A Matter of Time

Vincente Minnelli in his farewell film as director got to direct daughter Liza. When the film opened up with Liza doing a full production number, I thought we had another Cabaret for Liza. Sad to say that that number and another one Liza did are the highlights of the film. When the players stop singing and dancing and get down to dialog, the film becomes rather pedestrian.

I don't think Ingrid Bergman ever got a handle on her character as the eccentric countess living on dreams and charity. Possibly Minnelli was concentrating too much on his daughter. Minnelli a country girl from rural Italy comes to Rome and gets a job as a chambermaid in a posh hotel courtesy of her cousin Tina Aumont. There Ingrid Bergman playing a slightly daft countess kind of takes her under her wing. Liza blossoms but Ingrid becomes more daft, Ingrid is just this side of Norma Desmond. Minnelli goes up and Ingrid goes down.

In addition to being the last film Vincente Minnelli directed this was also the farewell performance of Charles Boyer who co-starred with Bergman in Gaslight and Arch Of Triumph when they were big box office. Boyer plays a brief role as a former husband of Bergman, stopping by to see how she was doing.

See this one for Liza and her numbers.

So much talent behind and in front of the camera to lay such a big egg. The whole thing reeks of decay and that seeps into the tenor of the film. There's no strong narrative flow to the film just a collection of scenes that lead nowhere. Liza is all over the place and only registers in a positive way twice, in the final hospital scene and most of all during the musical performance of the song Do It Again-really her only powerful moment. Of interest more for its cast of second generation performers than any merit or entertainment value of the actual film. Beside Liza there's a brief appearance of Isabella Rossellini in her screen bow and as Liza's cousin Tina Aumont, who was the daughter of B movie star Maria Montez and Jean-Pierre Aumont. Nonsensical mess was the unfortunate swan song of both Vincente Minnelli and Charles Boyer. Such a missed opportunity.

It is not hard to understand why this movie has never been released on anything but 16mm, which is how I came to see it. This movie is a bit too eccentric to actually accomplish it's purpose. The acting is much too stylized and emphatic with the plot rather weak. The interest in this film lies in the fact that has many firsts and lasts. It is Charles Boyer's last film, and Isabella Rossellini's first. It is also the last film that Vincent Minnelli directed, and close to the end of Ingrid Bergman's career. Other than that there is little to recommend it, but it does have some interesting footage of Rome. It is about a chamber maid who gains employment in Rome taking care of a declining socialite who once strutted across the world stage but who is now on the rocks. She is unable to accept being a has-been and continues to live in her mind as though she is still the consort of emperors. Her new chamber maid Liza Minnelli tries to support her as well as she can, although it is a hopeless task.

If you're not a Liza Minnelli fan, don't even bother because despite the other talent involved, this is her show (and not a very good one -- father Vincente Minnelli, the director, very wisely disowned the edited picture). This isn't one to watch for Minnelli's acting (like "The Sterile Cuckoo" or "Cabaret") or even her charm ("Arthur," "Stepping Out"), but her voice is incredible. While the songs (except for Gershwin's "Do It Again") are middling, Minnelli's delivery makes you forget how silly the story and her character are. Mother Judy had better songs to sing, but Liza's instrument was phenomenal at its peak.

On the plus side is Ingrid Bergman as the aging contessa. She's so at ease and has so much fun as the grande dame that it's impossible not to love her -- again. Reunited briefly with Charles Boyer more than 30 years after their first pairing (in "Gaslight"), she has on-screen history working for her in her playful scene with him. (Watch the melodramatic "Arch of Triumph" if you really want to see Bergman and Boyer connect.)

Another reason to watch is for the film debut of Bergman's daughter, Isabella Rossellini. She's barely in "A Matter of Time" -- and you can barely tell it's her under her nun's habit -- but seeing her luminous face next to her mother's has the feeling of the passing of a torch, or at the very least a blessing. To give you an idea of the kind of cornball humor at work here, Rossellini's character is called Sister Pia; the actress's real-life sister, of course, is Bergman's daughter Pia Lindstrom.

A big disappointment, but with the talent involved, this movie couldn't not be worth a look - Bergman, the Minnellis, Boyer's brief cameo, a John Gay screenplay (which evidently went awry and became something of a muddled mess) and Geoffrey Unsworth (though time hasn't been kind to his cinematography, which looks murky now). Something was definitely missing here, and I had trouble keeping track of who was who among several of the characters. Bergman was an interesting combination of Auntie Mame and The Madwoman of Chaillot. Liza's in great voice here: the two Kander and Ebb songs aren't bad at all, and "Do It Again" was superb (we know who she must have been thinking of), but where do the songs fit into this muddle? Was it intended as a semi-musical? And why does Liza Minnelli (as Nina) suddenly take Bergman's place as the Countess in the 'flashbacks' - are these supposed to be scenes from Nina's film, or merely in Nina's head? Also, the movie is supposedly set in 1949 but has no period feel or look at all - it looks like 1976. The soundtrack - music and dialog both - sounds like it was almost entirely post-synched, and is reminiscent of one of those bad Italian sword-and-sandal or horror movies of the 1960s or, what's worse, like one of those imported "art films" (the X-rated variety).