The Rare Review - Movies, books, music and TV

Cynical But . . . “Diary of a Mad Housewife”

On August 26, 2024

Carrie Snodgrass is properly restrained as the repressed and anguished Tina Balser in Frank Perry‘s Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), adapted from a novel by Sue Kaufman. Richard Benjamin is exactly right as her nagging, self-serving husband and Frank Langella does a “natural” job as the arrogant writer Tina accepts as a lover. The movie deplores the depersonalizing of women by men and is rather cynical about the shallowness of human beings.

Diary is a bit too brazen, a bit daring in a bad way. The sins of the men are laid on thick, and people’s insipidness never ends. Though Snodgrass is interesting and has a fine voice, she doesn’t look good in the nude. None of this wrecks the movie, though, notwithstanding I liked Perry’s Doc and probably Last Summer (I need to see it again) better.

“Easy Living” Is Another Great Comedy Of The Thirties

By EarlD

On August 19, 2024

In General, Movies

Cover of Easy Living (Universal Cinema Classics)

He had a literary source, but Preston Sturges wrote the screenplay for the 1937 film Easy Living (directed by Mitchell Leison), and one is pleased to note that as farce it is pure Sturges. Sure, it’s devoid of the idiosyncrasy of The Palm Beach Story but is no less winsome than The Lady Eve as it tells of a woman, Mary Smith, mistaken for the mistress of a rich, married financier. Business operatives are corrupt enough to lavish gifts on Mary in the hope that the financier will show them his good will. He, however, is faithful to his wife, and in point of fact Mary meets and falls for the rich man’s independent-minded son.

The lines in the film offer no belly laughs but, in my view, the slapstick does. The American Depression (never mentioned) contrasted with American wealth paves the way for such footage as the chaos-at-the-automat sequence. With genteel ability, Jean Arthur (as Mary) supplies most of the pic’s charms. Edward Arnold, I’m afraid, supplies the histrionics. Leison deserves praise for his directing, but it is Sturges’s film.

Sad Fact: “First Love” (“Primo amore”)

By EarlD

On August 16, 2024

In Movies

To my mind, Italy’s First Love (1978), early on, threatens to be charmless and distasteful, and here and there it is. Charm does arrive, though, as do some laughs; but Dino Risi‘s film is not what it ought to be. It concerns a vaudevillian, Ugo, who stays for a while in a rest home for old artists and becomes amorously involved with Renata, the maid there. The theme is the sad fact of aging.

First Love fails because the character of Renata is thoroughly subverted. Risi and co-writer Ruggero Maccari have no idea what they’re doing with her. The woman who plays her, Ornella Muti, is the most gladdening thing about the film. She is likable and gorgeous, but can’t make much headway with this role. A close second among the movie’s assets is the unbeatable performance of Ugo Tognazzi as Ugo. But I strongly doubt that Primo amore occupies primo place among Risi’s films. It is not as good as The Easy Life. In fact, without Muti it would be strikingly drab.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

Teens, Born-Again And Otherwise, In “Spring Breakdown”

By EarlD

On August 13, 2024

In General

Spring Breakdown (2010), by Melody Carlson, is one of the short books in a series, for young adults, about six teenaged girls. As a brief summary inside the book puts it: “The wealthy fashion students in Mrs. Carter’s boardinghouse spend a quiet spring break in Florida until . . .” Well, until spring breakdown hits. Fun time is over.

The girls are typical teenagers except that two or three of them are Christians, among them DJ and Taylor. Like the unsaved girls (and lover-boys), these two have their faults, albeit for Taylor one of them isn’t boozing now that she is a spiritually delivered ex-alcoholic. THIS isn’t ordinary, but all kinds of ordinary incidents roll into this little bailiwick. The only bailiwick the girls know, it is a mixed bag of the mundane and the fleshly. There is a Rockabilly dance. DJ and Taylor do some harmless skinny dipping at night. Two other girls, Eliza and Casey, get drunk after a bumpy photo shoot. There are, however, some spiritual and emotional challenges for DJ (the main character) pushing to the side all the kids-will-be-kids occurrences.

Carlson’s prose is imperfect—for one thing, she keeps misusing “hopefully”—but her narrative is entertaining and her dialogue is serviceable. It’s a Christian book, but not a preachy one. And it’s meant to appeal to a broad audience. I would rather see devout teens reading Spring Breakdown than buying a fundamentally insignificant Adele or Beyoncé CD.

Petit Queen: “A Queen for Caesar”

By EarlD

On August 9, 2024

In Movies

A Queen for Caesar (1962) is one of those badly dubbed ancient-history Italian movies. There is not much to say about it except that it’s about Cleopatra and is fun and sexy. And this: in my view, Pascale Petit—initially a hairdresser discovered for the movies—enacts Cleo better than Elizabeth Taylor does in Cleopatra and is even slightly more beautiful than Taylor. She appears in nearly every scene (good), whereas Gordon Scott, who is atrocious as Julius Caesar, appears in only a few scenes (also good). Akim Tamiroff, however, is effective as Pompey. (Available on Tubi.)