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

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Friday, August 28, 2026

The Girl in the Window (Luciano Emmer, 1961)

Bernard Fresson and Marina Vlady in The Girl in the Window

Cast: Lino Ventura, Bernard Fresson, Magali Noël, Marina Vlady. Screenplay: Rodolfo Sonego, Luciano Emmer, Vinicio Marinucci, Luciano Martino, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Emanuele Cassuto. Cinematography: Otello Martelli. Production design: Alexandre Hinkis. Film editing: Jolanda Benvenuti, Emma Le Chanois. Music: Roman Vlad. 

Luciano Emmer's The Girl in the Window begins as a harrowing account of a cave-in in a coal mine and turns into a romantic weekend spree. This very odd mashup of genres centers on two Italian miners, the seasoned Federico (Lino Ventura) and the novice Vincenzo (Bernard Fresson). After being rescued from the mine disaster, they head for the red-light district in Amsterdam, where they meet two women, Chanel (Magali Noël) and Else (Marina Vlady), who make their living as sex workers, attracting clients by posing in windows. Vincenzo has decided that working in the mine is not for him, and plans to take the train back to Italy. But when he meets Else, who takes a fancy to him, he misses his train and they join Federico and Chanel at the seaside. An on-again, off-again relationship forms among the two couples. Emmer tries to jam a lot of character exposition into the film, and doesn't always succeed. Fortunately, the four actors are more than capable, particularly Vlady, who makes the stereotyped role of the good-hearted prostitute fairly convincing. Ventura also has a comic drunk scene in which he wanders by mistake into a gay bar and is slow to realize it. Tonally, The Girl in the Window is a mess, never quite overcoming the realistic opening scenes in the mine, but it's a watchable mess.  

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