Roman Holiday (1953)

 

Prinsessen Holder Fridag

In Denmark a republican is something quite different from stateside. It is a person who simply sees no point in royalty, considers royal weddings, parties and perks a ridiculous waste of money paid their royal subjects who have no other benefit than a real life glamour show. Essentially an anachronism that has outlived itself and now only survive to feed pictures and stories to women’s weeklies. I am such a person.

I make a point of avoiding movies featuring princes and princesses, especially those movies with a pink hue around the characters and the few times I have seen such trash I have struggled with gagging reflexes. It is just not my thing.

But I loved “Roman Holiday”, unabashed and completely.

This is feel good cinema of the very best kind. It is rightfully famous, even iconic and everybody owe themselves to see it.

For those few who has not seen it (which would include me until last night) you have to think something like “Coming to America” without Eddie Murphy. Ah, okay, and a few other minor details, but it is obvious where the inspiration came from.

Princess Ann (the gorgeous Audrey Hepburn) of some obscure European kingdom is visiting Rome as part of a lengthy and tiresome official roundtrip when all the ties and duties become too much for the princess. She is young and alive, but are not allowed out of her cage. So one night she runs away into the night of Rome. Unfortunately for her she had been injected with some sedative so she does not get far before she falls asleep on a fence by the sidewalk. This is where Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) finds her, not recognizing her as the princess. His attempts at sending her home are in vain and eventually he brings her home to his own apartment to sleep.

Next morning Joe discovers that she is a actually the very princess he was supposed to interview in his function as a journalist and he decides to scoop the world press with an exclusive behind the scene interview. To this end he needs his photographer friend Irving Radovich (Eddie Albert). Joe pretends not to recognize the princess as herself and that fits very well because she in turn pretends to be someone else. In fact she totally enjoys being out in town incognito, eating ice-cream, getting a haircut, seeing the sights and Joe plays along. For a full day Ann is Anya Smitty, an ordinary girl, and Joe is a fertilizer sales rep taking a day off.

They are having a blast and it is truly a day to remember. Eddie Albert is the perfect funny sidekick that gives all the events a roguish twist. Of course they fall in love, but when the day ends so does her holiday and she must return to her mansion. Joe refuses to do a story that exposes the princess. What they have together have become a lot more personal than was intended. They meet the next day for an official press conference, she a princess again and he a journalist. They share a long look, a smile and that is it. Theirs are two different worlds and what they shared is now a fond memory for each of them.

I like everything about this movie.

Audrey Hepburn was one of a kind. I frankly admit that when she does that smile I go all wobbly in my knees and as this caged-princess-discovering-life she is just perfect. There is an exuberance to her, a lust for life that I feel certain is not just an act. So is she acting or just being herself? I do not know and I do not care. I want her no other way. And that haircut makes Audrey Hepburn.

Gregory Peck is perfect as her male counterpart. He has to be both a fatherly protector and a roguish lover and I immediately thought of Cary Grant. In fact I later learned from the extra material that Grant was actually offered the role but turned it down and good for that because Peck as a Grant-light actually fits the bill even better. Thinking about it, Ann and Joe could only be Hepburn and Peck.

Then there is the tone of the movie. It is light comedy, but it avoids becoming fluff and it retains just enough tension to keep me on the toes, but must of all it projects all the joy these two are having in Rome throughout about half of the movie. This part is no filler, but actually the core of the film. They are having fun and it is so fun to watch.

There are tons of clones of this movie, but where this one really stands out is that the romantic element never goes into pink overdrive. We are not getting the Disney ending here. As much as these two people share a wonderful day together they are still rooted in reality. In 1953 this could not be more than a sweet memory, at least not where the movie ends. We are not forced to believe that one day of hanky panky leads directly to a big wedding. Something may have been seeded, but for now she is a princess and he is a journalist. Even throughout the day there is that underlying knowledge that this only works because they have given up their identity for a while. It is bittersweet, but it is what makes the story work.

Finally there is Rome itself. You could not have asked for a better set. I have been there twice and I have seen all these places, but they never looked more beautiful and romantic than here. There are times where famous locations feel forced into the story, but not here. Rome is a very natural setting for this picture. And yes, I am going to Italy this summer.

