MAK-4

Mario Monicelli's wonderfully full portrait of an early workers' strike at a Turino textile factory (circa 1890) is not only a great period drama, but a warm, if ultimately tragic human comedy in the great Italian tradition. Great performances all around (Mastroianni, Giradot, and a young River Phoenix look-a-like named Franco Ciolli, whatever became of him?) help make this labor drama the movie MATEWAN, MOLLY MAGUIRES and GERMINAL all tried to be.

G. W. (PANDORA'S BOX) Pabst's celebratory film about the "revolutionary" 16th century German philosopher/doctor (known as Paracelsus and actually born in Switzerland) holds more than just historical interest as a Nazi approved subject. Though Pabst's sound films never achieved the prominence of his silent work, this is a well produced biopic with real surprises, especially when Paracelsus gives credit to Gypsy (!) folk remedies or when an Expressionist dance number symbolizes the entry of the plague (St. Vitus' Dance) into the closed town. Suddenly we're in Powell/Pressburger territory. Often obvious and slow, but certainly worth investigation, and not all that different from similar Hollywood produced biopics on ZOLA and LOUIS PASTEUR by director William (Wilhelm) Dieterle, a former colleague from Pabst's early UFA days. In fact, Dieterle's 1939 HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME has many visual and thematic similarities. The romantic subplot, straight out of Die Meistersinger, only adds to the usual discomfort of watching a Goebbels approved Nazi era production.

Florence Vidor stars as the daughter of a strict bible toting father who throws her out of the house when gossip taints her name. In the big city, she finds the dying wife of her own brother (the two had secretly married) and raises their child on her own. Years later, she goes back home to confront her family.

This old melodrama is heavily larded with fascinating feminist themes (circa 1921, but sounding remarkably modern). Some of it is laid on with a trowel (as the father, Theodore Roberts gives his eyebrows a real workout), but it's well put together dramatically and lovingly composed and shot by cinematographer Henry Sharp.