The Secret Cinema

Recently I've stumbled onto a few of the films made by the late Paul Bartel. I always liked him from his roles in films like "Rock 'n' Roll High School" and "Tales of the City," but I had no idea he was the man who made "Eating Raoul" (which I've been dying to see for years) and "Death Race 2000" (which I finally saw a week or so ago). As you can tell, I have bad taste... While browsing through a used video store, I found Rhino's release of this film, which was packaged with "Naughty Nurse" and an intro by Bartel himself.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good "Secret Cinema" is. The acting was good all-around, though some would probably gripe about the bad dubbing (particularly Helen, the black woman, who's voice never once matched her lips). With the Twilight-Zone-ish premise of someone who's unaware that their life is being filmed, this seems to be the original, made long before "The Webbers" (an always-overlooked gem) and the dull "Ed TV" and "The Truman Show." And I just have to rave about the woman who played three roles - she cracked me up in her role as the nurse! Amazingly for a film of this era, the picture quality was outstanding - usually you get a rather worn print, filled with scratches, anomalies, and cigarette burns - but the Rhino print looked like it just came out of the editing room. Now I'm curious to see the "Amazing Stories" remake again. I know I saw it years ago, but I remember absolutely nothing about it.

As for the companion short film, "Naughty Nurse," it doesn't seem to fit with the tone of "Secret Cinema." With its strange eroticism and bizarro ending, it seems better suited to play with "Death Race 2000" or perhaps "Eating Raoul." But that's a different review...

Three decades ago, a young, up-and-coming movie director named Paul Bartel pulled together a lot of shoestrings to produce this wonderfully resourceful little black comedy (less than 30 minutes long) about Jane, an office secretary who comes to realize that her life is being secretly filmed for a shadowy outfit called The Secret Cinema. Some critics have pointed to what they see as a striking similarity between this film and "The Truman Show." But there's at least one crucial difference: Whereas Truman Burbank's environment is completely fabricated, Jane's life in New York is very real, although it's being manipulated by the filmmakers.

Bartel uses his budgetary and technical limitations to excellent advantage: the cheap-looking black & white photography, the obviously looped dialogue, the stock music and canned sound effects are very much in keeping with this low-budget movie about low-budget moviemaking.

Bartel later remade "The Secret Cinema" as an episode of Steven Spielberg's NBC anthology series "Amazing Stories." The remake starred Penny Peyser as Jane, Griffin Dunne as Dick and Bartel himself as Jane's psychiatrist. The NBC version was, I thought, terrible; it was over-produced, over-written and over-acted, and totally lacking the charm of the original. Worst of all, it failed to adequately convey the story's basic premise that Jane's life was being secretly filmed. (The remake also offers an ending completely different from the darkly humorous resolution of the first film.)

Death Race 2000 director Paul Bartel's debut feature is this short film. Its about a young woman whose life is disastrous - crap job, annoying mother, useless boyfriend, etc. To make matters worse wherever she goes, she gets the feeling she's being watched. Well, it turns out she's right! As her every move is being surreptitiously filmed and then edited together and shown weekly at the Secret Cinema where the audience can laugh at her expense. This is a pretty effective bit of strangeness and is definitely worth 30mins of your time.

An influential (in it's time), inventive 30 minute black and white short that examined an 'Ed TV' like idea way before others did. A woman has her life secretly filmed, edited and shown to a laughing audience each week. Far more surreal and stylized than the features and TV shows that later used this concept, it's stylish, a lot of fun and effectively creepy. On the other hand, the acting is amateurish, production values nonexistent, and the post dubbed sound is pretty awful. But somehow, that homemade quality sort of works with the story. Worth seeing if you have any interest in the semi-experimental late 60s cinema that combined what would have been sleaze with far more artistic aspirations (Brian DePalma, Bartel, and many others were part of this art/exploitation film trend).

5 out of 10

An interesting idea that would have been better had it been played out more and at a feature length instead of just thirty minutes. A young women, who has a very hard luck existence, slowly finds that her whole life is secretly being filmed. The film is then shown at secret locations throughout the city all to the amusement of others including her own friends and family.

With the advent of shows like "Big Brother" and other reality series this idea doesn't seem to have the novel edge that it once did. First time director/writer Bartel only touches the surface here and his 'twist' ending is very derivative and flat. Take away the offbeat context and everything else is handled in a very routine fashion. There is no humor or jokes and despite being only thirty minutes there are several segments that are long and drawn out.

Bartel did this feature on weekends with friends of his. Yet despite it's very miniscule budget it really isn't bad especially on the technical side. In particular are the dubbed voices. Bartel did not have the means to film it with sound so he had to use the Italian technique of filming without sound and then dubbing in the voices later. In the Italian films this always seems very obvious and annoying yet here it is not so obvious and actually rather well done.

This film is good on a certain symbolic level. It seems to be as a kind of breaking in to a deeper, darker type of underground filmmaking. A sort of correlation to what the nation was going through at the time. This film embodies that same type of transition. It was filmed in black and white and has very much the look and feel of a old fashioned conventional comedy. Yet it very quietly works in these strange and offbeat qualities that become more pronounced as it goes on. Sort of like a warning to the dawn of change.

In 1986 director Bartel remade this feature for the old "Amazing Stories" TV show. This updated version was in color and had more of a edge. It starred Penny Peyser and Eve Arden as her mother.