WCM
No piece on William Cameron Menzies’ ADDRESS UNKNOWN (1944) could do justice to its many extreme and crazy angles. So before my post appears in the next week, here’s a preview ~
Big symmetry, shots thrown down or up, displacing the centre of interest to the top or bottom of frame, slashing diagonals, big bug-eyed faces — all the properties elucidated by David Bordwell in his recent essay, which makes my efforts seem a bit redundant. Still, you can read my meagre thoughts tomorrow.
shadowplay 
April 29, 2010 at 2:21 pm
AU: just when you think Menzies’ film actually represents (uniquely for the time), a Jewish exile getting revenge against a Nazi, the film resolves itself with a “twist ” that undermines that.
That said, a visual masterwork. Ripe for reappraisal.
April 29, 2010 at 2:26 pm
K.T. Stevens didn’t have to bus herself in to Hollywood and sit on a drugstore stool to get discovered. Sam Wood’s daughter just had to hang around her father’s dinner parties. That jaw! Those cheekbones!!
April 29, 2010 at 3:40 pm
It’s an impressively weird face!
I didn’t think the twist undermined anything, but then I hadn’t seen the ethnicity of the avenger as a key element. I guess we’re robbed of an image of Jewish revenge, but a son destroying his father is arguably the strongest emotional charge the film had left in its arsenal. And the idea of a good German taking revenge against a bad one must have had good propaganda potential.
April 29, 2010 at 10:18 pm
April 30, 2010 at 12:19 am
I remember reading in Famous Monsters of Filmland, as a kid, that IFM was one movie they wouldn’t recommend for small children. This of course made me determined to see it.