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alberto-52
Reviews
Her Twelve Men (1954)
A not so brilliant, pretty,redhead female teacher, has a heart of gold
This is certainly one of the films, which most teachers ought to see before and during their professional lives. It narrates the charming saga of a not so brilliant female teacher who, by the way, has a tremendous sense of humanity. From the opening, many teachers would remember and recognize how their final professional choice, didn't come at first sight, but instead, after a few shocks with reality. And a very hard reality, which obliged them to review the situation and put many golden dreams away. The same happened to this charming redhead, Jan Stewart. She recalls her former dreams while flying to the place where she will become the teacher of twelve boys in a boarding school. Sometimes rich boys may cry and Jan does her best to avoid it, although often misunderstood by the little devils she has to take care of. Greer Garson is competent as always and Robert Ryan is also well as the competent teacher that finally falls in love with Jan. Also noteworthy is the young actor who plays the rejected rich boy, dropped in a boarding school by his insensitive parents. Don't know his name. And a crazy coffee pot provides extra fun. Finally this is not the first color film of Greer Garson. It's true that she rarely was seen in color, but before this film she was seen in color in "Scandal at Scourie", an MGM Technicolor movie from 1953, also starring Walter Pigeon, Donna Corcoran and Agnes Moorehead. As a leading lady, Garson was seen only in three color films, every one in a different process: Scandal at Scourie (Technicolor); Her Twelwe Men (Ansco Color/Print by Technicolor) and Strange Lady in Town (Warnercolor). Then Greer Garson in color, was a matter of supporting cast or special appearances. A pity. I was a boy when I saw her last films. But I miss her. I liked her.
Sinfonia Carioca (1955)
Pretty witty and pleasant.But color was missing.
Pretty, witty and pleasant. But color was missing. Sinfonia Carioca (Carioca Simphony ) represents a major leap forward among Brazilian musicals nicknamed "chanchadas", the meaning of which IMDb readers will find in my comments about "Nem Sansão nem Dalila". From the beginning and for beginners, "carioca" means in the Brazilian Tupi Indians language- "the house of whites", more specifically the village that originated the city of Rio de Janeiro. Then their natives were nicknamed like this: "cariocas", the inhabitants of the (big) white's house, Rio. So, Sinfonia Carioca praises Rio de Janeiro, through the romantic story of a girl who escapes a boarding school. She is Suzana (Eliana Macedo or simply Eliana) who then takes a ride given by a stranger, Ricardo (Anselmo Duarte). Suzana falls in instant love with Ricardo, who incidentally is a show-biz producer. Needless to say Suzana spends a great deal of the film time, trying to succeed in show biz and win the heart of Ricardo. In the meantime we know that she's an orphan, daughter of a famous actress and singer, prematurely dead. Her square traditional family, in a certain way, feels ashamed of its deceased unconventional member and doesn't want another similar among them. So the boarding school seemed a solution, for impeaching Suzana of being like her mother. But the trick doesn't work especially when the family's black butler tells how her mother was, thus stimulating the "like mother, like daughter" fate. In such memories, flashbacks provide to the audience how Suzana's mother was on stage and naturally Eliana plays her part. The rest is a bunch of gags, love scenes and pleasant musical numbers. Suzana succeeds in show biz, but doesn't win her producer's heart. Decides to quit and get back to the boarding school. But naturally a film like this couldn't have but a happy end. But I won't tell you. In short: the film is just very good entertainment, leading actors very good. In reviewing the film cast and credits, a surprise: the original music by Lyrio Panicalli. This explains how the musical numbers sounded good, because Panicalli was one of the best arrangers in Brazil. His string arrangements were famous. Yet there was something missing. Brazilian cinema wasn't still able to produce color movies. And Sinfonia Carioca was in B&W
It deserved to be made in color. If somebody asked me which Brazilian film I would indicate to be colorized, no doubt, Sinfonia Carioca would be my choice. When Sinfonia Carioca was produced and screened, nobody would imagine that Anselmo Duarte, one of the most popular actors in Brazil, would win the Palme d'Or, at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, as the DIRECTOR of O Pagador de Promessas, a feat that boosted the modern Brazilian cinema to the world's screens.
