MORE RICK’S FLICKS’ FAVORITES AND/OR RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THIS TIME OF CRISIS
JEZEBEL 1938 Bette Davis redeems herself in 19th century New Orleans by caring for her betrayed lover, quarantined in a yellow fever epidemic. This role brought the great Davis her second Academy Award. It was the first of three pairings with director William Wyler, each of which would bring Academy Award nominations. Davis in Jezebel is faced with the expressionless George Brent (see below, the 1934 Painted Veil) but has good support from Henry Fonda and Fay Bainter, also awarded an Oscar for her performance.
The Painted Veil 2006 Directed by John Curran
Again: salvation through epidemic; reconciliation and
Garbo in The Painted Veil
atonement through disease and suffering. The marriage of Walter and Kitty Fane (Edward Norton and Naomi Watts) is on the rocks because of her unfaithfulness and his inability to forgive it. He is a colonial British doctor in a remote rural area of China, and she stays with him as he struggles with a cholera epidemic. Gorgeously photographed by Stuart Dryburgh — and it’s really all too pretty for the ugly story. Fine acting. Also stars Liev Schreiber.
The Painted Veil 1934 Directed by Richard Boleslawski
In appropriately somber black and white, this earlier version of the Somerset Maugham novel is in some ways less sophisticated; but, as always, Garbo elevates the material and the vehicle — and she really has to with wooden George Brent supporting her.
A third version The Seventh Sin (unseen by Rick’s Flicks) was made in 1957, directed by Ronald Neame and starred Eleanor Parker.
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MOVIES ARE EVERYWHERE
. . .including great mystery novels by Lawrence Block.
Block’s private eye Matthew Scudder is in a Manhattan bar:
L. A. (Language Alert) “There was a movie playing on one of the cable stations,a colorized version of an old Warner Bros. gangster movie. Edward G. Robinson was in it, half a dozen others I recognized but couldn’t name. Five minutes into the movie the bartender went over to the set and turned down the color-level knob, and the film was magically restored to its original black-and-white.
‘Some things should be – – – – ing left alone,’ he said.”
NEXT FRIDAY POST April 24
Until then,
Stay home and watch a movie,
Rick
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