I really was expecting a "skin flick" based on its lobby cards when I first saw this film adaptation of Jean Genet's "The Balcony" in the summer of 1963, but I was definitely in for an awakening -- rude perhaps but definitely an awakening.
I recommended the film to the owner of Gainesville, Florida's independent movie theater based on the original road show I had seen; however, I had to eat my words when he was only able to book the bowdlerized version that was available for distribution only a few short months after the film's original release. Perhaps too many people had been lured into theaters by the lobby card promise of a "skin flick" and were upset when they were greeted with a film that actually made the audience think for a change.
I rented the DVD today and watched the uncut version of "The Balcony" for the first time since that original viewing some 43 years ago. I took notice of the grainy stock footage used in most of the exterior scenes and compared them with the crisp images of the interior of the TV studio sound-stage, Madame Irma's house of illusions, and I wondered if this might not have been deliberate -- reality is actually grainy and slightly out of focus while our fantasy world is crisply delineated but still patently phony as when Peter Falk as George, the Chief of Police, breaks through the kraft-paper door or when the rocks -- in the Leonard Nimoy as Roger fantasy -- oscillate when touched.
Shelley Winters was ideal as Irma; I cannot think of another actress working in 1963 who could have done better in the part. The rest of the cast was also exceptional.
One note concerning another comment about Peter Falk's accent being Southern and German -- surely this was said in jest? Falk's accent was a combination of his native New York accent and a put-on Latin American/Spanish accent if it was anything. Again, that mixture of accents was in keeping with the part and with the fantasy.
"The Balcony" was definitely worth watching again some 43 years after I saw it during its first run. Will I still think so if I watch it after another 43 year interim? I think I probably will. . . .
I recommended the film to the owner of Gainesville, Florida's independent movie theater based on the original road show I had seen; however, I had to eat my words when he was only able to book the bowdlerized version that was available for distribution only a few short months after the film's original release. Perhaps too many people had been lured into theaters by the lobby card promise of a "skin flick" and were upset when they were greeted with a film that actually made the audience think for a change.
I rented the DVD today and watched the uncut version of "The Balcony" for the first time since that original viewing some 43 years ago. I took notice of the grainy stock footage used in most of the exterior scenes and compared them with the crisp images of the interior of the TV studio sound-stage, Madame Irma's house of illusions, and I wondered if this might not have been deliberate -- reality is actually grainy and slightly out of focus while our fantasy world is crisply delineated but still patently phony as when Peter Falk as George, the Chief of Police, breaks through the kraft-paper door or when the rocks -- in the Leonard Nimoy as Roger fantasy -- oscillate when touched.
Shelley Winters was ideal as Irma; I cannot think of another actress working in 1963 who could have done better in the part. The rest of the cast was also exceptional.
One note concerning another comment about Peter Falk's accent being Southern and German -- surely this was said in jest? Falk's accent was a combination of his native New York accent and a put-on Latin American/Spanish accent if it was anything. Again, that mixture of accents was in keeping with the part and with the fantasy.
"The Balcony" was definitely worth watching again some 43 years after I saw it during its first run. Will I still think so if I watch it after another 43 year interim? I think I probably will. . . .