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Thursday, March 28, 2024

JUSTINE (1969)

For vet Hollywood helmer George Cukor, a funny thing happened on the way back from winning an Oscar® . . . five years drought between MY FAIR LADY/’64 and this salvage operation.  It was old-line producer Pandro Berman to the rescue, stung when art house director Joseph Strick failed to deliver on location in Tunisia, forcing this adaptation (just one part) of Lawrence Durrell’s ALEXANDRIAN QUARTET* to return to the 20th/Fox lot with Cukor taking over.  And while already doomed by a hard to follow script (illegal gun shipments to Palestine hidden beneath the sexually charged mutating affairs among foreigners navigating a debauched 1930s Alexandria) and uneven casting (some Hollywood ringers hopelessly inauthentic and a famously inert perf from gorgeous star Anouk Aimee), what a fascinating watch it is.  Dirk Bogarde, Anna Karina, Philippe Noiret, John Vernon, outstanding whether diplomat, whore or agent, and even Aimee able to give Michael York’s tush a run for the money.  (York’s Cubist facial planes a great help here as naïf lovestruck professor.)  With Cukor’s studio artifice far surpassing what we see of the disappointing remains of the location footage.  Leon Shamroy’s lush lensing, Irene Sharaff’s riotous costuming for orgies & social events.  The thing doesn’t add up, how could it?, but you’ll savor all the tasty bits of this curate’s egg of a film.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The only comparable Cukor film is his equally compromised, equally rich BHOWANI JUNCTION/’56.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/08/bhowani-junction-1956.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Durrell’s four cross-pollinated novels largely untouched on film.  (So too Proust, with whom he's often compared.)  This 20th Century literary classic sounds perfect as a long-form streamer or as tony PBS fare.  Is it still read?  Or perhaps it's too politically incorrect.  (For this 1969 film, Alexandria’s infamous 1930s Child Brothel cast with veiled ‘little people.’  Actual kids only seen looking in.)

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