The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969) User Reviews (22)

Answer to a trivia question - mixed results as a film

[theowinthrop · 6/10 · 17 September 2006]

Question: In 1943 what movie starred Katherine Hepburn, Katherine Cornell, and Harpo Marx?

ANSWER: STAGE DOOR CANTEEN

Question: In 1969 what movie starred Katherine Hepburn, Dame Edith Evans, and Danny Kaye?

ANSWER: THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT

Odd that Kate Hepburn should pop up in two unfair trivia questions, but it does happen. Actors do run into each other in all kinds of films, both good and bad, memorable and forgettable, and regular or short film (look at a comic short called THE STOLEN JOOLES which has most of the stars of Hollywood in the 1930s in it).

STAGE DOOR CANTEEN was done for patriotic morale boosting for our soldiers, and it celebrated the canteens used to entertain our men on furlough. So the making of that film had a reason that transcends it's current obscurity. I might add, as it is the only major movie that stage star Katherine Cornell popped up in for just a few minutes, it is worth it as a time capsule as such.

But THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT was based on a Giraudoux play about modern society endangered by the forces of power and greed. It is about the discovery that the city of light, Paris, is reposing on a huge, untapped oil field, and that various power figures without any soul (Yul Brynner, Charles Boyer, Paul Henried, Oscar Holmolka, Donald Pleasance) may be able to empty the city of it's neighborhoods, it's citizens, it's life and light, and replace it with derricks. Giraudoux made sure that the villains represent everything that he suspects. Brynner is the ultimate ruthless billionaire (he is upset when a waiter accidentally spills water on him). Boyer is a stock broker. Henried is a General. Homolka is the French head of the Communist Party (Giraudoux has no illusions about what a political label means - there are power mad people in all political parties). Pleasance is a prospector for oil. There is also John Gavin as a right wing religious demagogue.

Opposed to these villains are Kate Hepburn (the leading local social figure from the past - called "the madwoman of Chaillot") and her friends Giulietta Massina, Margaret Leighton, and Edith Evans (who is still trying to campaign in 1969 for Mr. Wilson's League of Nations). Also aiding Hepburn are the "rag picker" (Danny Kaye - in the best dramatic performance in a major motion picture in his career - also his only Oscar nomination), Richard Chamberlain, Gordon Heath, and Nanette Newman. Although Hepburn, Massina, Leighton, and Evans have social position, none have the political clout of the villains. So when they are made aware of the threat to their beloved Paris (and by extension western culture and morality) they hold a trial (in absentia) of the villains, and find these villains have to die.

This film is better for the brief vignettes of it's stars than for the total impact. Brynner's malevolent, general ruthlessness is one of his best acting jobs. So is Henried's almost comical criminal activity: he confesses to having arranged the murder of four promising young aides of his, because he suspected one of them (but not knowing which) of sleeping with his wife - it turned out his wife had been faithful after all (Brynner, Boyer, Homolka, and Gavin congratulate him on his luck!). Kaye has several great set pieces - a rag picker he wraps eloquent about the great, glory days of garbage in the past where each neighborhood's garbage had a special character all it's own (as opposed to the garbage of the modern homogenized neighborhoods of Paris, that those villains forced on the citizens). He is superb in the scene where he is the "defense" counsel for Brynner and his group - demoniacally showing what these people are really like while "defending" them. All those comic, scatterbrained, sequences in his movies built up to these scenes of poetry and passion.

Hepburn, of course, was great - that last sequence where she mistakes Chamberlain for the lost love of her youth, and mournfully laments his loss, is a highpoint in her career. She rarely had so poetic a scene of tragic delicacy.

But the story, oddly enough, for all we may approve of the hatred shown for the powerful who use and discard us, is not fully acceptable. Henried's general is too stupid (he almost launches a missile attack on Russia while talking to Hepburn). Brynner is so impossibly arrogant that a consortium of his fellow billionaires would probably ruin him to shut him up. But the acting is still so good that it one can forget these minor problems. Any film where Donald Pleasance uses his prominent proboscis by putting it into a drinking glass to smell for oil cannot be all bad. So I'll give it a "6", if not higher.

