Gina Lollobrigida Documentary (3)

Gina Lollobrigida Documentary (2)

Gina Lollobrigida Documentary

In Search Of....

I recall this tv show from the mid-1970s. It was Leonard Nimoy's first successful show after Star Trek (cannot count Mission: Impossible since that was a hit when he joined it). While I recall it went into the big 1970s themes: UFOs, Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, Ancient Astronauts, ghosts, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, etc., it never really broke new ground. It was a de facto generic series of unexplained phenomena.



Nimoy's role as Mr. Spock, in Star Trek, lent him the allure of logicality and SCIENCE that the series never really had. The show had evolved from a series of films re: the unexplained, that had been hosted by Rod Serling, of The Twilight Zone fame.

While initially made for television, in many poorer neighhborhoods, like that I grew up in, these films were actually screened in theaters, and I recall looking up at grainy footage of UFOs, and one particularly compelling image of a Mayan warrior supposedly depicted in what was claimed to be an Apollo-like space module. It was all nonsense, of course, but the In Search Of... films wer merely one of a wave of documentaries released in the early 1970s that pushed the bounds of the medium. The best and most famous one of all, of course, was none other than Orson Welles' F For Fake.

As I said in my review of that film:

'In a sense, its closest cousin was the kitschy old 1970s television ‘documentary’ series In Search Of… with Leonard Nimoy, wherein Star Trek’s once and future Mr. Spock would explore the ‘scientific verities’ of such things as the Bermuda Triangle, ghosts, and Judge Crater’s disappearance. Welles’ last finished and distributed film is really a filmic treatise on art and truth, and, given Welles’ voluminous intellect and dazzling talent, it’s a near-masterpiece, and very close to being the ‘new kind of film’ that Welles claimed it was. Of course, its closest antecedent would not be in film but in the supposed ‘nonfiction’ literary works of Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) and Marcel Proust (Remembrance Of Things Past).'

Naturally, I was right, but these films, or mockumentaries (of a sort- they differ from the Christopher Guest version of that genre), do have a place in film history, if for no other reason than that they were heralds of the mass media saturation and dumbing down of culture that the ensuing decades have wrought. Information that is dubious is treated as if it were gained from on high, and credible science is treated with a skepticism bordering on the manic. That's you Fox News.

But, in looking back at these shows, all these decades later, the kitsch value not only survives, but thrives, and as a time capsule of Americana it is invaluable. Not bad for crap, eh?

The Third Man Documentary (Part 7)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 6)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 5)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 4)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 3)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 2)

The Third Man Documentary (Part 1)

Note how Orson beards himself.

The Third Man

Ok, we all know that The Third Man is credited as Carol Reed film, even though the stylistic, visual, and screenplay all scream....well, you know who; at least if you are a cinemaphile.

Anyway, this is the third of four films that the unproduced screenplay I read was reminiscent of.

And, if you are still wondering who really directed the film, well, let me introduce....

Orson Welles As An Actor

He's known mostly as a film director, a stage director, a con man, and a magician, but Orson Welles also acted alot for other directors.

By the 1960s he was reduced to being nothing but a celebrity for hire, doing cameos to help fund his many film projects that never took off.

But, in films like The Stranger, where he plays an escaped Nazi ear criminal, Welles is really the only good thing in the film, and gives such a good performance that he makes the film succeed.



Compare that with any of his numerous guest appearances in all star 1960s films and one wonders why, despite the blacklist, other directors at least did not hire the man to act. He was reduced to scrounging for work for films made on a shoestring budget, or letting directors like Carol Reed beard for him on films like The Third Man.

Yet, even in interviews, Welles was always a consummate actor and showman:



Then, compare some of his work in his Shakespearean adaptations to that in Touch Of Evil or The Trial.

Rarely has one man acted so well in so many genres and gotten no respect. Yes, Welles has belatedly gotten his due as a director, especially for his later works. But, as an actor, while he may not have been an all time great, he was certainly a cut above what Hollywood proffers today.

There Will Be Blood

Just watched this latest Paul Thomas Anderson film and it's the latest in a series of so-called masterpieces from well known directors that are not what is claimed, and worse, represents a severe regression in the filmmaker's canon. Like N.B. Ceylan's Three Monkeys and Bela Tarr's The Man From London, this film is a regression for Anderson, and a worse film than Punch-Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, and even, arguably, Magnolia (yes, I know that had Tom 'The Mannekin' Cruise in it)

Simply put- no tale, hammy acting by Daniel Day Lewis, and no character development. It is Anderson's attempt to make a 21st Century Citizen Kane. But he's not Orson Welles.

The trailer:

Touch Of Evil

People mock the fact that Charlton Heston plays a Mexican, but other than his cheesy mustache, it's a good performance. So is Orson Welles'.

An underrated film with a great opening dolly shot: