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Post by Violet on Dec 12, 2012 15:17:04 GMT
I am so excited to see that this wonderful film has got an official release. The region 2 DVD is available for pre-order now, although the release date is listed as 31 December 2013. This is one of my absolute favourite Peter films and I think it demonstrates what a talented and versatile actor he was. Fabulous stuff!  |
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Post by woofy on Dec 12, 2012 23:43:41 GMT
The interplay between Erich and Peter in this film is fantastic. Peter was finished with Moto by this time and IWaA fits in between Strange Cargo and (the even stranger) Island of Doomed Men. He was certainly at the height of his game by then.
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Post by Violet on Dec 13, 2012 0:36:12 GMT
The interplay between Erich and Peter in this film is fantastic. I agree, I think they were brilliantly suited for their roles and worked very well together. I enjoy many of Erich von Stroheim's performances, this film and Sunset Blvd. are my favourites of his. Though I always enjoy Peter's performances, the roles I love best are ones such as this as he got to share his talent for comedy. |
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Dec 29, 2012 9:44:13 GMT
Excellent news Violet! I really enjoy I Was An Adventuress and it demonstrates how capable both Peter and Erich were as actors, and they could do so much more than play villains. I like the fact that Andre and Polo both love Tanya, but in very different ways. Peter is so good in this and without saying a thing, you just know that Polo is not as daft as everyone thinks he is. I have to admit I have fast forwarded through Zorina's ballet sequence.
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Post by nordenwald on Mar 30, 2013 13:41:07 GMT
I have to start here, of all threads. I go all soft for "I was an Adventuress". Not a great film but it has its merits. That this film got made at all, with these two, is something of a miracle. Here we have two notorious "heavies" - and we know how Hollywood, then even more than now, liked to pigeonhole actors once and for all - cast together, and in a comedy?First Erich von Stroheim. Falsified identity, fabricated nobility (who became known in Hollywood as "The Von", the very particle that wasn't in his name to begin with), culpable of the first million-dollar movie in history, and who probably had something to do with his arch-nemesis Thalberg's early death - I bet watching the dailies of Greed didn't help. After he got booted out, he landed in France, where he made quite a few other gems, as an actor this time, where his "cursed artist aura" gave him a whole new dimension. Heavy.
Then Peter Lorre, who earned his place in film history playing Fritz Lang's rapist and killer of little girls ("Du hast dabei einen schönen Ball! Wie heisst du denn?" spoken ever, ever so softly). Heavy. Enter goofy (or high) producer or director, with an even goofier idea: "Hey, why don't we pair those two in a comedy?? Sounds like a winning team to me! There could be a scene with 7 and a half cubes of sugar in the coffee…. Could be HILARIOUS! And let's sprinkle some dancing over the whole thing – that should do it!" *Concerned looks all round* (That's just how I imagine the guy pitching the idea, and it makes me giggle). A crazy producer, two Austrian/Austro-Hungarian exiles with unbelievable chemistry, a charming ballerina who just happened to be George Balanchine's wife at the time, and one Richard Greene, who, as much as I don't care for good looking actors hired for being good looking, does a great job of being good looking and quite charming. It all works somehow. The film is a gem. I don't even fast forward the Swan Lake scene at the end. I find it quite enchanting. There's real water on the stage, and the knight, as it turns out when he walks knee-deep into it to cry over the loss of his beloved, is taller than the castle. It's magic! 
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