The Crystal Ball

The pairing of Paulette Goddard and Ray Milland worked well for Paramount Pictures in the 1940s. They did 4 films together, including “The Crystal Ball,” a 1943 film directed by Elliot Nugent. Goddard plays a down and out but still very beautiful lass from Texas named Toni Gerard who arrives in New York City after losing a beauty contest. With her last 38 cents, she visits Madame Zenobia (Gladys George), a fake fortune teller running a few illegal schemes to get rich people to give up their money.

Paulette Goddard in "The Crystal Ball."

Paulette Goddard in “The Crystal Ball.”

Madame Zenobia takes a liking to the perky Toni, and offers her a job at carnival shooting gallery run by Pop Tibbets (Cecil Kellaway). Toni, who grew up on a hog farm in Texas, proves to be a crack shot who helps lure customers in with her beauty and her shooting accuracy.  Milland plays Brad Cavanaugh, a lawyer for society woman Jo Ainsley (Virginia Field). After Jo Ainsley loses her emerald ring, she goes to Madame Zenobia to help her locate it. With some inside help, Madame Zenobia tells Jo where to find the ring and the grateful then Jo becomes a regular customer.

When Brad shows up at the shooting gallery, Toni falls in love with him at first sight. In normal, everyday life, two things would happen: Toni would approach Brad and eventually tell him how she felt, or she’d pine for him in silence. Screwball romantic comedies require a series of outrageous misunderstandings of course, and this film delivers on all of those.  The screenplay by the prolific and talented Virginia Van Upp contains lots of witty lines and comic situations, and the love triangle pairing Goddard, Milland and Field pull it off wonderfully.
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A particularly amusing running gag involves a bickering married couple who Toni stumbles across while trying to fool Brad. After Brad walks her to the wrong apartment, she enters and is immediately attacked by the wife. As happened in “The Women,” the 1939 George Cukor directed film, a “catfight” breaks out and Goddard’s character has her dress ripped off. More violence ensues later when Brad goes to the apartment to meet Toni and gets punched by the irate husband. Later Brad’s butler Biff Carter (William Bendix) becomes part of the gag when he delivers flowers to the apartment.

Madame Zenobia harbors no illusions about her psychic abilities; she’s just a con woman. The silly, screwball comedy part comes through when Toni must fill in for Madame Zenobia to do a few readings. Toni starts to believe in her psychic powers, but it’s certain that the ruse will come crashing down at the end. Interestingly, this World War 2 era comedy features a very compact car driven by Brad. It’s called a Crosley, a convertible 2-seater that must have been good on gas in those war rationing times.

 

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A Woman of Paris

Just by its category of being a romantic drama, “A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate” stands out as being one of Charles Chaplin’s most interesting films. Chaplin took a bold step forward by producing this realistically acted and filmed 78-minute 1923 movie, and by deciding to only make a brief appearance in it as a train porter. The scenes continually strike the right notes and leave the viewer with a memorable and moving experience. On the surface, the plot may seem like common melodrama, but the naturalistic acting, complex characters, and pacing are innovative and courageous for the time period. Later filmmakers must have used this movie as a guide for making other romantic dramas.

Adolphe Menjou as Pierre and Edna Purviance as Marie in "A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate."

Adolphe Menjou as Pierre and Edna Purviance as Marie in “A Woman of Paris: A Drama of Fate.”

The movie opens with a scene of a young French woman, Marie St. Clair (Edna Purviance), preparing to go out on a date. She intends to elope with young artist Jean Millet (Carl Miller), but Marie’s father disapproves of her plan and throws her out of the house. Jean takes her to his house, but his father throws them both out. The couple make plans to run off to Paris, but Jean is held up after his father suddenly collapses. Marie goes off to Paris by herself and the story skips forward a year.

In Paris, Marie finds comfort and wealth if not exactly happiness by being a courtesan to the wealthy and flamboyant Pierre Revel (Adolphe Menjou). He’s genial and kind to her, even if he’s occasionally smug and cynical. Pierre puts her up in a luxury apartment complete with servants, and she doesn’t lack for furs and fancy clothing. He also pays a lot of attention to her, but she longs for marriage and children. Pierre wants to keep things as they are and continually reminds her of how happy she should be.
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By coincidence, Marie runs into Jean and asks him to paint her portrait. This rekindles their romance and forces her to make a choice between Jean and Pierre. Fate intervenes in various ways to help her make the decision, but the movie finally reaches a surprising outcome. Marie’s stunning change at the end is just as dramatic and sudden as her transformation into a courtesan earlier in the picture.

