ted-129

No one can watch this without remembering Gene Tierney's searing blue eyes, Jeanne Crain's face of innocence, or Cornel Wilde (lightyears from The Naked Prey) here looking like a photo of Pierre & Gilles come to life. It's 110 minutes of color-time-travel basking in the surreally saturated Technicolor palette of the mid 40's.

For those who have been denied the experience of watching the recently restored version with a rapt audience on a big screen as happened April 26, 2008 at San Francisco's Castro Theatre, I can only hope you'll contact a film preservation-minded theater in your area.

Though I've watched this film on DVD, nothing prepared me for the impact of the big screen. The closeups alone will take your breath away.

Is it melodrama or is it noir?--leave that to Heaven!

Giannaris contributes one to the "hostage" film genre. I completely disagree with the other views expressed thus far, in that I found the film quite paced and engaging and his use of Stathis Papadopoulos as intuitively right. Describing him as "extremely buffed" is a bit hyperbolic. Stathis is no Arnold (thankfully) and can convey emotions missing from most action heroes/antiheroes--e.g., uncertainty, fear, and a childlike vulnerability next to the women who briefly mother him in the course of the film. Here's an inarticulate character who can't fully think things through, is in over his head, and yet desperate enough to make a last futile stand to be counted.

And like all hostage films, it's not just about the captor but the captives. Kudos to the rest of the cast for their very believable performances that dynamically reveal their personal stories in the course of the journey and their changes in perspective on their collective situation and its significance. As one character says to the morally ambiguous cop-negotiator trying to get some of them released, "It's all of us or none of us." Kudos also to the cinematography that conveyed the overheated claustrophobia of a long bus ride that spans day and night and builds to its visual payoff in the climactic final moments.

Visconti brings to life the Camus novel with the minimum of dialog and surreal visuals.

Algiers sweats. The sun's glare beats down and doesn't let up--right up to the courtroom scene where one watches a dazed Mastroianni in the foreground while the fans of the jury members move in constant motion in a soft-focus background. Much of the film has a dreamlike feel that fuses with the existential blankness felt by Mastroianni's character.

I recall this film playing frequently in San Francisco at the Times Theater back in the early stoner 70's. And with the 70's, this film has all but disappeared. One only hopes that all of Visconti's films will someday make it to DVD--but especially The Stranger!