Tag Archives: remakes

Thinking Aloud About Film: Maskerade (Willi Forst, 1934)

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The MASKS AND MUSIC: THE FILMS OF WILLI FORST strand of last year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato, curated by Lukas Foerster, was so popular that I was unable to see any of them. Richard is more organised and came out raving about two: MASQUERADE/ MASKERADE (1934) and TOMFOOLERY/ ALLOTRIA, (1936). Luckily for us The Internet Archive has a very good copy of Maskerade which enabled us to see it (or in Richard’s case, to see it again). In the podcast below we talk about the film in relation to the Wiener Genre, Authorship, Anton Walbrook’s career (he is here billed as Adolf Walbrook), the difficulties of dealing with works from authoritarian regimes, how it was the most popular film of its year in the German-speaking world. More specifically we discuss the rhythms of the opening scene, Anton Walbrook’s introduction, the narrative invention of the narration of the publication of the muff drawing, the mise-en-scéne, the influence of vaudeville and the film’s intent on pleasing. We relate the film to Lubitsch’s work and comment on how a particular shot of a camera seeming to float through a window  might have influenced Minnelli (in Meet Me in St. Louis) and, according to Mark Fuller, Powell & Pressburger (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp). All this and much more may be listened to in the podcast below:

The podcast may be listened to below:

he podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

 

The Film may be seen through the Internet Archive here:

https://archive.org/details/maskerade-1934

Richard recommends the following SENSES OF CINEMA article on Willi Forst https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/forst/

 

The book we mention on Anton Walbrook is:

Maskerade won the award for best screenplay at the Venice Film Festival and was remade as a vehicle for William Powell and Louise Rainer in Hollywood as ESCAPADE (Robert Z. Leonard, 1935)

José Arroyo

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 164 – The Lion King

Mike has seen 2019’s remake of The Lion King, and it sends him into a state of deep woe. José hasn’t, and is glad Mike took the bullet for him.

The podcast can be listened to in the players above or on iTunes.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Ten Films in Ten Days – I Soliti Ignoti

i soliti .jpg

I solito Ignoti/ Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1958)

I love caper films; European (Rififi, Bob le flambeur, Topkapi) and Hollywood (The Ocean’s, The Thomas Crown Affair (both versions). And I love post-war Italian cinema more than any national cinema of that period: Francesco Golisano struggling to find a place in the sun beam to get warm in Miracle in Milan; the exhausted look on Mastrioanni’s face from having to keep Sofia Loren pregnant in order to keep her out of jail in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow; Rocco and His Brothers, which feels as much the story of my family as that of post-war Italy; the fresh faces of dashed hopes in Olmi’s young men in Il Posto and Il fidanzati; Fellini, Antonioni, Rosi, the Taviani Bros…one could go on forever. So combining those elements today I chose Mario Monicelli’s I Soliti Ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street with a big name cast (Vittorio Gassman, Mastrioanni, Renato Salvatore, Toto) playing small time crooks. Unlike most caper films, this is about the various bunglings of the robbery: at the end, all the crooks manage to get away with is pasta and chickpeas. It’s got great slapstick moments, great warmth towards its characters, and a va bene, fa niente, a cool resigned shrug at the worst that life offers, that I find particularly endearing. There are many wonderful moments but one I particularly treasure is when Mastrionni, completely in love with his baby, and raising him alone whilst his wife is in jail, is told he should put his baby in the marvellous daycare jail offers and says, ‘no, no, no my baby will only go to jail when he’s grown up…and then only if he wants to’. It’s the first movie I heard the if you don’t do this ‘you’ll sleep with the fishes’ expression. The ending, where Gassman and Carlo Pisacane hide amongst a crowd to escape the police, and it turns into a work queue where the former is rumbled into factory work whilst the other yells his horror at what’s happening, is superb. There’s a very mediocre remake with George Clooney called Welcome to Collingwood.

 

José Arroyo