Wences

The Tramp's (Charlie Chaplin) mocking of talkies in the opening scene, the Tramp's encounters with a drunken millionaire who repeatedly attempts suicide, the marvelous pantomime of the prize fight episode in which the Tramp dances around the ring to evade his opponent; the slapstick scene when the blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) pulls a thread and unravels the Tramp's long underwear, the hilarious spaghetti-confetti sequence in which the Tramp confuses the spaghetti on his plate with strings of streamers; and the tearful, sentimental ending when the Tramp first sees the blind girl - now with restored sight in the flower shop window of her successful business, and the moment that she takes pity on a trampish beggar - and simultaneously recognizes and realizes thathe is her unlikely benefactor-savior - shown with a closeup of the Tramp's face and smile (with a rose stem in his mouth) when she identifies him -- in this memorable Charlie Chaplin silent film.

The film opens with "Peace and Prosperity" to define and introduce the Tramp character and satirically mock the proceedings of a public presentation - a clever in-joke against 'talking' films. In the big city, an ugly monument to Peace and Prosperity is dramatically unveiled before an assembled, dignified civic group. A boring speech is being presented at a microphone by a stereotypical, pompous Establishment figure. Instruments are used as voices to parody and make fun of talking films and the characters. A quacking, kazoo-sound is substituted for the voice of the mayor, imitating the rhythm and intonation of a typical political speech that has little intelligible content. When a female civic leader approaches the microphone and begins her speech, a similar garble and squawking is heard, only with a higher feminine register.

When the dust sheet is lifted and removed from the Greco-Roman stone statue, it reveals the black-clothed little Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) blissfully sleeping in the central figure's lap. His presence in the lap of the female statue dirties the purity of its whiteness. The crowd is taken aback and officially outraged by the vagrant who has usurped decorum and chosen to be the recipient of their civic benevolence. The Tramp slowly awakens, scratches, stretches, and then becomes aware of the audience. He embarrassingly makes an effort to extricate himself and climb down off the statue, but the sword of one of the three statues has impaled and hooked him - stuck up the back of his pants. As the National Anthem - the Star Spangled Banner - is heard, the Tramp takes off his hat in respect, but has difficulty finding his footing and standing at full attention. As he continues to crawl off the large statue, his profile with his own nose next to the statue's huge outspread hand creates a classic image - a monumental nose-thumbing gesture.

In "An Afternoon Stroll," the Tramp takes a walk down the street in the busy city. He rebukes two newspaper boys who taunt him, take his cane and make fun of his tattered, shabby clothes. He removes the ragged tips of his gloves to resonately snap his fingers in their faces. He stops along the way in front of a shop window and becomes a discerning connoisseur. The Tramp tries to conceal his interest in a female nude statue in the window by pretending to be an aesthetic art critic. Stepping back and forth on the sidewalk, ostensibly searching for the perfect perspective, he becomes pre-occupied with the inanimate statue, not seeing what is behind him. [This scene foreshadows his preoccupation with the Blind Girl and the predicaments he gets involved in during his association with her.] He narrowly misses falling into the opening and closing vent of a freight elevator behind him. Fortuitously, the platform comes flush with the sidewalk every time his foot comes down in a teasing sight gag. And then when he gets caught on the descending platform and half sinks out of sight, he scrambles back to safety. As he waits for the elevator to rise to criticize the workman, he scolds the man with an accusatory finger when the man rides up to his waistline. When the elevator reaches its full height and the tall man towers over him, he tips his hat and quickly finds a way to exit the scene.

In "the Flower Girl," he enters and exits an expensive parked limousine in a traffic jam to avoid a motorcycle policeman. There in front of him is a beautiful flower-selling Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill). She hears the limo door slam, assuming he is a rich millionaire. She offers him a flower, a boutonniere - his first reaction is a flirtatious one (before he learns she is blind). He is smitten by her and gives her his last coin for the single flower for his buttonhole. [According to Guinness World Records, this sequence took 342 takes to make - the most retakes for one scene.]

Then, after she thinks he has left in a limo (she hears another limo door slam) without asking for his change, he tiptoes back to sit silently. Entranced, he watches her adoringly. As she changes the water for her flowers at the fountain, she unknowingly throws a bucket of dirty water from a rinsed-out container in his face. The Flower Girl goes home that evening - she lives at home with her be-spectacled, shawled grandmother (Florence Lee). Once at home, the blind girl turns on the victrola, waters her potted flowers at the window, and takes down her caged bird. At her window, she dreams and longs for more visits from him.

That "Night of Adventure," a drunk and depressed Eccentric Millionaire (Harry Myers) is clumsily attempting to take his own life at the harbor. The Tramp comes down the steps and moons over (and smells) the flower the Blind Girl gave him. The Tramp finds that the man has tied one end of a rope to a large stone and put the noose around his neck. The Tramp advises: "Tomorrow the birds will sing!" and "Be brave! Face life!" In the ensuing rescue scene, the Tramp valiantly intervenes to prevent the man's determined suicide, but the loop in the rope falls around his neck and pulls him into the river instead. The Tramp almost drowns and he is the one who must be saved. Both of them end up in the water, but the Tramp has succeeded in rescuing the man from drowning himself. After they scramble ashore, the Tramp gives his characteristic comic leg-shake. The two become buddies, and the millionaire exclaims: "I'm cured. You're my friend for life."