Even More Out Of Place With The Passing Years

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 23 November 2011]

Jean Giraudoux who wrote The Madwoman Of Chaillot became a prominent French writer in the years between the two World Wars and died in 1944 a year before this play made its debut on the French stage. Those who were occupying France at the time Giroudoux died would not have wanted this item shown to be sure as it is an indictment against the greed and thoughtlessness of the modern age and the ruthless people in positions of power.

Katharine Hepburn plays the title role, a picturesque old woman who dresses in pre-World War I fashion as an outward manifestation of her rejection of the modern age. She would have looked out of place in 1944, in 1969 she and her fellow senior citizen rebels Edith Evans and Margaret Leighton look even more so. Right at the beginning of the film the age is established for us showing the student protests that rocked France in the late Sixties and we see Kate her best 1913 fashion just gliding through it all.

While she rejects the changing times, some power people who you would not think of at first as allies are meeting at a Paris café plotting to really upset her world in a way she can't escape from. Charles Boyer, Oscar Homolka, Donald Pleasance, Paul Henreid, John Gavin, and Yul Brynner who seems to be taking the lead in the group have discovered that Paris is sitting on a bed of shale with oil deposits that would rival the Middle East as a source. That would certainly make France a power to be reckoned with. In fact Paul Henreid who is a French general makes note of the fact that France has gone its own way politically which at the time Charles DeGaulle was doing, separating himself from America and that accursed island nation Great Britain.

Of course the site of oil derricks in and around those colorful parts of Paris that have their own legend separate and apart from the city as a whole is something that Kate can't permit. The scheme is brought to her attention by a number of the citizens who have overheard bits and pieces at the café and were shooed away. Yul Brynner took an especial delight in doing this.

Hepburn and her fellow mad women formulate a plan and try these people in abstentia. Parisian street character Danny Kaye, the ragpicker who is as far down the economic scale from the conspirators as you can get offers a great defense for them as lawyers do for their clients, but it's a done deal. And she's got an interesting fate in store for them.

When The Madwoman Of Chaillot made it to Broadway in 1949-50 and won a Tony Award for Martita Hunt playing the title role, theater goers then knew of the great Kettleman Hills oil strike which was close to Los Angeles city limits. There are still parts of the area where you can see functioning oil derricks even today. The image of a gusher coming out of a derrick next to Notre Dame or the Arc De Triomphe was really in the minds of theatergoers back then.

Hepburn does well in the part showing that maybe The Madwoman Of Chaillot and her mad friends really have a lot more sense than we might give them credit for. They may have rejected the 20th Century, but they rejected the mass wars that characterized it and the all consuming quest for domination and profits above all. There's still beauty in Kate's world and she'll fight to preserve it.

The Madwoman Of Chaillot might be a bit quirky for some tastes, but Katharine Hepburn's fans will love it.

Current Tale of Greed and Fancy

[EdgarST · 7/10 · 22 November 2016]

