After Alfred Hitchock, Orson Welles and a bit of Ken Russell, I've started watching and discovering Joseph Mankiewicz's cinema world.
1. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) is a love story of a young widow who finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
2. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
One of the funniest and truest commentaries on married life. The three wives receive a letter stating that Addie Ross (whom we never see) has run off with one of their husbands... but which one?
This is a delightful film with fine performances all around and some of the best dialogue. The script is creatively brilliant. Celeste Holm's voice as a narrator (Addie Ross) is just hypnotizing.
3. House of Strangers is a 1949 film noir starring Edward G. Robinson, Richard Conte and Susan Hayward.
The film starts by Max Monetti leaving the prison and promising revenge on his brothers for their betrayal. Brilliant Edward G. Robinson plays Gino Monetti, the Italian immigrant, a rags-to-riches banker who runs his bank and his family with an iron fist.
Another well-written script and excellent actors!
4. No Way Out is a 1950 racial drama. Sidney Poitier plays the young intern doctor. Richard Widmark as "the white trash" gives a performance of a pathologically obsessed racist. Linda Darnell plays perhaps the most interesting role because she switches back and forth, unable most of the time to figure out what side to take..
It's an excellent and daring film for its time.
5. Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams.
In 1930's New Orleans, a wealthy and eccentric older woman (Katharine Hepburn), wants a surgeon (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on her niece (Elizabeth Taylor), for reasons that become clear toward the end of the film.
This macabre story involving homosexuality, incest, pedophilia, and even cannibalism must surely have been a shock to audiences in 1959.
There are still two Mankiewicz's films on my desk: Cleopatra (1963) and There Was a Crooked Man (1970) and I'd like to find All About Eve (1950) which is considered as one of his best.
1. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) is a love story of a young widow who finds her seaside cottage is haunted and forms a unique relationship with the ghost.
2. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
One of the funniest and truest commentaries on married life. The three wives receive a letter stating that Addie Ross (whom we never see) has run off with one of their husbands... but which one?
This is a delightful film with fine performances all around and some of the best dialogue. The script is creatively brilliant. Celeste Holm's voice as a narrator (Addie Ross) is just hypnotizing.
3. House of Strangers is a 1949 film noir starring Edward G. Robinson, Richard Conte and Susan Hayward.
The film starts by Max Monetti leaving the prison and promising revenge on his brothers for their betrayal. Brilliant Edward G. Robinson plays Gino Monetti, the Italian immigrant, a rags-to-riches banker who runs his bank and his family with an iron fist.
Another well-written script and excellent actors!
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| The three mean brothers |
 |
| Richard Conte as Max Monetti and Susan Hayward as Irene Bennett |
 | |
| Brilliant Edward G. Robinson as Gino Monetti |
4. No Way Out is a 1950 racial drama. Sidney Poitier plays the young intern doctor. Richard Widmark as "the white trash" gives a performance of a pathologically obsessed racist. Linda Darnell plays perhaps the most interesting role because she switches back and forth, unable most of the time to figure out what side to take..
It's an excellent and daring film for its time.
 |
| Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell and Sidney Poitier |
5. Suddenly, Last Summer is a 1959 mystery film based on the play of the same title by Tennessee Williams.
In 1930's New Orleans, a wealthy and eccentric older woman (Katharine Hepburn), wants a surgeon (Montgomery Clift) to perform a lobotomy on her niece (Elizabeth Taylor), for reasons that become clear toward the end of the film.
This macabre story involving homosexuality, incest, pedophilia, and even cannibalism must surely have been a shock to audiences in 1959.
 |
| Young and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor |
 |
| Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift |
There are still two Mankiewicz's films on my desk: Cleopatra (1963) and There Was a Crooked Man (1970) and I'd like to find All About Eve (1950) which is considered as one of his best.
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