Mandy (Mandy la piccola sordomuta) - Alexander Mackendrick

uno di quei film inglesi anni '50, sceneggiatura solida, attori ben diretti, dramma e una bambina, con genitori e maestro intorno, finisce bene.
si vede bene - Ismaele

I have not seen this movie since I was a child, I am now 40 years old, but it still comes back to me. I loved this movie. I may have seen it twice as I remember it so well. I think it impressed upon me the ability children have to shine through adversity, and the need to believe that they really can make it, if given the right encouragement, in the right way, at the time that is right for them! I think it was a well acted and well thought out story line, with a heart rending performance by Mandy Miller. I would dearly love to see this movie again!

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Alexander Mackendrick was chiefly known for his wry comedies (The Man in the White Suit, Whisky Galore); this 1952 film was one of his rare forays into drama, and it shows him the master of an understated but highly charged style. What seems at first a typical problem drama of the period--a mother's attempts to secure some kind of education for her deaf daughter--is revealed as only the central image in a more general evocation of the failures of communication in the British family structure. The vivid performances Mackendrick elicits from his players (Phyllis Calvert, Mandy Miller) combine with a subjective camera style to create one of the few emotionally demanding experiences in the British cinema.

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Sweet Smell of Success (Piombo rovente) - Alexander Mackendrick

grande prova d'attori, Tony Curtis e Burt Lancaster grandissimi, in una storia crudele e senza rete, di inganni e contro-inganni, senza pietà per nessuno.
mi è piaciuto molto - Ismaele



Film terribile, per la sua violenza sottobosco.Ha nel personaggio di Lancaster una sottile traccia di perfidia e di sopraffazione, che trova nell'attore una aderenza totale. Sappiamo che durante la lavorazione ci furono anche degli scontri fisici fra Lancaster ed uno degli sceneggiatori, evidentemente per divergenze. Il film non ha risentito, anzi viene fuori, anche a distanza di anni una verità assoluta, delimitata solo dalla sceneggiatura di comodo per il ruolo di Curtis e della Harrison, oltretutto molto bravi, in specie Curtis che affronta un personaggio spigoloso e doppio, non facile.Fotografia di una New York livida e serale, in tema con il racconto ed i personaggi. Un film che dovrebbe essere citato di più, magari mantenendo il titolo originale.

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…E 'il classico film che asserisce che la lingua ferisce piu'di cento spade e mentre le ferite fisiche possono essere rimarginate,quelle dell'anima sono cicatrici che rimangono sempre non avendo nessuna tendenza alla guarigione.Il ritratto che si fa del fermento newyorkese è acido,poco tenero per tutti gli agitatori del sottobosco culturale che anima gli innumerevoli locali.Mackendrick che un paio d'anni prima aveva stupito per la carica di humour nero della sua Signora Omicidi(The Ladykillers)qui lascia da parte l'ironia e tira fuori tutta la cattiveria per descrivere un mondo che non dovrebbe appartenere a nessuno di noi...

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…Sweet Smell of Success is one of the most lacerating and vicious visions of the predatory urban world in the American cinema, and one accomplished without a single murder, gunshot or pulled knife. This is Broadway Noir, the dark side of the intersection of show business, politics and social register in the era when newspaper columnists and television personalities held sway over a nation and not just a slice of the demographic…

…Not simply the best performance Curtis has given (and the film for which he is most proud), Curtis delivers a masterpiece of American film acting. Curtis’ Sidney Falco never rests. His eyes are always scanning, checking the place out for opportunities. When he’s not walking (and walking is not the right word; he paces, strides, bounces, sidles, dances and darts) he’s a jittery coil of nerves firing in all directions. He’s come to terms with the fact that he’s a heel, which makes it easier to let his last moral boundaries crumple when the right bait is waved in front of him…

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…Sweet Smell of Success is a savagely told pulpish tale about those who can't stand the daylight because it will shine a light on things they don't want to see about themselves. The film is shot mostly in the dark. When Susie frees herself of big brother and ventures out alone on Broadway during daylight with a suitcase, that symbolizes freedom and independence; walking in the daylight indicates Susie doesn't need either Steve or her brother around to tell her what to do because she at last can think for herself. She's the only character who is able to overcome her limits and grow by the film's conclusion.

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…Since the uncompromising and decadent film is essentially an engrossing character study of unscrupulous, unattractive men in the artificial world of media power, phenomenal performances are derived from the two domineering and repugnant male leads - Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis (in a breakthrough role with his greatest career performance). Both stars played their unsympathetic roles against type - it was Lancaster's first villainous role as J.J. Hunsecker - a stern, cold-blooded, morally corrupt, monomaniacal, and treacherous newspaper columnist (allegedly based, in part, on influential real-life Broadway gossip columnist Walter Winchell who could similarly make and break reputations). The film also follows the nimble exploits around the night-time city of the second ingratiating and obsequious character, Sidney Falco (a name with predatory, bird-of-prey connotations) - a success-seeking, hustling, slick, unethical and smarmy, PR press agent…

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