There is a segment within a scene almost ending the first act of "The Madwoman of Chaillot", that suggest the direction the story is going to take. While the fanciful old countess Aurelia (Katharine Hepburn) explains young Roderick (Richard Chamberlain) the joys of being alive, the visuals turn to a slightly hazy retrospection of her love life, in which Roderick is seen as her mustachioed lover Alphonse, and the waitress Irma (Nanette Newman), with whom Roderick will fall in love, is seen as Aurelia when she was younger. All this theatricality is followed by a brief scene that ends the act, in which Irma delivers a soliloquy about her growing love for Roderick. Then after a fascinating first hour in which the plot is so startlingly current, as act two starts, we enter the world of filmed theater and the movie hardly recovers. If "The Madwoman of Chaillot" is remembered with affection after it ends, it is because of its first part, in which a rich and ruthless self-made man who leads a group that includes a general, a Catholic priest, a broker and a communist commissar, joins a similarly cruel prospector whose plan is the creation of an enterprise to dig up oil in the middle of historical Paris. The prospector has sent his nephew Roderick to put a bomb in the Palais de Chaillot to kill a public officer who denies him permission to begin his oil operation. But when Roderick fails and the police believe he is going to commit suicide, he meets countess Aurelia, who hears about the plan and decides to solve it by herself. Then action slows down, everything is done in interiors and the situation is resolved in strange ways -- first with a metaphorical trial which is pure stage material, and then with a certainly weird "execution" of the villains. By 1969 director Bryan Forbes was riding the crest of his own international film wave and had a great cast, in which even John Gavin delivered a fine funny performance of an evil priest. Masina is a delight, Evans is wonderful, and Homolka, Leighton, Henreid, Boyer and Dauphin are as good as all the supporting players, while Hepburn tries hard with her teary eyes... I could not help thinking what this would have been with a French actress in the lead.

A weird, but none the less engrossing movie

[Liza-19 · 27 November 2001]

You have to see this movie twice. The first time I saw it, I was disappointed. With such a fabulous cast you would expect something more than talk-politics-symbolism, but the second time I watched it I discovered I really loved it. Its theme is timeless and the film is of course, full of great performances.

The wonderful Katharine Hepburn carries the burden of this entire fiasco, and under any other actress's supervision, this would simply not have survived. It is not at all an easy thing to make this whole wacky plot stick together, and somehow she does it. If she has trouble at sometimes, it is certainly not her fault. The part is incredibly challenging, even for one of Hollywood's most brilliant actresses. (I'd like to see Meryl Streep try to tackle this one!) Brynnor, Gavin, Kaye and the rest all do good jobs, but the spectator can't help but ask, what are they doing in this movie? Richard Chamberlain is delightful and he and Katharine Hepburn really are the driving forces.

Yes, the themes are overdone, the film is talky, a little confusing, and even boring at times - but it still works and is well worth watching.

Coming To Terms.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 27 January 2018]

Admired the covert ridiculousness of the first hour -- five extremely wealthy crooks of majestic stature sitting around one of those tiny café tables on a Paris sidewalk, discussing loudly and shamelessly their next plan to screw the public and further enrich themselves by destroying part of the city with oil rigs.

It's a witty and well-written scene. Yul Brynner is the leader of the gang and a real narcissist. A rag picker passes by while Brynner is holding forth and he finds some money on the sidewalk. Rag picker: "Someone dropped this money. Is it yours?" Brynner: "I never drop money." Rp: "Well then I guess it isn't yours." Brynner: "It's more mine than yours! (Snatches it out of the rag picker's hand.)

Each person at the table, in order to prove he's rotten, must confess to something evil that he did. Oscar Homolka as the German representative, side steps the question, but the phony preacher confesses that, well, he once accepted a rather large donation from an organization "with extreme anti-Semitic views" -- and here the preacher, played by uber-handsome James Gavin, ends with a hilarious smirk combining pleasure, guilt, modestry, and pride.

The preacher is there for a reason. The movie descends into something resembling a genuine morality play. Katherine Hepburn is dotty and still lives in a past in which such corruption doesn't exist and everyone is nice to everyone else. But when she must visit the preacher she gets to ask all sorts of semi-philophical questions about religion, making a hash of Christianity.

The keen and antic wit remains, though the sparks grow sparser. One of Hepburn's friends -- there are three nuts all together -- is Giuletta Masina, who spends her afternoons in the park sitting on a bench and watching the men visit the pissoir. They all know her and tip their hats. But she's shy and easily embarrassed. Hepburn makes some remark about husbands and is warned, "Don't forget. Our friend is a V-I-R-G-I-N." Hepburn: "She can't be all THAT naive. She has canaries."

