FOUR FILMS FOR THE MAITISONG FESTIVAL

“Wonderful Afro-Cuban Jazz”
“Chico and Rita” (2010) is showing on 17 April 2012 at the Gaborone Film Society at 7 pm in the A/V Centre at Maru a Pula School as part of the Maitisong Festival.
Here is an unusual and stimulating animated feature focusing on Afro-Cuban Jazz between 1948 and now. It is an exciting film for both the music and the images, but the plot and dialogue are both clichéd and trite. It is being shown as part of the Maitisong Festival. If you don’t like reading subtitles and don’t understand Spanish, well just close your eyes and listen to the music. Chico and Rita is billed as a Spanish-UK co-production. Yet it was made at an institution in Cuba, Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión at San Antonio de los Baños.
Most of the scenes take place in Cuba, as old Havana is one of the stars of this movie. Chico and Rita begins in Havana and introduces us to Chico (the voice of Eman Xor Oña and with Bebo Valdés playing the piano) and Ramón (voice of Mario Guerra) his agent. Chico is young, handsome, and already an accomplished Jazz pianist and ladies man. Ramón, his close friend, owns a motorcycle with a sidecar. The two love to prowl, particularly at night, when they can pick up Gringo girls with money who will pay for them to enter clubs and buy them drinks. On one outing they hear Rita sing (talking voice by Limara Meneses and singing voice by Idania Valdes). Chico has lost his heart, forever—but that doesn’t keep him from being with other women.
Rita likes Chico, but she doesn’t want to share him with anyone else. This is the traditional recipe for disaster, for their lives will be filled with woe as they bounce on and off each other and around the world together and apart. The film leaps and jumps so much that the fact that they spent ten years performing together is not made clear. Separated, Rita acquires a new partner and agent, who takes her off first to New York and then they hit Europe and other cities in North America. Rita becomes a real star, even making it into movies. The artists who made this film have captured Havana, New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas very well.
The film is blessed by original music by Bebo Valdés, a great Cuban pianist, composer and band leader, supplemented by the music of Teddy Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Cole Porter and many other Jazz greats. One example is a duet with Estrella Morente playing herself and Freddie Cole. They meet a lot of people in their first rounds in New York City; even get to work with some of them over the years—I am reminded of Hugh Masekela’s tale of his first 24 hours in Manhattan and all the Jazz greats he meets. In one long sequence in New York they are picked up by Chano Pozo. Pozo was the first Cuban percussionist to play in a Jazz band in New York. A lot of the original Afro-Cuban musicians who are still alive have participated in this film.
The animation also works. It has a feel to it that may win you over. It is in broad strokes like old style hand painted cartoons and movies. The artists at Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión at San Antonio de los Baños should be congratulated. Songs include Besame Mucho, Beboi’s Blues (Played by the Chico & Rita Madrid Band), Con Poco Coco, Persecusion (Chic & Rita New York Band), Sabor a mi (Chico & Rita Madrid Band), and A Mayra a Sad Walk (Chic & Rita New York Band),
Early on Chico writes a song dedicated to Rita. When he plays and she sings it in a radio music competition she is elated. But when she has to fight Chico’s previous mistress for him, she gives up. This is not a political film and the background of Batista, the revolution, the arrival of Fidel Castro, and the changes that take place in Cuba are only painted in briskly. When Chico is betrayed in New York and deported back to Cuba, the only work he can get is as a shoeshine man. He has his memories to keep him alive. Both he and Rita end up caught up in clichéd romantic fallacies. No mater what they have their music and their reminiscences.
Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal met first twelve years ago and the ideas that became Chico and Rita were planted. The result is an entertaining animated film on Latin culture and Afro-Cuban Jazz. As Charlie Parker said, “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn”.
Chico and Rita is one hour and 30 minutes long. It is rated 15+ because of painted love scenes. It is in Spanish with English subtitles. The director is Oscar-winning Spaniard Fernando Trueba, who won a statue for Belle Epoque (1992—see Mmegi 4 September 2007). The script is by Fernando Trueba with Ignacio Martinez de Pison. The editor is Arnau Quiles. The main animator is Tono Errando. The visual effects are by José María Aragonés and his team. The DVD was released on May 9, 2011. Chico and Rita opened in theatres in North America on 12 February 2012. The initial premier in 2010 was at the Latin American Film Festival in London. It was also shown to exclaim at the Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals.
From Mmegi ShowBiz Review Tuesday 17th April 2012 — Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

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For Mmegi ShowBiz Review Tuesday 24th April 2012 — Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

“You have a tear in your voice”

“The Jazz Singer” (1927) is showing on 24 April 2012 at the Gaborone Film Society at 7 pm in the A/V Centre at Maru a Pula School as part of this year’s Maitisong Festival. Jazz Singer won Warner Brothers an Oscar for “the pioneering outstanding talking picture”. It wasn’t really. The Vitaphone-Sound-on-Disc lost out when ways to put the sound on to the film were invented.