The opening prologue including the shot of media tycoon Charles Foster Kane's (director and co-writer Orson Welles) estate of Xanadu and the uttering of the mysterious word "R-o-s-e-b-u-d" by the giant rubbery lips of a dying, mustached man as a crystal globe/ball of a snowy scene (of a snow-covered house) falls from his hand and shatters, the "March of Time" newsreel sequence, the scene in the smoky projection room where shafts of light come from the projection booth and the reporters are told to investigate the enigmatic meaning of Kane's last word, the deep-focus scene as young Kane plays in the snow outside and his future guardian talks to his parents inside, the clever transition when a picture of a newspaper staff comes to life, the Walter P. Thatcher library flashback sequence, the famous breakfast montage scene that symbolizes the deterioration of Kane's marriage, the dolly shot/dissolve into the skylight of Susan Alexander's (Dorothy Comingore) nightclub, Kane's explanation to his accountant: "You're right, I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in 60 years"; Bernstein's (Everett Sloane) speech about his memory of a girl with a white dress and a parasol, Kane's memorable political speech, the memorable boom shot upward to two stage hands who comment on Susan's disastrous operatic debut, Kane's firing of Jedediah Leland (Joseph Cotten) and his finishing of the negative review of his wife's performance, the images of Xanadu's huge fireplace and Susan hunched over a crossword puzzle, the startling jump cut to a screaming bird, and the scene of Kane's angry furniture-destroying rage after Susan's departure, his stumbling walk through the mirrored hall, the panoramic view of Kane's basement warehouse, and the final fadeout scene from the time the reporters start up the stairs to a shot that closes in on the incineration of the sled in the furnace -- (revealing the meaning of "Rosebud"), and the smoke rising toward the sky, in one of filmdom's most celebrated films with many landmark cinematic techniques (including dramatic lighting and deep-focus).

The scene of the Tramp (Charlie Chaplin) eluding a pickpocket and cop in the hall of mirrors; also his antics in a circus environment where he inadvertently becomes part of the show as a prop man; his eating of a hotdog from the extended hand of a baby in its father's arms; the scenes of being locked in a cage with a sleeping lion (and a barking dog outside) - and the tightrope act attempt with a wild monkey on his head and biting his nose; and the classic memorable finale in which The Tramp walks in the opposite direction away from the departing circus, in director/actor Charlie Chaplin's early and captivating award-winning silent film.

The euphoric scene of middle-aged Italian film director Salvatore Di Vitto (Jacques Perrin) returning to his childhood, small-town Sicilian home of Giancaldo after 30 years to revisit the condemned Cinema Paradiso theatre in the town square (where he was a projectionist through his teenaged years), when it was destroyed to make way for a city parking lot; he also recalls his short romance with a rich banker's pretty daughter, a blonde, blue-eyed classmate named Elena Mendola (Agnese Nano) - when he was keeping vigil outside her window for 100 nights - and then she miraculously appeared after he had given up hope in the projectionist booth and kissed him lovingly - making him forget his responsibilities when the film reel runs out; he is also there to attend the funeral of his kind-hearted mentor/surrogate father Alfredo (Philippe Noiret); his widow presents him with a gift of one last reel of film, which he takes back with him to Rome and screens - it is composed of all the excised and censored kisses (presented in an amorous montage - two stills shown to the right) that the village priest Father Adelfio (Leopoldo Trieste) had ordered snipped from dozens of films shown there during Toto's childhood; the images bring tears to his eyes, in writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore's sentimental homage to the movies that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The scene of the climactic and suspenseful showdown 5-card stud poker game between young poker player The Cincinnati Kid or Eric Stoner (Steve McQueen) and legendary champion card player Lancey Howard or "The Man" (Edward G. Robinson) - in which the Kid's full-house (with Aces and tens) is beaten by "The Man's" straight flush (when he turns over a Jack of Diamonds) - accentuated by closeups; the "Kid" admits: "I'm through" although Lancey compliments him on a good game: ("You're good, kid, but as long as I'm around, you're second best. You might as well learn to live with it"), in Norman Jewison's Hustler-like high-stakes poker-gambling film

Prior to meeting Warhol, Joe had posed for some male nude shots that appeared in Bob Mizer's publication, Physique Pictorial. Although the image below appeared in an issue in 1975, it was taken in the sixties, ca. 1965. The caption reads: "Joe Angelo Dallesandro gave his age as 19 when he came to pose for AMG, but was actually only 18. His birth date was noted as December 31, 1946, 5'6", 140 lbs waist 29.5 (pulled in to 27.25) biceps 13.5, forearm 11.75, wrist 7.12 neck 15.6, chest 39 normal expaned [sic] to 40, hips 36.6, thighs 21, calf 14.12 ankle 9.4 shoulders 47, leg length to floor 30.5 tit-to-tit 8.75, tit to navel 9.75, head circumference at temples 22.75... These measurements were all made by the writer, so can vouch for their accuracy, if anyone cares..."