At a mock trial, the rag picker (Danny Kaye), introduces the three ladies to modern life which, in his view, is profoundly dismal. Tears form in Hepburn's eyes.

At that point, I more or less lost interest, but you might not.

What a disappointment!

[doc-55 · 5/10 · 22 August 2001]

I was prepared by Maltin's comments not to expect very much, yet decided it would be interesting to see some star performers of the 1940s and 1950s in their relatively advanced age. I suppose did expect too much, since some first-rate actors, including the iconic Katherine Hepburn,my all time favorite, were submerged by a leaden script, which made them seem as though they were swimming against the tide in a river of mud. When I saw the original Broadway production, starring Martita Hunt, which as I recall took place exclusively in the madwoman's basement, I was taken by how delicately the author Giraudoux balanced a serious theme with the humor generated by a group of eccentrics and street people. The film takes the serious theme, beats it over the head until it becomes at the very least repetitive; with very few touches of humor, save perhaps the scenes in which the madwoman inveigles the conspirators to walk into her net, when a touch of the old Hepburn edginess appears. If you are looking to see some old favorites at career's end, DON'T; you will almost certainly be disappointed.

Quite different from the play on which it's based

[Bob Pr. · 7/10 · 2 May 2018]

I'm in a play reading group and we often watch a movie based on a play we've read when one's available. Similarities are that a group of wealthy Parisian men find that there's oil underground in Paris and want top scatter derricks all over the city to get it. The countess is opposed to the plan. Among the differences are that she does away with all the ____. Still, it's a worthwhile movie with a fabulous cast of characters.

foul mess of a movie

[junkohanko · 2/10 · 21 December 2005]

I was not expecting much of this movie. Unfortunately, I was not disappointed. This movie started out with a bad script. And the direction was very poor. I have read the English adaptation of the original play by Giradoux and I have seen the musical "Dear World" based on the stage play. Too many characters were added to the screenplay, and too much dialog was removed. The director wasn't sure whether it was a drama or a comedy or a tragedy or a farce. Or maybe he thought it was all of the above. I watched it with someone who did not know the story and she was totally lost. Hopefully this will not make it onto DVD. I can't imagine any company wasting the money on such a project.

One of the few, real, cinematic gems of the industry.

[ftparish · 10/10 · 11 December 2012]

Lots of good comment already made except for some confusion over interpreting and understanding allegory. This is one of the best examples. Much has been said about the waste of talent by big name actors in this film. This play gives point to the old adage that there are no secondary parts in a play. This play demanded and used TALENT, hence the outstanding cast of true professionals. I was disappointed that there was no credit or reference made of the musical score. It is excellent. I'd buy a copy if I could find it. This music is haunting and will live with you for a long time. This is one of those movies that makes one wonder why it is not more prominently marketed. Maybe too cerebral?

Giraudoux by way of Warner Bros. circa 1969

[JasparLamarCrabb · 5/10 · 17 April 2010]

Katherine Hepburn is a free-spirited Parisian countess out to save the world (literally) in this absurdist farce that doesn't really work. She plays a dreamer snapped into reality by the have-nots in her neighborhood and declares war on the "establishment" (embodied by a group of wealthy creeps looking to dig for oil beneath Paris). Although it's not very successfully sewn together by director Bryan Forbes, there are vignettes that are wonderful and Edward Anhalt's script contains many witty lines. Unfortunately, the film is too often draggy (if not outright boring). It's really too bad that there's not more substance here. The cast is enormous but the fact that Donald Pleasence, Yul Brynner, Charles Boyer, Danny Kaye and many others are involved merely make for a far too densely populated film. That doesn't mean that the performances are bad. In fact, Hepburn is quite touching realizing that in order to stop dreaming, she has to wake up! It's also fun watching her share the screen with the likes of Boyer, Margaret Leighton and others. Pleasence, Brynner and Kaye are exceptional as is Giulietta Masina (as Hepburn's flighty, lovelorn friend). Ultimately, Forbes is simply not a particularly imaginative director. The pacing of the film is very slow, especially in its last quarter. The interiors are drably put together, but, thanks to some great cinematography by Claude Renoir and Burnett Guffey, the exterior scenes are mostly stunning.

