Country: USA
Year: 1948
Duration: 79'
The misadventures of a poor husband dragged against
his will to New York by his wife and sister-in-law, one of whom is moved
by dreams of grandeur, the other in search of a husband. From the moment
they arrive at Grand Central Station, the three meet various characters
typical of the big metropolis, including an incomprehensible taxi driver
and an eccentric millionaire, and they end up involved in a rigged
horserace. An amusing comedy based on misunderstandings and non-stop
catastrophes, in which the gags and comic situations are valorized by
Fleischer's ingenious directing.
"It was such fun filming this movie. It was a great opportunity for me
to leave RKO and work for Stanley Kramer and Carl Foreman. It was their
first production and I was very honored by the fact that they had chosen
me. The co-screenwriter, Herbert Baker, was a Yale classmate of mine,
and he was the one who suggested to Stanley Kramer that he call me. The
film was a comedy, the genre I love best. Technically, it was ahead of
its times: I used still shots to introduce new sequences, slow motion
and fast motion, even subtitles! No one understood what we were trying
to do, but it was great fun. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I
have the feeling that the film is still very funny." (R. Fleischer)
Biography
film director
Richard Fleischer
Richard Fleischer (New York, 1916), son of producer and director Max Fleischer and grandson of Dave, a famous cartoonist of the 20's and 30's, began studying medicine but then enrolled at the Yale school of drama. After founding and directing a theatrical company, he joined RKO at the beginning of the 1940's, first as an editor and journalist, and then, starting in 1944, as a director. His medium-length film Design for Death won an Oscar in 1948, launching a long career which, in view of his ability to manage large budgets and to pass from one genre to another with great professionalism, led him to collaborate with the Hollywood majors. For RKO, he directed mainly taut and alienating B noir films, like Follow Me Quietly(1949), Trapped (1949) and The Narrow Margin (1952). He brought Jules Verne's novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to the big screen for Walt Disney (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, 1954). He directed many different types of films for 20th Century Fox, maintaining the originality and the vigor of his style, which was able to give new life to the stylistic features of the classical cinema with which he regularly confronted himself. Fleischer adapted gangster movies to Cinemascope in Violent Saturday (1955); he reconstructed turn-of-the-century New York in the melodramatic The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) and ancient civilizations in the historical film The Vikings (1958). He dealt with psychological mystery stories in Compulsion(1959), The Boston Strangler (1968) and Ten Rillington Place (1971, produced by Columbia), science fiction in Fantastic Voyage (1966), peplum in Barabbas (1962), comedy in Doctor Dolittle (1967) and war films in Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). During the 1970's he divided his time between the United States and England, and continued his versatile and often experimental productions, including the futuristic Soylent Green (1973), and the thrillers Blind Terror (1971) and The Last Run (1972). During the 1980's he was once again successful with the adventure films Conan the DestroyerRed Sonja (1985), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
FILMOGRAFIA
Memo for Joe (1944), Flicker Flashbacks No. 1, Series 1 (1945), Child of Divorce (1946), Banjo (Piccolo cuore, 1947), Flicker Flashbacks No. 1 (1947), Mr. Bell (1947), Flicker Flashbacks No. 2 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 3 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 4 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 5 (1948), Bodyguard (Squadra mobile 61, 1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 6 (1948), Flicker Flashbacks No. 7 (1948), Design for Death (Progetto di morte, mm, 1948), So This Is New York (Così questa è New York, 1948), The Clay Pigeon (Bersaglio umano, 1949), Follow Me Quietly (Seguimi in silenzio, 1949), Make Mine Laughs (1949), Trapped (1949), Armored Car Robbery (Sterminate la gang!, 1950), His Kind of Woman (Il suo tipo di donna, 1951), The Narrow Margin (Le iene di Chicago, 1952), The Happy Time (Tempo felice, 1952), Arena (1953), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (20.000 leghe sotto i mari, 1954), Violent Saturday (Sabato tragico, 1955), The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (L'altalena di velluto rosso, 1955), Bandido! (id., 1956), Between Heaven and Hell (I diavoli del Pacifico, 1956), The Vikings (I Vichinghi, 1958), Compulsion (Frenesia del delitto, 1959), These Thousand Hills (Il re della prateria, 1959), Crack in the Mirror (Dramma nello specchio, 1960), The Big Gamble (Il grosso rischio, 1961), Barabbas (id., 1962), Fantastic Voyage (Viaggio allucinante, 1966), Doctor Dolittle (Il favoloso dr. Dolittle, 1967), Think Twentieth (1967), The Boston Strangler (Lo strangolatore di Boston, 1968), Che! (id., 1969), Tora! Tora! Tora! (id., 1970), Ten Rillington Place (L'assassino di Rillington Place n. 10, 1971), The Last Run (L'ultima fuga, 1971), Blind Terror (Terrore cieco, 1971), The New Centurions (I nuovi centurioni, 1972), Soylent Green (2022: i sopravvissuti, 1973), The Don Is Dead (Il boss è morto, 1973), The Spikes Gang (La banda di Harry Spikes, 1974), Mr. Majestyk (A muso duro, 1974), Mandingo (id., 1975), The Incredible Sarah (Sarah Bernhardt - La più grande attrice di tutti i tempi, 1976), Crossed Swords (Il principe e il povero, 1978), Ashanti (id., 1979), The Jazz Singer (Il cantante di jazz, 1980), Tough Enough (Il duro più duro, 1983), Amityville 3-D (id., 1983), Conan the Destroyer (Conan il distruttore, 1984), Red Sonja (Yado, 1985), Million Dollar Mystery (Il mistero da 4 milioni di dollari, 1987), Call from Space (1989).