I knew “Roman Holiday” is famous and I had a feeling I would like it simply for the fact that it features Audrey Hepburn (oh dear, my knees again…), but I had not expected to be blown away. This is not my kind of movie, this is the stuff my wife watches, but I really loved “Roman Holiday”.

New Blog on Books

New Blog on Books

Ladies and Gentlemen, my blog has spawned a little brother: The TSorensen 1001 Book Blog.

Ta-Da…. (Drumroll)

I hinted at it in my New Year’s post and now it has become reality. For Christmas my wife gave me “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” and almost on the spot I decided to extend my 1001 project to also include litterature. However I am a very slow reader, or rather I have precious little time to read so this is going to be the slowest blog in the world. I expect something like 4-5 posts per year and there is just no way I am going to read all 1001 books before I take the ticket. To me that does no really matter, I am sure it is going to be fun.

The principle is the same: I start with the first (oldest) one on the list and work my way through it.

The first book is read and the first post has been written. Let the good times roll.

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Herfra Til Evigheden

With ”From Here to Eternity” I am starting to get into known territory. This is a movie I have seen before and I remember it as being good. That was years ago, before I had even considered this project. Would it hold up now, years later?

The answer is a resounding YES.

It is difficult to compete with the rose tinted patina of fond memories, but this time I have the advantage of being deeply immersed in the movie scene of the period. I can see how superior this movie is to most, if not all, other contemporary movies. This movie is an achievement on almost every account and its 8 Academy awards (and a stack of nominations) is testament to that.

“From Here to Eternity” is taking place on ground zero for that historic day, December 7^th 1941, where Pearl Harbor was attacked and so it is easy to conclude that this is the story of that event. That is however not the case. Yes, Pearl Harbor gets bombed in the last ten minutes of the movie, but that is merely a backdrop for the real story, an accentuation of the environment and a feeling that the events told takes place at a turning point in history.

It is even difficult to put a finger on exactly what is the story. This is an ensemble movie that follows a number of soldier stationed at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, Hawaii. Their stories are intertwined but somewhat different although they have that in common that they are all about personal integrity.

Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) has transferred into the unit after some trouble in his previous unit. He is a first class bugler (the dude in an outfit that blows the horn), but to company commander Captain Holmes (Philip Ober) he is first of all the boxer his company needs for the upcoming competition. Trouble is Prewitt does not want to fight. Since he K.O’ed his boxing friend and brain damaged him he has refused to box. Holmes as the first class assholes he is, lets his dogs loose on him and gives him hell to force him in to joining the boxing team. Prewitt stoically endures the harassment, but is ironically undone by another fight.

Maggio (Frank Sinatra) is a jovial private in the company who immediately befriends Prewitt. He loves life and party hard and in that process makes an enemy of Sergeant “Fatso” Judson (Ernest Borgnine). He is unfortunately the warden of the stockade so when Maggio as a result of his partying (leaving guard duty to go on a binge) is sent to the stockade he is in for a hard treatment. He refuses to bent, much like Prewitt, but to a vengeful sadist like Fatso that is just an invitation to cruelty and he ends up killing him.

Sergeant Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster) is the assistant of Captain Holmes. It is he who in actuality runs the company since Holmes is mostly absent. Warden takes an awful lot of pride in his job and is the epitome of the army sergeant, the personified backbone of the army. At the outset he encourage Prewitt to give in to the pressure to box, but gradually he gets to respect Prewitt and the two of them becomes fast friend. This perfect soldier is however himself challenged. He falls in love with Captain Holmes pretty and promiscuous wife Karen (Deborah Kerr), which in itself is a big no-no, but he also finds himself being hypocrite of the year when is accusing her of her promiscuity, although it is that which enabled them to be together in the first place and is peanuts compared to his own transgression.

Each of these characters have to make decisions on who they are and what they believe is right and then stand by them in the face of adversity. Those are fairly big existential questions but the movies handles it beautifully. This never gets dry or theoretical, but remain all the way through interesting and relevant. It is one of those movies where time flies and all too soon you are at the end despite it being almost two hours long.

A lot of it has to do with the acting. This is a beautifully cast movie. Lancaster is spot on. Clift may not seem like your typical boxer, but he has that fifties rebellious youth about him that tells us he can be a bad boy if he wants to. Sinatra of course is a party boy as there ever was any.

