Wilder's "Some like it Hot"('59) Opposite Jack Lemmon and Marilyn.

His last great role was as "The Boston Strangler"('68) in the film of that name in which his interpretation of the notorious serial killer was an astounding departure from his earlier matinée idol image. Curtis was always bitter that the industry never saw fit to reward any these remarkable portrayals with an Oscar and this lingering disappointment in conjunction with the failure of his first two marriages undoubtedly contributed to a descent into cocaine oblivion, but he took the cure and reinvented himself as a painter late in life with a devoted wife half his age, equestrian lady Jill Vandenberg, who remained at his side until the end in 2010 when Tony passed away, finally happy at age 85.

Most people are probably not even aware that Tony Curtis was Jewish because he was such an all-American icon and never played any overtly Jewish characters. He was Born Bernard Schwartz into a Jewish immigrant family from Hungary and barely spoke English until he was enrolled in grade school. To escape the grinding poverty of his early days he would sneak into the local movie house where he became enamored of the swashbuckling antics of Errol Flynn and decided that he would become a movie star himself, which is exactly what he did --in spite of seemingly impossible obstacles, except for that one great asset, his amazing physiognomy. This film, while it is doubtless a tribute to the ambition of a ragged kid from the ghetto making his dreams come true, is no hagiography, and is a warts and all portrait of a difficult life lived in the limelight.

The film is structured around segments of one long interview with an aged Curtis himself seated at an easel in his studio, puffy faced under a woolen cap, recalling incidents from his long life and spectacular career. In between many others who knew him recount their memories of working with him and the effect he had on them -- notably Mamie van Doren who got her first break because of Tony's help, actress Debbie Reynolds, Teresa Russell, Piper Laurie and numerous others. This is of course interspersed with key scenes from his most important movies and segments focusing on his much publicized marriage to actress Janet Leigh, an equally big star of a different more genteel kind. They were regarded at the time as the ideal young couple, but when the marriage ended after 11 years and two children it was a severe blow to the Curtis ego. He recalls painfully at one point,"The divorce just made me feel like I wasn't good enough for her".

Redemption for Tony came when he married his third wife, Jill Vandenberg, and basically retired to the desert to paint. One sees a lot of pain in the face of the elder Tony Curtis in this film, but he seems to have come to terms with the demons within, having found a true life partner in his twilight years. Although not much is made of his Jewishness in the course of the film after the early days in New York, the funeral which ends the film is most definitely a Jewish ceremony which sort of justifies the placing of this film in a specifically Jewish Festival. However, aside from ethnic considerations, this is a film with much wider resonances and director Ian Ayres, who resides in Paris, is to be complimented on assembling a cubistic portrait on film of an iconic Hollywood film personality which is so rich and multi-layered that it requires multiple viewings to fully absorb.

FRAMED", Columbia, 1947, 82 min. This the one in which a slightly scruffy Glen Ford (just after "'Gilda", which made him a highly bankable Star) plays a mining engineer down on his luck, drifts into town, gets busted for a brakeless truck driving accident for which he gets thirty days in the local hoosegow, but is bailed out by a mysterious blonde (Janis Carter) for no apparent reason other than that she seems to have eyes for him. If he knew what she really had in mind for him he would have taken the ten days, gladly! As the plot thickens the incredibly alluring Carter really racks poor lovesick Glen over the coals setting him up for an insurance scam where he will be "accidentally killed" in a car crash so she and her real boyfriend (Barry Sullivan) can collect on the policy and scram. Glen barely survives and Janis gets her just deserts but her performance is so subtly-shaded with both hidden menace and obvious allure, and she is just so all-around fantastic in "Framed", that I couldn't help thinking that, all kidding aside, this must have been the Best Performance by an Actress for all of 1947 - - the year that Loretta Young actually got it for "The Farmer's Daughter".

Viewed at the Barbican Yiddish Film Retrospective, London, October, 1996. DER PURIMSHPILER -- (THE PURIM-PLAY ACTOR) By Chaim Pevner: (later, Alex Deleon)

"Der Purimshpiler" (The Jester): Directed by Joseph Green and Jan Nowina-Przybilski, with camera work by Seweryn Steinwurzel. Poland, 1937. Green co-wrote the script with "Chaver-Paver", the pen name of a well-known left-wing New York journalist, which in English would come out something like "Comrade-Pomrade".

