Originally published in the May-June 1973 issue of Film Comment; it’s reprinted, along with my 2002 Afterword, in my latest collection, Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia. (The following paragraphs are now slightly out of date, but I’ve retained them as records of where things stood at the time.)
Reprinting this piece has been prompted by two exciting pieces of news: the relaunching of a Raymond Durgnat website, thanks to the efforts of one of Durgnat’s old friends, Sue Ritchie, and the long, long overdue second edition of Durgnat’s irreplaceable 1970 book A Mirror for England: British Movies from Austerity to Influence, which the British Film Institute is bringing out next month, thanks to the efforts of another old friend, Kevin Gough-Yates, who provided a new Introduction (and has also been behind the earlier creation and the recent recreation of the Durgnat website).
The website, at raymonddurgnat.com, currently includes a biographical sketch, a very detailed, hefty, and rather awesome bibliography, four poems by Ray (all of them veritable collectors’ items), four “additional resources and links,” a Raymond Durgnat Forum that awaits commentary from visitors, and nine full-length articles that can be linked through the bibliography. One hopes that many more attractions, especially texts, can be added in the future, for a world is still waiting to be found in Durgnat’s writing. Read more
From the Chicago Reader (March 18, 2005). — J.R.
Alain Resnais’ best work since Mélo (1986) is, like that film, an eccentric and highly personal adaptation of a 1920s French stage hitin this case, a farcical 1925 operetta with a jubilant and inventive score by André Barde and Maurice Yvain. A happily married society lady (Sabine Azema) is terrified that her industrialist husband (Pierre Arditi) will discover that his new American business partner (Lambert Wilson) was her first husband; a subplot charts the coming together of two other couples (including Audrey Tautou and Jalil Lespert). The actors do their own singing, and the theatrical trappings of the original — including lavish sets and asides to the audience — are embraced rather than avoided. As lush as an MGM musical, this 2003 feature is both moving and very strange, with one of the funniest ever French portraits of a prudish American. In French with subtitles (often rhyming couplets). 117 min. (JR)
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From the Chicago Reader (March 1, 1997). — J.R.
A rare chance to see Buster Keaton’s two greatest features on the same program. In Sherlock Jr. (1924) — his most imaginative and freewheeling work, as well as one of his funniest — he plays a movie projectionist who falls asleep during a detective movie and dreams that he literally walks into the screen, with surreal and bewildering consequences. In The General (1926), probably his most beautiful effort, he plays a railroad engineer during the Civil War whose train is stolen by Union soldiers, who also kidnap his girlfriend (Marian Mack); Clyde Bruckman codirected. Both are indispensable viewing.
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From Monthly Film Bulletin, March 1975 (Vol. 42, No. 494). — J.R.
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Great Britain, 1974 Directors: Peter Neal, Anthony Stern
Cert–X (London). dist–Focus. p.c–Al0K Pictures Ltd. p–David
Speechley. ed–Peter Neal, Misha Norland. m/songs–“Please Be Kind”
performed by Django Reinhardt; “The Man I Love” by George Gershwin,
Ira Gershwin, performed by Django Reinhardt; “Honeysuckle Rose”,
“Ain’t Misbehavin'” by and performed by Fats Waller; “Adagio in G
Minor” by Albinoni; “Don’t Be a Baby” performed by Ahmed Rai,
Betty Underwood; “Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog” by and performed by
Meade Lux Lewis; “Cabaret Echoes” performed by Anthony Parenti’s
Famous Melody Boys; “Charlie Is My Darling” performed by Black
Dyke Mills Band; “No One But the Right Man Can Do Me Wrong”
performed by Sophie Tucker; “Animals’ Ball” performed by Lizzie
Miles; “My Canary’s Got Circles Under His Eyes” performed by Elsie
Carlisle; “Shy Guy” performed by Nat Cole Trio; “Londonola”
performed by Roy Fox; “Boogie Woogie at the Civic Opera” by and
performed by Albert Ammons; “My Old Man” performed by Lilly
Morris; “With My Little Ukelele in My Hand” performed by George
Formby; piece by Ivy Benson Orchestra. titles–Ray Cowell, Freeman
May Studio Ltd.
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