donmccon

Scenes from this series have remained with me years after seeing it. On the surface, it's a fairly slow-paced detective story, as the wife of a family summering in Tuscany uncovers a series of disturbing facts about a death that occurred before her arrival. The mystery is well handled, but what is really wonderful is the evocation of the atmosphere of the Italian countryside and its picturesque hill towns. It's also memorable for its over-the-top portraits of the seedy English aristocrats who live or are visiting in the region, especially Sir John Gielgud's portrayal of an unscrupulous octogenarian would-be Lothario. You'll feel you've visited Italy after seeing this, and the memories will be as vivid as those of places you've actually visited. I don't know why this series hasn't been rerun more often.

The first half of the movie is like "The President's Analyst" -- a perfect capsulization of the late '60s -- and just as funny. But unlike the "The President's Analyst," it just disappeared. I've never seen it on TV or in a video store. Quite a few scenes deserve to be camp classics, especially those with Shelley Winters: (a) giving an interview dressed like Queen Elizabeth, (b) screaming "I'm young, I'm young" as they drag her off to the concentration camp set up for anyone over 30.

I got to know this first as a movie score (was sent a promo of the CD), played it once as a joke, and gradually came to love it as much as any CD in my collection, even though classical is my usual area. Saw the movie (at home) with some trepidation, fearing it wouldn't measure up. As usual, much of the score is undercut by faintness or dialogue, but I really loved the movie anyway. The role of Death is so implausibly written (at some points he doesn't know his name, at others he's making up clever plots to foil the evil Drew) that nobody could play it believably. Given that, there is something godlike about Brad Pitt, and of course, Hopkins is superb as usual.