Adolphe Menjou gives us a charming Pierre and that alone is enough reason to see this film. Menjou provides the right comic touch in a scene with Marie at a busy Paris restaurant, where he enters the kitchen to view a bird being served for dinner. He also laughs charmingly (and realistically) when the impulsive Marie tosses her pearl necklace out the window and then must run after the man who retrieved it.

In his autobiography, “It Took Nine Tailors,” Menjou tells a few stories about the filming of this movie. He says he could always tell Chaplin’s mood by the clothes he wore. If he wore a white suit, he’d be in a good mood, whereas a dark blue suit meant trouble and irritability. The movie turned out to be a classic, so Chaplin must have been in a good mood most days.

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Safety Not Guaranteed

I’m wary of the cheap look of some independent films that seem like a couple of episodes of a cable TV show, with dialogue that seems improvised, way too many characters and shaky camerawork and production values. Thankfully, “Safety Not Guaranteed,” a 2012 film directed by Colin Trevorrow, avoids all these faults and manages to be witty, well-made and interesting. It concerns a trio of magazine workers from Seattle who venture into Ocean View, Washington, to find out about man who claims to own a time machine. Because of the charismatic performances of the actors in the main plot line, the movie contains enough likability and drive to delight the audience and keep them guessing about a not improbable ending.

Aubrey Plaza as Darius gets caught up in time travel in "Safety Not Guaranteed."

Aubrey Plaza as Darius gets caught up in time travel in “Safety Not Guaranteed.”

Aubrey Plaza plays Darius, an intern at Seattle Magazine. During an editorial conference, brash writer Jeff (Jake Johnson) proposes an investigation of a man who placed an advertisement in a newspaper about time travel. The ad offers a job as a passenger in a time machine. Jeff convinces the editor to allow him to travel to the small town where the job lister lives; he takes interns Darius and Arnau (Karan Soni) with him. They are an odd combination: Jeff, a thirty-something, continually brags about his sexual conquests while Arnau is a sexually repressed Indian-American college student. Darius is a quick-witted and sincere but somewhat morose woman who yearns to find acceptance and love but manages to sabotage her efforts. As she says, “I expect the worst and try not to get my hopes up.” Even her father wonders why she’s still a virgin in a surprisingly blunt dinner conversation.
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The time-machine guy, Kenneth (Mark Duplass), turns out to be a cashier at the Grocery Outlet in Ocean View. He’s into lasers and physics theories, and is also a big-time believer in government conspiracies. After Kenneth rebuffs Jeff, Darius offers her services. In my favorite scene, Darius approaches Kenneth while he restocks soup cans. In full cloak and dagger mode, Darius comes across as an ultra operative as she and Kenneth exchange witty dialogue about the dangers they face. The following scenes show Darius and Kenneth training for their mission, and include target practice with pistols. In spite of Kenneth’s weirdness, I became only slightly concerned about Darius’ safety because of their obvious chemistry.

The movie veers off into a couple of subplots involving Jeff and Arnau, fueled by Jeff’s obsessions. But the movie works best when it stays centered on Darius. Since it’s a time-machine story, the movie includes some subtext questioning whether the characters already changed their lives by time travel. A few things double back on themselves and the ending only reinforces the subtleties and setups Kenneth meticulously channels for the audience. Darius and Kenneth’s reasons for time travel become less clear as the movie goes on, which makes one think they’ve already returned with their answers.

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Female

The title of the 1932 movie “Female” sounds provocative and melodramatic, as though the viewer can expect to learn something about the fairer sex. The plot concerns a very capable female auto executive named Alison Drake (Ruth Chatterton), who runs and autocratic and tight ship at the automobile factory but is prone to salacious behavior at her mansion in her private life. Alison becomes interested in male business associates at the Drake automobile factory, invites them to her mansion under some pretext about work, and seduces them with vodka and come-ons. The men always fall in love with her after the seduction, but she tosses them away by sending them to work in a factory in another town.

George Brent at Jim Thorne and Ruth Chatterton as Alison Drake enjoy a burger in "Female."

George Brent as Jim Thorne and Ruth Chatterton as Alison Drake enjoy burgers in “Female.”

