Country: US
Technical: bw 121m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Paolo Stoppa, Christian Marquand
Synopsis:
Twenty years after the Civil War, a former Republican guerrilla fighter is implored by the son of a former comrade to take vengeance on his father's Civil Guard nemesis. The latter meanwhile uses the veteran's dying mother as bait to finally snare him.
Review:
The figures of informant and Catholic priest also come to complicate the mix, making this seem every bit like a Carol Reed/Graham Greene collaboration. The cinematography is fine, too, but dramatically it suffers from a disunity of action: is it about the boy's coming of age, the priest's conscience, or the old survivor's last act of self-justification? Its failure to resolve these threads made it hard to market, and the quizzical ending won't have helped, but there are good things here, and Sharif's is an unsung performance between two Lean masterpieces.
Country: US
Technical: bw 121m
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Cast: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif, Paolo Stoppa, Christian Marquand
Synopsis:
Twenty years after the Civil War, a former Republican guerrilla fighter is implored by the son of a former comrade to take vengeance on his father's Civil Guard nemesis. The latter meanwhile uses the veteran's dying mother as bait to finally snare him.
Review:
The figures of informant and Catholic priest also come to complicate the mix, making this seem every bit like a Carol Reed/Graham Greene collaboration. The cinematography is fine, too, but dramatically it suffers from a disunity of action: is it about the boy's coming of age, the priest's conscience, or the old survivor's last act of self-justification? Its failure to resolve these threads made it hard to market, and the quizzical ending won't have helped, but there are good things here, and Sharif's is an unsung performance between two Lean masterpieces.