After noting that Joe listed his occupation as "short order cook" and that his "greatest ambition was to own his own Italian restaurant," Mizer goes on to say that "Because of an unfortunate altercation between Joe and the man who brought him here, we refused to do additional work on Joe, and of course you know who suffered from that decision. More prudent was Bruce Bellas whose magnificent work on Joe is still offered by Kensington Road Studios. And of course the avant-garde Andy Warhol who could always sense natural quality..."

Note the small symbols near Joe's shoulder, just above his tattoo. Mizer's use of symbols is explained on the inside cover of the magazine under the heading, "SYMBOLS ON THE PICTURES". It begins "We offer a sheet giving a partial explanation but we might be sued for libel if we wrote out a complete interpretation. If you are interested, perhaps you will sometime contact a traveler who has been 'educated'." It then goes on to mention that there are eighty-six 4x5 b&w negatives of Joe in the collection and also an 8mm film available for $10.00." 

Although Physique Pictorial listed Joe's birth year as 1946, it was actually 1948. He was born on New Years Eve in in Penascola, Florida. His father was an Italian American sailor and his mother was 16 year old Thelma Testman. Thelma was fourteen years old when she married Joe's father.One year after Joe was born, she gave birth to his brother Robert (Bob) who would later work briefly as Warhol's chauffeur and would also appear in Trash with his brother.

Thelma was arrested for interstate auto theft when her children were still young and she was sentenced to five years in a Federal penitentiary. Joe's father (Joe Sr.) divorced Thelma and took the boys to New York with him where he worked as an electrical engineer. Both Joe and his brother were eventually placed into the Angel Guardian Home in Harlem prior to being fostered by a couple in Brooklyn. Joe's dad would visit them about once a month at their foster parents' home. Joe attended a Catholic school until the second grade and then moved with his foster family to Long Island. Joe and his brother Bob lived with the family until they ran away and were removed from the family by social services. 

Joe eventually wound up living with his father at the age of fourteen at his grandparents' house in Queens. He was expelled from school when he punched the school principal in the nose after the principal blamed his father for Joe's bad behaviour at school. Joe spent much of his youth stealing cars. He got into trouble with the police when he crashed through the gate in the Holland Tunnel to avoid paying the toll while driving a stolen vehicle. During the police chase that ensued, Joe was wounded by one of the officer's guns. When he went to a hospital with his wounds, he was arrested by the police. He was sentenced to the Camp Cass Rehabilitation Center for Boys in the Catskills for four months, but escaped prior to serving his full term. He was issued a warning that if he got into any more trouble before he turned 21, he would have to serve his remaining sentence in addition to any other time he got for the new sentence.

Joe decided that the best thing to do would be to leave New York, so he robbed an RKO theatre in Brooklyn, where the gay manager was a friend of his, and proceeded to Mexico with the takings - accompanied by a friend named Stanley. In Mexico Joe washed dishes to support himself and eventually both him and Stanley hitchhiked to Los Angeles. While hanging out at the bus station, Joe was approached by a gentleman who wanted to take nude photographs of him and it was at one of those sessions that the picture featured above was taken.

When Joe was arrested for assault after getting into a fight, a judge in Los Angeles sent him back to his father who was then living in New Jersey with his new girlfriend and her two daughters. Joe married one of the daughters, Leslie, who gave birth to Joe's first son, Michael. Joe eventually left that marriage and moved into a small apartment on 10th Street in Manhattan. He spent much of his time hanging out around Times Square and it was during that period that he was discovered by Warhol and Morrissey.

Joe Dallesandro:

"I just happened to be in the same building that they [Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey] were shooting something and friends of mine said, 'Look, Andy Warhol's downstairs shooting a movie!' And I said 'Who's Andy Warhol?' And they told me he's a famous artist and we went down there to watch and Paul came out from standing behind the camera with Andy and asked me to do a small scene... Andy sat behind the camera - he would always read a newspaper while he sat behind the camera and all he did was click the camera on and off."

When he was presented with a release to sign after the shooting, Joe was astonished.

Joe Dallesandro:

"When I became involved with the people - you know, it was a joke - the first film I ever did with them and they came up to me and said we'd like you to sign this release - Paul did after I got that shoot - and I looked at him real strangely and I then said release for what? You're gonna show this in the cinema? Yeah, right, who would go and sit through this?"

Although the footage of Joe was shot in the summer of 1967 and included in **** (Four Stars) which was shown once at the end of 1967, it was not until almost a year later that it was shown as part of the separate, self-contained film The Loves of Ondine which premiered on August 1, 1968 at the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theater in Greenwich Village.

http://www.joedallesandro.com/

San Diego Surf was the last Warhol film that Ingrid Superstar and Taylor Mead appeared in. It was shot in May 1968 in La Jolla, California. The cast also included Viva, Eric Emerson, Louis Waldon and Joe Dallesandro. Paul Morrissey assisted Warhol during the shooting of the movie.

During the filming, another filmmaker, Bob Smith, was on hand to film Warhol making San Diego Surf for Smith's own short documentary Andy Makes A Movie. Smith (aka Robert Emmet Smith) had previously worked as an art director on Hollywood feature films, including The Mole People (1956), Lonely Are The Brave (1962) and Hombre (1967). Smith's film shows both Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey behind the camera during various scenes.

