Akim Tamiroff
Occupation
Actor
Marquis De Sade: Justine Review
Bad
Of all the films I've seen based on the Marquis de Sade's literature and life, Justine comes the closest to being an Emmanuelle sequel. It's also the only one that I know of to star Jack Palance and gives us none other than the glorious freak Klaus Kinski as the Marquis himself. The story involves a young virgin's sexual awakening -- and willing subjection to humiliation and light torture -- and is in keeping with de Sade's work. Still, though it's rather awfully made, it's somewhat tame by today's standards, which also makes it more than a bit humorous.Continue reading: Marquis De Sade: Justine Review
Anastasia (1956) Review
OK
This is the earlier, and definitely not animated, version of the story of the hunt for Anastasia Romanov, daughter of the Tsar who, according to legend, was the only member of the royal family to survive their massacre by revolutionaries in 1917. Anastasia starts off in the late 1920s among the exiled White Russian community in Paris, who rather obsessively keep their country's customs alive in a foreign place. Certain entrepreneurs in the community, including a disgraced former general, Prince Bounine (Yul Brynner), have been trying for years to discover a trainable woman with a close-enough resemblance to Anastasia that she could pass for the real thing - and collect 10 million pounds of Russian royal money sitting in a London bank. Bounine and his compatriots recruit the homeless and rather insane Ingrid Bergman for the task and start about molding her to pass muster before the exiles who knew the real Anastasia and who will, hopefully, sign testimonies to her identity. The twist is that Bergman at times actually thinks she is Anastasia.There would have been plenty of opportunity for some My Fair Lady-type hijinks in the early part of this remarkably-controlled film, with Brynner playing the stern taskmaster and Bergman the not-so-ugly duckling about to transform into a swan. But director Anatole Litvak keeps everything measured and reasonably serious, focusing more on Bergman's dementia than the perfunctory romance that supposedly blossoms between her and Brynner. Bergman's performance (which won her an Oscar) has its hammy "look at me!" moments, but they're shrewdly undercut by the surrounding characters' suspicion that she is inventing not just her past as Anastasia but her entire dementia as well.
Continue reading: Anastasia (1956) Review