1h 31min | Drama, Music* | 6 February 1962 | b/w, ws
Director: Basil Dearden
Stars: Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell, Betsy Blair, Paul Harris, Marti Stevens, Richard Attenborough.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054614/
(watched out of sequence because disc just arrived today)
~23 songs in the Soundtracks.
The cast list above represents the following characters Iago (Johnny Cousins), Cassio (Cass), Emilia (Iago's wife, Emily), Othello (Rex), Desdemona (Delia), Rodrigo (Rod).
The fact that the jazz musicians are there onscreen makes it more plausible for the soundtrack to be so strongly present, as contrasted with a film like Anatomy of a Murder ('59), where we don't see the band providing the driving jazz music. But the fact that they're playing such edgy music, not mellow jazz, is very appropriate to the tale being told.
Rated 7 on 2015-05-06, I'm bumping it far up today. That's because I've studied Otello the opera and subsequently watched a completist production of Othello, so I've thought about the story upon which this is based. And I had the good fortune of wanting to pay close attention today, and being awake enough to do so.
The things I liked so much:
- Rex shares a (recurring?) nightmare with Delia that she has left him, and he wants her always by his side to reassure him. He hasn't been quite so controlling in reality, since she's played tourist while he worked.
- Johnny wants to break up the Rex/Delia marriage to bring her into the band he's trying to form. While married to Rex, she hasn't wanted to work.
- Instead of a handkerchief, the treasured token is a cigarette case, which Johnny lifts from where it was casually left, and stashes some weed in there. Then he gets Cass to partake, and to temporarily take custody of the case.
- Cass's girlfriend is the subject of discussion, which can be misinterpreted as Cass discussing Delia.
- Johnny records some remarks that he edits into "evidence" of the lies he's been feeding to Rex.
- Rex doesn't kill Delia, but comes close. He also almost kills Cass, and also physically attacks Johnny.
- Here's 1 negative: Johnny seems to go free, except that no one present will likely work with him.
So, I love the writing, the use of the Othello material, the music, the performances, the direction.
The Rank Org., dir. Dearden; 9
