NinadeL

A cute short documentary about sound recording at MGM studios. We get to see how Jeanette MacDonald's new film with Nelson Eddy, Arnošt Lubič's new film The Shop Around the Corner, Comrade X with Hedy Lamarr, and many other hits were filmed.

MGM's important big-screen studio brought together the disparate Gable/MacDonald duo, who would not become perennials for years to come. However, as a standalone project, it's a film worth watching. We follow a short period of time from New Year's Eve 1905 to the fateful April 18, 1906, when San Francisco was leveled by a devastating earthquake. On the 30th anniversary of the tragedy, which is considered one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history (claiming 3,000 lives), it was only fitting to make a respectful disaster drama. The supplementary theme is, of course, a strong love drama, so that we develop a relationship with the characters who are about to experience the disaster. The story of selfish and unrequited love is graced by several great operatic performances by MacDonald in Gounod's "Faust" and Verdi's "La Traviata." The invisible cooperation between D.W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim, who did not make it into the credits, is downright interesting. The copy of the film available today is not the original, but is an edited film from 1948.

A very weak version of a rather archaic story by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov from 1928. A group of European filmmakers invited Sharon Tate, a rising American starlet, who was the type not to worry too much about anything. She won beauty contests, and posed for Playboy. She arrived on the set pregnant, shot the sexy scenes first, and that was that. It's kind of a silly affair, where a long-haired blonde runs from place to place and nobody bothers much with the plot. Sharon's partner Vittorio Gassman is basically not worth commenting on. For fans of Orson Welles, there's at least a little theatrical fun here; for devotees of de Sica, it's just another entry in his leftover films. The fact that Sharon Tate was brutally murdered when she was eight months pregnant after returning from filming cannot change the rating of the entire endeavor. Coincidentally, a similarly weak European film was made a few years later by her then-husband Roman Polanski under the title What? (1972).

What I appreciate most about Mrnka's Milada is that it was created outside the traditional Czech structures. Seemingly, it is a Czech film like any other, with Geislerová in a smaller role, Chýlková in a bigger one, Medvecká, Kerekes, Javorský, Mihulová, Dobrý... but the Horáks are Ayelet Zurer and Robert Gant, which was a very good move. The theme is handled without the oversight of classic Czech backward-looking institutions, with the main investors being Netflix, EFB and DFG. There is nothing to doubt here.

There's no dumber vampire movie out there than this. Even the Tate-Polanski phenomenon does not change that. That’s saying something, given that I was able to enjoy some of the Hammer stuff. It's bad enough that 30 years later Polanski himself returned to the theme and in 1997 the Austrian musical "Dance of the Vampires" was born. In its original staging it was performed for three years at the Raimundtheater in Vienna. Today it is a modern classic.

A short experiment returning Ester Geislerová to the filmmaking world. And it is, of course, based on life experience and a change of perspective. It is no coincidence that under the direction of her sister, Aňa Geislerová, mother and actress, declaims several professional theses.

After last year's Amnesty, we get the solo biography of Havel, tracing the period from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s with a short epilogue in 1989. Personally, I can't say that I adored Slávek Horák's previous film, but Havel is playful, very human, and with an artful dose of artistic license. It is literal in the emotions of one man's fate that defined his personal attitude toward morality. Viktor Dvořák already practiced his Havel at the Rokoko theater in the play "Čapek" and in the film The Prague Orgy, and now he has fine-tuned it to perfection. Adrian Jastraban, for a change, already knows his Dubček from his solo Slovak film Dubček and here he just continues to play it safe. Olga Havlová, played by Aňa Geislerová, is a brand new addition, as she has been proving regularly in recent years that she has matured to a great level and that she is able to play the great personalities of Czech history without hesitation (I am already looking forward to her Němcová). The big surprise is Martin Hofmann as Lanďák (he has those tacky mannerisms that almost got him eliminated as an actor after Most!). Weak to routine performances include Kohoutová played by Seidlová, Kohout played by Majer, and Patočka's Barťák. I'm glad that time has moved on and that this biography is now the subject of its own film. I would consider having a film about his entire life even better, but in an era when even one key event in the entire life of the person under scrutiny is considered a biography, Horák's film is pretty much ideal.

The Cat and the Fiddle is MacDonald's spectacular emergence as an MGM star. The operetta backstage theme is taken from a successful 1931 Broadway play, so it would seem that watching the romance between MacDonald and Mexican ideal Ramon Novarro would be endearing. But the partnership between the two does not indicate the same certainty as her collaboration with other proven partners. Finally, their romance is also written as a meeting of two emancipated people who don’t work well together the second or third time around. If it wasn't for the final musical number shot in color, the experience wouldn't have been worth it.

This was a classic mistake of the late Steklý, who fell all the way to the bottom during normalization. It's the same problem as his later films over and over again. The subject matter doesn't sound bad, and the cast is okay, but the final product classically makes no sense whatsoever and is physically unpleasant to sit through. The only minor plus is the attempt by Pavla Břínková to play a film role. Thanks to her we get excerpts from Hašler or Nedbal, but she needs to tame her stage manner in the dialogues.

It’s a nice old straightforward bit of nothing, and yet everything. Classic Lubitsch mannerism with all the trimmings. MacDonald is like porcelain and the classic "I am someone else" situations are played to the max. Look to Monsieur Beaucaire for an explanation.