Nem Sansão Nem Dalila (1954)
The Bible and Cecil B. De Mille as a weapon to satirize politics
When I wrote my first review for the IMDb, about the first Brazilian film in color, Destino em Apuros (Destiny in Trouble) I hadn't realized that many other Brazilian films made part of the IMDb files. Yet, in reviewing the film quoted above, I made a brief comment about a certain kind of films produced in Brazil, during the late thirties to early sixties as follows: "By that time, Brazilian motion picture comedies were mostly produced in Rio, especially by a studio named Atlântida (Atlantis in English). All were black-and-white, poorly written] stories were mostly fragile and almost an excuse to present tens of songs for the next carnival. However, they were very funny due to the uniqueness of the mix involving primitiveness and some witty dialogs and some splendid comedians. One of them, Oscarito, knew so much his job, that once he suggested ten seconds of random closes on a scene, after one of his jokes. That was the exact time the audience would laugh after it. Nevertheless Brazilian intelligentsia, of course, despised such films." Well now, those films were nicknamed "chanchadas" (pronounced shan-SHAH-das) a word with a deep pejorative sense, that even so the audiences adored, never caring a bit to the critics' slurs. I would add that the aforesaid ability to preview the audience reaction probably came from the early times of Oscarito's career , as a circus clown. "Nem Sansão nem Dalila" means "neither Samson nor Delilah" and exposes a habit Brazilian and Italian movie makers had, that is to produce parodies about historical movie classics. The Italian comedy "O.K.Nerone" would be a good example, with its aim of debunking Quo Vadis. In Brazil, other than "Nem Sansão nem Dalila", a "High Noon" parody received the title of " To Kill or to Run Away" (Matar ou Correr) playing with the Portuguese title of "High Noon", "Matar ou Morrer" ( To Kill or Die). In both, the leading role was a matter for Oscarito, whose brilliant career history was recently reviewed by his widow (also an artist) Ms. Margot Louro, in a very popular TV show. A surprise: in his private life, Oscarito was "square", rigid, and jealous about his wife's love scenes, and even resisted to his daughter's decision to become also an actress. Oscarito could be compared to Jerry Lewis, for both could do perfectly what Donald O'Connor recommends in "Singing in The Rain": "mak'em laugh!" However the differences remain in two points: Oscarito did it first; opposite to Jerry Lewis characters, always simpletons, Oscarito's characters were smart, malicious, sharp guys. The most important and most hilarious scene of the film happens when Horácio ( a fake Samson) speeches to the people and imitates Brazil's populist President Getúlio Vargas. The latter used to start his speeches with a sonorous "Trabalhadores do Brasil" (Workers of Brazil) instead of the usual "ladies and gentlemen". So Horácio shouts: "Workers of Gaza!". At this the audiences simply would burst out laughing. This is widely known and recalled in Brazil, but a foreigner would not understand it, that's why I put it here. A masterpiece of bright humor in a matter of seconds. Most of the Brazilian "chanchadas" together with its similar Italian comedies, would match perfectly with the Roman Theater slogan "ridendo castigat mores".
