MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)

Adapting Miguel de Cervantes’ DON QUIXOTE to film, long an impossible dream, with Orson Welles in the ‘50s & ‘60s and Terry Gilliam over the last two decades merely a sample of filmmakers who’ve come to grief in the pursuit. So, no surprise to find that squarest of safe Hollywood hacks, Arthur Hiller, a director with a knack for bad shots (even when Giuseppe Rotunno is lighting cameraman), flailing on the cursed project. (Development started & stopped numerous times as various creative types briefly took charge.) Surprisingly, the motley cast does pretty well, with everyone but Peter O’Toole’s doing their own spirited vocals. (O’Toole relatively well-dubbed, Sophia Loren quite the belter, plus a chance to check out Ian Richardson's pipes.) The real problem, along with Hiller’s flatfooted megging (that big donnybrook!), lies in the original stage property with Dale Wasserman’s confusing literary pretensions (arrested by the Inquisition during performance, Cervantes performs his play before a ‘court’ of scurvy inmates), and boasting a score with but a single good tune. No, not that baritone perennial, but the quasi-title tune: ‘I Am I, Don Quixote.’ (There’s a reason lyricist/composer Mitch Leigh/Joe Darion never had another success.) Elsewise, for those who appreciate dialogue like, ‘I charge you with being an idealist, a bad poet . . . and an honest man,’ this may be just the tripe for you.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Closer to the mark: G.W. Pabst’s DON QUICHOTTE/’33 with legendary bass Feodor Chaliapin, a born Quixote who premiered Jules Massenet’s minor, but pleasing DQ opera, here getting a few songs by Jacques Ibert to replace Maurice Ravel’s rejected ones. OR: From the old USSR, DON KIKHOT/’57, with director Grogori Kozintsev’s switching from Shakespeare adaptations to Cervantes, and Nikolay Cherkasov, Eisenstein’s Nevsky & Ivan, tilting at the windmill in a remarkable scene. Kozintsev’s direction goes dead on interiors, but is thrillingly alive outside.