The girls are a lot more than the accessory items they are made out to be. Both Deborah Kerr as Karen Holmes and Donna Reed as the dance hall prostitute have agendas of their own and will get there with or without their men. I hardly mentioned Reed, but she does have a fairly complex role as Prewitt’s girl. Is she the temptress Eve or the mother he never had? Or maybe she is just using him to fulfill her own dream of respectability?

The movie covers a lot of ground, involves a lot of characters and is fairly complex, but it all ties up in the end, though not with the traditional Hollywood happy end. It is sad but satisfying and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor seems a well-chosen metaphor for the scythe swiping through the characters of this story. They all lose something for standing up for their integrity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It deserves all the accolade it got and I know I will get back to it frequently. Unless the rest of the decade blows me away completely I just know this one will make my top ten of the fifties.

Madame De... (The Earrings of Madame De...) (1953)

Madame de...

Whatever you might say or think about Max Ophüls you have to admit that he was a pretty good cinematographer. His movies are always very pretty with well-considered camera angles, lighting and expressions on the actors. It is easy to see that he is of the German expressionist school and that he wants the pictures to speak. He also has an affinity for Belle Époque dramas which I suspect is partly due to his Viennese background and partly an excuse to create elaborate costume dramas.

“Madame de…” is all that and if this makes you tick then there is a lot to enjoy in this movie.

I however tend to focus on the characters and the story and in that department Ophüls has a bit of a problem. At least with me.

“Madame de…” is a triangle/costume drama, which means that we have a woman, the Madame without name (Danielle Darrieux and let us just call her character Louise), the husband, Count and General no name (Charles Boyer whom we will call André) and the lover Baron Donati (Vittorio De Sica). We also have money, power, frivolity and repression and of course a chance to show off all those dresses and uniforms.

Louise is flirting with everything male, Donati have no qualms courting a woman married to a diplomatic colleague and the General is pretty pissed and wants to shoot Donati.

All the while I do not really care.

None of the characters are able to generate much sympathy from me. Louise is obviously bored and seeks to confirm herself through her flirtations. She is also an act of affected manners, frequent “faints” and idiotic self-pity. It is obvious that she will get herself in trouble and it is just as clear that she has no idea how to get herself out of the trouble except hope that some knight will safe her. Or that maybe her sulking and martyrdom will get her what she wish for. All in all not my kind of woman.

The General is most concerned with the appearance to the world, that he and his wife are presentable. To that end his idea of a marriage is to make it work and keep Louise under control. The method operandi is to keep it simple, play along and let his wife do what she wants within reason. This does not involve much intimacy, neither on the emotional nor on the physical plane. Is a trophy wife really enough? And can you just overrule her feelings, stupid as they may be? No, I do not like him much either, especially since he obviously practice what he forbids his wife.

What about lover-boy Donati? I think we are supposed to have some sympathy for him and certainly de Sica (yes, it is the famous Italian director) has the charm pedal on full throttle, but there is something wrong with him. He is a predator whose target is Louise and he seems to stop at nothing to get her. Until he realizes that she is not entirely honest with him at which point he loses interest and let her rot. As a diplomat he should know better. Even in the Belle Époque diplomacy was delicate to the extent that having a relationship with the wife of another diplomat is big no-no. The implications are just too severe to allow it. Yet Donati does not look back. Nope, he too is an ass.

What these three people do to each other really is no concern of mine.

It seems Ophüls is (again) telling a story about how the ruling class of old is caught between immense power to do whatever they fancy and a rigorous code that allow very little flexibility and in that game women usually come out short. This critique is in a sense in continuation of Renoir’s “La Regle du Jeu”, except that that one was much better. Here I just keep thinking “thank heavens for the divorce”.

If Louise divorced the general and moved in with Donati everything was solved and there would not be a movie. Alternatively when the General is stuck with a sulking and self-pitying wife he could just divorce her. Why should he ruin his (and her) life when clearly their relationship has expired? They have no children, nothing is really keeping them together. Insisting on it just feels so stupid.

You might argue that this movie takes place in a period where divorce is not an option, but it is made in 1953, at a time where divorce is becoming a reasonable thing to do. In that case this movie is a massive argument for divorce as a solution. Except that the movie never explorers that option. Instead it insists that these people are trapped and that is where I jump off. How can I be bothered to care for unsympathetic people who get themselves into trouble and insists to be stuck in it although the situation could be easily solved?

