Greek Passion
STELLA. (Paris-Pullman.)--THE WICKED Go TO HELL. (Cameo-Polytechnic.) — THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE. (Studio One.) le Michael Cacoyannis's Stella is.a fair sample of what Greek film-makers are up to, we can look forward to some good films from that part of the world. It is a crude film in every way: the print is poor, the cinematic technique is dated (feverish cross-cutting to build up ten- sion, tilted cameras to show anguish), the story earthy. But for sheer animal vigour it beats any film on in London at the moment. Much of this vigour conies from a battered-faced actress called Melina Mercouri, who gives an eye- holding performance as a sinuous, sensual
entertainer in a tawdry night-club. She has an appetite for men that cannot be contained with one man and the final tragedy is both brutal and inevitable. Not a brilliant story, but an absorbing film. Here are all the elements that made the Italian films of the late 1940s so refreshing to audiences jaded with Hollywood candy-floss and Pinewood happy-breeding: real people, real backgrounds, real emotions. See how the camera eavesdrops on a family dining at home, on a wedding, a parade, on the shrill, multiparous mel6e of a washing-hung slum. To the cicada-chant of a twangy bouzouki orchestra, Melina Mercouri plays out her pathetic existence, bounded by a crumpled room and the greasy night-club, an existence dominated by her insatiable desire. It is perhaps easy to overpraise a foreign film like this, for it certainly is not a picture likely to win prizes; but for people who care about good cinema it is a must, and it is first-class entertainment as well, which is as much as any- one could ask for.
The other continental film this week, The Wicked Go to Hell, should be shown to the Greek film industry as an Awful Warning. For in this film the bare-chested realism that has been the strength of so many fine French pic- tures has become the formula, apparently churned out with an eye on general release in countries where foreign films can be billed as 'the Xiest show in town.' It is a turgid, im- probable tale of two convicts who escape from prison and hide away in a ramshackle house near the sea. There they meet, and murder, a painter, and are left with his mistress, who is able to watch retribution overtake them. It is a pity to see an actor like Serge Reggiani waste his talents as one of the convicts. The girl is played by Marina Vlady, a buxom Russian who is regarded as one of the bright hopes of French acting (she is, incidentally, the wife of Robert Hossein, who directed the film as well as playing a small part in it). Mlle Vlady has little chance to act here, and though she is easy on the eye, this does not compensate for the foolish plot.
Walt Disney's latest straight film, The Great Locomotive Chase, tells of an incident in the American Civil War when a Union secret agent stole a Southern train. On his flight northward he is pursued, in another train, by the conduc- tor of the stolen train and, unhappily, caught and hanged. When the cameras are on the train, it is an excellent film, so reminiscent at times of the train-sequence in The Marx Brothers Go West or The Titfield Thunderbolt that one is sorry the story is essentially a tragic one. But away from the splendidly ancient engines, the plot dawdles, and now and then the spirit of 'God Bless America' intrudes its embarrassing presence. As the agent Fess Parker, hitherto famed as Davy Crockett, gives a wooden per- formance, the result, perhaps, of being without his coonskin hat. It is the locomotives who are the real heroines of the film.
DAVID STONE
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