The River. Jean Renoir’s 1951 screen version of Rumer Godden’s autobiographical novel about expatriate life in India is one of the permanent masterpieces of adolescence, a gentle tale of innocence and experience filled with lush Technicolor images of a land of lost content. Renoir summed it up like this: “The discovery of love by small girls, the death of a little boy who was too fond of snakes, the rather foolish dignity of an English family living on India like a plum on a peach-tree: above all, India itself.” David Thomson captured the essence of The River in eleven words: “So little happens, yet you feel the wheel of the world” (TT).
Archives for November 29, 2008
DVD
Road House. Ida Lupino was never sexier than in this crisp 1948 thriller about a nightclub owner (Richard Widmark at his craziest) who falls for a hard-edged dame from the big city, then jumps off the deep end when she prefers his best friend (Cornel Wilde). A wonderful, insufficiently appreciated film noir, long overdue for transfer to DVD. This is the one where Lupino sings “One for My Baby” in a hoarse little voice (yes, it’s hers) that sounds as though its owner had just downed a double Drano on the rocks (TT).