Ophüls' "Letter from an Unknown Woman" is 75!

by Cláudio Alves

Born Maximillian Oppenheimer in 1902's Germany, Max Ophüls chose the pseudonym to avoid embarrassing his father as he pursued an acting career in theater. He'd change paths along the way, finding purpose in directing actors rather than reveling among them. Moreover, the paternal humiliation was never to be beyond the scandalous nature of theater since the man who would one day make tracking shots his calling card was a virtuoso. As the roaring twenties gave in to a new decade, Ophüls' ability would help him transition from the stage to the screen, where he began as a dialogue director at UFA.

But of course, being Jewish under the Nazi regime was deadly, so the director fled from Germany to France, stopping by Switzerland and Italy...

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Almost There: James Dean in "Rebel Without a Cause"

by Cláudio Alves

Today, it's time for another name from your list of requests – James Dean. The doomed star was nominated posthumously for Best Actor in 1955 and 1956 for his work on East of Eden and Giant. In that first year, however, he was also in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause, delivering a performance that's arguably more iconic than the one that got him Academy recognition. Playing a troubled teen, Dean embodied a new archetype and carved a place for himself in the annals of Hollywood history.

Considering the actor's meteoric rise and both films' popularity, it's fair to say that Dean got some votes for the Ray-helmed adolescent drama. Indeed, if not for the other flick, he probably would have scored a nom for Rebel Without a Cause…

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Lana @ 100: Love Has Many Faces

Celebrating Lana Turner's Centennial. Here's Baby Clyde...

1965 was the year Martin Luther King marched on Selma, The Civil Rights Act was signed and Malcolm X was assassinated. The Vietnam War was raging, London was swinging, The Beatles played Shea Stadium and Dylan went electric. The times they were a changing, but some things stayed the same because this was also the year Lana Turner starred in the trashiest of all her tawdry melodramas, the Acapulco-set potboiler Love Has Many Faces or as it should have been called ‘Lana Has Many Costume Changes’.

In it she plays Kit Chandler a rich, international glamourpuss, with luxury apartments around the globe, who chooses to reside in the luxury Mexican resort with her estranged husband Pete (Cliff Robertson). When a dead body washes up on the shore it transpires that the deceased beach boy was one of Lana’s many conquests and she's the main suspect in the murder investigation....

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Monty @ 100: The Italian misadventure of "Terminal Station"

by Cláudio Alves

Some movies are more fascinating than they are engaging, working better as a discussion topic than as cinema. Such pictures tend to find their home in writings about film history or critical academia, living on as curious artifacts that thrive on the page while failing on screen. Montgomery Clift's seventh feature, the only time he ever worked with celebrated Italian auteur Vittorio De Sica, is one of such films. Perhaps more accurately, it's two of them…

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The glory of Maggie Smith's "Judith Hearne"

by Cláudio Alves

Loneliness hurts. It infects body and mind, eating away at our sanity. We tell ourselves it's a voluntary thing, that it's a choice, but those lies can only work for a time. When self-delusion loses its power, desperation can set in, corroding the spirit and worsening it. Even in crowds, there's a sense of being alone and human touch becomes like bread for a starving man, a morsel feels like the world and its absence gives hunger pains. As time goes by, the will to get out of bed wains and constant bouts of crying can turn to self-hate and disgust. To cure the illness of lonesomeness is hard and some poor folk search for it at the end of a bottle. However, the prophylactic qualities of booze, like self-delusion, have an expiration date. The euphoria of drunkenness gives way to the shame of a hangover and the condition becomes unbearable. It's a chaotic spiral, out of control and ready to destroy our very souls.

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (available on The Criterion Channel) is one of the best films about this subject…

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