User Reviews

I happened to catch this on the closing night of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival this year, and was completely blown away. This is a delightful comedy focuses on a writer who cannot produce a successful play. Upon the misinformed news of his death, he becomes a cultural hero and suddenly everyone wants to see his plays.

Through a series of comedic assumptions, fate keeps piling up success upon the couple, and all they have to do is keep silent about the truth. The film makes light fun of the scenario while commenting on the absurdity of what makes an artist famous.

It is a most unusual film, and even has an animated sequence telling yet another chapter of the story. This was 70 years before Quentin Tarantino did it in Kill Bill. Of course the scenarios are not quite the same, but it just shows how devices used today were utilized back in the early days of cinema.

Do not miss if you get a chance to see this film!

Châtaignes de Fromage

Sunday July 18, 7:30pm, The Castro, San Francisco

When a failed playwright is lost at sea and presumed dead, he is eulogized as a cultural hero. Theodore Larue (Nicolas Rimsky) sheepishly watches through a hole in the backdrop as his latest effort opens and closes on the same night. His wife Suzanne (Suzanne Bianchetti) suggests a vacation, "Titi!… Let's go to the sea!" He falls overboard, she returns heartbroken to Paris and the shallow literati shower Larue with accolades. The surviving author unexpectedly slinks home unnoticed and, with Suzanne's help masquerades as his twin brother while hastily composing posthumous works.

Directed by Serge Nadejdine, L'Herueuse Mort was adapted for the screen by Rimsky, whose portrayal of the lovable half-wit Larue is priceless. Of particular note are scenes describing alternate versions of the "storm," and Larue's moronic rapture when he is simultaneously immortalized and nearly revealed. An animated segment added to lengthen run time is the film's only flaw.