In Andy Makes A Movie, Aaron Sloan, the producer of the film, interviews Warhol and some of the stars of San Diego Surf. When Sloan asks Warhol who is influenced by, Warhol responds, "Uh, I guess I'm influenced by everybody but, uh, I like the way Godard works... just because I think he's bringing television out to the movies and, um, I think that's what we're trying to do sometimes too."

Warhol was an avid television watcher. He also mentions the influence of television during the following exchange in Smith's film:

From Andy Makes a Movie:

Aaron Sloan: Do you find that television has more of an influence on your own viewpoint and communications and motion pictures?

Andy Warhol: Uh... yes.

Aaron: What are your views on theories of editing, such as montage?

Andy: Uh... I really don't believe in montage but I guess we've used it.

Aaron: Why did you give up painting to go into cinema?

Andy: Uh, well the camera's easier to work.

Aaron: How do you mean easier?

Andy: You just have to turn on the button.

Aaron: Isn't there a little more - the eye? The selectivity?

Andy: Uh, no... because every picture's right.

Aaron: How do you describe the qualities for a superstar?

Andy: Anybody who talks a lot."

Sloan's reference to Warhol giving up painting to go into cinema probably refers to Warhol's announcement in Paris in May 1965 that he was retiring from painting in order to concentrate on filmmaking although, in reality, he continued to paint as well as make films.

When Sloan asks Warhol star, Louis Waldon, about his reasons for appearing in San Diego Surf, Waldon responds somewhat facetiously.

From Andy Makes a Movie:

Louis Waldon: "Well... you know yesterday we shot some of the first scenes and I stated the fact that I was, I'm, uh, extremely interested in finding a new way to live and I think that surfing could possibly be the answer... I've met two surfers so far and I feel that they're, you know, that they really have a healthy attitude... they're against dope and against the capitalistic style of living, they're more involved and into the ocean and just the waves, the waves mean everything and, uh... it caught my interest... and in the movie that's exactly what I'm seeking out. I'm seeking out a way to, uh, live and, uh, if its surfing, uh, that's the way I'll do it, I'll be a surfer. For the rest of my life.

Aaron Sloan: Have you ever done any surfing in real life?

Louis Waldon: No I haven't... um, I've body surfed."

San Diego Surf was never released commercially. Warhol felt that the film lacked an edge.

Andy Warhol:

"Everybody was so happy being in La Jolla that the New York problems we usually made our movies about went away - the edge came right off everybody... We'd lounge around listening to our transistors on the beach, playing songs like Cowboys to Cowgirls, A Beautiful Morning, cuts from the Jimi Hendrix' Axis album. From time to time I'd try to provoke a few fights so I could film them, but everybody was too relaxed even to fight. I guess that's why the whole thing turned out to be more of a memento of a bunch of friends taking a vacation together than a movie. Even Viva's complaints were more mellow than usual."

Color/109 Minutes
Directed by Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey
Executive Producer: Paul Morrissey
(filmed January 1968)

Lonesome Cowboys was shot at the end of January 1968 in Tucson Arizona - on location in Old Tucson and at the Rancho Linda Vista Dude ranch 20 miles outside the city where some John Wayne movies had been filmed.

It was edited by Andy while he was recuperating from the gunshot wounds inflicted by Valerie Solanas on June 3, 1968 and won Best Film at the San Francisco Film Festival in November. Unable to find a major commercial exhibitor, Warhol rented the Garrick Theatre where it opened on May 5, 1969. According to Morrissey, the film grossed $35,000-40,000 during its first week, with only $9,000 spent on advertising. It was also booked at the 55th Street Playhouse at the same time where it broke the "single-day housemark", taking in $3,837 at $3.00 per ticket. In the same day it made $2,780 at the Garrick. It also ran for twenty weeks at various art houses in Los Angeles, and 2 1/2 months in San Francisco under distribution by Sherpix.

The film was originally conceived as a western version of Romeo and Juliet called Ramona and Julian.

 In Autumn, 1967, while on a lecture tour in Tucson with Warhol, Paul had also mentioned to the press that their next film would be a western filmed on location in Tucson and would be called The Unwanted Cowboy.

Both Brigid Berlin and Ondine were supposed to be in Lonesome Cowboys but, according to David Bourdon, "failed to show up, presumably because of their skepticism about Arizona's amphetamine supply. Brigid was to have played the leader of a rival gang of cowboys, and Ondine had been slated for the role of Padre Lawrence, described in the scenario as a 'degenerate and unfrocked priest who tries to hide his addiction to opium-laced cough syrups.' (John Chamberlain was offered Ondine's role, but turned it down. He was also invited to play the father of the cowboy brothers, but declined that part, too, on the grounds that he wasn't old enough.)"

There are different versions of the film. One version includes a title track by Bob Goldstein during the opening sex scene between Viva and Tom Hompertz who was an art student that Andy had met the previous year while lecturing at an art school in California. This version also has opening credits after this scene. In another version, there are no credits and no song - just an assortment of extraneous sounds during the opening scene.

The controversial rape scene in Lonesome Cowboys occurred when Viva (as Ramona) ordered the boys off her ranch. The boys attacked Viva as she pleaded, "you're hurting me... please." She screamed out to both her fellow actors and the tourists who had gathered to watch the filming, "oooh, make them stop! Oh, Andy!" as the boys continued to molest her. At the end of the scene she yelled "Disgusting pigs! Look at all those children shocked out of their minds," referring to the onlookers.

Because of the filming, Andy Warhol was put on surveillance by the FBI on 23 February 1968 in response to a complaint by the the public. The FBI were investigating the event in order to see if there were grounds to arrest Warhol for interstate transporting of obscene material, ie if he had taken a film of a rape from Arizona to New York. (L&D288) He was never charged. However, in August 1969, Lonesome Cowboys was seized by authorities during its third week playing at a cinema in Atlanta, Georgia, and the manager of the cinema arrested.

According to Victor Bockris, "a thickset young stud from San Diego known as Joey had been flown in to stay with Andy." during the filming. (L&D286) On the second morning in Arizona, "Warhol awoke to the acrid stench of gas in his cabin and sprang out of bed to discover that Joey, who only the previous afternoon had lain tranquilly next to him in bed holding hands over the covers as Viva drew their portrait, had tried to commit suicide." Fred Hughes got rid of him immediately, putting him on a plane.

The filming was often watched by tourists and some of them were so upset by what they saw that they alerted the authorities. The FBI became involved and complaints were taken from several spectators - some of whom were minors.

From the FBI file on Andy Warhol:

"... everyone was gathered around the corral area. They were taking various shots and poses. They had sound equipment recording all the conversation. The language was vulgar and "hippish". He heard them mention MARLO BRANDO once. One fellow, described as a white male, American, 5'7", 145 pounds, 32 to 35 years of age, with receding hairline and a large head, stated that he enjoyed sexual relations with a horse more than he did with a man or girl. The man recording the conversations was described as a white male, American, 26 to 27 years of age, 5' 9", 155 pounds and long hair, who was carrying a boy about four or five years of age around with him on his hip. The man with the receding hairline and large head was on a horse and another man was up in a tree hanging by his feet and was kissing this large-headed man on the lips..."

The Viva rape scene was particularly controversial.

From the FBI file on Andy Warhol:

"[The complainant] stated that one of the male actor's picture and VIVA's (last name unknown) picture appeared in the Phoenix paper about two or three weeks ago. VIVA, the man whose picture was in the paper, the big-headed man and a fourth individual said to the spectators, "Give us the script, tell us what to do." The cameras were running and the film was in the lower part of the corral. The girl, VIVA, was wearing purple pants and shirt. The male actors in the film tackled the girl and threw her to the ground among the dirt, rocks and horse manure. One of the actors yelled "Strip her." Three of the male actors took her clothes off; she was naked... There were about thirty spectators around watching the filming. It was about 2 PM in the afternoon..." 

The FBI's interest in the Lonesome Cowboys continued after Warhol and his entourage left town. When the film was shown at the San Francisco International Film Festival on November 1, 1968, the FBI were there to review it, failing to notice that one of the actors, Julian Burroughs, was actually a deserter who was on the run from the U.S. military:

From the FBI file on Andy Warhol:

"The characters in the film were a woman, played by VIVA; her male nurse, played by TAYLOR MEAD; a sheriff who resided in a small Arizona town - population three; and a group of about five cowboys with an additional new member called "Boy Julian." All of the males in the cast displayed homosexual tendencies and conducted themselves toward one another in an effeminate manner. Many of the cast portrayed their parts as if in a stupor from marijuana, drugs or alcohol."

The FBI considered prosecuting Warhol for interstate transportation of obscene matter - for driving the film footage back to New York from Arizona - but declined prosecution, possibly because their report noted that "at no time did the camera show penetration..."

Upon returning to New York, Warhol moved the Factory from 47th Street to more business-like offices at Union Square. The new building had actually been found by Paul Morrissey at the end of 1967 when Warhol was notified by his landlord at 47th Street that the building was being torn down. While Paul was stripping wood at the new location, a young man delivered a Western Union telegram and Paul ended up hiring him to help with the stripping. It was Jed Johnson, who would eventually become Andy's live-in boyfriend and would also go on to direct the film, Andy Warhol's Bad, in the Spring of 1976.

Espérame mucho (Keep Waiting For Me) is an Argentinian film released in 1983 and based on a short story by Isidoro Blaisten. The action takes place in 1950 and the viewer is able to get a feel for the time from the very first scenes, which consist of  TV reporting  typical  for countries under a centralized economy. The story is told in the first person, in a memoir fashion, with a neat transition between the introductory words of  the narrator” I am 41 years old. In 1950, I was in fourth grade” and the actual story observed through his eyes as a child.

Juancito (played by the eleven year old Federico Olivera) is the main protagonist of the story. He is a regular boy who does his lessons under his mother’s supervision while awaiting  impatiently for six o’clock so he can hear the story of his favorite hero on the radio -- Tarzan.  A lot of political turmoil is happening in Argentina at that time and it causes the young boy to wonder why his mother is referring to his uncle as “A Quixote” instead of ” A revolutionary”, as he sees him. In the later scenes, it becomes clear that the boy compares his uncle with his father -- admiring his uncle for his courage and disapproving of his father who “never speaks up” and always follows the demands of his wife. And Juancito is not afraid to say that to his father’s face, using the words “everyone bosses you  around”. At the same time, he relates more to his uncle who sometimes joined the boys in their football games“We loved it when my uncle Migel got the ball. He’d forget politicsand play like a child. We all envied him”

Juansito is in love with a girl and the scene in which he gives her a present made my him is one of  the most heart warming scenes I have seen in a film. Yet, he soon finds out how unfair life can be….  Generally speaking, the film has some quite touching scenes which alternately brought tears to my eyes or a smile to my face.

