Reviews

If this were a movie it would be criticised for its sloppy plot. We are to believe that North Korea enters into negotiations with a former criminal who had to invent on the spot a company name for his firm when asked for it. A North Korean delegation travels to Europe to meet him, there to find out to their surprise that the man had visited their country the week before. North Korea's man in Europe, a Spaniard, demonstrates a bug device to the Mole while he (the mole) is actually carrying a hidden microphone and camera. Glad to have miraculously escaped, he gets rid of his equipment in broad daylight, next to his car, filmed by - yes, by whom? Many times I wondered who was filming. Smart equipment apparently, because hidden cameras may change angles to get a better view. In the end I didn't know what to think of it.

Very long-winded and pointless. The opening scene is fascinating enough, because the overdressed tramp quick-marching out of the desert raises a lot of questions. From here on, unfortunately, things deteriorate rapidly. He ends up in a local hospital, fine, but why has it to be a greedy kraut doctor? Next: a road movie somewhat like Rainman (1988, four years later and much better). Next: back to normal life. Next: finding his wife. The whole story of the couple (which is not very exciting in itself) is told by the main character through a telephone while his wife is listening. Boredom supreme! It's bad enough when a stage play is turned into a static movie, but this beats everything. We had as well read it, instead of having to listen to this long long long story. I gave 3/10 for the nice pictures: a desert view here, a bright blue wall there, a giant dinosaur somewhere else etcetera. As a "movie" (as in "moving") it's worthless.

A film you're not likely to forget. Kubrick's slow "Barry Lyndon" pace works nicely, the plot is intriguing enough, acting and score are excellent. The film is much better written than the original novella -"Dream Story" by Arthur Schnitzler-, which is very poor literature indeed. Actually, the novella is more like a draft of a novel yet to be written than anything else. Fortunately, it has been written, if not by Schnitzler. Kubrick also threw in some drugs, several homosexual aspects and two new characters: Victor Ziegler and Mandy. Not all of these additions are improvements. The stoned couple does reveal some secret thoughts, but the gay elements don't add anything, quite the contrary. In the novella, the street incident has nothing to do with gay bashing but with death in duel, which fits nicely between the deceased patient and driving to the orgy in a hearse. Mandy also doesn't add anything except her nice body and some extra confusion. She ends up in the morgue, and Victor claims she was the "mysterious woman", but he's definitely lying. If you watch closely enough (it's a hard job, but someone has to do it), you see their bodies are different; if you're lazy, just verify the credits, and you'll find that, in real life, one is called Julienne Davis and the other Abigail Good. Are we expected to overlook this, or is it an extra "dreamlike" layer deliberately added by Kubrick? The nice thing for an author or a director dealing in "dreams" is that logical inconsistencies are part of the game! This said, the novella, while poorly written, is less inconsistent than the movie. Schnitzler's intruder is betrayed at the orgy because he's the only one not to change costumes, and -speaking of costumes- the shop owner's daughter is caught wearing a whig and sitting with two gentlemen dressed as judges. I fail to see why Kubrick had to turn these into Japanese. (Incidentally, Marion Nathanson's fiancé, a historian according to Schnitzler, is a mathematician in the film. As neither detail has any importance, one wonders why such changes are made at all.) Most importantly, Schnitzler's password for the orgy is directly linked to the woman's infidelity fantasy; it's a pity that Kubrick threw away this crucial entrance key to the man's fantasy. The novella ends with the mask on the pillow. If only Kubrick had done the same! His last scene, trivial and cheap, is a complete letdown.

Why would a man with a broken leg, on the point of shooting himself, painfully drag himself out in the snow? Why would a treacherous girl fake being mute after torture? Why would she direct enemy fire to a party that includes herself, only to help them escape when they are finally surrounded? Why would a saboteur answer a checkup call without knowing any code words or even decently speaking the language, rather than not answering it, leaving the command post to believe that the guard had been accidentally blown off the cliff? These and other questions thou shalt not ask. Thou shalt also forget about the Wild West shoot-out, about the silly late-night romance between the beautiful mute traitress and the melancholic officer, and about Gregory Peck (unconvincing as ever, captain Mallory or captain Ahab alike) turning cynical old-timer David Niven into a dedicated obedient soldier. After that, you may enjoy this movie, as I invariably do. I was blown away by it when I was 12, that's why. (I preferred the novel, but didn't object to Gia Scala being thrown in, then.)

To start with the conclusion: I adore it. In the "tongue-in-cheek romantic action thriller" category it's among the very best. It's not perfect though, and if you can stand some iconoclastic criticism, here is some.

For one thing, there is (to stay in Martin Landau's alley) the high "Mission Impossible" flavour: unnecessarily far-fetched solutions where simpler ones are at hand. To interrogate an alleged government agent, there is really no need to occupy and stage a lavish mansion, house personnel included. To dispose of him, there really really is no need to have him attack by a plane, all the less when he's patiently waiting in the middle of a desert. (I told you it's iconoclastic.) And to murder a diplomat, there surely must be easier ways than hurling a knife in his back in the crowded main hall of the UN building. Speaking of which, it takes some awkward body directing to have Thornhill spontaneously withdraw the bloody knife from the victim! There are more clumsy transitions. The secret agent, somewhat alarmed by a pistol shot fired in her living room, is fobbed off with the silly comment "Yes, I thought I heard something". And the housekeeper catching an armed intruder minutes before the villains fly off patiently waits until her husband will have seen them out. First things first! And climbing down Mount Rushmore while helping the lady in distress AND holding on to a precious statue, come on.