This film stars Zygmunt Turkow as Getsel, a roving jack-of-all-trades and sometime actor who is sort of a "shlimmazel" (luckless loser) but once played the Persian king Akhashuerus in a Purim play. The other major roles, Esther and Dick, are played by Meriam Kressyn and Hymie Jacobson who were a real life couple and become a couple in the film. Turkow was a leading figure on the Polish Yiddish film scene from the early twenties on as actor and publicist.

At the very beginning we see the feet of Getsel (Turkow) trudging through the Polish countryside with a knapsack over his shoulder. It's summer and Getsel comes upon an orchard where a pretty young woman (Kressyn) is up in a tree picking apples (the apples of temptation?). After a knowingly shy flirtation scene - the Yiddish version of Eve coming on with The Apple—he tramps into the village walking on air and finds work in the local cobbler's shop. The crabby boorish owner of this cobbling atelier is the father of the young woman in the tree. The good-natured Getsel quickly ingratiates himself with the other workers with his repertoire of skits and pranks and is well liked. He obviously has eyes for the daughter, Esther, who carries the name of the Jewish heroine of the well known Purim story—and the feeling is apparently mutual. Up to here the rustic lyrical atmosphere is comparable to Ulmer's lyrical "Green Fields", but now the direction changes sharply... A circus comes to town, and the entrance into the village of the circus is a major event. The star of the circus (Hymie Jacobson as "Dick") a fast talker who claims to come from "Macedonia", immediately takes a shine to Kressyn and she is equally enthralled by his glibness and fine garb. He invites her to see his act, which is basically a vaudeville type soft-shoe song and dance, and he quickly sets up a couple of late-night trysts with Esther.

The father is against this liaison with an itinerant actor and when she stays out all night on one occasion, he forbids her to see him again. The circus leaves town, but soon the boorish father comes into an unexpected inheritance. One of the best sequences in the film is a montage of town gossips commenting (like a Greek chorus) on the surprising good fortune of the not too highly regarded local clod. Suddenly rich he now wants to promote his social standing by marrying Esther off to the son of a wealthy family. A match is arranged at a lavish Purim party but the groom of the wealthy family is a driveling idiot. Esther's aversion is so great that she has to be physically dragged into the room to meet the doltish marriage prospect. Meanwhile Getsel has gathered a small group to perform a masked Purim play at the matchmaking festivities. The merry entrance of the Purim jesters turns into a derisive parody of the nouveau riche father trying to buy "ikhes" (social standing) - When the outraged father unmasks Getsel the latter proclaims that a cobbler is still a cobbler no matter how much money he has. The match falls through and Getsel is unceremoniously kicked out. Esther approaches him and says "take me away with you". Things now look good for Getsel but he is, after all, a loser.

On the road with Esther he can't find a job to support her and they have to live like vagabonds on the verge of starvation. One day they come upon a cabaret where -- guess who? ~~Dick, is the MC up on stage! Esther mounts the stage, gets into a vaudeville song and dance duet with Dick (almost a parody of an MGM number), and they end up dancing the night away while Getsel looks woefully on. For a while, at Dick's generous invitation, Getsel hangs around but soon, realizing that three's a crowd, he moves off humbly on his own. Esther marries Dick, becomes rather well off herself, and confronts her father as a now successful bride. In the last scene Getsel passes the orchard and gazes up at the tree where he first saw Esther, then shuffles off. The camera picks up the same shot of the striding feet that we saw at the start, now heading the other way.

What is odd about this film is that the climax, the Purim play, comes in the middle—and the rest is denouement, all about how the hapless hero, Getsel, unquestionably the good guy, the sympathetic central figure of the piece, who loses the girl to a basically shallow jerk with a smooth line. one who isn't even very good looking. Nicely shot by a professional Polish crew on Polish country locations (once again the old Jewish town of Kazimierz na Wisle), and well acted, it looks as if director Green who was still learning the trade (this was his second collaboration with the Polish professional Przybilski) was trying, in his second outing as a co-director, to break away from some of the more worn clichés of the Yiddish theater and stake out new territory more in the line of mainstream cinema. While "Purimspieler" may not be quite as satisfying dramatically as his other three films, it is, in a way, the most experimental piece in the Green cannon and Zygmunt Turkow's Getsel, even though he turns out to be a sad sack after his big Purim scene, is somehow a shlimazel you can't quite forget

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Action and suspense: A hapless New York advertising executive is mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies.

