Ten anthology film scenes
A small anthology scene collection from famous, less famous, and even infamous innovative and influential films through the decades.
1. Night Tide (1961) - Mora the Mermaid
The gorgeously filmed dream sequence from Night Tide, a 1961 black & white fantasy thriller by the late visionary screenwriter and director Curtis Harrington (based on his own short story The Call of the Sea). Full of impressionistic visual poetry, it recounts the doomed passion of sailor Johnny Drake for Greek sideshow star Mora the Mermaid, whose boyfriends find gruesome and mysterious deaths. Caught in a frightening web of inexplicable events and deceiving phenomena, Johnny is obliged to fight not only for his love, but also for his life and sanity. 25 year-old Dennis Hopper (in the infamously revealing, custom-made sailor suit that almost got him in trouble with military police) plays Johnny Drake, while Mora is duly incarnated by beautiful TV actress Linda Lawson in her first feature leading role. Lovely music score by David Raksin, breath-taking cinematography by Vilis Lapenieks & Floyd Crosby.
2. Carnival of Souls (1962) - The abandoned pavillion
The chilling abandoned pavillion scene from the 1962 black & white thriller Carnival of Souls by Herk Harvey. After a car accident in which her two best friends were killed, survivor Mary Henry, a talented musician, begins to experience strange events and impulses - among which, an urgent need to visit a deserted amusement park. The wonderful Candace Hilligoss plays Mary Henry. The historical Saltair Pavillion in Yutah (burnt down a few years after the film was made) is the abandoned amusement park. Herk Harvey himself is the Man. Exquisite black & white photography by Maurice Prather, complemented by Gene Moore's riveting soundtrack.
3. The Little Prince (1974) - A snake in the grass
Bob Fosse's brilliant, sinuous Snake Dance number from Stanley Donen's 1974 film adaptation of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) by Antoine de Saint Exupery. An allegory for temptation and death, the Snake character is portrayed as a dark, sensual and appealing, but also unsettling male figure, in contrast to the purely beautiful, feminine and capricious Rose (first love) and the kindly, emotional Fox (friendship). Song by Frederick Loewe & Alan Jay Lerner. Vocals by Bob Fosse. Child actor Steven Warner is the Little Prince, with Richard Kiley as the Pilot, Donna McKechnie as the Rose and the unsurpassable Gene Wilder as the Fox.
4. Blue Velvet (1986) - In dreams you're mine
Dean Stockwell's inimitable cameo in David Lynch's early masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), one of the most influential films in modern cinema. Stockwell plays Ben, the "suave" mentor and partner in crime of psychopathic gangster Frank Booth, superbly portrayed by an explosive Dennis Hopper. Isabella Rossellini is Frank's unwilling paramour Dorothy Vallens, a fatal beauty maddened by sorrow, addicted to and even emulating her tormentor. Kyle MacLachlan, Lynch's enigmatically attractive male muse, is the curious ingenu Jeff Beaumont, who pokes more than his nose where he shouldn't - with all the (un)expected consequences. Ben lip-synches to Roy Orbison's song In Dreams for Frank, in a monumental performance by both him and Hopper.
5. The Hidden (1987) - Neptune Mannequins
The startling mannequin store scene from Jack Sholder's 1987 sci-fi thriller The Hidden, an understated little gem with a strong subtext of social commentary and character study (and quite daringly for its time and genre, a subtle but distinct vibe of attraction between its two male protagonists). Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri are off-beat FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher and skeptical Detective Tom Beck respectively, hot on the heels of a constantly mutating alien criminal (the Hidden of the title) whose only vocabulary is "I want" and who doesn't take "No" for an answer. While chasing one of the Hidden's incarnations (a curvy stripper played by Claudia Christian), Beck and Gallagher cause her to crash her car into a mannequin store window, leading to a frantic hide-and-seek among humans, dismembered dummies and dead bodies inhabited by monstrous alien life forms in a nightmarish half-darkness - an almost poetically allegoric scene, with an existential twist beneath the action-packed surface.