The cast did an incredible job in the film. Throughout the story, told through the eyes of Juancito, the viewer can appreciate the similarities, differences and beliefs of people from various social classes in Argentina during 1950. The abundance of documentary cadres contributes to the  educational value of the film.  It accurately portrays the  history and the epoch in which the action is set. I believe that everyone who sees this film once will have gained a knowledge and a wisdom -  because even as the years change, we today still share the same joys and fears as did the people in 1950.

Espérame mucho  has some of the most powerful ending phrases that I have seen in any coming of age film. I could not resist quoting them in my review as I believe they represent its core message and will lead to a desire for you to see it:

“looking back on those days, the affection of these people, their faces and smiles, I feel the weight of these 30 years. When I left Tarzan, defender of the meek and  justice, a wound opened up, for me and for many others and it hasn’t healed yet. The many things that happened buried the enthusiasm …. I am 41  years old. With time, I discovered why Tarzan wasn’t enough ….and I lost my childhood innocence “

When released in 1983, in the last few months of the military rule in Argentina,  Esperame Mucho was subject to severe censorship by the regime. After the regime ended, the film was delivered without cuts in its various television displays.

I would not hesitate to recommend this film - not only to the fans of the coming of age genre, but to anyone who is interested in watching a high quality cinema production. Despite being produced in 1983, Esperame mucho is a film from which many of today’s filmmakers may learn.

Leave Us Alone (Danish: La' os være) is a 1975 Danish drama film directed by Ernst Johansen and Lasse Nielsen. It was entered into the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. The plot is similar to that of Lord of the Flies: A group of teenagers are stranded on an uninhabited island, and an initially pleasant vacation turns into a nightmare.

The film shows the story of life on a Danish boarding school for boys in the seventies. The focus is on the conflict between the headmasters old fashioned view of life and the much more liberal views of the boys. At one point the boy Ole is expelled for hanging pornographic pictures in the bathroom, but the boys won't let him be expelled and unite against the old fashioned views of the headmaster. Finally the teachers have to let Ole stay. We also follow Bo (15) and Kim (12) who is the headmasters son. They become very intimate and even though it is clearly more than just a friendship it is portrayed in a very innocent manner. There relationship is not portrayed as a struggle with sexual identities, but rather as something natural. They do not hide it from the other boys at school who seem to consider it normal. The film ends with all the boys at school showing a film they have made...

Excellent movie, if you have an open mind. The two boy's relationship grows in a very innocent manner. Even if you are heterosexual, you can probably identify with the feeling of your first infatuation for another person and all the little moments together that seemed special. This movie deals with first love, of another kind, in an extremely tasteful manner.

http://www.theskykid.com/movies/you-are-not-alone-an-interview-with-lasse-nielsen/

Jacques Duron has written and filmed this brief ode to unrequited love between school boys (but no less worthy) living in a small central French town, Gannat, an ancient settlement tho' the film eschews establishment of a broader context than the narrow paths the boys regularly traverse, shuttling between school via rail, without any hint as to what location-- indeed of the school environment only what one must take as a school playground is shown-- and Philippe's home and a non-decrepit area of the town, nevertheless, showing evidence of its relative antiquity compared to structures from the epoch of the film, establishing thereby a contrast of youthful vitality existing in what must be considered drab surroundings doubtless exacerbated by the B&W film and autumnal season, but serving to emphasize the freshness of youth and the eternally recurring theme of sexual awaking and discovery, which Philippe, the older of the boys, and Claude the younger who initially sees Philippe as a roll model, proud to have his attention, eager to explore his stirrings with a more experience companion, while the older, perhaps confused by the strength of his passion and mindful of his supposed responsibilities only tentatively responds to the bold invitation for exploration, choosing to wait for slumber to worship at the altar of Kamadeva, supine before him, receiving encouragement, which proved ephemeral alas as Claude quickly progresses, matures, to a worship of Aphrodite leaving Philippe to his first experience of the despair of a jilted suitor, suffering all the pangs of rejection, loss of his Ka one might conjecture, while finally willing to accept what Claude will grant him, at a price, in a surprising conclusion.

The breathtaking reenactment of the homesteader's wild dash in the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889, in this early sound western and Best Picture winner based on the best-selling Edna Ferber epic by director Wesley Ruggles.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021746/

The dark evocation of a late 1930s Los Angeles in a tale of murder, incest, and water rights; the night-time slitting of impulsive detective Jake Gittes' (Jack Nicholson) nose with a switchblade (by director Roman Polanski) ("You're a very nosy fellow, kitty-cat, huh?") and Gittes' sporting of a bandaged nose for the remainder of the film, Jake's lunch conversation with corrupt and perverse tycoon Noah Cross (John Huston) at the Albacore Club, who repeatedly mispronounces his name and where he is told: ("You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," "You see, Mr. Gittes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place, they're capable of anything," and "The future, Mr. Gits - the future!"), the celebrated scene of beautiful and wealthy, troubled newly-widowed client Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) repeatedly being slapped by Gittes and revealing the scandalous truth about the young and enigmatic Katherine (Belinda Palmer) that she is hiding: "she's my sister...she's my daughter...She's my sister and my daughter! ...My father and I...understand? Or is it too tough for you?", and the tragic ending in Chinatown including the haunting closing line: "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown", in director Roman Polanski's great neo-noir detective story.

