Cerimonia infernale

A real bore-fest, this one, which is a shame as the cast is exceptional, featuring a good mix of big stars and character actors in support. What a shame then that this Spanish production is so unrelentingly boring, with a prisoner on death row involved in a plot to help him achieve freedom. It's arty in the worst kind of way, full of boring dialogue and routine scenarios. No thanks!

Some of the best lighting and cinematography I can remember ever seeing .....;slightly surreal.

Remarkable characters ... very beautiful people.

No terrible background music... at least very little ...

I did not hate "The Ceremony" nor did I particularly like it. I think the biggest problem keeping me from really enjoying the films were the characters...I just didn't care about any of them. And, after a while I found my attention wavering.

When the film begins, Sean (Laurence Harvey) is about to be executed. It seems he was part of a robbery gone bad--and someone was killed during the robbery. However, and this makes no sense at all, some of the folks at the prison are lamenting how sad it is that they're going to kill the guy. However, he isn't executed, as hie brother (Robert Walker, Jr.) arranges for him to escape.

The most interesting thing about this movie is that the leading man, Laurence Harvey, not only starred in it but directed and produced it as well. While this wasn't always a bad thing, I do think Harvey overacted a bit when his character was in prison--and a different director might have gotten a different sort of performance. Additionally, the film suffers because I just didn't care on whit about anyone in the film and at times it seemed a bit lifeless, though the twist at the end was pretty interesting.

In a surprise during the opening credits, you'll learn the leading man in The Ceremony also directed it: Laurence Harvey. I don't know why he was drawn to such a strange story, but perhaps he wanted to pair it with equally strange direction. His angles and framing were odd (or, if you want to be kind, avant-garde), but it's always a treat to see an actor try his hand at a role behind the camera.

The plot features Larry as a convict on death row in South America. He was in a bank robbery, and although he didn't commit the murder, he's given an unusually harsh punishment for being an accessory. As the clock ticks down until his firing squad, his younger brother Robert Walker Jr. And his girlfriend Sarah Miles try to execute their plot to break him out of prison. It involves impersonating a priest, a seduction, and a flat tire. Incredibly simple, and you would think that in 1963, prison break movies would be a bit more complex.

Sarah's acting style always grates on my nerves, since she stammers around as if she's frightened of speaking her next line. Her perpetually wide eyes don't seem to hold much expression, but thankfully, she's not the lead. Larry certainly gives his all in this movie, so if you want to watch it, it had better be because you're a Laurence Harvey fan. The conclusion is a bit obvious, so strictly as a prison break drama, I wouldn't really recommend it.

What no-one seems to have noticed is how utterly in hock to Orson Welles' "The Trial" this film is, with its very elaborate "artistic" direction, brooding atmosphere of menace and general sense of claustrophobic gloom. Harvey, an actor noted more for his vanity than actual ability (other than that of using well-connected older women to further his career) here sets himself up in full Welles mode: star, producer, director.

In the event, his direction is much the most striking thing about the whole film, because it is for the most part terribly acted - Sarah Miles and Harvey himself in particular - loosely constructed and with the same kind of overly-insistent sub-classical musical soundtrack as "The Trial" (Gerard Schurmann - my one-time neighbour - in this Harvey film, Remo Giazotto's egregious fake Albinoni grinding away in the Welles). Poor old Jack MacGowran and Murray Melvin pop up in weird roles doing their usual schtick - pixillated priest, "sensitive" (i.e. Gay) youth - and Robert Rietty does his usual quadruple duty (as in "The Trial") dubbing voices galore.

But it does have a very definite, albeit second-hand from Welles, look about it, with endless bizarre camera angles and suffocating close-ups. You could even make a case for Robert Walker Jr. Giving a very decent impression of Anthony Perkins' befuddled Josef K. So basically the whole thing's a highly derivative mess: but derived from an actual masterpiece, and sometimes therefore oddly effective almost in spite of itself. Worth a squint.