Your Siodmak dose for the month of February is over at the Auteurs’ Notebook: this week’s The Forgotten deals with NIGHTS, WHEN THE DEVIL CAME, which combines two things of enduring interest to all right-thinking Shadowplayers: Nazis, and serial murder.
Go on, it’ll be fun!
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This entry was posted on February 18, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under FILM with tags Nights When the Devil Came, Robert Siodmak, The Auteurs' Notebook, The Forgotten. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed
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February 18, 2010 at 3:02 pm
My God, I’ve never even heard of this film! It sounds amazing.
February 18, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Hannes Messemer was the Christoph Waltz of his day: I like him in Rossellini’s “Generale della Rovere” (59) and “Era Notte a Roma.” And he is great in “The Great Escape.”
February 18, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Wow does this ever sound fantastic.
Meanwhile, off-topic somewhat
I saw The Ghostwriter last night. It’s a fucking masterpiece and easily the most important political film since Bulworth. And just as Warren Beatty is dismissed for being a “womanizer,” Polanski can be written off as a “child rapist” — though the truth about that incident tells a different story that will one day be explicated in full. It won’t of course be believed by the Kool-Aid drinkers of America. But they’re not likely to cotton to The Ghostwriter either as it’s a thorough indictment of the the war criminals who still reside in high places and (the really important part) exposes their mindset. If you believe in “American Exceptionalism” and that we are ar heart represented by “good people” who are “fighting terorism” then you’re not going to like this film.
And we’re not going to have much to say to one another either.
On an immediate level the film deals with Tony Blair. If you’re aware of his recent legal testimony (covered extensively in the UK but virtually ignored by the U.S. media for obvious reasons) then you’ll know that every word of this film is true.
In fact I’d say it was already the top candidate for Best Documentary of 2010.
I don’t want to say any more until you people have seen it. Especially because it’s the sort of film that requires lengthy and detailed discussion. But the cast (Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams and especially and most surprisingly Kim Cattrell) is beyond superb.
And it has the best Polanski finale since Chinatown
Polanski is the toughest of the tough.
Hitler couldn’t kill him.
Manson couldn’t kill him.
Who do these rank amateurs think they are?
They have NO IDEA of who they’re dealing with.
February 18, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I’m still operating under the (possibly misguided since I’ve only seen the trailer) impression that this has a lot in common with The Ninth Gate!
February 18, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Hannes Messemer is indeed excellent in Rossellini’s “Generale della Rovere” and “Era Notte a Roma.”
February 18, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Messemer is his usual impressive self in Nights, but Adolfo Celli is a revelation, the most enigmatic, yet perhaps idiotic, killer on record.
Very psyched to see the Polanski. He hasn’t made such an overtly political movie since… since ever, really. Brosnan is an excellent actor whose rarely been able to show what he can do. MacGregor always had potential but needs a strong director to keep him from just grinning all the time. Williams is terrific but too often cast in what the late Jean Simmons called “poker up the arse parts” — stiff-backed exemplars of British pluck. I’m sure Polanski has something else in mind for her.
Have been discussing Blair’s testimony before the Chilton Enquiry with Mike Hodges, as part of an ongoing interview. Such moral imbecility as he shows is actually pretty close to the definition of psychopathy. Which brings us back to the Siodmak film…
February 18, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Siodmak and Polanski have much in common.
The new film isn’t like Polanski’s (highly underrated) The Ninth Gate in that the Johnny Depp character had consderable expertise in his field whereas McGregor in The Ghostwriter is a complete naif
February 18, 2010 at 5:25 pm
February 18, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Terrific that Polanski in the midst of all this has made a worthy film. I was reading about the film and then of course there’s the story of the War Crime Investigation going on, I hope the distributors of the film time it right, especially for it’s UK release because it’s really rare you have a talented film-maker deal with a political story in the middle of the storm. One can argue Chinatown was similar in that it was released in Post-Watergate America.