The Jazz Singer has gone down in history as the first full-length feature film to incorporate sound. In this original restored version of this classical musical film the original Vitaphone-Sound-on-Disc recording is used. Until this moment 85 years ago movies were silent with large titles in boxes on the screen to show dialogue. In this original The Jazz Singer the music and singing has been captured, but the dialogue, except for a few minutes in one critical section, is still in the old silent film manner. This film is the beginning of how the movies learned to talk. It was not an easy or sudden change over.

The Jazz Singer was originally a play on “the spoken stage” where it could be broadcast on radio, but recording sound on film had not yet taken off. The play and film are both grounded in the prejudices of the 1920s. There were no African-American actors involved (Paul Robeson didn’t break into Broadway theatre until 1943 playing Othello with an all white cast). Minstrel shows were popular, but they starred white actors in black face. The Jazz Singer skirts around two other forms of prejudice—between Jews and Gentiles.

The film begins with a four minute Overture by the Vitaphone Orchestra. In New York City in the Lower East Side Cantor Rabinowitz (acted by Warner Oland) expects his son Jakie to become the fifth in a long line of religious singers in Synagogues. But young Jakie has other interests. He has already fallen in love with Jazz and has begun singing in Goyem restaurants, with all-white bands.

He has learned to sing as a cantor-in-training, but his heart is in Jazz. His mother Sara Rabinowitz  (Eugenie Besserer) recognizes this, but his father sees it as an evil betrayal of their lives and historic roots. To sing Jazz is a sacrilege. The generational conflict between immigrants born in Europe and their sons born in America is captured in this film in the tensions between Jakie and his father. For his old school father, Cantor Rabinowitz discipline comes through the belt. Young Jakie Rabinowitz (played as a youth by Bobby Gordon) threatens, “Whip me again and I’ll run away and never come back”. The beatings and threats were part of the social realities in those days—fathers depended on them to control their sons. .

A dozen years later Jack Robin—known before as Jakie Rabinowitz (played by Al Jolson) is the Jazz Singer at Coffee Dans in California. The first song he sings as part of the floorshow is “Dirty Hands, Dirty Face”. Soon we will be entertained to “Mother I still Have You” and “My Mammy”. When finally Jack Robin makes it into the big time in New York City as the feature of a Broadway show, he sings, now in blackface, “Blue Skies” and “Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo Bye)”.  “Blue Skies” remains today the most popular of these old songs.

In California Jack Robin falls in love with Mary Dale (May McAvoy). She reciprocates, but her career as a lead chorus girl comes first. They are able to leave California and tour and perform together, but in Chicago she wins a New York stage début and they separate. Her loyalty to Jack Robin survives, and when a new show is set to open on Broadway that requires a Jazz Singer, she recommends him. In a nice mixed up surprise scene in Chicago he gets on the train east while the rest of his crew goes west.

The Jazz Singer was inspired by Samson Raphaelson seeing Al Jolson perform in musical the Robinson Crusoe Junior in 1917. In 1922 Raphaelson wrote a short story The Day of Atonement based on Al Jolson’s life. But when it was finally to be made in to a movie in 1926 the studio tried a number of other actors. Only when they bombed out did Warner Brothers seek Al Jolson to star in the movie about his life! He was born Asa Yoelson in 1886 and died in 1950 at 64. He became famous in New York and across the States for his electric performances and commanding presence. He had the ultimate in performer’s charisma. His famous line was “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet”. As Eddie Cantor said about him, “He was more than just a singer or an actor. He was an experience”. A good singer can sing anything. I think of Ray Charles, the greatest singer of Jazz who could sing everything.

The Jazz Singer is 89 minutes long. It is rated U. The director is Director Alan Crossland. The script is by Alfred A Cohen.  The cinematographer Hal Mohr. The editor is Harold McCord. The music director is Louis Silvers.

            sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk 

For Mmegi ShowBiz Review Tuesday 1^st May 2012 — Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

“Do you like what you see?”