With that off my chest, let me repeat how I love it. To mention just two minor aspects: the opening scene with the skew views of the office building, and the secondary but highly entertaining appearances of Thornhill's mother.

Yesterday, during my n-th viewing of the film, I got slightly irritated by the clumsy train scenes which all too clearly are shot in a completely motionless studio. Thornhill does say "train is a little unsteady" but there is more vibration in Mount Rushmore!

One of my favourite Hitchcock movies, ever since I first saw it in my youth. The dream scene is fascinating, the solve-by-shrink setting highly original, and all actors do well, not only the good ones like Leo Carroll but also the unknown ones like Michael Chekhov (I had to copy and paste this) and the limited ones like Gregory Peck. Ingrid Bergman is more radiant than ever; in spectacles she's simply irresistible. I'm not blind to the flaws though. The plot, for one, is full of loose ends. A depressed psychiatrist shooting with a revolver, from behind a tree, a downhill skier in such a way that the victim falls into an abyss, come on! Some ski run and some marksman! As for skiing, the protagonists clumsily crouching in front of a screen, seconds before the very climax of the movie, is simply hilarious. Call me old-fashioned, but I think a work of art should show craftsmanship, and Hitchcock should not be allowed to get away with this. True, it's a long time ago, but so are 'Bicycle Thieves' and 'The Third Man'!

Much as I admire the Miss Marple setting, this particular episode makes no sense unless it is assumed that in the 1950's (1) British policemen were totally incompetent, (2) elderly ladies moved very quickly, had no problems strangling people much taller and stronger than themselves, and were virtuoso marksmen in dark crowded rooms, and (3) murderers preferred complicated plots, involving may accidental elements, over direct action. As a result of (1), the victim is believed to have killed himself with a rare body shot, with a pistol that may or may not be the colonel's (why his wife lies about it we'll never know) and which is bound to carry the murderer's fingerprints and not his own. None of this is investigated. Quite understandably, the police sergeant started a second life as Morse's assistant, assuming the name of 'Lewis'.

"Heroes versus villains" in a simplistic propaganda setting, full of clichés, one-dimensional acting and poor directing. One hero (Paul Newman, also seen in action while most convincingly disguised as an Arab, yes an Arab) gets shot in the back, almost dies in being patched up by the heroic nurse outdoing herself (though not in acting, which is reduced to frowning) then forgets about his back and uses it to carry a child out of danger in a long and difficult hike. And guess what? The Jew and the Christian have fallen in love in spite of being "different"! But there's more! A naïve fifteen years old angelic Jewish maiden also falls in love, is brutally slaughtered by an Arabic assassin while heroically guarding her kibbutz after much singing and dancing, then buried in one grave with the Good Arab, murdered by his own people. There must be some hidden message here. And it's a good thing that films like this one show how simple things really are.

Imho, this is the most overrated movie of all time. True, the music is unforgettable and so are many scenes (cavalry charges, trains, fairy tale ice palaces) in themselves. Unfortunately, this isn't enough to make a movie great. There are characters to be played, psychologies to be developed, tension to be sustained. In Zhivago, all this is equally bad. There are movies (good movies) in which all the actors, including the lesser ones, outdo themselves. And there are movies (bad movies) in which even the good actors perform poorly. Zhivago is one of the latter. Alec Guiness and Rod Steiger are far below their usual level, and Omar Sharif, Julie Christie and Geraldine Chaplin are their usual selves, i.e. very poor actors with the expressive powers of Roger Moore, say. And literally everyone could play Pasha the way Tom Courtenay did. Julie Christie as an innocent seventeen year old schoolgirl is simply pathetic and her make-up is terrible! A love story against a background of war, in which characters go through ordeal and are changed accordingly, has made for some of the best literature in history. Not so in this movie. A seventeen year old beauty getting involved with her mother's cynical lover, for instance, is an interesting fact that a good movie maker could turn into a fascinating event. Here we are simply left with the superficial facts, without anything explaining why all this happens in the first place and why things remain the way they are. And apart from her ironing, nothing whatsoever explains why Zhivago falls for his nurse to the point of cheating his wife. In short, as Zhivago and Lara bump into each other time and again (coincidence being the main plot engine) nothing whatsoever is explained. Neither passion nor love is made the least believable. Lara, pregnant and well, leaves Zhivago most resignedly behind, and Zhivago's wife and child are kind enough to simply vanish from the plot. As for the story, it is narrated in such a complicated manner that one simply looses track.

There are also many technical flaws. Many scenes are set in an icy cold, yet nowhere do breaths make vapour. And Pasha seems to have indestructible glasses, surviving sabre cuts and shell explosions with equal ease.

From the DVD extra's, I learnt that critics were bad when the movie was released. I agree with them.