Film Notes

By Nevil Gibson

During the next fortnight the Film Society will be presenting four programmes covering a variety of film genre. Comedy is provided in an early (1960) Phillippe de Broca film, The Joker (Le Farceur) featuring Jean-Pierre Cassel and Anouk Aimee (June 19). Since The Joker, de Broca has gone on to make a couple of above average comedy-adventures with Jean-Paul Belmondo |("That Man From Rio" and "Chinese Adventures in China"). The script is by Daniel Boulanger, who has also written de Broca's later films.

For those who appreciate vampire films Blood And Roses (June 21) is excellent fare. Directed by Roger Vadim (probably best known for marrying his leading actresses) and photographed in colour and CinemaScope by Claude Renoir, Blood And Roses stars Annette Stroyberg, Elsa Martinelli and Mel Ferrer.

In recent years Czezchoslovakia has been producing a number of films which feature strongly at international festivals, and in many cases walk away with most of the prizes. Two such films are Pavel Juracek and Jan Schmidt's Joseph Kilian and Jan Nemec's Diamonds Of The Night (June 26). Joseph Kilian is a Kafkaresque criticism of contemporary Czech life, which explores a young man's attempt to return a cat he has borrowed, with strange consequences. Diamonds Of The Night is a nightmarish study of two young Jews who escape from a train taking them to a concentration camp and their inevitable fate. Nemec's film contains some of the most advanced technique seen in a first feature Both films are about an hour long.

John Frankenheimer, since The Young Savages, has established himself at the fore of serious American filmmaking. Currently screening in Auckland and Christchurch is his cinerama epic Grand Prix and exploits the large screen better than any of its predecessors. Made before Grand Prix, Seconds has yet to be shown in Wellington and has been praised as Frankenheimer's best film. The Manchurian Candidate (June 28) is a political thriller based on an attempt to assassinate the President of the USA. It was showing on first release just before Kennedy's assassination in , November, 1963, and was temporarily withdrawn from circulation. Since then it has been viewed only sporadically, perhaps because of the terse black comedy style scenario by George Axelrod, which strikes at some vulnerable nerves in the American political system. The leading roles are played by Frank Sinatra and Vivian Leigh.