The movie never explains how Alison developed such a hard attitude, but one assumes she’s channelling her late father, an industrial giant who built a successful automobile business. At work, the belching smokestacks of the Drake factory appear through the window in the background; Alison works against this backdrop like a dynamo. She’s not only the power, but the heart and soul of the business.

The ED drug Sildenafil citrate is made cheap for the patent protection is over and the huge production of the medicine made a samples viagra http://www.glacialridgebyway.com/mid-6810 buzz among males suffering from the sexual problem. The possible negative effects can include pain in the testicular region, paid off sexual drive, decline in low try for more viagra 100 mg libido, sperm creation and erectile dysfunction, though they’re rare. The greatest suggested measurement is one tablet for every viagra cialis achat day. What Are the Side Effects of Intagra? Prolonged erection resulting to damage to the cheap buy viagra penile blood vessels to relax during sexual stimulation. Most of the men find her extremely impressive, and they even refer to her as a “superwoman.” Alison insists she’s “quite human,” but that usually means she wants to make love. Ruth Chatterton embodies Alison to perfection as she makes quick but wise decisions, efficiently takes telephone calls, and directs her male minions with an iron resolve. Her only confident at work turns out to be giddy male secretary Pettigrew (Ferdinand Gottschalk), who poses no threat to her power but obviously wants to emulate her in his dealings with a lesser female secretary. Pettigrew’s knowing looks provide most of the laughs in an otherwise serious film.

Despite this enthusiastic role for actress Chatterton, she never sounds brassy or annoying, just extremely sure of herself. The movie’s central theme wonders if her resolve will ever waver to a more romantic interest in life. Sure enough, along comes Jim Thorne (George Brent), a talented engineer Alison needs to design a new drive shaft. The pair experience a “meet cute” after Alison decides to go slumming alone at a roadside carnival and challenges Jim to a competition at a shooting gallery. After he wins, he buys her a malt and then a hamburger while she slowly becomes enthralled by him. But Jim considers her a “pick up” and sends her away alone.

When Jim turns out to be Drake factory’s new engineer, Alison intensifies her efforts to seduce him, but he’s not an easy conquest. Suddenly, Jim becomes this superwoman’s first serious problem and it leaves her with few answers and nobody but the effete Pettigrew to help her solve it. At the end, the movie implies that Alison may give up her management of the factory for the bliss of marriage and motherhood, but I can’t see Alison making this much of a sacrifice. She’s very good at running the business.

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Three on a Match

“Three on a Match,” a 1932 Warner Brother’s pre-code film takes on the friendship of 3 women who begin their social lives as very different personalities. The film opens their story at a New York public school, where the brash and rebellious Mary Keaton (Virginia Davis) hangs upside-down on a swing. The other adolescents make comments about her black bloomers, and she obviously doesn’t care if they show or not. Popular Vivian Revere (Anne Shirley) tells a boy that her bloomers are pink, an obvious put-down of Mary’s bad-girl image. The third girl of the trio alluded to in the title, Ruth Wescott (Betty Carse), plays the studious and hard-working teenager who becomes the school’s valedictorian.

From left, Bette Davis, Joan Blondel and Ann Dvorak play with fire in "Three on a Match."

From left, Bette Davis, Joan Blondel and Ann Dvorak play with fire in “Three on a Match.”

We later see Mary cutting school and smoking with boys, and although the film stops briefly for a school graduation that seems to set the girls’ personalities in stone, it soon flashes forward to a scene of the grown-up Mary (Joan Blondel) serving time in a jail/reform house. She regrets the mistakes she’s made, but also attributes it to dumb luck. We wonder how her story will play out but the movie soon takes a very different and strange turn. First, it reunites the girls as adults. Ruth (Bette Davis), as serious as ever, works in a clerical position, while Vivian finds success as a rich attorney’s wife. Vivian’s attorney husband, Robert Kirkwood (Warren William), gives Vivian everything she wants and remains affectionate and devoted to her.
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The movie tells us at the beginning the meaning of the phrase “three on a match.” Supposedly, if three soldiers share a lit match light their cigarettes on the battlefield, the man holding the match too long usually gets killed by an enemy sniper. No such sniper exists in this movie, but we’re made to feel that one of the women will come to a very bad end. Interestingly, the third woman on the match turns out the be the one with the most to lose. I wondered why Vivian would so easily give up her rich life, husband and darling baby boy — until Harve, a gangster played by Humphrey Bogart makes it very clear with a simple hand gesture.