Apparently Polanski and Robert Harris were planning an epic on Pompeii(which I hope will be made) but that didn’t happen so they made this film really fast. I wonder how the film’s conception changed in the final phase of its editing at Polanski’s chalet(where a metal tracking device was attached to his foot while he looked over stuff).
February 18, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Actually editing began while he was in jail.
February 18, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Adieu Kathryn Grayson!
February 18, 2010 at 10:26 pm
David E: posters at The Huffington Post want us to believe we are complicit in the rape of a child by endorsing, and even watching, “The Ghost Writer.”
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THINK OF THE CHILDREN! HOW COULD YOU!
February 19, 2010 at 12:59 am
February 19, 2010 at 1:57 am
Another one gone.
If somebody wants to avoid Polanski’s films because of what he did, I can just about understand that. Their loss. Nobody remotely interested in cinema could afford to think that way, though.
February 19, 2010 at 2:02 am
David W.,
I lived through that era as a member of the underage set, and for crying out loud, we had thirtyish rock stars who were dong underage groupies so often, it was a running joke. High school girls who married their teachers appeared on The Newlywed Game, an afternoon game show. There were tons more examples like that, some I even knew of personally. It was part of American pop culture then, so I never attached any special significance to Polanski except that he got busted. I get chastised a lot for even saying that much.
February 19, 2010 at 9:13 am
I think it’s David E you meant to address that to.
Since Polanski is a good deal more frank than Tony Blair, his eventual testimony, if we ever get it, will be pretty interesting. Since Polanski, or “Me Nastypants” as my mother calls him, broke the law, I can appreciate the desire to bring him before the courts. But it is a purely gestural sort of justice which will achieve nothing beyond “making a statement.”
February 19, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Too many Davids in the comments (one day I fear I’ll not be allowed to comment since my name isn’t David), but I was actually referring to David B. Breaking that law was so utterly commonplace in my day – in high school, I knew of a sophomore dating a college guy, and a senior dating a college graduate, both long-term relationships. I kinda resented it, in a “can’t they fish their own stream?” way since I wanted to be dating them. We had a shop teacher who boffed students in his class every semester (he got fired for it eventually, long after I was gone from HS), even an acquaintance married a 13-year-old because he had to. It was a different, maybe unhealthier time, but there it was.
February 19, 2010 at 4:11 pm
The truth about the afternoon Polanski spent with ‘the victim” will eventual dribble out — and be overlooked.
She was pimped out all over town to all and sundry before Polanski “took the bait.” Parental pimping is an old story in Tinseltown. Think of all those parents only to happy to give their underage sons to Michael Jackson in the hope of “Making it Big.” Evan Chandler — the screenwriting dentist — did himself in not too long ago. As for Jordie, no career whatsoever.
And Jacko’s deader than ever, This is It bombing at the B.O. for obvious reasons. Who wants to see the rehearsal tapes of a dead has-been?
February 19, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Is it because Polanski has made such an overtly political film that the US authorities are now out to get him?!
Or is that just me being paranoid?
February 19, 2010 at 7:39 pm
It would be exciting to think that his film is so dangerous the state is out to get him! Sadly, I’m not sure that’s the reason, but I look forward immensely to seeing it and making up my mind based on how coruscating it is.
Men have always gone for girls (and boys) younger than themselves. What society does about it varies with time. There’s clearly a grey area. But I think 13-year-olds fall outside it. And in this case the law agrees. When it comes to using rifle fire to silence those who play their music too loud at night, me and the law will just have to agree to disagree.
February 19, 2010 at 7:40 pm
They’ve been out to get him for years. It was the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired that kicked things up again. His legal counsel wanted to have charges against him dismissed because of the evidence shown in the documentary. That led to incarceration followed by his current state of “house arrest.”
February 19, 2010 at 7:45 pm
February 19, 2010 at 7:53 pm