Movies

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday June 16, 2008

Doug Anderson

Christopher Strong

(1933) ABC1, 3.05am (Fri)

The week's oldest film was marketed by RKO with this engaging poster claim: "She gave herself to the great god Speed and tried to run away from the fires within her! The personal story of a million daughters!" Can't see that packing 'em in nowadays but Katharine Hepburn, in the years before her long prime began, is interesting as Cynthia Darrington, an aviatrix who is too busy flying to bother with sex. She's still a virgin when she meets a married businessman named Christopher Strong who, while not contemplating adultery, falls under her spell and commits it. For her part, Cynthia commits suicide in a rather novel manner when her physician informs her, with some sensitivity, that she's up the duff. Variety was less than rhapsodic, adjudging the film: "A draggy society play with circusy aeroplane stunt incidentals ... interest in star will outweigh other elements." The film doesn't exactly sing with passionate chemistry or glow with feral magnetism. So much for the fires within her!

Kings And Queen

(2004) SBS, 10pm

Nora Cotterelle, the proprietor of an art gallery, is poised to marry Jean-Jacques, a wealthy business type devoted to making her every wish come true. But the fickle finger of fate (or bourgeoise circumstance) intervenes when, on the eve of their wedding, her father, a brilliant academic and writer, falls fatally ill. Nora speeds to his side in Grenoble where past memories haunt her - most notably those of her former lover, Ismael, an impoverished viola player who for many years acted as surrogate father to Nora's son, Elias. The fact that Ismael is carted off to a psychiatric facility for a short stint under the care of assorted shrinks, including Catherine Deneuve, suggests chances of a rekindled romance are slim. Unlike this film, which is long and wide and filled with circumstance and difficult decisions for Nora, as she confronts the love of the four men who have meant most to her during her life: her dad, Elias, the kid's father (who was shot in susicious circumstances) and Ismael. She encounters some surprises in her father's diary and Ismael encounters a woman named Arielle in the wards.

Nowhere Land

(1998) Seven, noon

This is where Nowhere Man makes his nowhere plans for nobody while watching nothing midday movies. Dean, an ex-con, has infiltrated the Santelli Mafia crime syndicate along with FBI agent Willie. The ruthless and unsavoury Don Santelli discovers Willie's identity and gives him a new navel - or three. Dean (Peter Dobson) agrees to testify against the mobster and is whisked away to one of those witness protection cabins in the Sierre Nevada, where he watches sub-standard midday movies such as this. Yearning for conversation but anxious that Santelli's hitmen don't come knocking, he asks an FBI mate, Agent Hank, to send him an attractive female friend to help ... er ... combat loneliness. Enter Agent Monica (Dina Meyer) and a further chunk of the bleeding obvious. More wood than an undertaker's workshop.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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