Hilarious self-reference
If you know the opera "Cosi fan tutte" (music by Mozart, text by Lorenzo da Ponte) you will appreciate the theme here: a cheesy, overemotional soap-opera-type script about cheesy, overemotional soap-opera-type actors on the set of a cheesy soap-opera production. An obvious cardboard stage-drama about an obvious cardboard stage-drama, but it feels so real to the characters in it. Raymond Burr's ponderous, exaggerated gravitas is hilarious. He must have been giggling the whole time, making his character take the silly story about silly actors in a silly story so seriously.
Side note: Raymond Burr, clearly quite ill, seems to have some kind of tremor in his right hand. You can see in the final court scene, in one shot he's making a tight fist in a not-entirely-successful effort to stop his hand trembling, in the next shot, his arms are folded, concealing the hand altogether. I wasn't aware that he had this.
Side note: Raymond Burr, clearly quite ill, seems to have some kind of tremor in his right hand. You can see in the final court scene, in one shot he's making a tight fist in a not-entirely-successful effort to stop his hand trembling, in the next shot, his arms are folded, concealing the hand altogether. I wasn't aware that he had this.
- ColonelPuntridge
- Dec 30, 2020