This movie may pretend to tell a story of romantic love, or of an elite trapped in its codes or of women banned from their emotions in a masculine world, but sadly it does not work. Instead I will just sit back and settle for the beautiful cinematography.  

The Band Wagon (1953)

Let På Tå

Vincente Minnelli is back with another musical and readers of this blog will know that that cocktail is not a favorite of mine. True to form “The Band Wagon” is not my cup of tea, but there are things to enjoy as well.

This is, for the n’th time, a musical about setting up a show. What a novel and unique idea! So refreshing when you see something new like this. Ahem… The show is the comeback of former dancing superstar Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire) and this is supposed to be a great fireworks of a show. To that end the stage wizard Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan) is hired, the man who produce, direct and act blockbusters on the stage.

For an hour we get the usual fare and yes, there is a comical slant, but no, it is not really funny. The music is so-so, some dancing here and there and I am just about to slaughter this musical when something happens. This great Faustian musical with drama, devils, explosions and big elaborate sets turns out to be a huge disaster. It is so funny it is like a jolt of electricity. I sit up straight and for ten minutes I am cracking up. The empty reception at release night is the single most spectacular scene of the entire movie. The cliché is broken and the movie goes a different way, hurrah!

Well, it was not meant to last. The crew decides to change the show and take away all the Faustian elements to produce, well, a conventional show instead. This turn out to be a success and everybody is happy. Back in the rut, but for ten minutes things were great.

I fail to see the point of the conventional show. We are shown a performance from each act and they are all so different from each other that nothing ties it together. What is this show? Random song parade? Individually the acts are fine I suppose, but they leave me unimpressed. I would much rather have watched Cordova’s’ Faustian version. A musical in hell with explosions, there is something you do not see every day.

All is not bleak however. Besides the ten minutes that woke me up “The Band Wagon” offers a number of isolated interesting elements.

It is nice to finally see Fred Astaire in color. I enjoyed him both as an actor and a performer in his earlier movies and he still shines. He may not be as agile as Gene Kelly, but as an actor I much prefer Astaire.

Then there is the fact that “The Band Wagon” is contemporary. That means we get a lot of color images of life in 53. Great trains and cars, cloth and phones and all those things that are fascinating to look at. I really loved those trains. If trains were still like that I would ride them all the time. Except for the inescapable smoke.

I have mentioned the songs being so-so and by that I mean that there are quite forgettable ones and then some that are truly outstanding. There is no way around it, “That’s Entertainment!” is a monster hit and this is the musical that introduced it.

The leading lady of the musical, the one to dance with Astaire and be his romantic interest (of course) is Cyd Charisse. She had a smaller, but memorable part in “Singin’ in the Rain”, but is here upgraded to feature in almost all the dancing acts. I am not a fan of dancing, I have said that countless times. Watching dance is just a bore, but Charisse brings a dark sensuality into it that makes it worthwhile. That may be just a testosteronic interest, but it does help me though the dancing acts.

Talking of dancing acts, Minnelli just could not help it but had to end the movie with an overly long modern dancing act. Okay, it is a take on film noir and yeah, the jazz music is kinda cool, but this is just a friggin’ dance. Get on with the movie, damn it! Minnelli did this in “An American in Paris” and was rewarded with a Best picture award and that I suppose is all the encouragement he needed to repeat that travesty.

All in all this is a musical with some good songs, small segments that are actually funny, nice pictures throughout and clichés queuing up only to be broken by a few surprises near the middle. Is it enough to make it worthwhile watching? It might be. Is it enough to make it great? Nope.

The Bigamist (1953)

Jeg Er Bigamist

”The ”Bigamist” claim to fame is that is one of the earliest films to be directed by a woman who would also be starring it. That woman is Ida Lupino.

I suppose that is enough to make a spot on the List, since so many other firsts of otherwise obscure quality got their place. Fortunately “The Bigamist” has more to offer than exotic novelty. It is actually a decent film with an interesting and unusual story.

Not surprisingly “The Bigamist” is a story about bigamy, the curious and usually illegal situation where a man or a woman is married to two different people at the same time. In most stories this would be some triangle drama with a man or a woman taking a lover and there suddenly be one person too many. This is also the way “The Bigamist” runs, but it plays out differently and the drama is if not absent then taking a different form than usual.

