G.R. Aldo Movies

Italian director Luchino Visconti dishes up his usual blend of elegance and decadence in Senso. The international cast includes French film star Alida Valli as a Italian countess married to a Venetian nobleman, and English leading man Farley Granger as an Austrian military officer. The two are swept up in the Austrian empire's evacuation of Italy in 1866. Valli and Granger fall in love, but Valli ultimately realizes that the officer is interested only in her wealth and prestige, whereupon she gives him over to a firing squad. Visconti had wanted Ingrid Bergman and Marlon Brando for his leads, but when Bergman's husband Roberto Rossellini would not permit her to appear in the film, Brando also bowed out. Originally running 166 minutes, Senso was released in a radically cut version in the US in 1968, titled Summer Hurricane; yet another recut version popped up in England as The Wanton Contessa. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Indiscretion of an American Wife began its life as a romantic drama entitled Terminal Station, directed with extraordinary skill and sensitivity by neorealist filmmaker Vittorio De Sica and starring Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift as a visiting American housewife and her Italian lover. Their tale was depicted against the backdrop of a hundred other stories and characters that De Sica presented in his 89-minute Terminal Station. In Indiscretion, however -- which was cobbled together at 63 minutes by producer David O. Selznick for the U.S. market -- theirs is the only one. Jones' Mary Hughs wrings her hands and wrestles with her conscience, but with no real depth, while Clift's Giovanni Doria emotes with jealousy and lust as she tries to leave him, gets off one train, waits for another, attempts to soothe the feelings of her confused and disappointed nephew (Richard Beymer), and ponders the idea of leaving her husband and marriage. The two accidentally run afoul of the authorities in the process, and risk exposure of their affair. This was a difficult shoot, beginning with the fact that Jones -- who always required lots of direction to give a consistent performance -- didn't speak Italian and De Sica spoke no English. In addition, the actress reportedly found Clift attractive in ways that reminded her of her first husband, Robert Walker; she also found his method-based approach to acting a challenge which she might have met, if only her husband at the time, Selznick, hadn't been deluging them with script changes on a daily basis. To further complicate matters, at some point after Jones found herself drawn to the Clift, she discovered that he was attracted to men, not women, and she reportedly flew into a destructive rage for the afternoon. Despite these problems, De Sica ended up getting a lot more of what he needed than Selznick did of what he wanted. Unhappy with the Italian director's finished 89-minute film and unwilling to challenge the American censors over some of the content (in connection with the tale of an adulterous wife and mother), Selznick, his editor, and writers (including Ben Hecht) went to work on it and delivered Indiscretion of an American Wife, a Hollywoodization of De Sica's neorealist masterpiece, but which lacked almost all of the most subtle elements of De Sica's movie. At times it seems like another attempt (à la Portrait of Jennie) to celebrate Jones' melodramatic screen persona, while elsewhere it focuses on Clift's tempestuous, exciting screen persona; but otherwise, there's very little "there" there, and the setting and scenes are a mere shadow of what was seen in De Sica's original Terminal Station. In 2003, both films -- and they are two separate movies that just happen to utilize the same footage -- were finally compiled under one cover, and in their optimal states, on a Criterion Collection DVD, and can be seen and compared for what they are. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Anyone interested in making a low-budget movie ought to see Orson Welles' screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's Othello, a striking example of how much can be achieved with very little money. For years, stories about this singularly troubled movie circulated more widely than the film itself; Welles began shooting Othello without securing full financing, so he would gather his cast, assemble a crew, and shoot until his money ran out. He would then take an acting assignment to raise some cash, reassemble his cast, and start filming again until the latest batch of money was gone. For the sequence featuring the murder of Cassio, Welles (depending on who tells the story) either couldn't pay the bill for the costumes or they just didn't arrive in time, so he reset the scene in a Turkish bath with his players wrapped in towels borrowed from their hotel. This process went on for four years; by the time Welles was done, the film was on its third Desdemona, and the director, himself, had to dub several voices, since most of the dialogue was recorded after the fact. Remarkably, the finished film not only isn't a disaster, it's a triumph, that rare example of a movie based on a Shakespeare play that's as exciting to look at as it is to listen to. While Welles pared the Bard's story of jealousy, betrayal, and murder to the bone (this version clocks in at a mere 92 minutes), the film's striking compositions and energetic quick-cutting allow the camera to tell more of the story than almost any other Shakespeare adaptation. Repeat viewers will see that Welles picked many of his camera angles to obscure the fact that Othello's mighty army was merely a handful of extras, but the unexpected bonus is a lean, muscular look that's the perfect match for the film's brisk narrative style. The spare, but powerful, visuals feel like a product of Expressionism, not a low budget, and the images have atmosphere to spare. In addition, it's truly a pleasure to hear Welles' rich baritone wrap itself around Shakespeare's dialogue; his con brio performance as the noble Moor undone by jealousy and betrayal has the impact of a fine stage rendition without overplaying its hand. Michael MacLiammoir is his equal as the conniving (and lustful) Iago, and had this film been more widely seen, it could well have sparked the successful screen career he so obviously deserved. And Michael Laurence is fine in an often witty turn as Cassio (with a verbal assistance from Welles). Only Suzanne Cloutier as the virtuous but wronged Desdemona lacks the forceful presence of the rest of the cast (though given how much of the role was edited away, it may not be entirely her fault). Welles' daughter spearheaded a campaign to restore and re-release Othello in 1992; and while the digital sheen of the re-recorded score sometimes makes for an odd contrast to the occasionally scratchy recordings of the dialogue, the new edition of the film looks better than ever (both on the big screen and on video) and is highly recommended to anyone who loves good acting or good cinema. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide