settima

theatre

Bell Book and Candle (Richard Quine, 1958)

Mar

12

Bell Book and Candle (1958)

Gillian Holroyd (Kim Novak) and her Siamese, Pyewacket. DP: James Wong Howe.

“I sit in the subway sometimes, on buses, or the movies, and I look at the people next to me and I think… 'What would you say if I told you I was a witch?'”

– Queenie

Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (Stuart Cooper, 1974)

Scrawdyke

2

Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974)

Malcolm Scrawdyke (John Hurt), disgruntled art student. DP: John Alcott.

“So, this month becomes the month of Scrawdyke.”

– Malcolm Scrawdyke

Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant [The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant] (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1972)

Jan

31

freebie: high fashion

Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant (1972)

Fashion designer Petra von Kant (Margit Carstensen) – pouting in her emerald-green dress – is kneeled on a large, sheepskin carpet in front of a huge Baroque painting (Nicolas Poussin's Midas und Bacchus, ca. 1624). In front of her a small bottle of gin and a phone. DP: Michael Ballhaus.

A freebie for someone's birthday, with bonus points for high fashion. Petra von Kant is a fashion designer who, during a particularly icy birthday party, tells the world that her new lover is a woman. Then, one day, said lover returns home to her husband.

– You have a good figure. You could use it to your advantage. Get in touch with me some time. – I'd love to.

With its exuberant costumes and set design, a Greek chorus of mannequins, and Sirk-ish larger- than-life melodrama, Fassbinder's Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant delves deep into the absurdities of love and fancy.

Libahunt [Лесная легенда / Werewolf] (Leida Laius, 1968)

Jan

13

soup

Libahunt (1968)

A dinner table shown from above. Several people, we mainly see their hands and wooden spoons, eat from a hand-carved bowl. DP: Algimantas Mockus.

Libahunt [Лесная легенда / Werewolf] (Leida Laius, 1968)

Jan

13

wolf moon

Libahunt (1968)

Tiina (Ene Rämmeld) walking through the forest. DP: Algimantas Mockus.

Wolves for Wolf Moon, the first full moon after Yule. In Livonia, which covers modern day Estonia, the 17th century was when the werewolf trials reigned.

“Better to be with wolves in the forest, than with people like you!”

Tiina, a young liberated woman taken in by a family of farmers after her mother was put on trial for witchcraft, is accused of hunting with the wolves as a werewolf by her half-sister with whom she shares a lover.

The Monkey Talks (Raoul Walsh, 1927)

Dec

14

Monkey Day

The Monkey Talks (1927)

Jocko (Jacques Lerner) in embrace with his Olivette (Olive Borden). Amazingly, Lerner does not wear a mask; it's all the work of makeup craftsman Jack Pierce. DP: L. William O'Connell.

A monkey for (unofficial) Monkey Day.

 

September 30, 1955 (James Bridges, 1977)

Sep

30

1955

September 30, 1955 (1977)

Jimmy J. (Richard Thomas) in the lobby of his movie theatre, looking at the poster for Elia Kazan's East of Eden (1955). DP: Gordon Willis.

White Woman (Stuart Walker, 1933)

Aug

1

White Woman (1933)

Horace H. Prin (Laughton) and Judith Denning (Lombard) in a promotional photo. DP: Harry Fischbeck.

“You'll go under like all the others.”

– Judith Denning

Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)

Jun

9

Rope (1948)

A man in a dark suit has his clenched hand on top of a stack of fancy gilded dinner plates. He's holding a piece of rope, just an ordinary household article. DPs: William V. Skall & Joseph A. Valentine.

“Mr. Cadell got a bad leg in the war for his courage. And you've got your sleeve in the celery, Mr. Phillip.”

– Mrs. Wilson

Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959)

Jun

7

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) and a man in white, seen from the back, eating alfresco near a beach. DP: Jack Hildyard.

“My son – Sebastian – and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.”

– Mrs Vi Venable