Good evening. Welcome to Cinema Classics. I'm David Stratton. Two contrasting films
tonight. Later on, a classic from Hollywood's early 30s, Lewis Milestone's 1932 version
of Somerset Mourn's Rain, starring Joan Crawford and Walter Houston. But first, by popular
demand, Stalker, one of the finest films from the late Andrei Tarkovsky, who was one of
the most original, exceptional talents to work in the cinema. You might have already
guessed this if you saw any of his previous films. Solaris, for instance, that epic science
fiction movie, or Andrei Rublev, which I hope to show soon on this program. Epic is probably
a good word to use because Tarkovsky makes epic films, though not in the sense that Hollywood
would have used the word. The title of Stalker refers to a kind of person, a stalker, who
is drawn by strange powers to guide others through the zone. And the zone is a mysterious
place that has suddenly arrived in a desolated countryside. Maybe it's the result of an outer
space visitation. At any rate, the authorities forbid entry to the zone, but the stalker
defies them and goes there together with a writer looking for artistic inspiration and
a professor seeking to solve scientific problems. Cautiously, they enter the zone, whose center
point is the mysterious room, a place which apparently holds extraordinary properties.
So here they are, Tarkovsky's three central characters, the stalker, representing faith,
played by Alexander Kaidanovsky, the writer, art, by Anatoly Solonitsyn, the professor,
science, by Nikolai Grinko. The zone they enter at such peril doesn't look so very
different from the desolated world they've left behind. Maybe, after all, freedom is
all in the mind. Stalker is a completely original film, a difficult film for some, but brimming
with ideas. It's also extremely pessimistic, but still a most fascinating experience.
Here it is, Tarkovsky's Stalker.
Stalker, a quite unique and extraordinary film. Tarkovsky adapted it from part of a
story by two popular Soviet science fiction writers, the Strugatsky brothers, but in the
original story, the visitors to the zone returned with scientific equipment they found
abandoned there. Tarkovsky's interests are quite different. He said of the film, my stalker
is the last of the idealists, a man who believes the possibility of happiness, independent
of the will or of the capabilities of people. He also said, my aim was to create a character
who was weak and defenseless, a weak man who, in my view, is, in the final analysis, the
most powerful of men, invincible in the spiritual sense. I hate supermen. They're the weakest
thing there could be. All you have to do is walk up behind them unnoticed and switch them
off like a robot.
Well next week on Cinema Classics, a double bill of two very sardonic comedies, comedies
with political allusions. First, Uri Menzel's long-banned Larks on a String, made in 1969
and only released a year ago. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin last February. And it'll be
followed by Jean Renoir's famous cynical comedy La Règle du Jeu, Rules of the Game,
a great and elegant film which was also unseen for a great many years. So that's Uri Menzel's
Larks on a String and Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, next on Cinema Classics. And
now stay viewing for a very different kind of movie, Joan Crawford in Rain.
On Saturday, a movie which was banned for over 20 years.
A sharp political satire from the director of Closely Watch Trains, Uri Menzel.
It's a gem, Larks on a String, 8.30 Saturday on Cinema Classics.
The relationship between climate and man, a major three-part series beginning seven
o'clock Monday.
Welcome back. And now for Rain, made in 1932 by the Ukrainian-born director Louis Milestone.
Rain was the second version of Somerset Maughan's rather notorious story about a prostitute,
Sadie Thompson, and a preacher set on a South Pacific island. The book was originally filmed
by Raoul Walsh in 1927 as Sadie Thompson, with Gloria Swanson in the lead and Walsh
himself playing the preacher. And it would be remade in 1953, in 3D actually, by Curtis
Bernhardt with Rita Hayworth and Jose Ferreira as Miss Sadie Thompson.
Well, in its day, this version, Rain, wasn't terribly well thought of. To start with, the
preacher character has been softened into a reformer, played by Walter Houston, father
of John Houston. Well, this immediately softens the drama, because if Davidson isn't a priest,
his relationship with Sadie is less compromising, though I suppose not that much less. But on
the plus side, there's Joan Crawford as Sadie Thompson. Her first appearance, bejeweled hand,
neat ankle, is wonderful, and the actress gives one of her most convincing performances
in this role. Houston, too, is excellent. Always a fine screen actor, he makes the very
most of his character. The strong supporting cast includes Guy Kibbe, William Gargan as
the young sergeant, Bula Bondi as Davidson's prissy wife, and Walter Catlett as the doctor.
Overall, the rain in the film is impressive. You can practically feel the steamy heat of
Samoa, despite the fact that most of the film was shot, as was the custom in those days,
in the studio. So here it is, Lewis Milestones, Rain.