The gritty and powerful ending to this picture does not waste our time summing up the possibility of a more hopeful future. Director Mervyn LeRoy transitions between scenes by superimposing the number of the passing year and reporting the incredible events that happened, such as 1920 and “Prohibition.” The script emphasizes these changes while keeping the focus on three woman, especially Blondel’s Mary and Dvorak’s Vivian. It seems odd that Bette Davis’ Ruth contributes little speech-making, but both Blondel and Dvorak give vivid performances that keep the audience guessing and hoping for a better outcome for the woman holding the match.

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Dames

Warner Brothers wonderful early thirties musicals didn’t overtax themselves for a plot idea. They just put on a Broadway show at the end with lots of lead-in featuring backstage preparation and ambitious chorus girls. I find them quite funny and entertaining from start to finish, even though the showstopping Busby Berkeley dance routines come at the end. Dick Powell or James Cagney could reliably carry these vehicles as the zealous producer/songwriter and the magical Joan Blondell always delights. She’s terrific in “Gold Diggers of 1933,” and “Footlight Parade (1933).”

One of the spectacular Busby Berkeley effects in "Dames."

One of the spectacular Busby Berkeley effects in “Dames.”

In the slightly different “Dames,” released in 1934,” the action slows down as the movie sets up the relationship between the well-off Horace Hemingway (Guy Kibbee) and Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert), an eccentric millionaire with an extremely high morale standard. Ezra decides to begin handing out his vast fortune with an offer of $10 million to Horace, but Horace must prove he and his family live a “moral” life. Dick Powell plays disreputable cousin Jimmy, a songwriter and singer who wants backing for a Broadway show. The problem for Horace is that Jimmy is dating his daughter Barbara (Ruby Keeler). Horace must hide that information from Ezra even though the millionaire decides to live with the Hemingways for a while.
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I like how Busby Berkeley’s Warner musicals, including Dames, use the threat of starvation to motivate the chorus girls. Despite the giddy fantasy Berkeley provides, the Great Depression lingers over the story. Blondell, who plays chorus girl and singer Mabel, even stoops to committing blackmail to get the show produced. Apparently though, Ezra, who is gangster-like in his controlling ideas, has the power to shut down the show at any time if he thinks it’s scandalous. When the movie finally stages the Broadway show, Ezra arrives at the theater with a dangerous-looking group of henchman to pounce on the cast and crew.

Dames contains some of Berkeley’s most inspired numbers, including the incredible “The Girl at the Ironing Board,” which includes clothing (long underwear, etc.) dancing with Blondell’s Mabel. The song “Dames” becomes a magnificent production number with stunning black and white images and Berkeley’s usual geometric dance forms. Powell gets a lot of mileage out of the song “I Only Have Eyes for You.” He sings it on a ferry to Ruby Keeler early in the film and reprises it later in a full production number during the Broadway show sequences. Dames doesn’t have the immediate Busby Berkeley impact of Gold Diggers of 1933, which opens with Gingers Rogers and a chorus of beautiful showgirls singing “I’m in the Money,” but it rewards the viewer’s patience with the plot setup by providing a spectacular finale.

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Sirens

When an art exhibition in Australia features a painting of a naked woman on a cross, the outraged bishop of Sydney dispatches a priest to the countryside. His mission: convince the artist Norman Lindsay (Sam Neill) to withdraw the painting from the exhibition. But when the priest arrives with his wife to the artist’s secluded house, they must contend with the uninhibited lifestyle of the determined artist and his free-spirited and frequently naked models. That’s the premise of “Sirens,” a 1993 Australian film that features Hugh Grant as Anthony Campion, the Anglican priest and Tara Fitzgerald as his wife, Estella Campion.

Tara Fitzgerald and Hugh Grant star in "Sirens."

Tara Fitzgerald and Hugh Grant star in “Sirens.”

