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Message to American film makers (including Woody Allen): Give Paris a rest and find another place for your little fantasies... Even Hemingway did not really "see" Paris (with all the preconceived images he had already in mind before arriving).

If this movie is based on Jules Verne (or even simply inspired), well "Ttanic" is an adaptation of Tolstoi's "War and Peace".

This is not based on the original book by Le Grand Verne (characters, story, basically everything is different...), this is not even funny. When you look at the very professional cast, you wonder how it was not possible to at least salvage some part of the movie. But, no, they could not even managed to do that.

"Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines" was not a great movie but it looks like "Citizen Kane" compared to that... thing.

Truly awful.

Party Girl is a superior Nicholas Ray movie. I know, I know, sounds a bit extreme but I maintain.

Boy meet Girl, they fall in Love, and the world turns nasty. It's them against the World, actually. Will Love win, in the end?

The plot is surely thin but who cares? It does not need to be elaborate or even simply complicated as it is about Love, et c'est si simple l'Amour.

Cyd and Robert play two lonely souls who simply forgot they, once, had a heart. The set is Chicago in the early Thirties and all the action occurs indoor or by night, as in "Alias Nick Beal", except for a very brief moment of pure happiness in Europe (where else?). It is love at first sight, they just do not know it. But this is not that easy of course.

Robert is a virtuoso solicitor who works for the local mafia, Cyd is a more or less washed- up dancer who survives by "partying" with the mafiosi. The first encounters are not particularly successful as he seems made of Kevlar and covered with Teflon and she is ashamed of what she became. Soon, however, Robert sees himself through her eyes like in a mirror and shame strikes him as well. Love, of course, washes everything. But the Mafia and the Law, like modern Greek gods, look at the poor lovers and decide to use them as pawns in their chess game.

I would not dare to say that Douglas Sirk could have filmed "Party Girl" but this is neither a real thriller nor a pure Film Noir, it is a melodrama. This is why, the plot, you know... What is interesting is the fact that, if the gangsters are evil, the cops, or more precisely the district attorney office, are not angels at all. The Law, as the outlaw, plays its little dirty game using dirty tricks. As we all know, the end justifies the means. But in this case, what is the actual target of the district attorney: to clean the street of Chicago of vice and crime or to get a senator's chair? Caught between the hammer and the anvil, Robert and Cyd are trapped (the name of the movie in French). In the end, there is only one way to find redemption and it is uncompromising love.

Nicholas Ray manages to be flamboyant in a minor mode, like chamber music. What is absolutely mesmerizing is his use of color. Jean-Luc Godard (an absolute fan of Ray: "Ray is Cinema") said something about the colours in movies looking more real than the colours in real life. This is definitely the case in "Party Girl". The very claustrophobic atmosphere of the movie is reinforced by the dark shades which are dominating the scenes. And then, a flash of bright red or yellow or green or blue literally pierces and tears up the screen. The incredible beauty of the colour range used by Nicholas Ray and the contrast he creates with it makes you shiver. A good example is the two dance numbers (when you have Cyd Charisse in your movie, it is a sin not to have a dance number). Of course, the choreography is not of the level of "Band Wagon" or "Silk Stockings" but we need to remember that Cyd is a dancer in a club owned by gangster not at the Ballet de l'Opera de Paris. And even if the choreography would be from your average truck driver, it is still Cyd Charisse dancing...

The three main actors are doing a very fine job. Cyd Charisse is neither Eleanor Parker or Joanne Woodward but she is playing her part with real talent. A pity her character is reduced to passivity in the second part of the movie (she is still incredibly beautiful). Robert Taylor is excellent in a more developed character. At the beginning, he is the cynical and sad solicitor who wears a mask to hide the emptiness of his soul. Then gradually, timidly, he goes back to life (the scene where he pleads with passion for the life of Cyd Charisse at the end can be put on perspective with his professional and cold pleadings at the beginning of the movie). Lee J. Cobb is also brilliant playing "Rico" (one of the numerous variations on the Capone's theme Hollywood gave us over the years). His acting is a perfect mix of "Comediante/Tragediante". His Rico plays at being on surface the vulgar, over the top gangster, who laughs a lot and looks a bit dumb. But then, when things go wrong, Rico takes off his mask and the cold-blooded killer shows his real face. The manipulative and cruel Rico is deeply chilling.