Visually stunning build-up

[thehumanduvet · 8/10 · 27 April 2000]

The first hour of this film amazed me, it's a visual treat, especially the cafe scenes with Brynner, Pleasance et al talking weird, and Chamberlain and the whacky bomb-plot; towards the end it does tend to get a little bogged down in meaningfulness, the trial scene loses some impact from being overindulgent, but overall the Madwoman is a fascinating look at sixties idealism with eye opening performances from some top stars and enough zany weirdness in the script to keep a David Lynch fan happy. Well worth a look, in my book.

Very prominent cast, but obscure for a reason

[xroo-73772 · 3/10 · 28 February 2023]

This is the film version of a play by Jean Giraudoux, written in 1943. The absurdist humor and the didactic undertone fit perfectly into the spirit of the late 60s, which is kind of amazing, actually. A divers group of evil, crazy venturers want to start drilling for oil in the Chaillot quarter of Paris that is part of the richest district, the 16th arrondissement, and close to the town's landmark, the very big pumpjack. This would turn the whole neighborhood into a wasteland.

Katharine Hepburn, a crazy old "countess" still dressed up for the 19th century, gets wind of it and comes up with a plan to stop them - forever. She wants to lure them into a trap that's a bit like the popular version of the box for Schrödinger's cat. As long as nobody opens the box - and nobody will - nobody knows for sure what happened to them. Did they find a gruesome death or are they still alive? This is supposed to be a comedy, not a horror movie.

There are some remarkable, silly additions to the play. One of the venturers is a Russian commissar, thus making sure that the movie isn't confused with propaganda for Russian style communism. Another one is an evangelical priest, probably because this is a movie about evil men destroying the world and the author wanted to make a personal statement. A really grotesque invention by the author is the way the prospector (Donald Pleasence) is looking for oil. All over Paris he has been drinking tab water, finally he got lucky and tasted oil, at the cafe where the other evil men coincidentally were just discussing their evil plans. Then they all savor that tab water, hoping for the taste of money. This is the kind of humor people looking for laughs will find in this movie - it really doesn't work at all.

The movie is strange, talkative, preachy, mostly nonsensical (aka "absurd" or "crazy"). It is socio-critical in a very naive way. In the end, with all its childlike innocence, it is kind of evil itself. It is of historical interest, features many famous actors, but it's a tough chore to get through. It's a very obscure movie, and there are a lot of good reasons for that.

Finally, there is a connection to the play "Arsenic and Old Lace" from 1939. It's about crazy old ladies - there are more than just the eponymous one - with skeletons in their closet, uhm, cellar - but this time it's from the crazies point of view.

The Madwoman of Chaillot

[Coxer99 · 8 June 1999]

This story must have been popular in 1969. This film was released and a musical version was being presented on Broadway. (Jerry Herman's "Dear World," starred Angela Lansbury.) God can only imagine why. In the film, the big surprise is Brynner, who is the highlight as the character simply titled, "The Chairman." It's a performance that is quite superior to previous work. Maybe he learned how to act by 1969. Who knows? Hepburn is infuriating; mostly because she's miscast, as is most of the cast.

slow, but heavy-handed . . .

[mizadale · 5/10 · 16 February 2017]

this is a very sincere effort. and it's wonderful to see all those stars, crowded onto the screen. however, acting styles have changed, drastically, since the filming and now much looks self-indulgent and like bad acting. but Danny Kaye really steps up in his big scene, i was happy to see. i wanted to be swept away, but i felt the story was bogged down in molasses. sorry! i guess i should read the play in its original version.