Director John Duigan sets up the narrative quite nicely by thrusting us into an art gallery and showing painting after painting of traditional and quite tame scenes. We get a glimpse of Estella as a man smiles at her lustfully and she rebuffs his come-on. The Bishop of Sydney, played by Vincent Ball, directs Anthony to the only painting covered by a tarpaulin in the gallery. The tarp comes down and the 2 clergyman look at it smugly. By Anthony’s boastful assurance to the Bishop, we can tell he not only thinks the painting (of a woman on the cross) if rubbish but that his assigned errand to the artist’s lair will result in an easy win for the Church and morality.
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The plot becomes a fish out of water story when Anthony and Estella travel to a dusty little hick town and must bargain with a gritty group of roughshod men at the bar for a ride to Lindsay’s compound. When they finally arrive at the artist’s house, they meet the liberal Lindsay and his quartet of lustful “sirens,” including the eerily pushy Sheela (Elle Macpherson) and the wanton Pru (Kate Fischer). The two beauties set their sights on “corrupting” Estella, whose prim and proper attitude immediately casts her as an unsympathetic character. Sheela and Kate give Estella a massive amount of unwanted attention and often walk around nude, setting up some serious lesbian overtones. They also work on another of Lindsay’s models, Giddy (Portia de Rossi), a naive young woman who wants to explore her sexuality with a blind workman.

Anthony and Lindsay spend the movie discussing art and morality while Estella slowly succombs to the salaciousness around her. Director Duigan provides lots of dreamlike shots of the landscape that imply the naturalness of artistic freedom and sexual liberation. The film works as a study of contrasts in highly-erotic situations. The story is based on the activities of the real-life artist Norman Lindsay (born 1879 and died 1969), and the filmmakers shot the movie at his estate.

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Kiss Me Deadly

I personally prefer private eyes in movies who go about their work without the need to question their selfish motives or their need to solve problems with violence. If they were meant to ask moral questions, they’d have become a regular police detective. Mike Hammer, a Mickey Spillane creation in 1955’s “Kiss Me Deadly,” solves crimes like an old-school private detective, even when the police would rather that he mind his own business.

Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer in "Kiss Me Deadly."

Ralph Meeker as Mike Hammer in “Kiss Me Deadly.”

In Kiss Me Deadly, directed by Robert Aldrich, Ralph Meeker plays the handsome and rather brutish detective, who catches the attention of every woman in the room while sticking his nose into incredible danger for no reason at all. The movie opens with Cloris Leachman, who plays Christina Bailey, running in panic down the middle of a California highway. She wears nothing but a robe and attempts, unsuccessfully, to flag down car after car. Finally, she steps in front of a fancy sports car driven by Mike Hammer (Meeker), who swerves to avoid her. He picks her up and she tells a story about being locked up against her will in a mental institution. Eventually, thugs catch up to them and kill Christina and seriously injure Mike Hammer.

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The criminals heighten the tension by knocking off one of Hammer’s friends, a Greek auto mechanic named Nick. Naturally, Hammer doesn’t take that well, but he also doesn’t revel in grief. The problem with Hammer being so stiff, formal and upright is that it shifts the main focus onto a slightly convoluted plot. Aldrich and Spillane almost always tell the story from Hammer’s point of view, so the danger points appear suddenly.

Like other noir films of the 1950’s, this movie features a jazzy soundtrack and sexy and straightforward women. There’s lots of kissing, including one scene where a woman immediately embraces Hammer passionately at a party. He doesn’t know the woman, and she doesn’t figure into the plot. Hammer kisses women a lot, but none of the smooches turn out to be deadly. The volatile material and clues uncovered by Hammer is very deadly, however, which leads to an explosive finale.

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My One and Only

The vivid color palate of “My One and Only,” which tells the story of actor George Hamilton’s 1950’s cross-country trip to Hollywood with his Southerner mother and step-brother, helps to give the 2009 movie a vintage postcard feel that the filmmakers play to great effect. A lot of characters pop up in episodes as the trio rides a baby blue 1953 Cadillac convertible to stops in New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Albuquerque and Hollywood. Thankfully, the strong and guiding presence of Renée Zellweger as George’s Mom, Anne Devereaux, keeps the film interesting amidst the chaos.

Renée Zellweger behind the wheel of a blue Cadillac in "My One and Only."

Renée Zellweger behind the wheel of a blue Cadillac in “My One and Only.”