6. Apartment Zero (1988) - Who are you?
One of the pivotal confrontation scenes in pioneering Argentinian screenwriter and director Martin Donovan's dark masterpiece Apartment Zero (1988), a claustrophobic psychological, political and erotic thriller set in Buenos Aires after the Dirty War that followed Peron's dictatorship in Argentina. A very young Colin Firth plays lonely, quirky cinephile Adrian LeDuc, with photogenic Hart Bochner as Jack Carney (a role initially destined for the late Brad Davis), his gorgeous, armed and dangerous new roommate of many faces who literally turns Adrian's obsessively organized world upside down. A tragic and perverse love story with incessant plot reversals, stellar performances from the two leads and the entire cast, unexpected camera angles, lush photography by Miguel Rodriguez and an eerie atmospheric soundtrack by Elia Cmiral: along with Cukor's Gaslight (1944), one of the most haunting psychological horror films ever made.
7. Torrents of Spring (1989) - The Commedia dell'Arte sequence
Jerzy Skolimowski's 1989 film adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novella Torrents of Spring (1897) by Ivan Turgenev is one of those style exercises doomed to spawn either a flawed masterpiece or a brilliant disaster. What intriguingly begins like a kind of extended pilot to a period mini series, soon disintegrates into rushed incoherence with loose ends all over the place. However, Skolimowski's genius still manages to shine through, like in the surreal Commedia dell'Arte sequence near the end that recapitulates the film's plot in a Venetian Carnival setting. Stanley Myers' music score lends ominous dark tones to the traditional tarantella dance, while Witold Sobocinski & Dante Spinotti's photography weaves crisp explosions of color against the deep, shadowed burgundy of the background. Timothy Hutton is Dimitri Sanin (the Fool). Nastassja Kinski and William Forsythe are Maria Nikolaevna and Prince Hippolyte Polozov. Valeria Golino and Christian Dottorini are Gemma and Emile Rosselli. Urbano Barberini is Baron Von Doenhof. Jerzy Skolimowski himself is Victor Victorovich.
8. Mad at the Moon (1992) - The night at the opera
The stunning opening scene from 1992 poetic horror western Mad at the Moon by Martin Donovan (of the Apartment Zero, Death Becomes Her and K. Il Bandito fame). Based on Luigi Pirandello's short story Male di Luna (Moon Sickness, 1913), the film spins a sensually haunting, hypnotic tale of brotherly love gone wrong, a broken childhood romance, an almost forced marriage with the darkest twist possible and a tangled web of fatal, ambivalent passions and dangerous transformations. The opera duet was composed by Gerald Gouriet and performed by Janet Momjian and Jonathan Tripp. Starring Mary Stuart Masterson, Fionnula Flanagan, Hart Bochner and Stephen Blake.
9. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) - Graphology lesson
A crucial sequence of scenes from the 1999 atmospheric film adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's acclaimed novel The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) by the late Anthony Minghella. Ruthlessly ambitious opportunist Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) gradually adopts the artistic tastes and way of life of spoilt rich brat Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law), until he ends up literally becoming Dickie, not without having to shed some blood in the process. Through a seemingly innocent "graphology lesson", Tom obtains Dickie's signature - and there is only one way this can end. A fascinating take on the theme of the Doppelgaenger, the swap of identities via a kind of mutual mirroring process, laced with a simmering undercurrent of sexual attraction. Beautifully photographed by John Seale, with a deeply immersive sountrack by Gabriel Yared. Matt Damon sings Chet Baker's version of My Funny Valentine by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart.
10. Enduring Love (2004) - Look, Joe... watch!
The gut-wrenching conclusion to one more tale of fatal amorous obsession, in Roger Michell's drama Enduring Love (2004), based on Ian McEwan's novel of the same title. Having witnessed a deadly hot air balloon accident, university lecturer Joe Rose (Daniel Craig) must cope with the aftermath of this traumatic experience combined with his relentless stalking by another eye-witness, Jed Parry (Rhys Ifans), who is convinced Joe is his destined soulmate and that the accident was God's way of bringing them together. When Joe explains the situation to his girlfriend Claire (Samantha Morton), she cynically denies the seriousness of it, until the desperately lovestruck Jed decides to take matters into his own hands. A masterfully carried out climactic scene, with hair-raising performances by both Craig and Ifans. Bill Nighy plays Robin, Joe's newly married friend and temporary roommate. Music by Jeremy Samms, photography by Haris Zambarloukos.
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