Repost: Breakfast at Tiffany's (August 4th at the Palace Theatre)

[BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S screens Saturday August 4th at 8:00 pm at the Palace Theatre as part of Cinema at the Square]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Elsewhere on this site I vent my contempt for the general run of “date movies” and Valentine’s Day in general. However, I must be kind to BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, screening in revival here coincident to the unfortunate romance-connected holiday (I guess if militant Islam conquers us, Valentine’s Day will be banned under Sharia law; is that a silver lining or what?). BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S is a celluloid valentine, to the only things that really deserve a valentine – to New York City in 1961, to the beauty and grace of Audrey Hepburn, and to youthful illusions and metropolitan delusions. All are given a glossy sheen in champagne direction by the recently deceased Blake Edwards.

Wait Until Dark (February 26 at 5:15 p.m. and February 27 at 1 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[WAIT UNTIL DARK screens Saturday February 26th at 5:15 p.m. and Sunday February 27th at 1 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Wow, watching 1967's high-profile suspense thriller WAIT UNTIL DARK today ought to make our 21st-century jazz musicians, models, actors and artists appreciate just how tough and complicated it was for their predecessors of an earlier generation to obtain heroin. Maybe they'll stop being all snooty and looking down on rural folk or Cleveland west-siders for turning to easily available methamphetamine instead. 

The premise of WAIT UNTIL DARK is that a fortune in smack has been sewn into a rag doll in Canada to get it past customs and into NYC. For reasons I still can't really understand, the doll is passed on to an unwitting (?) accomplice who leaves it in a supposed safe place; the walk-down apartment-darkroom shared by a commercial photographer and his pretty wife Susan (Audrey Hepburn), who was blinded in an accident and is still learing to adapt. Now, all that remains is for the bad guys - a troika, consisting of two longtime scammers (Richard Crenna and Cleveland-born Jack Weston) and a beatnik-punk interloper Stanley Roat (Alan Arkin) - to infiltrate the place and locate the elusive doll. 

Two For the Road (Febraury 19th and 20th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[TWO FOR THE ROAD screens Saturday February 19th at 5:15 pm. and Sunday February 20th at 6:30 p.m. at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Wow, it's true, 1960s movies really were full of unecessary zooms. Ouch, "Wayne's World" flashback! To think my life would be so empty today that I'd be prone to "Wayne's World" flashbacks at all. But rueful, semi-nostalgic reflection (and unncecessary zooms) is what TWO FOR THE ROAD is all about. It's a 1967 romantic dramedy, and while the "mod" fashions, Euro-settings, fast-motion slapstick, Henry Mancini music and New Wave edits aren't Austin-Powers campy, they sure are noticeable. It stars Albert Finney as Mark, a successful but slightly a-hole-ish architect married for 12 years to once-unspoiled wife Joanna (Audrey Hepburn). Now, despite Mark's career success and a daughter Joanna dearly wanted to have when Mark didn't, they're both severely jaded about each other. During a road trip through the south of France they flash back on the ups and downs of their courtship and souring relationship over key previous excursions.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (February 12th and 13th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S screens Saturday February 12th at 5:15pm and Sunday February 13th at 8:05pm.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

Elsewhere on this site I vent my contempt for the general run of “date movies” and Valentine’s Day in general. However, I must be kind to BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, screening in revival here coincident to the unfortunate romance-connected holiday (I guess if militant Islam conquers us, Valentine’s Day will be banned under Sharia law; is that a silver lining or what?). BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S is a celluloid valentine, to the only things that really deserve a valentine – to New York City in 1961, to the beauty and grace of Audrey Hepburn, and to youthful illusions and metropolitan delusions. All are given a glossy sheen in champagne direction by the recently deceased Blake Edwards.