Ossessione (1943)

Ossessione is Luchino Visconti’s 1943 unauthorised adaptation of James M. Cain’s 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.

The novel has immense historical importance. Along with Don Tracy’s Criss Cross, published the same year, it has strong claims to be the foundation text of noir fiction and thus indirectly one of the foundation stones of film noir. Oddly enough there has never been a satisfactory film adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

The novel is very much a Depression novel and very much an American novel. Moving the setting to Italy works up to a point. Although the movie was made during the war Visconti wisely makes no mention of the war. We assume the setting is the 1930s. And like Cain’s novel it has a background of poverty, frustration and desperation.

Drifter Gino Costa (Massimo Girotti) arrives at the roadside trattoria owned by middle-aged Giuseppe Bragana (Juan de Landa). For me Gino and Bragana’s wife Giovanna Bragana (Clara Calamai) it’s lust at first sight. After a dispute about non-payment for his meal the penniless Gino is persuaded to accept an informal position as an odd jobs man.

It takes no time at all for Gino and Giovanna to end up in bed.

Giovanna despises her husband. She married him because she was desperate. She had been reduced to whoring herself out to men in return for food. She has no intention of going back to that. But she hates being married to Giuseppe. She wishes he would just die. Then she and Gino could be happy together, with Giuseppe’s money.

You know where this is going to lead.

The problem with the 1946 MGM Hollywood adaptation is that it’s too clean, too glossy, too respectable and has none of the necessary lust and sleaze. John Garfield is miscast as the male lead. He’s not rough enough and he’s not sufficiently disreputable. I’m a big fan of Lana Turner but she looks like a movie star when she’s supposed to look like a cheap waitress. The attraction between the two is too wholesome and lacks any erotic heat.

The 1981 Hollywood version was perfectly cast. Jack Nicholson was ideal as the male lead. Jessica Lange came across as cheap and brazen and slutty, just as her character was supposed to be. Nicholson and Lange generate vast amounts of sweaty erotic heat, just as they should. Unfortunately this version totally self-destructs midway through.

Ossessione has the right leads. Massimo Girotti has the right sort of animal virility. Giovanna takes one look at him and you know that she wants to tear his trousers off. And Girotti gives off the right vibes - a man who truly is drifting with no self-awareness at all. Clara Calamai projects the right kind of earthy sexuality. She might have daydreams of romance but right now she wants hot dirty sex with Gino.

The problem with Visconti’s version is that it loses direction midway through and the action slows to a crawl with irrelevant subplots.

Massimo Girotti’s performance is all over the place. It just doesn’t ring true. One minute he’s a rough, tough hyper-masculine guy and the next he’s some kind of passive sensitive soul. It’s as if the original idea was to base Gino fairly closely on the character in the novel and then it was decided to make him a totally different character.

Some of the movie’s problems are inherent in the story. The early parts of the story dealing with the beginnings of the two characters’ obsession are great stuff. Lots of dramatic tension, the inexorably rising sexual temperature, the tense three-way relationship between Gino, Giovanna and Giuseppe with all its attendant betrayals and deceptions. Then the murder occurs. In the 1981 version the movie then self-destructs. In Visconti’s version it just starts to drift aimlessly.

There’s a lengthy sub-plot involving another drifter, a guy known as Lo Spagnolo. It’s fairly clearly implied that a romantic attachment develops between Gino and Lo Spagnolo. This sub-plot goes nowhere and feels clumsily tacked-on but this is a Visconti movie so I guess he wanted to include it.

There were half-a-dozen writers involved which perhaps explains why the script lacks tightness and coherence. The movie is about 40 minutes too long. It just meanders.

This was Visconti in full-on neo-realist mode and so I suspect that it was deliberately intended to be visually uninteresting. Which it is. I have to lay my cards on the table here. l I despise neo-realism.

The fact that this movie has such a high reputation says less about its inherent quality and more about the deficiencies of the Hollywood adaptations. There’s also the fact that Visconti was one of the darlings of the arthouse movie crowd so there’s an assumption that this must be a great movie, which it clearly isn’t. It’s very much like the 1981 version in some ways - some great early moments between the two leads but then it loses its way.

Worth a look if you want to be able to say you’ve seen all three adaptations of the novel but don’t set your expectations too high. It’s a bit of a misfire.

The Golden Arrow (1962)

The Golden Arrow is a 1962 Italian Arabian Nights adventure/romance directed by the usually reliable Antonio Margheriti.

I guess, given the release date, that I was expecting something with more of the flavour of the wonderful Italian peplums. What you actually get is something rather blander and more wholesome. It’s like freshly baked bread, if you like freshly baked bread.

The first thing that strikes the viewer is that the plot seems very familiar indeed. That’s because the plot is essentially that of the magnificent 1924 Douglas Fairbanks Thief of Bagdad with a few bits from the very very fine 1940 British remake as well. Both those movies are a whole lot better than this one.