Asking which is the best Hitchcock is something like asking which is the best Beethoven symphony, but if pressed to the wall I would call NBNW Hitchcock's Ninth (and Psycho, his Fifth). The coolest of Grant and the hottest of Marie Saint is simply the coolest film ever made from every angle you can think of. Few people would contend that Cary Grant was not the coolest leading man of Hollywood's golden age but this pic is the peak of his coolness, along with that the coolest James Mason ever as the slickest polite villain of all time and the slinkiest Eva Marie Saint ever, all adds up to one of the slickest pieces of celluloid entertainment ever conceived. Most Hitchcock movies have one unforgettable white knuckle cliff hanger sequence but NBNW has two -- the chase out in the wheat fields by a poisonous crop duster biplane and the final chase across the faces of the four presidents at Mount Rushmore, which ends up literally ... as a cliffhanger. Even a third if you include the comical auction scene where Grant keeps making outrageous bids to attract the police and thus escape the clutches of the killers lurking in the room waiting to get him. So much has been written about this picture that there is no need to recount the plot other to say that it is a towering masterpiece of the romantic suspense drama genre with all players at the top of their game - and don't forget a young menacing Martin Landau as Mason's cold blooded sidekick, another great actor who just passed away on July 15, 2017 at age 89. NBNW is frequently rerun on TV so it's not hard to catch up with but it never gets old or fails to make you hold your breath even when you know what's coming next. An ultimate classic.

Intent to Destroy" ~~ The sickening truth of official Turkish falsehood. Documentary Filmmaker Joe Berlinger meets with historians and scholars to discuss the Armenian Genocide.

Viewed at the 14th Golden Apricot film festival in Yerevan. The 2017 Yerevan film festival closed appropriately with a brutally frank exposition of the outrageous ongoing Turkish denial of the mass massacre=>Genocide of Armenians in the Imperial Ottoman Turkey of 1915 - 1916. The name of the film is "Intent to Destroy" by New York Jewish filmmaker Joe Berlinger. Mr. Berlinger took the stage to introduce the film and described himself as "a nice Jewish boy from New York" who has always identified with the Armenians "because of our shared genocide experience".

The title of this detailed dissection of Turkish Genocide Denial is a direct reference to the wording of the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide that officially defined genocide as a government acting with specific "Intent To Destroy" a people or race -- as was the deliberate premeditated policy of the Ottoman Turkish government in 1915 to ethnically cleanse Turkey of all its original Armenian inhabitants -- a people who were there from time immemorial, thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Seljuk Turks from central Asia.

This Denial documentary is embedded in a most intricate manner into a recent fiction film about the Genocide, 'The Promise" which was made in Spain in 2016, starring Hollywood actor Christian Bale of Batman fame and helmed by hard-hitting Irish director Terry George. Mr. Berliner's purpose, to pit the fictionalized account of the genocide itself against the grotesque International Turkish campaign to "enforce" denial of same -- like "No, this was not a Turkish government policy -- just some collateral damage in which many Muslims were also killed" ~~ Yeah, Yeah!

To press home his point Berlinger includes testimony by numerous academic historians, many Armenian Professors at American Universities, and there is a most compelling sequence featuring Canadian Armenian film director Atom Egoyan, which is one of the pinnacles of the picture and more or less sums up the issues in a small number of eloquently emotional minutes. What makes the denial position even more stomach turning is the seemingly sincere testimony of a number of dedicated deniers, one an American Academician, Justin McCarthy. About the deniers says Berlinger: "I accept them at face value letting them voice their opinions. I think they have also been victims of the Turkish propaganda campaign for the last century. A lot of people don't believe it's Genocide (as officially defined by the U.N.) -- the denial campaign has been so effective in sowing doubt and delivering their narrative that these were just casualties of war.. ".

Berlinger's tremendous opus, with copious historical documentation of the final days of the Ottoman Empire, leaves no doubt as to the sickening truth of official Turkish falsehood and will probably bring on a new wave of denial double-talk from Constantinople and efforts to have it suppressed through political pressure. Most sickening of all is the fact that the US Government, to this day, in order to protect its military interests in ever more and more autocratic Turkey under neo-Sultan Erdogan, continues to yield to Turkish political pressure by studiously avoiding the "G" word in reference to the uprooting of The Armenians from Turkish soil. Disgaceful Hypocisy at the highest levels. Other democratic governments like France and Germany have officially passed legislation naming the murderous dispersal of the Armenians from their homeland "with intent to Destroy" as Genocide much to the consternation of the present Ankara Regime

