Trailers & Clips, Plus:
19400119 You Natzi Spy (A Fiesta 8/13) & 19400102 The Shadow Serial (A Fiesta 6)
Before Chaplin, The Stooges Were Making Fun of Hitler.
And The Movies:
19400120 Hidden Enemy & 19400131 Convicted Woman
Just Hit Play All & Enjoy The Full Fiesta 13.
Entertainment from January 1940.
Skip to Taste.
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19400107 21 Days Together (A Fiesta 8)
(Criterion)
Larry’s (Olivier) dating a married woman who’s husband has been estranged from her for three years. The husband shows up asking for money. Larry and the man fight and Larry accidentally kills the husband.
Then he goes to the cops to report the accidental death. Movie over.
Nope.
He dumps the body under an archway in the poor section of town. His bossy, older brother Keith who is vying for a very public judgeship tells Larry to leave the country to avoid his bad publicity. But, Larry, for some reason, returns to the scene of the crime and runs into a former minister, Evan, now a sad sack tramp who found Larry’s bloody glove and stole a ring from the corpse.
Of course, the cops arrest Evan.
So, Larry steps in to keep an innocent man from the chair.
Again, nope.
Sad Sack Evan, feeling bad about stealing the ring, lets the police and prosecutors condemn and railroad him for the murder.
Because Evan’s fate wouldn’t be decided for 21 days, Keith tells Larry & his now wife to take a glamorous round-the-world trip to pack “a lifetime of a marriage into 21 days” before Larry turns himself in.
You know, while Evan the loser sits in jail waiting to die. Real hero, Larry. If we’all commit a crime, say, at the very least, not reporting an accidental death or something, hope we’all can take a three week vaca before turning ourselves in. Plus, who could even enjoy a pre-prison honeymoon? We’all are unnerved pushing the elevator button, much less letting a man rot in prison.
This movie, presented as a kind of Rom-Com, failed. Lawrence Olivier & Vivian Leigh never even seemed like they loved each other. A Hitchcockian movie without Hitchcockian justice.
Did 21 Days Together go to CrazyTown? No, not at all.
With the Deus Ex Machina ending, 21 Days Together stalls suddenly out in AngryVille. We’all haven’t been annoyed with such a misfire of an ending in a while.
21 Days Together gets 8 Fiestas out of 13. Feeling generous. Call it Anger Guilt.
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