Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: 10/23/24

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Alexandria ... Why? (Youssef Chahine, 1979)

Mohsen Mohieddin in Alexandria ... Why?

Cast: Mohsen Mohieddin, Farid Shawqi, Ezzat El Allaili, Gerry Sundquist, Naglaa Fathi, Yehia Chahine, Ahmed Mehrez, Youssef Wahbi, Leila Fawzy, Seif Abdel Rahman, Ahmed Zaki, Mahmoud Al Meledji. Screenplay: Yussef Chahine, Mohsen Zayed. Cinematography: Mohsen Nasr. Production design: Abdel Fattah Madbouly. Film editing: Rashida Abdel Salam. Music: Fouad El-Zahry.

Red-Headed Woman (Jack Conway, 1932)

Chester Morris and Jean Harlow in Red-Headed Woman

Cast: Jean Harlow, Chester Morris, Lewis Stone, Leila Hyams, Una Merkel, Henry Stephenson, May Robson, Charles Boyer, Harvey Clark. Screenplay: Anita Loos, based on a novel by Katharine Brush. Cinematography: Harold Rosson. Art direction: Cedric Gibbons. Film editing: Blanche Sewell.