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Private Property (Leslie Stevens, 1960)
Jul
20
lemonade
A blonde lady (Kate Manx) holds a wicker ray with a pitcher of lemonade and several glasses. Her anxious look contrast with the carefree promise of summer sky and cool drinks. DP: Ted D. McCord.
“I'm looking for the Hitchcock residence.”
– Duke
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Le notti di Cabiria [Nights of Cabiria] (Federico Fellini, 1957)
Jul
18
National Caviar Day
Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) about to experience an unforgettable meal of lobster and caviar. She's holding the lobster up by its antennae with a mix of bewilderment and amusement on her face. Her frumpy outfit looks completely out of place in Lazzari's (Amedeo Nazzari) fancy apartment. DP: Aldo Tonti.
Maria “Cabiria“ Ceccarelli (Giulietta Masina), a prostitute looking for happiness, meets famous movie star Alberto Lazzari (handsomely moustachioed Amedeo Nazzari). In his plush mansion, he treats her to an opulent – if not bewildering to Cabiria – meal of lobster and caviar.
“And what's this? I saw it in a movie once.”
– Cabiria
Co-written by #Pasolini, #Fellini's Le notti di Cabiria is a love letter to hope, life, #Rome, and of course his Giulietta.
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Plunder Road [The Violent Road] (Hubert Cornfield, 1957)
Jul
10
sandwiches
At a diner, a dark-haired waitress holds up a carafe with fresh coffee and a take-away cup. A man in the background appears to keep an eye on her. DP: Ernest Haller.
“Stop to eat every 8 hours. Just sandwiches.”
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Araya [Araya l'enfer du sel] (Margot Benacerraf, 1959)
Jul
5
Venezuela Independence Day
Workers in front of pyramid-shaped piles of salt. DP: Giuseppe Nisoli.
“Above all… don’t cut a single image.”
– Jean Renoir in a letter to Margot Benacerraf
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Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)
Jun
29
coffee
A squeaky young Stockwell and Varsi at a diner. We're looking in from the outside through an open window. The place is busy but she's all enthralled by his wit and intellect (and looks for sure). DP: William C. Mellor.
“Europe, a Stutz Bearcat, the best restaurants. You fellas really have a hard life, don't you?”
– Harold Horn, DA
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Muerte de un ciclista [Death of a Cyclist / Age of Infidelity] (Juan Antonio Bardem, 1955)
Jun
28
National Insurance Awareness Day
Juan (Alberto Closas) looking out at María José (Lucia Bosè) and the car after the crash. The cyclist is never shown. The scene echoes Beckett's Waiting for Godot. DP: Alfredo Fraile.
“He's still alive.”
Striking about Bardem's Muerte de un ciclista is its outsiderness in the Spanish film landscape. By adopting the visual language of both Italian #Neorealismo and Hollywood #melodrama, Bardem elegantly circumvents #Francoist censorship.
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Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Jun
27
tuna (fresh)
Karen (Ingrid Bergman) looking miserable at a small kitchen table. A huge tuna covers most of its surface. DP: Otello Martelli.
Posted while deciding on my film dinner. Eventually I went with Tourneur's La Main du Diable (1943).
“I don't care about your barley. Or, your vines! Or, your new terra!”
– Karen
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Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)
Jun
27
Decide To Be Married Day
Antonio (Mario Vitale) and Karen (Ingrid Bergman). DP: Otello Martelli.
Karen – “Karin” in the opening credits – is a displaced Lithuanian woman in an Italy-based refugee camp. She meets an Italian military man bivouacking on the other side of the barbed wire and decides to say yes when he proposes. When the newly-weds leave for home, she finds to her dismay that he's a poor Sicilian fisherman from #Stromboli; a magnificent active volcanic island home to a small Catholic parish. Again displaced, Karen is confronted with herself more than with the others that share her faith.
“Here we are, poor wretches, in this hell, Condemned to tyranny.”
– Antonio
Roberto #Rossellini's Stromboli (Terra di Dio) is a peculiar melodramatic Italian/American hybrid that seems to strongly dismiss the Italian aspect. The significance of Struògnuli – the Sicilian name for the volcano – and the people's faith connected to the volatile mountain and the surrounding sea is presented as primitive superstition. That the Sicilian dialogue – song, prayer, life – remains untranslated and the locals' broken English is used as comic relief adds insult to injury.
Otello Martelli's photography excels when he manages to tear himself away from Bergman's face. Only when we're confronted with the magnificence of Struògnuli, the gifts from the ocean, and the greatness of nature we'll be able to understand why the island is man's home.
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Jeopardy (John Sturges, 1953)
Jun
25
National Camp Counts Day
– Aw, mom. You always talk about civilization.
– Don't knock it, son.
John Sturges' Jeopardy is a thrilling reverse home invasion based on Maurice Zimm's radioplay A Question of Time. Without falling into the trap of an illustrated radio broadcast, the haunting photography by Victor Milner, small, intense cast, short runtime and claustrophobic sets make for a very modern, economic thriller.
And Barbara Stanwyck the type of heroine we wouldn't see much of until decades later.
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The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Jun
21
National Arizona Day
Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) facing the endless desert. DP: Winton C. Hoch.