Word: film
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Dates: during 1970-1970
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Since the same treatment was accorded my friend Candice Bergen on another film, I suggest it might be beneficial for actresses in the future to contractually insure themselves against this kind of misguided thinking...
...carefully and lovingly reconstructs the turn-of-the-century South, and his reconstruction-perhaps a shade too soft of focus and rich of pastel-remains affectionate and without condescension throughout. The performers are uniformly excellent, with a special nod to young Mr. Vogel and Will Geer, who at film's end delivers a cautionary lesson to a stolid, recalcitrant Lucius in his best grandfatherly tones: "A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences, even when he didn't instigate them himself, didn't say no though he knew he should...
...apocalyptic flames, the title roars with a force that threatens the entire population of the first twelve rows of the orchestra. The Damned, it proclaims, shimmering with the intensity of white heat. A gratuitous parenthesis adds (Götterdammerung). It is too much. Like the rest of the film, it overpowers and finally overwhelms with its own unabashed sensationalism...
...seeds of evil planted at this banquet eventually take root during the film's two-hour 20-minute running time to produce what Visconti obviously hoped would be an allegory of prewar German history. Although the Von Essenbecks appear to have been modeled rather closely on the Krupps, The Damned is about as potent a parable of Germany as Wagner's Ring cycle, which it outdoes in zestful vulgarity. The actors all perform with an unbridled bravado, the cinematography is properly bilious, and there are enough sex scenes-a good many of them homosexual-to get the movie...
...return of his 1928 film, The Circus, may correct the imbalance. Refurbished with a new score and an opening song croaked personally by the 80-year-old director/ composer/ producer/star, the film is incontrovertible proof of Chaplin's protean ability to eliminate absolutely everything outside the confines of the screen. Armed with nothing but cane and bowler, the tramp sets out like Quixote with lance and armor. His enemy is the cruel owner of the big top; his love, the villain's misused stepdaughter (Merna Kennedy...