Susanna tutta panna (1957)
One of the most hilarious contemporary slapstick comedies
Definitely, hilarious. One of the collateral effects, I experienced, after seeing this film, was a strong bellyache, so much I laughed, this I remember well. Consider a plot that, starting from a popular saying, mixes and mocks about things like: sex obsession, female chauvinism, industrial espionage, rivalry among stage artists, and even a moment to sting Jules Dassin's "Rififi" with ironical darts. This is "Susanna tutta panna". A contemporary slapstick comedy. The title leads to a flirt that many Italian girls named Susanna use to hear from boys on the streets. It means: "Susanna, you whipped cream!", also meaning that she's sweet, sexy, and last but not least, very pretty. The film opens with two men, every one in his bedroom of course, sleeping and having nightmares. They contort themselves in their beds, while murmuring eagerly, "Oh Susanna, you whipped cream, I want you". In an old fashioned radio style, a narrator asks who would be such Susanna who makes an Inferno out of their nights? A woman? No, the first and mature man is willing to discover how a certain pie is made. Fade to the second man, a lad,also moaning the same words. Does he wish a pie? No, one fades and opens in a sexy blonde, Susanna
Dissolve to an Italian confectioner's,famous for the uniqueness of one of its products, the Susanna Pie,generously topped with whipped cream. A delicacy, the recipe of which hides a secret. Nobody, no concurrent does it this way. Yet one of them buys a unit every day and send it straight to a lab, in order to have such secret unveiled, yet never getting it made. Here enters the female chauvinism. The secret is hidden in a sort of "family secret", kept by its women. No, even their husbands or fiancés are not allowed to know it. The youngest girl of this "family circle", and the prettiest, is also named Susanna, shortly recognized by the audience as the nightmare's blonde. She's engaged to a young confectioner , that the audience then recognizes as the lad who was having nightmares about the aforesaid blonde. They do love each other but do have problems. He wishes to disrupt the tradition, thus having access to the pie's secret , for they are to get married, and should share everything including family secrets. Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, Susanna gives up, but through an unconventional way. She writes down the secret and hides it into a pie, which is dispatched to her lover. Nevertheless, something fells through. Somebody mixes up the pies and the pie and its precious secret is sent to someone else in town. This is the start of a crazy race to find the pie, before it gets its wrong destination. And the first to be checked is the treacherous concurrent, who next have his shop invaded. The pie is found, destroyed (another is given to repair the fuss) but
it's not the right one. The concurrent then realizes that its idolized secret was free in town and joins the race in order to get it first. During the search, the harmless Susanna accidentally enters a flat, where a gang was preparing to rob a jewelry store, by using the same strategies taken from the film Rififi, the classic thriller by Jules Dassin. Susanna is seized, tied up and gagged, but is freed by a thief who, besides dazzled at her, is kind hearted (Nino Manfredi). The racing teams finally discover that someone had ordered the missing pie to be delivered at a theater, where a cast , nearly disrupted by rivalry among actors, was staging
Hamlet. Then, the raiders of the lost pie start an anxious search through the dressing rooms. A guy (don't remember at the service of whom he was) gets the pie but hides it into a very small room, where, over a chair, a SKULL was standing. Can you guess why? Exactly. It was just under the hole from where "Hamlet" would take a skull for his famous "to be or not to be, that is the question" monologue. The guy substitutes the skull for the pie and runs. On the stage, the actor gets a shovel, and
instead of a skull a whipped cream pie comes out. Terrified he improvises a bunch of rubbishes. The audience doesn't understand what is going on, but the show does it. "Hamlet", absolutely furious, thinks he has been sabotaged by his rivals . As a revenge, Ophelia's flowers (for the madness scene) are changed into vegetables. For instance, a rose is substituted
by an artichoke! The audience boos, but a stage critic adores it: "Bravo! That's vanguard!!". Enough? Well, in short: the pie is gotten as well as the precious envelope inside. Susanna and his lover hug and kiss each other and one supposes they are to live happily forever after. Now you know why I had a bellyache that night, after the movies.
The Far Horizons (1955)
A not very true glimpse on early America's History.