“The Skin I live In” (2011) a.k.a La Piel Que Habito is showing on 1^st of May 2012 at the Gaborone Film Society at 7 pm in the A/V Centre at Maru a Pula School. It is one of the better films of 2011, but perhaps also one of the most outlandish, because it tries to go over the edge and be shocking. It has been nominated in various award ceremonies as the Best Foreign Language Film. The great Spanish writer and director Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film both bewitches and tricks you. It is based on Thierry Jonquet’s novella “Tarantula”. The spiders are within us. It is the wolf spider of southern Europe (not the hairy spider of South America) who for centuries was thought to cause people to dance or tarantism.

Three of lmodóvar’s older films were viewed in Gaborone in January last year, Pepi Luci Bom, What have I done to deserve this? and Dark Habits (Mmegi, 11, 18 and 25, 2011) and all three reveal Almodóvar’s love of shocking and transfixing viewers.

In his 18^th film Almodóvar follows a formulae that those who know his films will be familiar with. Women are able to act and in doing so kill men (and other women) and get away with it. Men may be accomplished, but they are also a bit loony. Genders are ambiguous and crossing may occur. Family members exist, yet significant actors have no knowledge of them—but will soon discover them. Rooms are important, even dominant—also mirrors. Walls are covered with works of art. People are seldom what they seem at first introduction. One word common for Almodóvar’s films is “labyrinthine”. Often the films begin in the preset, and then go back into the past, before returning to the present and the final series of denouements and shocking conclusions.

In The Skin I live In Doctor Robert Ledgard (played severely and sanely by Antonio Banderas) is a successful plastic surgeon who maintains a complicated household outside of Toledo, Spain. In his mansion he has space for both a private research laboratory where he struggles to perfect the perfect artificial skin and an operating theatre that would rival the best in a modern hospital. His living quarters are lush, well appointed and extravagantly decorated. Upstairs is hidden a prison with one lone prisoner. The upright doctor who appears to be so sane and directed has had his sanity eroded by events.

Dr Ledgard has worked at a local hospital with a team of assistants, but he has not involved them in his private work. He is proud that he has already accomplished sixteen successful face transplants for victims of horrific accidents. Robert lost his wife, Gal, following rejuvenative surgery after massive burns in an automobile crash more than six years ago. His daughter, Norma (Blanca Suárez), is mentally unstable, and following a rape, commits suicide. Robert is unhinged by these two overwhelming personal losses. He seeks revenge in a proficient manner, but how can kidnapping and operating against another’s will be considered professional?

Robert’s life is complicated by the presence of his mother, Marilia (Marisa Paredes, an old regular), who manages his household. She is also a violent person, given to deliver brutal advice. “If you don’t kill her, she’ll kill herself. What you feel now will devour you as a cancer”. The object of his mother’s concern is Vera Cruz (Elena Anaya) whom Robert keeps locked in a room viewing her on two TV screens in the mansion’s kitchen (and she can view them). Vera is his prisoner and his obsession, the object of his unfulfilled lust. Using his skill as a plastic surgeon Robert has remade Vera to look like his dead wife. Vera fills her days with reading (lots of Alice Munro), yoga, and watching TV. Who is she? Why is she there? That is the mystery of this film.

Things get even more complicated when Zeca (Roberto Álamo), in a tiger costume (it is Carnival) enters the house bent on discovery and revenge. Zeca, brutal and fleeing from a robbery holds a position in relation to Robert that has remained secret for decades. To help explain Robert, Zeca, Norma, Gal and a local youth Vincent (Jan Cornet) and what is happening the movie flashes back six years from 2012 to 2006. Almodóvar retains total virtuosic control of his film and the pieces, like in a giant jigsaw puzzle will eventually fall together. You may not like it, but they do fit.  He has made in The Skin I Live In a variant on his theme, like any great composer, that is accomplished and reveals desire and sex, gender and identity, in new ways. For some viewers this movie it will be too tense, leaving them exhausted by the end. It is all furthered by Alberto Iglesias’ most fitting original music.

