Redemoinho de Paixões

This mostly isn't flash-bang-wallop cinema; it is mainly a somewhat thoughtful character study set along the late 1950's Rhine, as beautiful but hardbitten Lora hitches a ride on the barge 'Clementine' in an attempt to escape the clutches of her murdersome partner, Hermann (who is on the run from the Police), and her former life of "garbage and filth", as she puts it.

The scenery along the Rhine valley makes a colourful and picturesque backdrop to this film, and at the time (especially by comparison with black and white TV) it would have looked absolutely fantastic on the big screen. Now, the available video versions of this film seem to have been transferred from a slightly deteriorated print, and between that and the colour changes that often occur when back projection is used (as it is for many external close-ups), the result is that some of the background colours look somewhat muted and changed. But for me this doesn't detract greatly from the film, and merely adds to the period charm of its look.

From the little that I have seen of it, life on the Rhine must be much the same now as it was then. A significant difference appears to be that (in some kind of one-upmanship game or something) the larger Rhine barges now often have a small car parked on the aft deck, ready to be craned off, presumably for local transport. That navigable rivers like the Rhine have treacherously narrow and fast-running stretches seems hard to believe, but they do; in some places barges travelling upstream are barely able to make way even at full throttle, and downstream traffic passes close by them at a relative speed of about twenty-five knots or so. They don't make any great emphasis of the risks at the helm of a barge containing 1000 tonnes of avaiation fuel, but they would have been quite real.

The cast is mostly excellent and they do a good job. However lovely Muriel Pavlow is cast slightly against type, as a somewhat catty and jealous lady bargee, and for some reason in this film William Sylvester looks peculiarly like John Gregson's evil American twin brother or something.

I don't think this is going to make anyone's 'top ten best ever' but I enjoyed this film somewhat more than I expected to, enough to watch it a second time.

This was the type of dismal Hodge podge that was being made by Rank under the aegis of John Davis in a futile bid to combat television.Obviously distributors from various countries were satisfied by the inclusion of actors from their territories.The problem is that they don't gell.William Sylvester seems to be doing James Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat.Greco is rather a somnambulist.The plot moves at the speed of the barge.A bigger budget film from Rank didn't get them out of their predicament.

As others have noted, this film moves at a slow place, with nothing much seeming to happen. Perhaps the real star is the Rhine itself, with a number of touches of a travel documentary.

When I fast-forwarded though a recording, I briefly wonder if the villain was played by Richard Todd, and the hero reminded me of Alan Ladd. When I watched the film at normal speed, both the actual actors struck me as a bit low-key, and the most striking impression was made by Marius Goring's hair, especially in his first scene!

I'm unsure why Herman had to knock out the nightwatchman, and he did seem to have a bit of luck in his search for Lora.

"Whirlpool" is one of those movies which delivers less than you'd expect. The dilemma of the film's central character is promising - as becomes clear from the first five minutes, she is on the run both from the law and from her former criminal associate - but the pacing is rather slow and there's not quite enough tension to hook the viewer.

Another major problem lies in the casting of this character. Lora is an anti-heroine, granted, but Juliette Greco makes her so coldly unsympathetic throughout the action that it's hard to see how anyone could find any potential for redemption in her. (Lollobrigida or Loren might have brought a bit more warmth and humanity to the role.) On the plus side, the other characters are all decently acted, and the gorgeous Rhineland scenery and good musical score are points in the movie's favour.

Not a bad film overall, then, but a disappointment when you consider what it could have been. 6/10.