Viewed at the Golden Apricot Film Festival, Yerevan, 2017. The peak film of the Yerevan week was without a doubt "Le Cercle Rouge", the 1970 all star gangland thriller by master of the genre, Jean-Pierre Melville. Not as well known as his younger Nouvelle Vague disciples, Truffaut and Godard, but a much better filmmaker, Melville specialized in deliberately paced psychological thrillers in which top French stars delivered some of their best performances. At the very beginning we are informed that the cryptic title, The Red Circle, comes from a fatalistic Buddhist capsule of wisdom which states that no matter what their divergent paths may be all men end up in the same Red Circle. The three men with the divergent paths here are (1) Corey, a cool gangster just released from prison and hoping to go straight (Alain Delon), (2j Vogel, a desperado killer on the lam, (Italian star Gian Maria Volonte) and (3) Jansen, a retired expert police marksman with a drinking problem and questionable morals (Yves Montand). They come together by fate to successfully pull off a tremendous midnight jewelry heist on Ritzy Place Vendôme in central Paris but will all end up in the fatal Red Circle due to a complex network of interlocking intrigues and betrayals. Bravado, integrity, and betrayal are recurrent themes in Melville films. Pulling them in to the fatal circle is another iconic French actor, Bourvil, as the wily cat loving detective relentlessly tracking the escaped Vogel all across France from Marseille to Paris, there callously exploiting his major informant contacts. (François Périer, another major French character actor). The long heist scene filmed in complete silence is spellbinding and a tribute of sorts to a similar scene in the Jules Dassin technically perfect crime thriller "Rififi" of 1955. Together with "Le Samouaï", another Melville masterpiece also starring Delon, Red Circle is an enduring twin peaks of French thriller cinema. Breathless entertainment all the way, and the work of a master craftsman at the top of his game. Cercle Rouge was part of a five film tribute to Maître Melville in the Armenian capital on the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Viewed at San Sebastian, September, 2004. Drama: In Patagonia, a mechanic who dreams of a different life starts to think big after his adopted pup wins first prize at a local dog show.

Today's competition program opened with "BOMBON, The Dog", (Bombón, el Perro) an Argentine film by Carlos Sorín who won a jury prize here two years ago with "Minimal Stories". This director works characteristically with non-professional actors who appear in his films under their real names. "Bom-Bon" is the name of a docile white mastiff who shares the lead with a gentle man from Patagonia by the name of Juan Villegas. Juan, after losing his job in a remote desert gas station, held for twenty years, acquires this unusual dog (a white mastiff called "dogo", native to Argentina) whereupon he decides to become a dog raiser and "expositor" – he will prepare his canine protégé for dog shows, but, at the moment his only rep is his close friend Bombón the "dogo". This rare breed is highly sought after for stud services in the outlying southern provinces of the country. One problem: Bombon is a virgin and doesn't know what to do when enclosed with a female in heat.

Following a most amusing insemination fiasco, he finally escapes from his kennel and learns the fine art of stud service on his own with a lovely black bitch in a brickyard. This is a gentle, beautiful film, set in a region of Argentina similar to the more arid parts of the American Southwest, and is a welcome change from the violence misery and cruelty that has contaminated all other Latino entries I have seen so far. "Bombon" will undoubtedly score big on the festival circuit and will, hopefully, find commercial outlets as well.

A chilling vision of the House of Saddam Hussein comes to life through the eyes of the man who was forced to impersonate his equally evil son.

An eyeopener at Berlin, 2011, in the Panorama section, was "The Devil's Double" by New Zealand director Lee Tamahori. The setting is Baghdad at the beginning of the nineties and the devil in question is Uday Hussein, murderously depraved and psychotic son of dictator Saddam Hussein. Since he is universally hated and in constant fear of assassination he needs to have a double to stand in for him in public. The perfect look-alike double turns out to be Latif, a Kurd who is pressed into life of dangerous luxury with full access to Uday's harem -- but only when his family is threatened. English actor Dominic Cooper (32) plays both roles in perfect counterpoint and is likely to go big-time after thus, if the film is not shunned for its extremely dim view of an Islamic society and implicit approval of Bush's Gulf War against which he film is set.

Geographically the location of the shoot was the Mediterraneum Isle of Malta the only country in Europe where a variety of Arabic is the official language. Fifty two year old Australian actor Philip Quast delivers a nearly credible Saddam Hussein when called upon and bosomy French actress Ludivine Sagnier provides the love interest, what there is of it.