Hassan (Tab Hunter) is the leader of a band of thieves. Their latest caper is the kidnapping of the beautiful princess of Damascus, Jamila (Rossana Podestà). She will bring a rich ransom. In the course of the kidnapping Hassan finds himself competing in a contest. Jamila is the heiress to the principality - the man who marries her will become sultan of Damascus. The various suitors for Jamila’s hand must each try to draw a golden bow and fire a golden arrow. The man who can do this is destined to marry Jamila and become sultan. Hassan claims to be an obscure foreign prince. He succeeds in firing the arrow but he is disqualified when it is discovered he is a mere thief rather than a prince. The golden arrow disappears.

Hassan carries Jamila off but he’s too much of a nice guy to stick to the plan. He is overwhelmed by her beauty and sweetness and returns her unharmed, without the ransom.

Jamila has three main suitors, none of whom please her. She stalls for time by setting them a new contest. They must each bring her an extraordinary gift. She agrees that she will marry the man who brings the finest gift.

The three suitors set off in search of rare magical items.

Meanwhile Hassan has acquired three strange comrades who literally just appeared out of thin air. Perhaps they are djinns or celestial messengers. They want him to find that golden arrow and marry the princess because it is his Destiny - he is in fact the rightful sultan.

This movie certainly looks sumptuous and expensive. It may not have been that expensive but the Italians could make a modest amount of money go a long long way. Some of the special effects are pretty decent. The flying carpet looks reasonably convincing. Others are not so good. The sets look terrific. The movie was shot in Technicolor and in the ’scope aspect ratio. The location shooting is very impressive.

Tab Hunter does seem a bit out of place, a bit too all-American. I guess it’s plausible that the princess could be swept off her feet by his blond California surfer guy good looks. His voice was dubbed in both the Italian and English language versions so his performance is difficult to judge but it is obvious that he lacks the charisma and the loveable rogue quality that Fairbanks brought to the role. Rossana Podestà is very pretty and looks the part of a sweet good girl princess.

The chief villain is the vizier Baktiar (Mario Feliciani) who wants to keep power in his own hands. He’s the movie’s major weak link - he just isn’t sufficiently sinister and menacing and he’s pretty dull.

This movie has a Disney family movie wholesomeness and tries to be too whimsical. That is perhaps an unfair judgment since it does give the impression of being aimed at a young audience. There’s nothing here to upset the kiddies. Hassan’s pursuit of Jamila is very chaste. The violence is very very mild indeed.

There are some fine visual moments but a bit more action and excitement would not have gone amiss. This is the kind of movie that offers a full-scale battle scene in which nobody actually gets hurt.

Sadly this movie lacks the craziness and inspiration that Antonio Margheriti brought to his best movies. There’s too much lame comic relief. The chemistry isn’t quite there between the two leads, mostly because Rossana Podestà looks like an Arabian Nights princess and Tab Hunter looks like a refugee from an AIP beach party movie.

We don’t get enough of a sense that the princess is ever in any real danger.

It’s not terrible and it’s reasonable undemanding entertainment and if you treat it as a kids’ movie it’s not bad. But it looks lovely so it’s recommended, with reservations.

The Warner Archive Blu-Ray is of course barebones but the transfer is excellent.

Medea (1969)

To describe Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Medea (1969) as an adaptation of the 5th century BC play of Euripides would be a bit misleading. Pasolini uses the play as a jumping-off point. Pasolini was making a movie and movies being a visual medium he eliminated most of the dialogue, choosing to tell the story visually.

It’s the story of Jason (as in Jason and the Argonauts) and Medea. Jason’s kingdom was stolen from him. To retrieve his kingdom he has to bring back the Golden Fleece. It doesn’t enable him to regain his kingdom but he does acquire a wife, a princess (and sorceress) of Colchis named Medea.

The ambitious Jason heads for Corinth and his ambitions are about to be realised. He is to marry a second time, to the daughter of the king of Corinth. A very advantageous match from Jason’s point of view. At which point Medea takes her revenge.

This is not a story of a woman scorned. There is much more going on here.

Jason was raised by a centaur who told him that there is nothing natural in nature. This is the key to understanding the society from which both Jason and Medea come, and Pasolini spends much of the early part of the movie world-building, immersing us in an extraordinarily alien world. This is a world in which everything is understood in terms of myth and ritual and magic. There is not even the slightest hint of rationality in this world. In this world reason explains nothing; myth and ritual and magic explain everything.

If we do not understand just how alien this society is we cannot understand Medea’s later actions and we might make the mistake of regarding her as a madwoman. She is not mad. She simply views the whole of life in terms of her own culture and religion, and from her point of view her actions are not merely justified but necessary.

Medea has certainly suffered a grievous insult in being discarded in favour of a much younger woman but it is a double betrayal. By taking her to Corinth Jason tempted Medea to abandon her culture and religion and her thoroughly pre-modern pre-civilised view of the world.

There is an interesting scene that takes place shortly after Jason’s theft of the Golden Fleece. Jason’s sailors make camp for the night. Medea is terrified, horrified and bewildered when they fail to perform the necessary rituals (or what she considers to be the necessary rituals).

