October, 2024 - The Rare Review

Such actors as Lou de Laage and Melvil Poupaud are so strong and convincing they deserve a more successful artwork to be in than Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance (Stroke of Luck, 2023). The criticisms of Armond White about the film are spot-on: “Allen still excuses infidelity as no big deal,” the infidelity being that of de Laage’s Fanny. And he knows how woefully bad Allen’s plot is.

I, furthermore, wish to add that the film is philosophically fatuous (and boring). After all these years, Allen should be a somewhat better writer than he is. Blue Jasmine should have inspired him into deeper study and effort. But no. The French-made Coup de Chance is the one of the weakest French-made movies I have seen.

(In French with English subtitles)

Siren of the Tropics (1927) is an interesting but rather silly silent film, from France, which is the first full-length picture to star an African American performer: the dancer Josephine Baker.

Baker’s dancing is admirably confident, her body strong and agile, in what is strictly a vehicle for her. Like the Baker talkie Princess Tam Tam, Siren depends too much on a black woman’s persistent love for a white man (Pierre Batcheff), a man she’ll never win. This is in spite of her sexiness. In this somewhat uncensored item, Baker bares her comely breasts, but this is in keeping with the lowbred island character she is playing. Not that this lowbred “siren of the tropics” is unlikable, though; she isn’t. She’s a gem, and the whole picture.

Movies, books, music and TV

Month: October 2024

Giving “Coup de Chance” A Chance

The Siren’s A Dancer: “Siren of the Tropics”