Cerimônia Macabra

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!

An obscure and thought-provoking film delivering an almost expressionistic and brooding approach to a twisted situation adequately performed by notorious players . Dealing with a bank robber (Laurence Harvey) who is condemned to death penalty for committing a murder during the failed robbery and about to be executed by firing squad . His brother (Robert Walker Jr , Robert Walker's son with whom bears a remarkable resemblance) comes up with a plan to break him out of prison--but on the condition that his brother's girlfriend (Sarah Miles)"date" him first. Shocking! . . . Savage! . . . Sensual! This is the Ceremony . Her innocence . . . Traded for her lover's life .The story of a man condemned . . . Of his brother who offered to save him for a price . . . His brother's woman!

The Ceremony (1963) displays a simple and plain plot about a convicted killer sentenced to prison , condemned to death and subsequently rescued by his brother who demands liaison with sister-in-law as reward . This is a real and striking drama, developing an intimate approach to the actors as physical as moral , making their expressions a vivid aspect of the drama . Being mostly shot in interior scenarios , and all the roles perform vital parts giving intense interpretations . The higlight of the movie is the cinematography by prestigious director of photography Oswald Morris . As well as evocative and appropriate production design by designer Ramiro Gómez , filmed on various locations in Tangier, Morocco , and La Mancha , Toledo , Sevilla , Andalucía, Spain . Stars Laurence Harvey giving a nice acting , as usual , and he produces and directs , as well . Being very well supported by a great cast with plenty of important British/American actors , such as : Ross Martin , Robert Walker Jr. , Lee Patterson , Jack MacGowran , Noel Purcell and being a Spaniard/American coproduction here appearing several Spanish actors , such as : Fernando Rey , Fernando Sancho, José Guardiola , Carlos Casaravilla , José Nieto , Xan Dan Bolas , José Luis Martin, Barta Barri , among others.

This mishmash was uneven but professionally directed by Laurence Harvey , and it failed at the international boxoffice . Laurence Harvey's film debut came in House of Darkness (1948), and he was soon signed by Associated British Studios. Harvey was cast as Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" (1954) , a flick that exemplified the main problem that kept Harvey from major stardom , his screen persona was emotionally aloof if not downright attractive . Then , Harvey attracted enough attention in Hollywood to be brought over by Warner Bros. And given a main character in "King Richard and the Crusaders" (1954). After making three flops in a row, Harvey began a brief reign as the Jack the Lad of British cinema with the great success of "Room at the top" (1958). That film and "Looking back in anger" (1959), which was also released that year, inaugurated the "kitchen sink" school of British cinema that revolutionized the country's film industry and continuing in Hollywood, in the 1960s. In this Hollywood interlude, Harvey also appeared in the screen adaptations of Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke" (1961) opposite the great Geraldine Page, Oscar-nominated for her role, and the artistically less successful "Walk of the wild side" (1962), supported by the legendary Barbara Stanwyck . His next and last decade of Harvey's screen life -dying early at 45- was a disappointment, with the actor relegated to less and less prestigious pictures and international co-productions that needed a "star" name , such as : "Struggle for Rome" , "Night Watch" , "Yellow-Headed Summer" , "Welcome to Arrow Beach" , "The Deep" and "Rebus". And he directed some films with limited success, making the transition to director with this "The Ceremony" (1963) and finished directing "Sentence in aspic" (1968) after the death of original director Anthony Mann. Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable but neither notable , not extraordinary .

If you didn't know this was a Spain/US production, you'd think it was a timeless fable: there are so few localized contexts. The supporting actors delineate themselves sharply, but Laurence Harvey steals the show, as always, with his intensity (check out his work in Tamiko, a neurotic romance set in Japan), and compounds this by directing with intensity: the camera is always zooming into people's faces from above, below, and sideways. It's dizzying. That said, the movie's worth seeing. All praise to early 60's B&W films.

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.

Dismissed by the late David Shipman as "a pretentious plea against capital punishment" and now disinterred by the wonder that is Talking Pictures. Boasting a truly extraordinary international cast, shot in kafkaesque black & white by Ossie Morris and full of ripe one-liners, it's just the film you'd expect Lawrence Harvey to have directed.