This version of George Hamilton’s life before he became famous starts at a Cadillac dealership where George (Logan Lerman) attempts to pay cash for a car. The dealer won’t let him use cash and threatens to call the police, so George tells a story that starts when Anne returns home to find her husband Dan (Kevin Bacon) cavorting with another woman. She leaves Dan, raids his safe deposit box for cash and jewelry and orders George to buy a car. Soon, Anne comes to George’s rescue at the dealership and the journey to Boston begins. Her purpose: To find a man to marry even if she has to travel the entire United States of America. It’s unclear whether the route included Hollywood at first, but Georges half brother Robbie (Mark Rendall) wants to be an actor, so the trio adds the West Coast to the trip.
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George wants to reconnect with his father, so he’s only mildly cooperative with his mother. As in another film starring Logan Lerman, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” from 2012, George is shy, quiet and reserved. The driving force of the movie comes not from his troubles but from the heartbreaking attempts by Anne to hook up in marriage with a decent man. She starts in Boston, where she meets an ex-military man with a charming personality but a thinly concealed temper. Then Anne and the boys move on to Pittsburgh, where romance goes nowhere for Anne but George gains affection from a straightforward and pretty teenager named Paula (Molly Quinn). She speaks her mind and challenges George to respect his own feelings. This serves as a precursor to an inevitable clash later between George and Anne.

The movie seems most interesting in St. Louis, where Anne takes the boys to live with her uncooperative sister, Hope (Robin Weigert). One particularly moving scene has Hope telling off her sister while Anne keeps control of her temper. Hope comes off as someone who forgets to be grateful, but not because Anne manages to get the upper hand. Zellweger’s Anne is pushy but surprisingly subtle at the same time. Ultimately, all the disappointments Anne Devereaux suffers lead to an ending we all know is coming. George Hamilton somehow makes it in Hollywood.

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Ugetsu Monogatari

“Ugetsu Monogatari,” a 1953 film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, describes the tribulations of 2 married couples during the Japanese civil wars of the 16th century. That time of violence, lawlessness, famine, rape and pillaging destroyed families and villages, and forced individuals to make incredible moral sacrifices to stay alive. Mizoguchi focusses on ghostly idealism in this moving and visually interesting film, producing a masterpiece that’s both historically interesting and emotionally compelling.

Machiko Kyô as Lady Wakasa in "Ugetsu Monogatari."

Machiko Kyô as Lady Wakasa in “Ugetsu Monogatari.”

As Genjûrô (Masayuki Mori), a farmer, loads his wagon full of pottery to sell in town, his wife, Ohama (Mitsuko Mito), warns him of the dangers of travelling through the dangerous countryside. Suddenly, Genjûrô’s brother, Tôbee (Eitarô Ozawa), darts out to the wagon begging Genjûrô to take him along. Tôbee dreams of becoming a noble samurai despite pleas from his wife, Miyagi, to stop his foolish dreaming. Genjûrô and Tôbee take off, and they soon return after successfully selling the pottery carrying pieces of silver and gifts for their wives. During the trip, a samurai clan rebuff’s Tôbee’s request to join them. Things seem to return to normal until Genjûrô and Tôbee decide to make an even larger load of pottery. They slave tirelessly and light the kiln to finish the pieces. Unfortunately, samurais attack the village and the couples must run off to the hills.

Nowadays, drinking alcohol has almost become a way of life as well as taking medication that could help you along the way with levitra cheapest any issues you may encounter. Such circumstances cialis generic uk can arrive anytime and anywhere. Reiki speeds up revival from generic levitra cialis surgical treatment or any long-term illness for that matter. This perhaps may avert a man from sustaining an tadalafil professional cheap erection. The samurais ransack the village and leave. The brothers and their wives return and discover that their pottery is spared. They rejoice and make plans to set sail across a misty lake to sell their wares. Up until the scenes on the lake, the film takes a realistic view of village life and the chaos of war. But an ominous sign appears when a seriously injured man floats by on another boat. He warns the brothers to guard their women, and the subsequent events take the story to another level of hard reality and ghostly fantasy.

Ohama departs the boat with her son at the nearest shore while the men take their wares to town. From then on, Mizoguchi drives home the theme that men’s foolish desires often cause women to suffer greatly. In town, Tôbee discovers a ruse that finally convinces the samurais to take him on. He becomes an important man while his wife Miyagi must avoid wandering bands of pillaging thugs in the countryside. Ohama, doing all she can to protect her little son, also runs into trouble in the warzone.

In a spectacular sequence, Genjûrô meets a mysterious noblewoman, Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyô), a ghostly figure who seems to float in the air. She’s a symbol of the lost love that he carelessly abandoned in the countryside to the service of selling pottery. From here on, through the use of deft camerawork by cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and sweet idealistic romantic situations, Mizoguchi delves into pure fantasy for the rest of the movie. This striking contrast between realism and ghostly fantasy, with all its fine visual perception, leaves an emotional weight upon the viewer that defines Ugetsu Monogatari as a cinema masterpiece.

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