Gabor Reviczky Movies

It's just another day at the Glass Tiger Cafe, which means anything could happen and plenty usually does in this easygoing Hungarian comedy. Peter Rudolph plays Lali, the diner's proprietor, who over the course of a typical day finds himself dealing with a woman who can't hear or speak who has just been stood up at the altar; an inspector with the health department who nearly winds up in the hospital after getting too close to the electricity; a local cop who discovers his lottery ticket is a winner; two women who have their eye on Lali (too bad they happen to be mother and daughter); and a restroom that stubbornly refuses to work properly. Star Peter Rudolph also directed the film, in collaboration with Ivan Kapitany, and co-wrote the screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This nostalgic and upbeat Hungarian comedy presents a tasty slice of life taken from a Budapest suburb on a summer's day in 1962. The day begins as the neighborhood Communist Party Chief, Uncle Simon, reads the day's official announcements over a loudspeaker. He then reads the winning lottery numbers. The rest of the film centers on a series of eccentric characters as they go about their daily business. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Julia had a good job in the old communist-ruled Hungary. She was an electrical engineer. Now she is thirty, and since the government has fallen, the rules of the game have changed. Without a job for the first time in many years, she discovers that her husband has been carrying on with his boss' daughter, so she moves in with an older woman who has been her friend for some time, a widowed lawyer. After some searching, she finds a job as a waitress and becomes embroiled in the restaurant-owner's struggle to hang on to the business in the face of efforts by a local gang to take it over for themselves. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Charming rogue that he is, Tamas Holl (Gabor Reviczy) is sitting on top of the world at the beginning of this comedy. He has gotten his way in nearly everything. He's gotten out of his marriage and is now having a semi-serious affair with one woman, a non-serious affair with another. Plus, he has managed to put some money aside by swindling his clients at the auction house he works at. When three thugs start to follow him around and harrass him in all sorts of ways (including shaving his head) he doesn't know who has put them up to it, and his life falls apart. He has cheated, lied to and betrayed so many of the people in his life, he can't begin to sort out who is the most aggrieved. His best friend? His ex-wife? His brother, whose wife he once got pregnant? Who would do such things to a loveable chap like Tamas? ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Mitzi (Hanna Schygulla) turns to Sandor (Marcello Mastroianni) for help when her husband is murdered by right-wing extremists looking for a cache of diamonds. She and her young son escape with Sandor to Italy. By the 1930s, they return to Budapest to run the successful Arizona Club, a posh watering hole for the social elite. Mitzi falls for an American journalist, her son falls for a woman with ties to high-ranking Nazis, and Sandor is questioned about his Jewish heritage. The son learns he is half Jewish as the Nazi round-up and deportation begin. Uneven editing in places suggests that a lot of film ended up on the cutting-room floor. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi

A 10-year-old Hungarian boy and his grandmother cope with the bloody Budapest uprising of 1956 that led to the Soviet takeover of the country. When the October battles begin, the boy and his family are forced to remain in their homes. The grandmother spends her days reading, and the boy is thrilled to be out of school. While they await the end of the curfew, many things befall the lad and his family. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A Hungarian Fairy Tale is an entertaining political satire about an orphaned young boy who searches for a surrogate father in Budapest. The film was shot in crisp, beautiful black and white and features very little dialogue, which makes its humor and fantastical elements all the more effective. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Logically divided into two separate parts, this intriguing -- although definitely intellectualized -- docudrama on the life and times of Count Mihaly Karoly (Ferenc Bacs) and his wife Katinka (Juli Basti) makes for an interesting, informative account of their personal history and the political background against which their lives have added meaning. In the first segment of the film, young Katinka falls in love with the much-older Count Karolyi after a love affair in her life has ended against her wishes. Her desire for the Count seems even more unreasonable, given the fact that he and his mistress have been together for a long time. But in their social circles of fancy dress balls and idle aristocrats, even a passionate desire can be realized, and Katinka and the Count are eventually married. In the second part of the film, the radical politics of the couple is taking its toll -- during World War I the couple sided with the common people against the aristocrats, and after the communists took over Hungary in 1919 the couple further alienated others in their class by supporting the new government -- even to the point of giving away their estates. Their lives would have continued as always, except the rival old guard comes back into power, and the two Karolyis are forced into exile. Newsreel footage adds verisimilitude to the story, and Katinka herself -- now an elderly woman living in the south of France, provides an introduction to the film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Another Way is another above-average study of a human being in conflict with the status quo from the Hungarian director of The House Under the Rocks (1958) and Love (1971). Our first view of the character played by Jadwiga Jankowski Cieslak is a closeup of her corpse. In flashback, we learn that Cieslak had been a female journalist in the strife-torn Hungary of 1958. The film explores her efforts to report facts in the face of governmental fallacy, as well as her long homosexual affair with Grazyna Szapolowska, another journalist. Withheld from Hungarian release for several years, Another Way proved to be a film-festival success internationally. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi