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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 4. 1965.

Views And Reviews

page 8

Views And Reviews

Blake Edwards entered films in 1942 as a bit-player in minor westerns but it was not until 1955, after seven years scriptwriting, that he directed his first film. Titles such as "Operation Petticoat" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" are familiar enough but I remember with particular affection his "Experiment In Terror" which was screened in Wellington in 1963.

The story centres around a threatened bank clerk (Lee Remick) and her FBI protector (Glenn Ford). Edwards combines admirably the elements of the conventional thriller with a semi-documentary peep at the workings of the FBI. Throughout the film there is a slow, confident build up of tension, culminating in a magnificent showdown in a large baseball stadium. Direction, script and playing made this unusual thriller considerably better than many of Hitchcock's that I had seen.

Now Blake Edwards has scripted and directed The Pink Panther, the epitome of casual elegance and quite the most genial comedy I have seen for some time. In the hands of a lesser comedian the role of a man who trips over every conceivable object in sight and who suffers from various species of accident-proneness would probably have turned out a crashing bore but Peter Sellers's impeccably timed performance makes the joke seem fresh every time it is repeated. Capucine is a perfect foil and the other players, as to be expected, are at their professional best. Edwards's direction is assured and, except for such episodes as the over-long drunk scene, he keeps things bubbling at a merry pace. Particularly good are the frantic car chase and the repeated goon-like references to "It must be hot in there."

The credits are simply the best I have ever seen. I recommend this film wholeheartedly since it provides a rare opportunity to see screen comedy at its most sophisticated.

The Wellington Film Society is this month screening Citizen Kane. When the brash, youthful Orson Welles scared America out of its wits with his famous "war of the Worlds" broadcast in 1939 the resulting furore led to a carte blanche contract at Hollywood. It was indeed fortunate acquisition, for after a brief period in the studio learning the rudiments of film-making this 24-year-old dynamo came up with one of the most intelligent and exciting films the cinema has yet produced. In collaboration with his photographer, the late, great Gregg Toland, he succeeded in creating a film which, in the words of the English critic C.A. Lejeune, "is like no other film you have ever seen." At the time it was reputed that Welles had based the Kane character on none other than Randolph Hearst, the Press-baron, but despite considerable pressure from that worthy gentleman and his cohorts (including the all-powerful Louella Parsons "Kane" was finally screened to a bewildered public on May 1, 1941. The New York Critics Circle and the National Board of Review both praised it as Best Film Of The Year but the Academy took a dim view and saw fit to honour it with the Best Original Screenplay award.

Since those years "Kane" has grown in critical stature. In a recent Film magazine poll of The Ten Best Films Of All Time it proved a clear winner, followed by Antonioni's L'Avventura. Many critics consider that Welles's second film, The Magnificent Ambersons, is his finest achievement. Unfortunately this is yet another classic that has been denied the New Zealand film enthusiast. The University Film Society provided an invaluable service to students when it imported "Citizen Kane" in 1963. For those wishing to see one of the cinema's great masterpieces I would recommend they join the Wellington Film Society this month.

Meanwhile the ubiquitous Orson trundles on. Since "Ambersons" he has given us seven complete films: The Lady From Shanghai, The Stranger, Macbeth, Othello, Confidential Report, Touch of Evil and The Trial. The last four of these have divided the critics both in Britain and the USA. Some have detected signs of Welles's decline, others have labelled them as "scandalously bad," while yet others have hailed each new production as further proof of his genius. It is doubtless true that in the last 10 years Welles has not found a subject equal to his talent but I would suggest, merely on the evidence of a recent University screening of Touch Of Evil, that, even in this age of Antonionis. Truffauts and Kubricks, there are few who could surpass his stunningly imaginative visual style. Perhaps his version of Kafka's The Trial, which is yet to be screened here, will clarify his position in contemporary cinema. But even if Orson Welles never again stands behind a camera, Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons have secured his place in film history.

On April 29 the University Film Society is screening The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, one of the greatest classics of the silent cinema. In this film, which was made in 1928, the Danish director Carl Dreyer created an emotional interpretation of the trial of Joan of Arc. He shot the film almost entirely in close-ups—close-ups of the Judges, one by one as they interrogated, intercut with the face of Joan. He placed this against an almost dead-white background which only just suggests the atmosphere of, sometimes a prison, sometimes a church, sometimes a courtroom. Joan's ordeal is depicted in a flood of starkly composed images in which cinematic content has been pared to the bone. I think that Dreyer carried this process to excess since one feels like catching each beautiful image in mid-flight, snipping it out and framing it for purposes of future admiration. Thus the rhythm of the film is easily disrupted. Marie Fulconetti's harrowing performance carries with it tremendous impact and the overall mood is so intense that the spectator is swept into the struggle of the trial and the agony of the execution.

This film is a must for anyone who is interested in the medium and its history.Rex Benson.