Since this is a movie in the film noir tradition we start near the end and get most of the story in flashback. Harry (Edmond O’Brien) and Eve Graham (Joan Fontaine) is meeting an agent from an adoption agency, Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn). They want to adopt a child and he needs to find out if they are suitable people to receive a child. Harry is a travelling salesman while his wife Eve runs the back office, so Mr. Jordan follows Harry to Los Angeles (from San Francisco) only to find out that he has practically disappeared. Everybody likes him, but nobody know anything about him outside work. Mr. Jordan discovers that Harry sometimes uses the name Harrison and that he under this name has an address in town. He pays him a visit and we get one of the great reveals of the film. Not only is Harry in, he also has a little child and a wife in this home in Los Angeles. That scene is just awesome. The shock reads so clearly in Jordan’s face that it is almost funny. Harry on the other hand seems fatalistic about it and almost relieved that his double life has been exposed. For the better part of the movie he now tells Jordan how it came to pass that he got married to both Eve and Phyllis (Ida Lupino).

Without going into too many details here, Harry was feeling lonely. His relationship with Eve had lost its intimacy and become more of a business relationship, literally, and so during one of his trips to LA he chatted up a girl he met on a bus. It seems quite deliberate on his side, not like an accident, but something he really wanted to do. Only when he had already befriended Phyllis did he seem to realize that this may be a mistake, but at that point he was trapped. Both Eve and Phyllis need him, not economically, but for his care and affection and Harry just cannot get himself to refuse them. He is aware on a larger scale that he needs to break clean with one of them, but every time he is preparing to do so it just seems a wrong and hurtful thing to do. As his urgency become greater so do the women’s need for him. Eve’s father turns ill and dies and Phyllis is getting their baby. He is trapped and cannot get himself to break with any of them and so he spends time in San Francisco and Los Angeles in his two homes with his two wives, none of them knowing anything about the other.

It is of course an explosion waiting to happen, but when it does happen it is different from what you would expect. Mr. Jordan did not turn him in, Harry did it himself. Instead of coming clean with either of his wives he simply resigned from the game and put the cards on the table for the world to judge him. Of course the women were shocked, but no screaming or shouting or throwing accusations or curses ensued. Just sadness. Everybody lost out.

Such an ending may seem anticlimactic, but it is very much in thread with the movie. Ida Lupino never portrays her three characters as evil or deliberately mean. In fact they are all being so nice and decent to each other to a fault. If Harry had not been such a nice guy he might have been able to ditch one of his women, but he just does not have the heart to be cruel although this inaction actually ends up being cruel. He is sucked into this mess until it just implodes.

I find it difficult to dislike Harry. It is so much easier to judge people from the outside. When you are in the situation it is so tempting to avoid the conflict and just try to make everybody happy. Several time I wished he had a little more backbone, but he is not a bad guy. His big mistake was to involve himself with Phyllis in the first place, but even that weakness is kind of understandable. In his situation I think most people would need some sort of company.   

There are essentially only four roles in this movie, but with Joan Fontaine and Ida Lupino the female cast is very strong. Both are well known on the List and both fill their characters very well. Theirs are tragic characters, but they are not played for melodrama, which requires some restraint. Lupino of course, being the director as well, must take extra credit for that. The movie however belongs to Edmond O’Brien. He manages to give his character all the complexity it needs.

The question remains if I liked the movie. I think I respect it more than I liked it. I found it rather painful to watch these three people get more and more mired in this disaster and there were parts I almost could not watch. That however is a credit to the movie, that it manages to hold me engaged with these people, but it is a tough ride. Maybe the ending was a bit flat, though the more I think about it the more it feels right.

 

The Golden Coach (Le Carrosse D'Or) (1953)

Guldkareten

After a long absence on the List Jean Renoir is finally back and this time in Technicolor.

I am sure Renoir was not idle in Hollywood, but apparently his golden age was the thirties while he was still in France. Maybe he just had to get back to Europe to find himself again. With “Le Carosse d’or” (or “The Goden Coach”) he is truly back in Europe. It is a French-Italian coproduction filmed in Cinecitta in Rome where the actors are supposed to speak Spanish, but actually speak English. Essentially how movies work in Europe today…

“Le Carosse d’or” is a bit of an oddity. At least I have some difficulty categorizing it. I finally decided it is a comedy, mostly based on a number of farcical scenes and a light mood in many of the scenes. But there is also something else, a gravity that is strangely at odds with the farce elements. So far I have not yet decided if that is good or bad but it does leave me with an uneasy feeling.

