Monthly Archives: May 2012

A financial and critical flop, this notoriously inaccurate version of the rise and fall of silent screen star Rudolf Valentino is the one picture Ken Russell said he regretted making (“What idiot made this?”).  He called the decision to make it his worst mistake and its costly failure impacted his career for years. Seems in retrospect that a 5 million dollar picture co-starring dancer Rudolf Nureyev (as Valentino) with former Bowery Boy Huntz Hall (as movie pioneer Jesse Lasky) would be headed for trouble, but sometimes that’s the way the tinseltown cookie crumbles.

Ken Russell’s largely metaphorical take on the life of 19th century Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (Robert Powell) takes place primarily on a single train ride embellished with flashbacks and fantasy sequences. More restrained than expected, it’s stylistically ascetic compared to some of Russell’s more over the top biopics. Oliver Reed has a brief cameo as a train conductor.

Out of circulation for decades, Peter Glenville’s acclaimed film of Jean Anouilh’s 1959 play was recently restored by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation. Friendly rivals Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole once again don regal robes as Archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry II, whose emotional relationship sours over matters of faith. Edward Anhalt’s eloquent, endlessly quotable screenplay won the only one of the 12 Oscars this film was nominated for. Five years later O’Toole played an older Henry II in The Lion in Winter.

The face that launched all those ships is played by the comparatively unknown Rosanna Podesta, surrounded by a distinguished cast and thousands of real extras, not pixels. This Hollywood epic shot at Cinecitta is not the movie to use for an easy book report on The Iliad, as Homer’s version of events differs from the events as depicted here. The versatile Robert Wise fills the Scope screen with intelligent spectacle, aided by memorable second unit work by Yakima Canutt and an uncredited Sergio Leone.