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A Damsel in Distress (1937)
An absolute delight
Back when musicals weren't showcases for choreographers, we had wonderful movies such as this one.
Being a big fan of both Wodehouse and Fred Astaire I was delighted to finally see this movie. Not quite a blend of Wodehouse and Hollywood, but close enough. Some of the American vaudeville humour, the slapstick not the witty banter, clash with Wodehouse's British sense of humour. But on the whole, the American style banter makes the American characters seem real rather than cardboard caricatures.
Some inventive staging for the dance numbers, including the wonderful fairground with revolving floors and funhouse mirrors, more than make up for the lack of a Busby Berkley over the top dance number. They seem a lot more realistic, if you could ever imagine people starting to sing and dance as realistic.
The lack of Ginger Rogers and Eric Blore don't hurt the movie, instead they allow different character dynamics to emerge. It's also nice not to have a wise cracking, headstrong love interest. Instead we have a gentle headstrong love interest, far more in keeping with Wodehouses' young aristocratic females.
Kdo chce zabít Jessii? (1966)
If Fellini had developed a sense of humour this would be the result
If Fellini had developed a sense of humour and had directed a film about a 1920's serial damsel in distress this would be the result.
This was shown at the Brisbane International Film Festival as part of "Czech Gothic", but it was anything but Gothic. This is one of those films, like "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" which are about the pure joy of the cinema. This is not one of those dreary, pretentious films you expect from Europe. It's been nearly 2 hours since I saw it and I'm still grinning.
Other people have written about the plot, so I'll just mention some highlights.
The comic characters can only speak in speech bubbles, which are treated as real objects, in one scene they are moved around so the court reporter can read them.
A cow's nightmare of being bitten by gadflies, is altered to the cow lying on a hammock, on a beautiful day. The camera pans out, and we find that a string quartet is playing for the cow's amusement.
After demolishing one apartment. The evil superman breaks into the neighbors apartment, by pulling their phone through the wall, sits down at their piano and starts to play Mozart.
Czech it out.