The story takes place in some South American town, most likely Peru, in the eighteenth century. An Italian acting troupe has made the journey to the new world, obviously on some false pretense that this would be a super-rich place only to find themselves stranded in a backwater with a pigsty for a theater.

The troupe is an odd mix of actors, singers, musicians and acrobats and comes with a horde of children. The most prominent character in the troupe is Camilla (Anna Magnani) who is a bit of everything and a magnet for the attention of their audience, the men in town and for us, the viewers. It is not because Magnani is classic eye-candy, she is no Ava Gardner or Grace Kelly, but she has a presence like few others. Anna Magnani owns the screen. She is funny, loud, direct, tender and we are soon as much in love with her as all her suitors. Anna Magnani is the primary reason to watch this movie. Last time I saw her was in “Roma, Citta Aperta” and that was a very different kind of movie. Now instead we see her as comedian and that fits her so well.

The troupe soon becomes a big success in town and among the fans are three men who all court Camilla. The first one is Felipe (Paul Campbell), who was arriving in town together with the troupe as some kind of companion. He obviously consider Camilla his girlfriend, but she clearly is not on the same page as he is. Oh, she likes him, but she does not really consider them a thing.

Secondly there is Ramon, the bull fighter (Riccardo Rioli). He is the macho-man who expects everybody to tremble before him and is quite the local celebrity. He wants Camilla as if she was one of the bulls he fights. Since this is mostly a comedy Ramon comes off as a self-indulgent bozo, who is always there at the wrong time being insanely jealous. But in the deeper moments he represents masculinity where Felipe represents love.

The last and most interesting of Camilla’s suitors is the Viceroy himself, played by Duncan Lamont. He goes by the name Ferdinand, but nobody seems to call him anything but the Viceroy. He is a bit of a dandy with his foppish court, which seems to do its utmost to keep up with the standards of the European higher nobility. The Viceroy seems to be all over the place. Sneaking out among commoners in disguise, spending a fortune on an imported golden coach, offhand with his girlfriends and nonchalant toward the courtiers. For him falling in love with Camilla seems to be just another one of those things that happen. For an impulsive type his huge advantage is that he has the power and wealth to act on it and soon he has outmaneuvered the other suitors through simple bribery. Some expensive jewelry, a nice apartment and access to the court and Camilla is all in. To top it off the Viceroy even gives her the golden coach. The Viceroy represents wealth.

Camilla, who is used to scramble for every bit of coin is not one who says no to all these gifts. All those things are actual wealth, not to be dismissed. She also has no sympathy to the troubles of the rich. How can the rich have any problems?

But soon things gets serious for Camilla. The Viceroy may be losing his seat because the nobility is fed up with his squandering their money and bringing in lowborns to the court. He is willing to give it all up for Camilla, but now she knows the ugly games of the wealthy. Ramon is back with none of the softness of the nobility, but offering her a real man. The love of this man however is a prison where she is reserved only for him. Finally Felipe is back from some soldiering in the wilderness. He offers a love none of the others can match, but the price is giving up everything she has. Nothing can she bring with her to the jungle.

What is a girl to do? She refuses them all and in one of the stranger scenes steps out of the film and on to a stage. I am not sure what it all means, but my guess is that she decides that she is first of all an actress and her family is the troupe. She cannot leave that.

I may be wrong in the interpretation. The end was rather confusing to me and although this is supposed to be the deeper part of the movie it also feels like the weakest.

The strongest on the other hand is the bizarre council meeting where the viceroy is storming through the room like a pendulum trying to placate two fuming girlfriends and every time he thinks things are back under control Camilla will play some guitar and throw him into a new fit. This is truly funny to watch and even better with flying wigs and dandy costumes.

“Le carosse d’or” is funny when it wants to be and it is very much borne by a strong performance from Anna Magnani. But it is also a movie that wants to be more than just a comedy and that part feels messy. I enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would, but as for mixing comedy and social critique, a Renoir specialty, he was way better in the thirties with “La Règle du jeu”, “Grand Illusion” and “La Marseillaise”.