I think that the best thing this movie did to me was to unveil that wonderful character, namely Sacajawea, the Shoshone squaw who helped and guided the Lewis-Clark Expedition. After seeing it I discovered on a very old Reader's Digest issue something about her, just to realize that Sacajawea didn't have any romance with William Clark, because she was already a married woman, namely a guy named Charbonneau with whom she stayed till his death. The real Sacajawea story (or biography), as well as the real Lewis& Clark expedition, are certainly much more interesting than this Hollywood make believe-"historical" movie. For instance, it was lovely to know how Sacajawea was amazed to see a whale skeleton on a West Coast beach. However when she tried to tell this to her tribe's people, they just laughed at her, convicted that she was a liar, that no "fish" could be so big. So the "romantic" approach used in the screenplay, wasted a good opportunity to show either how fascinating the real expedition history has been or the cultural shock experienced by this simple Indian young woman when her tiny inner word was broadened by the unique opportunity she had to explore the unknown, together with the duo of white explorers and their fellows. Other than this, I remember how curious I was to differentiate the optical process used by Paramount (VistaVision) from the CinemaScope, the latter implemented by 20th Century Fox and other companies. Other than a sharper resolution, quite between us, it has been deceiving. In short, expeditions like the one the film stages, have a certain similarity with many similar expeditions carried out in Brazil, especially in the XVII century.The difference is that Lewis & Clark has been an official enterprise and the ones in Brazil have been a matter of private nature, mostly by adventurers, gold rushers, or cruel people seeking Indians for slavery, a thing that didn't work.Indians were either fragile as to Whites' diseases or too much independent to become slaves. So our Portuguese colonizers turned themselves to Africa.Too bad for it.But very good as to the splendid cultural heritage brought either by Africans or the mix of the three cultures:Indians,African and Portuguese Whites. Other than this I remember Donna Reed's performance, while I hardly remember Charlton Heston in his deep blue uniform. An I had forgotten Fred Mc Murray was on the film. In short, some thrill, some sightings in true Technicolor, but as to History, Hollywood just tried it...
Destino em Apuros (1953)
First Brazilian Movie in color
I was almost a teenager when this movie was produced, and I eagerly waited for it, so curious I(a Brazilian) was about a Brazilian film FINALLY in color. Yet, the result was a deceiving. By that time, Brazilian motion picture comedies were mostly produced in Rio, especially by a studio named Atlântida (Atlantis in English).All were black-and-white, poorly written,stories were mostly fragile and almost an excuse to present tens of songs for the next carnival. However, they were very funny due to the uniqueness of the mix involving primitiveness and some witty dialogs and some splendid comedians.One of them, Oscarito,knew so much his job, that once he suggested ten seconds of random closes on a scene, after one of his jokes. That was the exact time the audience would laugh after it. Nevertheless Brazilian intelligentsia, of course, despised such films. So when more modern (and "intellectualized")films began to be produced around São Paulo area, especially by the Vera Cruz studios, there happened a boom of "sophistication" as to screenplays. Naturally attempts to do sophisticated comedies were done and "Destino em Apuros" is a good example.But it wasn't from Vera Cruz studios but from Multifilmes a much more modest studio. I hardly remember the story, but it was something about Destiny, that in a human body, comes to Earth and does something about a certain man's life. But awkwardly he, Destiny, comes to a dilemma in order of what to do next. So the Destiny is in trouble. Despite its sophistication the film was neither a box hit, nor got to make people laugh as they did while watching Atlântida comedies, as mentioned above. Presently the film is almost lost, so damaged the negatives are.It seems a trailer is preserved in the Brazilian Cinemathèque in São Paulo. Only. Reviewing the cast, thanks to your homepage and URL, it's a surprise to me to find people I never imagined or remembered to be in this film and who became famous artists through the years on Brazilian stage, television and movies. Paulo Autran and Sérgio Britto are good examples,still active although very mature. But believe me, 85% percent of the cast enlisted is composed of important names in Brazil's artistic circles. Anyway this could lead us to the following conclusion: as refined ingredients are not enough for making a good cake (one needs a good recipe first) a good cast and some sophisticated techniques are not enough in succeeding to make a good movie. A good screenplay and director are needed... And thanks for just one detail: fifty years after I finally discovered that the color process was Anscocolor. I never had this information in Brazil before. And that perhaps explain the further quick deterioration of the negatives: the old Ansco color films had the fame of being good from the start but then quickly deteriorated. MGM used them (Knights of the Round Table,Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,Ride Vaquero, The Student Prince, Kiss me Kate, Brigadoon) but quickly moved to Eastman Kodak color negatives. Sometimes with a Technicolor print to preserve them better.