http://www.csfd.cz/film/7341-cinska-ctvrt/

Chinatown (1974) is a superb, private eye mystery and modern-day film noir thriller. Its original, award-winning screenplay by Robert Towne is a throwback that pays homage to the best Hollywood film noirs from the pens of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler in the 30s and 40s. The film declined to provide a tagline, instead choosing imagery over words on its poster, which featured in 40's art deco, the detective - his back facing the viewer, smoking a cigarette, with the smoke emanating from it forming the visage of the heroine, signifying the setting, the mood, and symbolism of the film without uttering a single phrase.

The film is a skillful blend of mystery, romance, suspense, and hard boiled detective/film noir genre elements - especially embodied in The Maltese Falcon (1941) (by director John Huston who acts in this film) and The Big Sleep (1946). This revisionist noir film was the first production of legendary Paramount Studios head (and ex-actor) Robert Evans, a flamboyant Hollywood figure who later in 1994 published a juicy autobiography, The Kid Stays in the Picture that was made into a documentary film in 2002.

The film marked French-born Polish director Roman Polanski's return to Hollywood five years after the gruesome 1969 Manson murders that took the life of his actress wife Sharon Tate. Polanski opted to use a bleak ending rather than the more hopeful finale in the original screenplay, presumably because of his life's tragedies. Only a few years later, in 1978, he would be indicted and convicted with the 1977 statutory rape (and drugging) of a 13 year-old girl (later identified as Samantha Geimer) while at the home of star/actor Jack Nicholson (absent at the time), and had to flee to Europe as a fugitive. This was Polanski's last film made on location in the US.

Writer Robert Towne's screenplay was partially based on a true Los Angeles scandal in the early part of the 20th century (the story of the nefarious 1908 Owens Valley 'Rape' and scandalous San Fernando Valley land-grab by speculators). The film's character, Hollis Mulwray, was loosely derived from LA's real-life water engineer William Mulholland (the General Manager of LA's Bureau of Water Works and Supply), who orchestrated the purchase of water rights and the piping of water from the High Sierras into Los Angeles by an aqueduct that flowed through the now-valuable San Fernando Valley north of LA. The name of the character Hollis Mulwray was a clever anagram for "Mulholland". The evil character of Noah Cross was a reference to the Biblical Noah (and the torrential flood that devastated mankind).

The investigation of a routine story by a detective uncovers secrets under many layers, facades, red herrings, and networks of corruption, conspiracy and deception. The film contains numerous plot reversals and twists (many of which regard the private eye's client and her family), fistfights and some violence, and many changes of scene. As the hero unravels the complicated, elusive facts, he flippantly and self-confidently offers pat explanations for the deeply-flowing corruption he unearths, and then finds he must continually revise his inaccurate pronouncements after uncovering further evidence. His efforts to separate good from evil - to save the good and punish the evil - ultimately fail in the metaphoric (and then real) world of Chinatown by the film's climax. [The film's title, according to Towne, referred to a 'state of mind' rather than an actual geographic place.]

Similar to a case that he never fully perceived or understood years earlier when he was a cop in LA's Chinatown [symbolic of the city of Los Angeles], he is doomed to repeat history ("You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't", voiced by the film's villain played by legendary director John Huston) - as a powerless, hard-boiled detective, he again brings tragedy to a woman he wants to help. [The story continued in a complex, poorly-received sequel many years later - The Two Jakes (1990) - that required considerable knowledge of the earlier film in order to be comprehensible. It also starred Nicholson as the private detective in 1948 Los Angeles (and he also served as the film's director - in his debut film). The sequel, when viewed with the original film, provides the viewer with a 267-minute film noir epic. A third film to complete a trilogy, named Cloverleaf (a reference to LA's freeway system and its massive interchanges - with its notorious air pollution), was shelved when The Two Jakes failed at the box-office. Its title was referenced in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) as the evil Doom's giant corporation with a quasi-swastika as its logo.]

The film's claustrophobic, cyclical, bleak mood surrounding the heroic quest of the detective struck a responsive chord after the scandalous Watergate era of the early 1970s. The film's two puzzling mysteries and tragedies - family-related and water-related - are beautifully interwoven together. The water-rights scandal at the heart of the film expresses how ecological rape of the land has occurred in outrageous land-development schemes that redirect the water's flow. It reminds viewers that the days of abundant natural resources (and life-giving water that turns a forbidden wilderness into a plentiful garden) are past - the land has become barren due to the selfish manipulations of rich and powerful businessmen.

There were many accolades for this stunning film, including eleven Academy Award nominations, although only one took the Oscar home, Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne's superb work (the losses were partly attributed to the intense competition from Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974)). An uncredited Nicholson wrote his own dialogue, and collaborated on the famous ending with Polanski a few days before the scene was shot. [Chinatown won four of its seven nominations at the 32nd Annual Golden Globes ceremony: it defeated Coppola's film for the Best Picture-Drama award; Polanski won the Best Director award; Jack Nicholson won the Best Actor in a Leading Role-Drama award; and Robert Towne won the Best Screenplay honor.]