A comedy satire it is not, but a drudgery that bombed

[SimonJack · 4/10 · 30 October 2021]

The opening scene at the outdoor Parisian café showed promise for a good satire. But "The Madwoman of Chaillot" soon segued into a little melodrama and a lot of soap opera. It turns out to be a stage play with a jumble of subplots that contest with one another. Since I enjoy satire tremendously, I was disappointed because some of the promotion for this film called it satire. What probably got it that recognition is the opening with over half a dozen big name actors of the 20th century.

Yul Brynner, Paul Henreid, Oskar Homolka, Donald Pleasance, Charles Boyer and John Gavin play characters who represent various aspects of society that the film looks about to rake across the coals. Capitalism, church, communism and government seem in for a good bashing. But the little bit of script that spells that out quickly drivels into little more that bombast and boastfulness in way overdone grandiosity by Brynner's The Chairman. Before this is done, other big name characters enter the picture. Danny Kaye is The Ragpicker, Richard Chamberlain is Roderick, Margaret Leighton is Constance and Nanette Newman is Irma.

Instead of a really good satire, this film uses an absurd notion of all the evil forces of the world wanting to turn Paris into an oilfield. And then, using that as a premise to hold together two or three (or maybe more) subplots that center around Katherine Hepburn's Countess Aurelia. And all of that is mostly an overly long, drawn-out, and very wordy stage play that very much resembles soap opera.

This film was based on a play, but even with the opening scene at the street café and a couple of outdoor shots otherwise, it still has the staginess feel. Perhaps the very crowded and gaudy sets of the Countess Aurelia's home and basement contribute to that. One can't help but think the actors who agreed to this film thought they were getting in on an art film. But, if any of those gentlemen in the opening read the full screenplay they surely wouldn't have seen much satire. Instead, it's just some clearly complaining criticisms of various segments and people.

If it was satire the producers were after, they should have studied the prime examples of huge successes. Those films used realistic situations and history to present great satire. This film had to create fantasy and even uses symbolic names for characters. It's more comic book fantasy than the setting for real satire. And such great examples were at hand to study - "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" of 1964, with Peter Sellers at the head of a great cast; "One, Two, Three" of 1961, with James Cagney at the head of another top cast; or the earlier great classic of 1940 by and starring Charlie Chaplin, "The Great Dictator."

Some reviewers rave about Katherine Hepburn's performance. She's as good as any of the great actresses with long monologs that dominate scenes. But here, it's way too long to the point of boring. This movie was made in Europe and filmed in Paris and Nice, France, with its first opening in the U. S. It bombed at the box office and was one of the worst failures of 1969. Even if that cast with so many prominent actors all worked for peanuts, the makers probably had to scratch and borrow to pay them. It's total U. S. tickets sales were less than $2 million. It was probably such an embarrassment that its budget is nowhere to be found online. Warner Brothers distributed the film in the U. S. and quickly changed its promo to paint Katherine Hepburn as a groovy character. But that didn't work either. The word was out from those who saw this film, and the critics. Whatever it tried to do, it missed. Perhaps the original French play did well, but the Broadway musical based on it also bombed.

The film, for the screenplay, sets, directing, camera work and all other production aspects doesn't really rate four stars. But I give it four stars just for its assemblage of that fine group of actors in the first half hour of the film. They so entertained the movie public for three to four generations before this film. They have some nice parts to start with here, so they can be excused for taking part in such drudgery in the twilight of their careers.

Full of surprises

[kit-21 · 9/10 · 22 April 2005]

A fable of human and societal archetypes spanning the generations. But what wonderful surprises from Danny Kaye as the Ragpicker. His soliloquies during the trial demolish all the stereotypes of what he was capable of as an actor. Those moments, alone, are worth the fare. Kathryn Hepburn puts in a typically professional performance in a role she enjoyed. Donald Pleasance is marvelously malevolent as the Prospector. Yul Brynner is terrific in an atypical role - probably his best since "Invitation to a Gunfighter". If the story suffers from anything, it is overreach - too many characters of outlooks that are too similar wasted on name actors. John Gavin puts in a strange performance that could have been better filled by dozens of other actors.

A Marvelous Parable

[Darguz · 9/10 · 20 April 1999]

A wonderful fable I happened to stumble across. The inimitable Katharine Hepburn as the title character conspires with other eccentrics to save Paris. Warm, funny, delightfully non-sequitur and deeply poignant, this film has messages about love, greed, happiness, fear, hope, dreams. . .life. Excellent performances by all, including some wonderful dramatic acting by Danny Kaye. I highly recommend this movie.

Smashing

[jaibo · 8/10 · 23 December 2000]

A delightful, gentle, quirky and poetic movie. The entire story takes place in the mind of the title character - an eccentric old dear who dreams of a world in which love is requited and evil is simply banished back into the darkness from which it came. The film is by turns moving, funny and magical - and the cast (especially Evans, Brynner, Homolka and Kaye) are a delight. If you are in the mood to be taken into a gentle, unfashionable, charming world of love, poetry and idealistic whimsy, then this movie is for you.

Sanity for our time depicted as Madness in a Saner Time

[alicecbr · 10/10 · 9 October 2005]

Every Civics class (are they still teaching Civics in our increasingly more ignorant society?) should watch this and write an essay on it (if they know what one is, or what a subject and predicate is). What a fantastic analogue to today's insane reality, where the news is owned by the corporate giants: Yul Bryneer does a great turn describing how 'sensible' this arrangement is. To see Yul Bryner laughing is a treat in itself, when you have visions of Yul the Outlaw dancing in your head. Of course his evil in this film is far more insidious than any "The Wild Ones" could have envisioned.

The Ragpicker's soliloquy by Danny Kaye is sometimes pointed to as the highlight of his career, when he was trivialized as a song and dance man....much as Einstein's political views on the insanity of war were sublimated to his scientific contributions. To watch Margaret Leighton give way to the Ragpicker's depiction of how easily women can be bought (with 'sable and morals'). As the defense lawyer, he almost gets his clients off by describing how he gave to all tax-exempt charities, and built many hospitals for the children who ate the food he grew in his 234 farms. (This will remind you of George Bernard Shaw's lines in "The Countess", in which the Indian muses on the much overlooked fact that those great givers to charity --whose names are etched on hospital walls-- are the same corporate giants who owned the mills that put the patients IN the hospitals.) Of course, we the people are no longer taught the skill of analytical thinking, so we wave the flag and gladly sacrifice our children to the merchants of death via their minions, the Army recruiters. And of course, it's all about oil, just as this illegal immoral invasion of Iraq is. How timely this movie is. No wonder you can't find it in the video stores. No wonder you can't even find reviews of the movie in Leonard Whoever's Reviews Book or the Time-Out English Review Book but in Variety's 2000 Movie Guide. Too dangerous in a time of McCarthyism, of Salem witch trials, where the 1st Amendment is so easily discarded.

Naturally, we have a minister, who admits to being involved in some anti-Semitic activities using an atrocious Southern accent. Each of the plotters-- the commissar, the broker, the doctor, the DeGaulle prime minister...all 'confess' to one another their nefarious doings in order to show their loyalty to one another. The fact that Katherine Hepburn gives each of them an 'exclusive contract' to the oil under her mansion in Paris....soon known by all....indicates (according to Yul) that they are all worthy of being business partners, each one totally derelict of the chains of morality.

This is a movie you'll see again and again. See it once for the gorgeous scenes of Paris, a city I love. See it again to remind yourself that once there was a Camelot, once there was a citizenry who cared enough, who knew enough about the danger democracy is in within our country to revolt, courting injury from the police stooges. Of course those police didn't have pepper guns or 'non-lethal' stun guns that kill. (Even at a Red Sox over Yankees celebration, by a direct hit, not the political demonstration the guns were bought for).

