– Do you play? – Try me.

“Roy, this is the land of milk and honey for the health racket. Every woman in California thinks she's either too fat or too thin or too something.”

– 'Doc' Banton

The first film dinner of 2024.

New Year's Eve celebrations.

A mousy bank clerk (Dinos Iliopoulos), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a criminal on the run, finds himself hiding in a shady cabaret on New Year's Eve instead of spending a quiet evening alone. During his forced stay at the nightclub, he comes to enjoy and identify more and more with his newfound persona and assumes the role of the notorious “Drago”.

 

An initial box office dud, it is now considered one of the top ten all-time best Greek films.

 

Happy new year, everyone! On to many more cinematic discoveries!

“We'll go back to Nice tomorrow. The Bay of Angels brings us luck.”

– Jean Fournier

Pearls worn for National Wear Your Pearls Day. No one said those pearls were to be worn in the obvious place.

“Have you seen Mr Tavernier tonight?”

“I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.”

– Waldo Lydecker

Nanon Zanzi (Joan Crawford) is mortally afraid of men. Of their grabbing, grasping, groping hands. This is why she only trusts her knife throwing partner Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney). What she doesn't know is that Alonzo and his 4'10”/1,47 m accomplice Cojo (that great staple of precode horror Tufei Filhela aka John George), use the #circus to hide from the long arm of the law, who is looking for a murderer with a deformed thumb. Who would suspect an armless man?

“Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!”

– Nanon Zanzi

As mighty as Alonzo may be, the incomparable Lon Chaney owes much to armless violinist and knife thrower “Judge” Paul Desmuke. Story goes that Desmuke taught Chaney his knife act in two months. More probable is that some of the more impressive close-up scenes show the Judge's, not Chaney's, feet.

 

Like Alonzo, The Unknown has lost some flesh. Until 1968, only mangled bootlegs were available; a complete print was considered non-existent. Five years later, news broke about film reels of unknown origin labelled inconnu – [the] unknown, somewhere in the bowels of the Cinémathèque Française.

 

Some 14 minutes, outlining the Armless' background, are still missing. Do check your attic.

Just before leaving home for a business trip, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things. A monkey! A parrot! The youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower which the father finds in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast. And will pay for with his life unless he gives his youngest away to the beast, to die in his place.

– Can such miracles really happen? – You and I are living proof.

#Cocteau and Clément's La Belle et la Bête is of course based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's fairy-tale, which on its turn was based on the classic myth of Cupid and Psyche.