The other ten Academy Awards nominations were: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Faye Dunaway), Best Director (Roman Polanski with his first Best Director nomination), Best Cinematography (John A. Alonzo), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Sound, Best Original Dramatic Score (Jerry Goldsmith), Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design. Originally, Polanski had considered Anjelica Huston for the role ultimately assumed by Faye Dunaway - that would have made her real-life father, John Huston, her on-screen father (incestuous) also!

The portrayal of William Shakespeare's charismatic, corpulent thief/drunken scoundrel/adventurer Sir John/Jack Falstaff (Orson Welles), the Battle of Shrewsbury with inappropriately-armored Falstaff wading through the muddy battlefield and other armored men swinging heavy weapons, and Prince Hal's (Keith Baxter) final betrayal of his friend Falstaff that elevates him to the status of a King (renamed Henry V), in Orson Welles' last classic masterpiece.

http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/chimes_at_midnight.htm

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059012/

The opening scene of white-collar government bureaucrat and ex-activist Theo Faron (Clive Owen) on his way to work on London's Fleet Street in fascist-run, terrorist-riddled England in the dystopic year 2027 - in the midst of a civil war - when a suicide bomber blast occurred a few steps away, and during the film's long and heroic journey to the utopian Human Project on the coast to protect a miraculously-pregnant woman, the scene of the terrifying road-ambush scene - filmed from the POV inside the car in a long unbroken shot - when Theo's estranged ex-lover/wife Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore), the leader of the insurgent underground Fishes revolutionary group, was shot in the neck and died shortly after; also the scene of African fugee (short for refugee) Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) revealing to Theo her extended pregnant belly (the first pregnancy in the world in about 18 years) and telling him that she trusted him, and their thrilling escape from the 'safe house' when Theo attempted to jump-start their vehicle by coasting downhill, and their seeking of refuge at the hidden-in-the-woods home of Theo's long-haired, dope-smoking hippie friend Jasper Palmer (Michael Caine) - and the scene of Jasper's execution (after he euthanized his catatonic wife with a Quietus suicide-kit) with his "pull my finger" joke; also the amazing, single-shot scene of Theo assisting Kee in the birth of her baby girl in a crumbling, cold Bexhill apartment building in the refugee camp and internment center area; and the film's most magical moment when Theo and Kee (with her crying baby in her arms) descended the stairs in the midst of a bloody seige and uprising (filmed continuously with a hand-held camera) surrounding a Bexhill apartment building - and the British soldiers and other combatants stood back momentarily in quiet awe; and the hopeful final scene in which Theo (wounded during the skirmish) slumped over in a rowboat and died at the same moment that they reached the buoy rendezvous point with the Human Project's ship Tomorrow's appearance in the fog; in director Alfonso Cuarón’s bleak but visually-brilliant science-fiction chase-thriller.

http://www.csfd.cz/film/42954-potomci-lidi/videa/

The shocking and disturbing opening sequence when a young man - after seeing a cloud sliver slicing across a full moon - slices a woman's (Simone Mareuil) wide-opened eye (in closeup, it's actually a calf''s eye) in half with a sharp-edged razor, the image of ants coming out of a hole in a man's hand, the dismembered hand lying in the street, and a decomposed horse on a grand piano, in Luis Bunuel's surrealistic film.

http://www.zappinternet.com/video/danPvuMpaX/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/combined

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Renfro

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jan/27/renfros-death-pains-director-who-helped-make-him-s/

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23990481

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Gt8hxjD7Q&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wysW-JMd_w&NR=1

http://celebritywonder.ugo.com/html/bradrenfro_fansite1.html

an amazing and how talented kid!!

Byl vskutku úžasný ve filmu Lék, museli jste ho milovat ve filmu Klient nebo Tom & Huck!!

http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/p/River%20Phoenix/river_phoenix.htm

 http://www.franksreelreviews.com/shorttakes/phoenix.htm

I really liked him a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxHs29gRsQ&feature=related

Stand by me - one of the best films ever!!!

The repeated attempts of fiesty heroine Ginger (voice of Julie Sawalha) to escape from the 'concentration camp' chicken coop of evil, money-hungry Mrs. Tweedy (voice of Miranda Richardson), swaggering American rooster Rocky's (voice of Mel Gibson) daring rescue of Ginger from a Rube Goldberg-like chicken pie-making machine; the crowd-pleasing climax when Mrs. Tweedy, clinging to a rope of Christmas lights attached to a chicken-shaped aircraft, swiped her axe at Ginger -- momentarily, it seemed as if Ginger had been beheaded, but revealed she'd tricked Tweedy into severing the line, causing Mrs. Tweedy to plunge into her own pie-making machine -- as her husband (voice of Tony Haygarth) smugly told her: "I told you they was organized!"; and the chicken-and-egg debate between rats Nick (voice of Timothy Spall) and Fetcher (voice of Phil Daniels) in the end credits (Fetcher: "Yeah, but you have to have an egg to have a chicken" Nick: "Yeah, but you've got to get the chicken first to get the egg, and then you get the egg..."), in Aardman Studio's claymation film.