A very short scene needs to be mentioned (it is actually a single shot): a young dancer committed suicide in her bathroom. In classic Hollywood, the girl would be shown lying in the water, her head resting on one side of the bathtub, in a very sanitized fashion. Nicholas Ray shows us (very briefly, thanks Hays Code) a bathtub full of dark red blood. The girl is kneeling with just her wrists in the water, her face is hidden by her hair. It is sinister, it looks more like an execution than a peaceful departure. The reality of death.

Nicholas Ray est le Cinema.

I saw "The Scarlet Empress" many times. On TV, in movie theaters. I cannot simply imagine the world without that film, certainly in my Top Ten Favourites list.

Style is the first word that came to my mind when I think of von Sternberg (he added the von to his name but he clearly deserves it). And "The Scarlet Empress' is purely "un exercice de style". People often use the concept of "Expressionism" to describe the photography or the ambiance of the film but it is simply because it is not a classical Hollywood movie in style or in atmosphere. There is nothing strictly "Expressionist" in "The Scarlet Empress" as the expression of emotions is definitely secondary to the creation of a style as a "raison d'etre".

The early years of Catherine the Great (before she even become Catherine the Great) as described by von Sternberg are not corresponding to a strict historical version. This is not the point. This is about the transformation of a woman from a tender, naive and gentle "Prussian rose" into a Machiavelian, merciless praying-mantis, cold as steel, hot as Hell. It is probably a bit stretched, but I find a lot of similarities between the depiction of how Sophia Frederica became Catherine the Great and the personal story of Marlene Dietrich. When she was chosen by von Sternberg for the role of Lola Lola, she was active in German show business for years. At that time, she was a bit plump, more "the girl next door" than "she who must be obeyed". Then, "Der Blaue Engel". Then Hollywood, a few more movies with her "creator" and the woman became Legend, something out of this world.

in a way, the character played (quite well) by John Lodge reminds me of von Sternberg in front of Marlene. When Sophia Frederica sees the handsome, dashing and fascinating Russian envoy, it is Marlene at the time where she was just another actress in the boiling last years of the Weimar Republic. The Count seduces her, makes her falling for him (easily after she discovered her future husband is a raving maniac looking like a monkey on acid). And then, the brutal wake-up: he is the lover of the reigning empress! The little princess throws her broken heart in the sewer and decides to reject everything she was previously: a bit like what did "La" Dietrich after she arrived in Hollywood. And this is were I see the comparison between the character of John Lodge and von Sternberg. Von Sternberg tried to keep the evasive Marlene under his spell for years, making six more movies with (for) her. But she was far away already, long ago. And the face of John Lodge when he discovers than he will never be Catherine the Great's lover, simply because he played with her heart and betrayed her naive love, is a kind of symbol of the filmmaker losing his grip on his creature. But was she ever HIS creature?

Of course, Marlene dominates the film. She is radiant, more beautiful and glamorous than in any other movie. She is also excellent. She plays, at 33, the young, virginal princess very convincingly, her great doe-like eyes constantly moving from one surprise to another. After the betrayal of the man she thinks she loves, she becomes a kind of Nietschian character, bigger than life, cynical and ruthless. But the close-up of her face, after she dismissed John Lodge and now waits for the Count Orlov, her new caprice, shows a distressed woman. A woman who was betrayed by her first love, and whose revenge is bitter-sweet, if not pathetic.

The other actors are all brilliant but Louise Dresser as the empress Elisabeth and Sam Jaffe as the Grand Duke Peter, respectively mother in law and husband of Catherine, are particularly outstanding. Louise Dresser plays herself a cynical and ruthless empress who knows her weaknesses but put the destiny of Russia about everything. Sam Jaffe, well, was the character actor by excellence, able to play a Russian Grand Duke or Gunga Din. His Peter is an absolute maniac but he manages to make him more pathetic and pitiful than monstrous. In the end, he is a poor fellow too small for his own crown. You feel almost sorry for him when he dies.

Von Sternberg acted as a real demiurge in this movie, controlling/creating everything: lights, camera angles and moves, sets and costumes. It gives to the movie this extraordinary atmosphere not only of total art but of fantasy as well (the scenes of rapes and tortures could not have been made six months later, many thanks to the Hays Code). It is extremely claustrophobic in spite of the size of the sets as almost all the action occurs in the imperial palace which looks like a Gothic castle, Russian style.

During the wedding scene, one cannot forget the close-up on Marlene's face, her eyes terrified and fascinated as well, and the flame of the candle in her hand bending under her invisible breath, like a heartbeat.

One reviewer accuses "Les Croix de Bois" of not giving any reason/explanation/philosophical whatever for the Great War.

