The films reviewed here represent those I have liked or loved over the years. It is not a list of my favourite films but all the films reviewed here are worth seeing and worth seeking out. I know many of you won't agree with me on a lot of these but hopefully you will grant me, and the films that appear here, our place in the sun. Thanks for reading.
Sunday, 18 August 2024
MOROCCO
A classic example of rhinestones turning into diamonds before our eyes Josef von Sternberg's "Morocco" might have been just another tawdry pre-code melodrama that was turned into something approaching art by virtually everyone involved. Firstly, there's Lee Garmes' shimmering cinematography, the crisp no-nonsense and really rather erotic screenplay by Jules Furthman based on the play "Amy Jolly" by Benno Vigny and then there are the matchless performances of Marlene Dietrich as Jolly, a young Gary Cooper as the insolent legionnaire Tom Brown and Adolphe Menjou as the rich older man who thinks money can buy anything including Dietrich.
It marked the second teaming off Dietrich and von Sternberg after "The Blue Angel" and their first in Hollywood and it set the template for the films that followed, particularly in how they looked and in the forthrightness in the way Dietrich's sexuality was portrayed, a seductress and not just of men; in the film's famous opening number she appears in male garb and kisses one woman on the mouth. Cooper, too, was never more sexually attractive and the film clearly made him a star. Too flimsy in terms of its melodramatic plot to be ever considered a great film it is, nevertheless, one of the most memorable of its period and one that stands up to repeated viewings.
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