These great actors are topped by Katherine Hepburn..her welling eyes mirroring her emotions, her concern at killing these monsters, her sadness for her lost love (the ragpicker?) that drove her insane. Here's an example of "If you had fore knowledge of the evil Hitler would do to the world, would you have killed him?".

Yul Bryner shows also that he was an actor, not just a movie star...but then what enervated these great actors: Charles Boyer, Dame Evans, Guiletta Massina, Margaret Leighton (Betty Davis' nemesis)? It was a labor of love by an international cast which understood the greed, the amorality, the savagery of our 'leaders'. I note that the previous comments also mirror the reviewers' political outlooks in their thumbs down approach: too much truth for them?

If ever such a dramatization of our society's plight (also Britain's, by the way) is needed, it is the year 2005-- with amoral incompetence in the saddle of our Executive Cowboy and mirrored by the insipid cowardice or ineffectiveness of our Democrats in Congress. Although you won't find it for less than $69, it's well worth the money.

Madwoman - watch it with Madness and you will be fine

[reisen55 · 8/10 · 22 June 2012]

It all depends how you approach this film. DO NOT expect a linear plot line, either by story or history. Do not expect it to explain itself for, like 2001, it leaves more questions open than it answers. This is a truly odd duck of a film and once you open up to what it SAYS about life and liberty, you can appreciate it. I disliked it at first view a long time ago and for the obvious reasons - the plot is a pencil sketch of the first order. King Arthur whacking limbs off the Black Knight makes more sense. But scrap that and listen to what the actors are SAYING about life and liberty and THEN it makes sense, for this is an allegory of a film. The closest I can find elsewhere is OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR which uses allegory just as well. Danny Kaye is always a treat, but Hepburn is in glorious 1913 costumes and owns the show, and remember this is 1969. The same year as THE LION IN WINTER for an entirely different performance. So you have to junk many standard film rules aside and THEN you will find this a very good treat of film. Have it with good French Bordeaux and cheese too. Then go outside and see if you can smell a cafe in Paris serving their unique nuclear coffee. Who knows? You may wind up there too.

Ham-fisted dated camp!

[deanmorris_nyc · 2 May 2010]

previous reviewers have hinted at the charm that the play must have offered in its limited setting. the director fails to avoid tacky music: brass, harpsichord, and vocals going "oooh oooh oooh", choppy cutting, overacting, bad looping, faded color, freeze-frames/guitar strums to highlight irony, strings and flute for tenderness, awkward movement, and a lot of flesh tone lipstick. it makes you appreciate Hollywood black and white films and quality camera lenses, and also true naturalism rather than this fake naturalism. doesn't age well at all. fascinating only as an example of what stars in a lame vehicle can look like -- sort of like having a hideous room in the house that you keep to look at once in a while to remind you what well-done looks like. these stars aren't that old but are getting past their prime which is perhaps the most interesting aspect of this whole thing. worth a second viewing drunk so it can be laughed at to enrich my own life.

*

[edwagreen · 22 November 2015]

Mad and miserable best describe Katharine Hepburn's misadventure and disaster in this 1969. At least, the great Kate, had acted mad in a far better film 10 years before in "Suddenly, Last Summer."

She wears that wild hat from out of the middle ages and her clothes were even more gross to behold.

She discovers a plot to destroy Paris by digging up the city for oil. She does something about it in a most unconventional way. She calls a meeting of some of her crones, the odd Margaret Leighton, in a similarly outrageous hat, a more docile Giulieta Masina and Dame Edith Evans, a scene stealer, as the judge in a mock trial with that high pitched voice which was so effective 10 years earlier in the memorable "The Nun's Story."

Danny Kaye is a real delightful surprise here. He is great as the rag picker chose to play the one of those charged. He goes on and on regarding how money just comes to the rich constantly.

Richard Chamberlain co-stars as a young revolutionary but his part along with Donald Pleasence, is never fully developed.