The Skin I live In is one hour and 55 minutes long. It is rated 16+ for violent sex, murder and nudity. The director is Pedro Almodóvar who wrote the script with his brother Agustín Almodóvar; it is based on the novella “Tarantula” by Thierry Jonquet. The cinematographer is José Luis Alcaine. The editor is José Salcedo. The music is by Alberto Iglesias. The art director is Antxon Gómez; costumes are by Paco Delgado with Jean-Paul Gaultier; and the producers are Agustín Almodóvar and Esther García.

            sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk  [901 Words]

For Mmegi ShowBiz Tuesday 8th May 2012 — Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

“Trouble is we put our destiny in God’s hands”

“A Screaming Man” (2011) a.k.a Un homme qui crie is being shown by the Gaborone Film Society at Maru a Pula School in the A/V Centre at 7 pm only on Tuesday the 8^th of May as part of the 12^th annual DITSHWANELO Human Rights Film Festival.

It is the third film by Chadian director and scriptwriter Mahamat-Saleh Haroun to be shown by the GFS. The first was “Abouna” a.k.a “Our Father” (2002) is on the struggles of a mother, a seamstress in N’Djamena (Fort Lamy) whose husband has left her and his children (Mmegi, 10 October 2006). The second was “Daratt” (2006) a.k.a “Dry Season” (Mmegi, 24^th February 2009) in which Atim (the “orphan”) is to be the instrument of revenge against the man who killed his father before he was born. It is placed when 40 years of civil war have ended.

A Screaming Man is also set in Chad, mainly at N’Djamena. It was the winner of the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2010. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun is not new to the tragedy of civil war. He was born in Chad in 1960. France divested itself of Chad on the 11 August 1960. A prolonged civil war that began in 1966 has gone in waves over 40 years and often been fueled by Libya. The French have sent troops there to support the government in power against the rebels. Chad is a desert country, a crossroads of turmoil. Libya invaded in 1980 and a seven-year war followed. When Libya withdrew in 1987 they abandoned over a billion dollars of military equipment in Chad. Chad is the fifth largest country in Africa, 2 & ½ times the area of Botswana. To the east lies the Sudan, to the south CAR, to the west Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger and to the north Libya.

When he was twenty Mahamat-Saleh Haroun was caught in the civil war; injured he was wheeled out in a barrow.  When he was forty-six and making Daratt there was an uprising on the 13^th of April 2006. In February 2008 he was filming Expectations and another civil war broke put. In A Screaming Man he tells the story of Adam Ousmane a.k.a The Champ (acted by Youssouf Djaoro), a former swimming champion. Adam has held a job through thick and thin for thirty years as the caretaker of the large swimming pool on a bluff above the river, part of an extensive deluxe hotel complex catering to tourists, aid workers and French soldiers. Adam’s son Abdel Ousmane (played by Diouc Koma) is now in his early twenties, full of energy and enjoying working under his father at the pool.

They relate, often silently, with humour, but also with an edge of sibling rivalry. The son has secrets he does not share with his parents. There is a competitive edge between the two men. Their home at N’Djamena is sustained by Mariam Ousmane (Hadjé Fatimé N’Goua). When father and son are silent mother knows that something is wrong. Adam drives around the city on a very loud motorcycle with a sidecar. The hotel has been privatized and is owned now by Mrs Wang (Li Heling). Souad (Rémadji Adèle Ngaradoumbaye) works for Mrs Wang as a finance officer and is forced to begin to terminate staff to cut costs. The civil war has escalated. The noise of military jets and helicopters flying low over the city introduces a sense of dread. One of Adam’s friends, David from the Congo, an elderly Chief Cook at the hotel (Marius Yelolo) is laid off and has a heart attack. Then Adam is relegated to gatekeeper, while his son runs the pool alone. Father is most distraught, as he has been eclipsed by his son.

The Champ tries to live a life separated from politics, where his past reputation and his job remain everything, even above his family. But no one is immune in a violent conflict. When the civil war erupts closer to the city, people flee across the river to the Cameroon. Adam is the only one who shows up to work at the hotel. Mrs Wang finds she is alone, even Souad has fled. Adam even feels secure to travel in an empty city after a six-to-six military curfew has been imposed. Can Adam really be above the country’s madness?

Adam follows the civil war on his small portable radio. Adam is asked to donate funds to the government’s war effort by the District Chief (Emil Abossolo M’Bo). Unable to keep up with payments he finds his son Abdel has been taken to fight the rebels. Soon after Abdel vanishes his pregnant girlfriend appears seeking shelter, Djénéba (Djénéba Koné). She is only seventeen, is from Mali, but has been singing already for eleven years. One of her songs that graces this somber film is “A screaming man // is not a dancing bed”. This is a powerful film that certainly merits all the accolades it has received.

A Screaming Man is in French and Arabic with English subtitles. One hour and 32 minutes long. It is rated PG. The director who also wrote the script is Mahamat-Saleh Haroun. The cinematographer is Laurent Brunet. The editor is Marie Hélène Dozo. The music is by Wasis Diop, with songs by Djénéba Koné that are sung by her.

            sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk  [894  Words]

For Mmegi ShowBiz Review Tuesday 15th May 2012 — Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

“What Chance have We to Escape?”

“The Informer” (1935) is showing on Tuesday 15^th May 2012 at the Gaborone Film Society at 7 pm in the A/V Centre at Maru a Pula School. The is the multiple award winning film by the great American director John Ford (1895-1973) who was born Sean O'Feeney. Ford also won three more Oscars as director for his other great films: Grapes of Wrath (1940); How Green Was my Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952). Ford during his long career made over 125 movies. The Gaborone Film Society showed his Young Mr Lincoln (1939) last year (Mmegi 1st February 2011).

The Informer was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Film Editing, but won four only for Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Male Actor and Best Music. It is set in Dublin in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. It was named “one of the five best pictures since the beginning of sound”.

Gypo Nolan (acted brilliantly by Victor Mclaglen) has been expelled from the IRA (Irish Republican Army) that was fighting for independence from Great Britain because he refused to execute a traitor. Gypo is a large man, prone to responding to the leadings of those around him, having difficulties in planning, thinking things through, and making decisions alone. He likes his malt, being boisterous, singing loudly, and is easily led astray. When questioned he can rarely remember very clearly what has actually transpired in his life, but he has feelings and a sense when things are going wrong, or that he has made a serious mistake, but he is incapable of taking steps to correct his behaviour.

Katie Madden (played by Margot Grahame) loves his spirit and attentions, but knows she cannot depend on him. She is forced to be a lady of the night, walking the streets to find someone to pick her up. His close friend whom he has depended on is an IRA leader, Frankie McPhillip (Wallace Ford). Frankie is wanted by the British for murder. His poster seems to follow Gypo around Dublin. Gypo can put together the value of the reward, £20, and the cost of two tickets by steamship to America, £10 each. [In buying power £20 then would be equal to P7,500 today.]

Perhaps he sees informing on Frankie’s whereabouts as a means out of Ireland, without making the connection that if he informs, that Frankie will get killed, and he Gypo, will have lost his best friend. He keeps saying to himself, “I’ve got to have a plan”. Initially his actions are to help Katie. When he goes on a drinking spree to ease his conscience he is taken advantage of by a free-loader, Terry (J.M. Kerrigan). They are aided by a thick Dublin fog.

Gypo can’t act with purpose, instead he is always getting caught up in the moment. His first pound goes to a blind man, demonstrating his simplicity, confusion and essential bewilderment and goodness. Yet when asked to tell the IRA what he knows, he blames a sick old tailor, Pat Mulligan (Donald Meek), because he knows he has to finger someone.

Gypo Nolan is caught up in contradictions, accentuated by his situation. He lives in the most dismal part of the city. He is unemployed surviving from hand to mouth. He lacks discipline and a comprehension of his situation. Is he guilty of moral failure or are his actions because of circumstances beyond his control. In the end he suffers from a broken conscience and seeks forgiveness from Frankie’s mother, Mrs McPhillip (Una O'Connor). She gives it. The last lines are “Frankie! Your mother forgives me!”

The movie’s visuals are powerful, its dialogue minimalist, its actions dramatic and at times unexpected. When Gypo, by chance meets his friend Frankie at Dunbo House, he tells him “And now the British think I'm with the Irish, and the Irish think I'm with the British. The long and short of it is I'm walkin' around without a dog to lick my trousers!”

As Gypo moves about this sleazy area he gets roped into a number of unplanned extravagancies. Two IRA operatives are suspicious, Bartley Mulholland (Joe Sawyer) and Tommy Conner (Neil Fitzgerlad). When he is taken before a Kangaroo Court, led by the head of the local IRA Branch Dan Gallagher (Preston Foster), Frankie’s sister and Gallagher’s girl, Mary McPhillip (Heather Angel), is asked to come and testify too.

