O Espectro da Rosa

You must see this movie. We were baffled and amused by the incomprehensible dialogue, stone-faced acting, and ridiculous plot of this ballet/murder mystery written and directed by Ben Hecht(!?). Actually, we were more than amused, we were in physical pain from continual laughter!

Dame Judith Anderson manages to rise above this surreal debacle and provide an intelligent performance. On the other end of the scale is legendary acting teacher Michael Chekhov, nephew of Anton, who is so over-the-top that doubts arose in our minds about his acting theories.

The fact that Hecht, writer of hard-boiled cynical tales (The Front Page), would write such loopy dialogue leads us to theorize he meant this to be tongue-in-cheek. We can only hope.

See this film!

I saw this once at the age of 20. I'm now 80. It's still on my top ten, all-time list. I remember Lionel Stander and "loving her with his eyes". I haven't seen it since. It's a most unusual, beautiful memory. Others on my list are "Separate Tables" (produced by Hecht who wrote "Spectre) and Witness for the Prosecution": Is anybody picking up a pattern? No, because "My Fair Lady" and "Quacker Fortune Has A Cousin Living In The Bronx" are there, too. Until I wrote this I hadn't realized that everybody in all these casts only truly fell in love ONCE. Until I wrote this I hadn't realized that I did, at 20, and still am, at 80. And, until I wrote this line I haven't written the minimum ten.

Wow, a ballet noir!

Written and directed by Ben Hecht, this is certainly an interesting film.

Ballet dancer Andre Sanine (Ivan Kirov) is suspected of murdering his first wife. Ballet teacher Judith Anderson and poet Lionel Stander certainly think so.

Andre is handsome with a speaking voice like Joel McCrea's. However, he hears music in his head, and it gives him the urge to kill.

Another dancer, Haidi (Viola Essen) is sure he's cured. She falls in love with him, and they marry. The ballet company goes on tour. For awhile, all is well. Then problems develop.

Some good dancing and some wild acrobatics by Kirov are highlights of this film, but nothing - nothing - can compare to the dialogue. And coming out of raspy voiced Lionel Stander, it is really something. Try this: "The lunacy of great artists usually produces masterpieces, not murders."

Kropotkin: You're only one man suffering. When the masses suffer, then the suffering counts.

Lionel (Lionel Stander as Lionel Gans): The suffering of the masses is a minor phenomenon beside one man's tears....

Kropotkin (George Shdanoff): The masses would never get married if the poets didn't tell them how beautiful it was....

This was Ivan Kirov's only film. He was a dancer whose career was interrupted more than once by knee problems.

He also did some acting, and eventually developed his own act and also started a dance school. He had a magnificent build, and he is certainly right for this offbeat role.

Recommended just for being unusual.

Whatever unfulfilled ambitions drove Ben Hecht to write, produce and direct Spectre of the Rose, it's charitable to pretend they bore scant relation to the gruesome folly that eventuated. Did Hollywood's most prolific uncredited contributor to great screenplays crave the glory that would come with his very own Citizen Kane? If so, he made choices that can only be accounted as bizarre.

First, he set his story in the world of `the dance.' Since of all the arts, ballet, for Americans at any rate, reeks of the rarefied – the elite, movies about it invariably lapse into gaseous talk about `aaht.' Spectre of the Rose dives right into this pitfall. The high-flown, portentous dialogue must have entranced Hecht but it plainly baffles his cast. They variously give it stilted readings, flat it out, and drop quotation marks around it, but except for Judith Anderson – as an old assoluta now training novices in a `dingy' studio – nobody can make it work. (But then, she made Lady Scarface work.)

The plot concerns a deranged male superstar called Sanine (Ivan Kirov), who may have murdered his first wife and partner and now seems to be rehearsing to kill his second (Viola Essen). It's safe to presume Kirov was engaged only to fling his polished torso around because he can't even act embarrassed; it's no surprise that this is his solitary screen credit.

But his murderous madness just sits there, with a take-it-or-leave-it shrug, while the movie pirouettes off on other tangents. There's a larcenous impresario (Michael Chekhov) who outdoes even Clifton Webb in trying to break down the celluloid closet's door. Most puzzlingly, there's Lionel Stander as a Runyonesque poet who seems intended as some sort of Greek chorus to the goings-on but serves instead as a major irritant, uninvited and out of place.

Without knowing what compromises Hecht made and obstacles he faced in bringing his work to the screen, it's easy to be glib. But there's such a discordance of tones and jostling of moods that the movie elicits diverse responses; thus some viewers have found in Spectre of the Rose something special and unique. Movies, maybe more than any other art form, touch our idiosyncracies. But when we're left unsure whether The Spectre of the Rose is dead-earnest or a grandiose spoof – an election-bet of a movie -- something has gone radically awry.

This seldom seen film produced, written and directed by Ben Hecht, brings some terrific dancing, namely from the two leads, Ivan Kirov [with a gorgeous physique, and doing fantastic leaps and bounds] and Viola Essen [another fine ballet dancer]whom I had the pleasure of auditioning with back in the 50s for "Dead End" [roles of Baby Face Martin and his ex-girl friend Francie] we didn't get cast, unfortunately. They bring some wonderful moments of dance in spite of a somewhat hard to believe plot and corny lines. Appearing as La Sylph, who sits around knitting, while the dancers go through their paces is none other than Dame Judith Anderson, the queen of film noir [such as "Laura"]. She does manage to keep herself out of the mire of this melodramatic piece with her presence. Add to this another great actor, Michael Chekhov, from Russia's Stanislavski Moscow Theatre, giving a silly performance of a foppish manager of the dance troupe. He did more realistic acting in the such of "Spellbound" and "Rhapsody". Hard to believe from this performance he was the great acting teacher of the time along with Sanford Meisner. Then there's comedian Lionel Stander being realistic as a sort of serious suitor to our leading lady. The choreography was done by none other than Tamara Geva, once married to George Balanchine, and star of Broadway's "On Your Toes" starring Ray Bolger where she initiated the "Slaughter On Seventh Avenue" ballet. [Later brought to film by Gene Kelly and Vera Ellen in "Words & Music"] In spite of a twisted plot and sketchy dialogue, you become fascinated with this gem of a movie. Watching the lovers dance is worth the price of admission.