It’s possible that Pasolini is trying to make a point about the alienating nature of civilisation and the way it strips life of its magic and its meaning. Not every viewer is necessarily going to be in sympathy with this. It doesn’t really matter whether you agree with such a view or not. What matters is that there is a very real and profound clash of cultures and beliefs and that Medea certainly feels alienated from the more modern more civilised cultures and beliefs of Corinth. The movie still works whether you agree with the message or not.

Pasolini’s own views on culture, politics, religion and cinema seem to have been constantly changing and also seem to have been contradictory and confused. That’s not necessarily a fatal flaw in a film-maker. He can use the opportunity to work though his ideas.

Maria Callas was the world’s most famous soprano at the time but she had the reputation of being an opera singer who didn’t just sing her parts but acted them powerfully as well. She was an inspired choice to play Medea. No-one else in the movie can act at all, but that works in a way. This is not a realist movie. Pasolini’s cinematic roots may have been in realism but Medea makes no concessions to realism. The stiff artificial performances of the other cast members enhance the film’s artificiality, and also serve to focus our attention on Callas.

This is not a stagey film but that artificiality is constantly emphasised. Jason was raised by a centaur. The centaur does not look the slightest bit convincing. He looks like a stage centaur. In fact he probably looks the way a centaur would have looked in a fifth century BC theatrical performance.

The location shooting (in Turkey, Syria and Italy) is stunning. Pasolini uses locations and architecture to emphasise his points. In Colchis we do not see a single straight line. Every building, every habitations, looks like it grew out of the soil. In Corinth everything is ordered. Nothing looks organic. Everything is constructed according to perfect classical proportions.

Medea is a movie you’re either going to love or hate. It depends on whether you’re able to immerse yourself fully in its world. If you are able to do that then the film is a strange magic experience. I enjoyed it a great deal. Your mileage might well vary.

Three Steps North (1951)

Three Steps North is an Italian-US production filmed in Italy (in Amalfi) in 1951 with a mostly Italian cast but plot-wise it plays as a fairy typical American crime B-movie in an exotic setting. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It was directed by W. Lee Wilder, Billy Wilder’s brother.

Frank Keeler (Lloyd Bridges) did his wartime military service in Italy but he spent most of that career making a bundle on the black market. With the MPs hot on his trail he buries his ill-gotten gains in a field near Amalfi. He picks an easily recognisable tree, takes three steps north and buries the money. The MPs catch him and he spends four years in a military prison, which is not fun but he can handle it because he knows that when he gets out that money is still waiting for him. As soon as he is released he heads back to Italy (serving as a crewman on a freighter) but getting his money turns out to be infinitely more complicated than he’d expected.

He had hoped not to attract any attention but in fact he attracts the attention of a whole bunch of people. There’s the local chief of police, an Italian private detective, a racketeer from Newark, a disreputable fellow crewman, his old girlfriend Elena, a mysterious character known as the Greek, cemetery caretaker Pietro and bar owner Guido. All of them figure out that Frank is up to something and all of them figure out that that something involves money, almost certainly money not legally obtained.

Frank thinks he can stay one step ahead of them but maybe he’s really one step behind. Frank is smart, but maybe not smart enough. He’s also unwilling to trust anybody. That might be wise but it has its drawbacks. Lester Fuller’s screenplay has plenty of twists and turns, some of them confusing but that works to the movie’ advantage - it adds to the atmosphere of suspicion and potential betrayal.

The ironic twist at the end works quite well.

The plot could easily have been approached as farce or black comedy but it’s mostly played pretty straight.

The Amalfi locations are used to good effect.

The guitar music used throughout the film is one of several elements suggesting that W. Lee Wilder was trying for the sort of feel Carol Reed achieved in The Third Man. The black market angle and the setting in Europe in the aftermath of the war add to my suspicions that that’s what Wilder was aiming for. He doesn’t have Carol Reed’s genius but he does manage an interesting and slightly offbeat tone.

Lloyd Bridges’ cocky performance is a major plus. Frank Keeler is not evil but he is a crook and he is selfish and his arrogance turns potential allies into enemies. He’s not a particularly nice guy and Bridges is confident enough to emphasise his unsympathetic qualities. We’re not sure if we want this particular hero to win in the end.

The other cast members are very good. Aldo Fabrizi is a delight as Pietro. Lea Padavani does well as Elena, a woman who is a bit like Frank. She’s not quite a femme fatale but she’s not quite a good girl either. Maybe she wants to win Frank back, or maybe she just wants the money. All of the characters are either shady or they have a touch of ambiguity to them. Frank doesn’t trust any of them and we can’t really blame him.

There are several public domain DVD releases of this movie. The Alpha Video version seems to be the best of a bad bunch. In an ideal world offbeat movies like this would get properly restored and get Blu-Ray releases but alas we do not live in an ideal world. Perhaps if someone could be persuaded that this is a film noir it might get a better release. It does have some very slight noir elements and movies with much more dubious claims to film noir status have been treated to high quality releases.

Three Steps North is an intriguing oddity. It’s a conventional crime story with a few engagingly distinctive elements and Lloyd Bridges really is very good. So I recommend this one, even if the available DVD editions are a bit problematic.