Sometimes LESS is MORE.
I just finished watching on PBS, for the very first time, a highly regarded movie comedy from 1961, "One, Two, Three". And I have a headache from it. A very quirky film. I have never seen its like.
It was written and directed by Billy Wilder at his height of fame, he being one of the legends of screen writing and movie direction. He had just won huge acclaim for the classic and charming "The Apartment".
Even after watching this the title is itself odd. If you look at IMDb the rating and written reviews are mostly glowing. And it is clever. No doubt the lovers of this film were the ones who wrote.
BUT. . . although it is very well done it was like a movie on uppers. I was paying close attention and I felt like I was in a cyclone of jokes, many not good; a few hilarious. I did laugh out loud at Arlene Francis' character commenting on how she knew Cagney was having an affair because he started wearing his "elevator shoes".
Jimmy Cagney (acting legend) headed a frenzied hyper cast delivering lines fast rat-a-tat like machine guns, and doing so at the top of their lungs. So much yelling. The jokes and apparent jokes and all the lines went flying by; you hardly knew when one ended and another began. And if something was funny if you laughed you'd miss the next line! :o And I had the volume way up.
You get the idea. Somehow, it being in black and white didn't help.
It was set in Berlin in 1961, just before the Berlin Wall went up, and the Cold War jokes had to be understood in historical context.
It was good and well done, BUT. . . if ever there was an example of "Less is More" this is it. If Wilder removed a third of the jokes, especially the poorer ones and slowed the pace it would have worked better.
How Cagney could deliver lengthy lines that loudly and fast I don't know, but he did. It was almost funny to see that alone; he was like some kind of crazed machine not a man in his sixties.
Jeez. It was like the entire film was on heavy doses of caffeine.That thing lasted almost two hours, and it needed two intermissions for the audience to take a break! But it was good, sure. But I still have a headache trying to follow its frenetic pace.
It was written and directed by Billy Wilder at his height of fame, he being one of the legends of screen writing and movie direction. He had just won huge acclaim for the classic and charming "The Apartment".
Even after watching this the title is itself odd. If you look at IMDb the rating and written reviews are mostly glowing. And it is clever. No doubt the lovers of this film were the ones who wrote.
BUT. . . although it is very well done it was like a movie on uppers. I was paying close attention and I felt like I was in a cyclone of jokes, many not good; a few hilarious. I did laugh out loud at Arlene Francis' character commenting on how she knew Cagney was having an affair because he started wearing his "elevator shoes".
Jimmy Cagney (acting legend) headed a frenzied hyper cast delivering lines fast rat-a-tat like machine guns, and doing so at the top of their lungs. So much yelling. The jokes and apparent jokes and all the lines went flying by; you hardly knew when one ended and another began. And if something was funny if you laughed you'd miss the next line! :o And I had the volume way up.
You get the idea. Somehow, it being in black and white didn't help.
It was set in Berlin in 1961, just before the Berlin Wall went up, and the Cold War jokes had to be understood in historical context.
It was good and well done, BUT. . . if ever there was an example of "Less is More" this is it. If Wilder removed a third of the jokes, especially the poorer ones and slowed the pace it would have worked better.
How Cagney could deliver lengthy lines that loudly and fast I don't know, but he did. It was almost funny to see that alone; he was like some kind of crazed machine not a man in his sixties.
Jeez. It was like the entire film was on heavy doses of caffeine.That thing lasted almost two hours, and it needed two intermissions for the audience to take a break! But it was good, sure. But I still have a headache trying to follow its frenetic pace.
- Tokugawa
- Mar 28, 2008