The Informer is one hour and 31minutes long. It is in American. It is rated PG. The director is John Ford. The script is by Dudley Nichols from a story by Liam O’Flaherty. The cinematographer is Joseph August. The editor is George Hively. The music is by Max Steiner.

            sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk  [788  Words]

For Mmegi ShowBiz Review Tuesday 22^nd of May 2012—Backstage at the Cinema by Sasa Majuma

“I’m married to an American agent”

“Notorious” (1946) is showing on Tuesday 22^nd of May 2012 at the Gaborone Film Society at 7 pm in the A/V Centre at Maru a Pula School. It is one of the best suspense films made by the outstanding British director Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) who moved to Hollywood in 1940. In 1945 Hitchcock made Spellbound based on a script by Ben Hecht (1894–1964), who was known as “the Shakespeare of Hollywood” and staring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman (1915 to 1982). The great Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman had been a star in America since 1941, and already had two Oscar nominations and had earned a statute for Gaslight (1944).

Alfred Hitchcock and Ben Hecht had their eyes on a differet film, Notorious, still starring Ingrid Bergman, but co-starring Cary Grant (born in England as Arch Leach 1904, died 1986, he was given a lifetime Oscar in 1969). Notorious opens in Miami, Florida in April 1946, many months after the end of World War II. German Fascists leaders have been able to reassemble secretly in South America. An exile-German led industrial complex is secretly mining Uranium in Brazil. Devlin (played by Cary Grant) is an intelligence agent assigned to rope into his operation a young German heiress.

Alicia Huberman (acted by Ingrid Bergman) says to an aggressive journalist, “My father got what he deserved”. He has just been sentenced to twenty-years in prison for spying on the United States. Alicia is planning a holiday in Havana with friends when Devlin shows up and whisks her off to Rio de Janeiro. He has been able to convince her that she has a role to play in assisting her adopted nation. He plays back to her recordings of her conversations where she had in the recent war defended America over Germany. They will learn more about the actual assignment when they get to Brazil.

Once in Rio, Alicia is introduced by Devlin to “Our Boss, Paul Prescott” (Louis Calhern). He tells her, “Your father died this morning”. She replies, “Now I remember how nice we both were”. Alicia is ready for the job, but a bit put off when she learns what it entails. She is “on the wagon” and has been sober for eight days, and has no new conquests. Now she must make one to be able to find out what the German exiles in Rio are up to. Her target is millionaire industrialist Alexander Sebastian (a fine Claude Rains). Devlin tells her “He's part of the combine that built up the German war machine and hopes to keep on going”.

The catch is, they knew each other before and Sebastian was in love with her then.  That should make it easy for her to go fishing and catch the big one. But the hook is she has fallen for Devlin.  This leads to constant witty dialogue as she and Devlin duel and dance and duel again. As love stories set within thrillers goes, this is one of the best.

Alicia has a back history that makes her notorious. Not everyone is comfortable with her playing Mata Hara. When another agent, Walter Beardsley (Moroni Olsen) questions her capabilities, saying, “She's had me worried for some time. A woman of that sort”. Devin asks, “What sort is that, Mr. Beardsley?” “Oh, I don't think any of us have any illusions about her character. Have we, Devlin?”  Devlin has a sharp reply, “Not at all, not in the slightest. Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn't hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington, playing bridge with three other ladies of great honor and virtue”.

Sebastian is landed, but they had not counted on his demands over Ms Huberman. These stretch her loyalty and allow for tart exchanges when the duo secretly meets to exchange information.  They also hadn’t counted on the presence of Sebastian’s suspicious mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) and the scientist Dr Anderson (Reinhold Schünzel). Very quickly the agents are in over their heads. Sebastian’s mother may have a way of dealing with them, but Devlin is surprisingly resourceful. This fast moving film and its rapid repartee and innuendo is a wonderful example of the best of films being made 66 years ago. For example, she says to him, “You're sore because you've fallen for a little drunk you tamed in Miami and you don't like it. It makes you sick all over, doesn't it? People will laugh at you, the invincible Devlin, in love with someone who isn't worth even wasting the words on.”

Notorious is 98 minutes long, is rated Universal, and is in clear American English. The director is Alfred Hitchcock, the script is by Ben Hecht from a story by Hitchcock. The cinematographer is Ted Tetzlaff. The editor is Theron Wrath. The music is by Roy Webb. Except for background shots in Rio, Miami and filming at the Santa Anita Park Racetrack, this movie is totally a studio production.  Now films are made around the world; but not then.

                sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk  [85  Words]