He terribly missed the point.

"Les Croix de Bois" is adapted from one of the most famous French novel written about WWI. Roland Dorgeles was a veteran and his main purpose was to talk about his own experience and not "to make a point" against war.

The movie is just about that. Recrating an experience. A terrible one.

Raymond Bernard was himself a veteran and it shows. The depiction of the life in the trenches is vivid. We feel under our skin the misery of the soldiers, their small moment of joy and their fear in front of something to big to be comprehended. You do not think of philosophy when machine guns are screaming at you.

Raymond Bernard employed a lot of actors and crew members who actually were in the trenches and he managed to show war on a daily basis from the smallest event to the major assaults. The 10 minutes battle in the middle of the film is so realistic that it looks like a war documentary. In the early thirties the former battle sites were not just memories. The scars were still there. Waiting for the next ones.

The acting is a bit dated, particularly Pierre Blanchar who has a tendency to overplay and is far too old for the role. But he fought too during the war and his fixed eyes are the result of a gas attack.

This movie is to be put alongside "Battleground" or "A Walk in the Sun". The Zero Level of War. Just Men alone and scarred. No reasons, no explanations, and certainly no Philisophy.

The Great Fritz did not like that movie. I do.

OK, this is not one of his really best. But this is still a very good film.

People who pay too much attention to the "Psychoanalysis" side of the movie are missing the point. It is true that the reason given for the hero "psychosis" is a bit (a bit?) weak and the way he is "cured" miraculously at the very end is simply laughable (that's why Mr Lang did not like the movie, he was German and did not like when rationality was thrown away through the window).

But the general atmosphere is gripping from beginning to the end. There is a constant tension with each moment of relaxation quickly followed by another anxious discovery. The play on the shadows (ah la la, that black and white!!!), the use of the mansion as one of the character of the movie, all that is very enjoyable.

The acting is excellent too. Michael Redgrave is good playing a very seductive, charming, ... and bloody annoying man. His character is weak and self-absorbed but still likable.

But Joan Bennett is here for him. She never achieved the same status than Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwick but was a dedicated actress able to play a socialite or a whore, a real bitch or a pure heroin. She is really excellent in the role of a normal woman confronted to an abnormal situation and risking everything to save the man she loves. Her character actually matures during the process. It is good to see a strong woman leading the charge. It is not all that frequent in Hollywood in the 40's (or later...).

The movie was not a success. Maybe the public saw it as a reminiscence of "Spellbound" (an woman who risks everything to save the deranged man she loves. Freud, Freud, Freud again and again). I love "Spellbound". Maybe that's why I love "Secret behind the Door...". Because of it and not in spite of it.

I saw that movie one afternoon on the French TV in the early Seventies. I was a little boy and I absolutely loved it. It was a small. black and white screen but I was stunned by this Medieval movie that had nothing to do, in terms of atmosphere or filming, with the classics from Hollywood (Ivanhoe, The Adventures of Robin Hood... that I loved so much and still do). And then... it disappeared for 40 years!!! I bought it on DVD in 2010 and fell in love with it all over again.

I did not remember the plot at all but I had kept in my mind images of the dark corridors of the Teutonics' castle and of the malevolent knights in black and white slowly haunting it.

There is a specific mood in this movie and this is probably why some reviewers did not like it. There is a real attempt at recreating a long gone world. I found strange to accuse the characters of naming God every ten seconds. This is the Middle Age, for God's sake, and HE is everywhere. OK, the plot goes in a lot of directions but it remains easy to follow and it reinforce the epic aspect of the story, how big events are affecting individuals. What is striking is that the movie tries to put you in the shoes of the people who lived at that time. Unlike Hollywood which still loves today to show the past through a politically correct and contemporary revision.

The cinematography is beautiful and I particularly loved the long, lateral tracking shots which are numerous. On some aspects, Krzyzacy reminds me of silent movies (notably the shot of Jurand on the devastate, snowy scenery covered with gallows. Never black on white has been more gloomy). Also, in a lot of scenes, the actors are literally positioned as elements of the sets, like some sorts of architectural items. Eisenstein would have been proud.

Forget the propaganda: the movie was made in 1960. Aleksander Ford had no choice but to show the Teutonics as proto-Nazis. But if you do some research about the Teutonic Order, you see that they manage to share a a lot with the Nazis on a lot of aspects.

When I watch this movie, I know why Braveheart and all sanitized attempts of that kind make me fume.