Intolerance: A Sun Play for the Ages
I don't know what a sun play is, but based on this movie, it is a very long set of moving tableaus. I admire the attempt to take fourth very different stories and draw them together with one theme (hint, the name of the movie), but the cuts are very abrupt and not all the stories are developed as well, as to really cause the audience to emotionally invest themselves in the story. In particular, I didn't care for the Huguenot, nor the Jesus and the Woman Taken in Adultery story lines. I did enjoy the Balthazar/ Belshazzar story line and think it could have made a very fine movie on it's own. The Raphsode and Mountain Girl were the only two characters that really had much development and drew me in. Every time 'Dear One' was on screen, I wanted to punch myself in the face. Watch this is you are a film student, or want to punish yourself. Labels: Intolerance, two stars
There is something wonderful about formula of Katherine Hepburn as a middle aged, strait-laced, spinster being swept off her feet by an uncouth, drunk everyman played by [insert leading man]. It's a niche Hepburn played well, and her Rose Sayer doesn't disappoint, though I have to admit, I was puzzled by her ethnicity. She initially had an English accent, which she appeared to give up on five minutes into the film. It's also nice to see Boggie playing a rougher, less mysterious character than his more well known Sam Spade and Rick Blaine. The movie is a bit unrealistic, but it's a nice little bit of indulgent, sticking it to the Nazis. Parts can be slow, but overall the bantering between Hepburn and Bogart is a delight to watch.