Unfaithfully Yours

Preston Sturges, that genius of the American cinema, made a statement when he wrote and directed the 1948 film, which in comparison with this 1984 attempt seems to be brilliant. Not only was the film great, it had a wonderful cast of accomplished comedians with Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, and Rudy Vallee in the main roles.

Howard Zieff's version suffers in contrast in that is not as effective and even handed as the original one. Where Preston Sturges went for subtlety and sophistication, Mr. Zieff goes for a more splashy comedy, that at times seems forced.

Basically, the film doesn't improve on its model. Dudley Moore goes overboard with his take on Claude Eastman, the conductor. Natassja Kinski is terribly miscast as the Italian actress Daniella, who is married to Eastman. Armand Assante does what he can.

The film, photographed in Manhattan, takes us to places that are not around any more, like it's the case with the Russian Tea Room, where a few scenes were shot.

Find the original for a more satisfactory view.

This is a comedy of errors in which the viewer knows almost everything while the on screen actors are in a perpetual state of confusion. Dudley Moore has the enviable task of playing a famous middle aged music conductor who is married to a young, ravishing Italian starlet played by Nastassja Kinski. And she is passionately in love with him. For the times, this would have been the ultimate middle aged, male fantasy. Via a misunderstanding, Dudley Moore ends up in a comedy of errors scheming to kill off the delicious Nastassja Kinski who easily fits into her innocent role. Lots of fun to watch, especially with Nastassja as the eye candy.

Moore shines bright in this reworking of the 1948 Preston Sturges black comedy about a jealous symphony conductor who tries to fulfill a fantasy of murdering his sexy wife, (Kinski) whom he suspects is having an affair with another man. (Assante) It doesn't have the timing of the original, but it's a laugh riot for fans of Moore's bumbling hijinks, which as always is a torrent of laughter.

This film marks the culmination of the most prolific, popularly loved form of music that the human race ever conceived. That is, the Romantic style. You may find, for example, a CD of pianist Horowitz produced a couple of decades ago entitled "The Last Romantic" - and you might understand the sentiment behind such a title. It is a dying breed of music. Rather, it is dead. Left are museum pieces rehashed by earnest musicians who love the style, or at least the memory of it, but performed/recorded for audiences/listeners who for the most part don't understand it. For to understand it, one must absolutely not be pragmatic. And as we've all been told time and again of late, if you're not pragmatic (if you haven't gone to college, for example, in order to obtain a degree/career) you don't have a life. Few these days, not even crack dealers, are willing to trade monetary responsibility for an enhancement of their souls.

Likewise, Dudley Moore acted the lead in this film, and in doing so, he didn't create much of a life, in terms of this film being appreciated by the mainstream. But Moore was one of the funniest comedians that ever graced American film/sound stages. His improvised drunk bits rival Jackie Gleason's improvised drunks. Of course nowadays such drunk humor is politically incorrect, which marks yet one more creative form that has recently bitten the dust. Oh well, at least kids are safe from drunk drivers.

But the greatest moment in this movie was the violin battle. You see, it's a prerequisite for talented, narcissistic classical/Romantic musicians, such as Dudley Moore (pianist), to hold a dark sense of humor. It's the kind of passive resistant, anti-successful state of mind that made Charlie Brown, Woody Allen, Bartleby, John Lennon and countless negative/alternative reasoning popular during the 60s-70s. And that alternative culture, or revolution, was merely a revamping of an earlier, more formidable anti-capitalism known as the period when occurred the French and American revolutions. In music, this was the time of Beethoven's rise to fame. This style he and others (even Mozart to some extent) propounded is known as the Romantic style. And the single greatest musical influence upon these western European proponents of the Romantic style was the music emanating from the streets: Gypsy music. It's also important to remember that such Gypsy music was itself influenced by a combination of east European folk music and the traditional music of the middle east, an area of the world from which all western civilization is derived, and thereby for which all of us should have reverence, or at least respect.

Basically what we're talking about here, what was the greatest influence upon the invention and prosperity of the Romantic music style, is the harmonic minor scale, and the claiming of this scale upon the hearts of a vast majority of music lovers world wide 1750-1980. It is a scale that gave birth to Romantic styled chromaticism, the most prolific harmonic form ever. In its early stages, when Mozart and papa Haydn dabbled in it, women and other faint hearted individuals tittered. When Beethoven got hold of it, such women literally fainted in the aisles. That's how naturally such chromaticism is capable of affecting the emotions of people. It requires an open heart, however. Today such Gypsy styled music is a laugh; that's how jaded western civilization has become. The smallest of minds are bold enough to regard it as merely "Jewish music," which informs us that its demise is likely, at least partially, the result of anti-Semitism.

Such Gypsy/Jewish etc. scale's greatest instrument, or agent provocateur: the violin. Hence, the extraordinarily emotional/comedic violin battle scene in this film, a rare tribute to this dying style of music. If there are any film makers, or any creative artists, who are interested in bringing back to vitality such Romantic/Gypsy/Jewish/harmonic minor scaled music, seeing this film might give them a good start in the right direction. It should also be stated that the Gypsy music that has recently surfaced in "World Music" and in university studies of Ethnomusicology, while more authentic, has, by way of pedantically narrowing the interpretations, caused the less authentic Romantic style to be ignored in its works.

I haven't seen the Preston Sturges original, but I know the hero there conceived THREE alternative murderous plans. The fact that this (unfaithful) remake contains only one certainly doesn't suggest that the filmmakers were full of ideas. It's still a generally agreeable (if uneven) comedy, but the laughs, even for Moore fans, are scattered.