Two For The Road - Dos En La Carretera (1967) (Import)

I tried watching "Two For the Road" some years ago, but it was so dire that I gave up half way through. Recently I noted that imdb gives it a rating of 7.5, and it has some excellent reviews on Amazon. I decided "it must have been me" and that, now that I have matured and mellowed, I would probably enjoy it.I'm sorry. I gritted my teeth and saw it through to the bitter end, but this remains one of the worst films I have ever seen. Where to start? Well, begin with the total miscasting and then direction of Albert Finney in the male romantic lead. He;s supposed to be a successful architect, and the husband of Audrey Hepburn. But Stanly Donnen allowed him to basically recreate Arthur Seaton from "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", but with a strange mid-Atlantic twang that is explained away by him supposedly having spent two years studying architecture in Chicago. He comes across as an obnoxious, loud-mouthed boor, and the idea of Audrey Hepburn, or any sensitive woman falling in love with him is risible. Hepburn herself is playing.... herself. And, as Dorothy Parker supposedly said of the other Hepburn, Katherine, she "runs the gamut of emotions from A to B". Hepburn can be stylish and decorative, and I admire her greatly for her stoicism in wartime Holland and then as a UNICEF ambassador. But she is not a great actress and here, her emotions lurch alarmingly and unconvincingly from professed love one minute, to angry rage the next. There is no sexual chemistry between the stars, and it's simply not credible that they got together in the first place. She looks unhappy most of the time. This could be acting the role of the mistreated and betrayed wife. More likely she's wondering how her agent got her into this catastrophe, and how many more scenes she needs to shoot beforer she can escape.The script, by Frederick Raphael, is unsubtle, desperately unfunny, and the "humorous moments" (this is supposed to be rom-com), few and very far between. He never really wrote much comedy, and I think, given this perormance, that this was a wise career move.William Daniels, as an American tourist who is obsessed with micro-managing his trip, with Eleanor Bron as his wife (and why couldn't they find an American to play her?) try their best, and gave me the very occasional smile, but their spoiled brat of a daughter set my teeth on edge and must have done quite a bit to lower the birth rate in the mid-sixties.No...... take my advice, avoid. I shall try to forget this turkey as, I am sure, did everyoone involved in making it at the time.

In his other famous opus released two years later, “The Leopard”, Visconti will describe the decline of the Sicilian nobility, replaced by an affairist and trivial bourgeoisie. Here, closer to Vittorio de Sica, he is interested in the misery of the people of the Mezzogiorno in the post-war period. Fundamentally rooted in Italian neo-realism, “Rocco and His Brothers” tells an extraordinary family tragedy – reminiscent in some aspects of Coppola’s “The Godfather” – against the backdrop of a rural exodus of a family from southern Italy to the lure of the Lombard capital. This long fresco tells us about the difficulties faced by the members of this family of immigrants from the interior who have fled Basilicata and the psychological changes this causes in them.The starting point of the story is relatively simple: To escape poverty, a widow and four of her five sons move to Milan, where the fifth has just got engaged to Ginetta (Claudia Cardinale), a middle-class girl. They plan to be accommodated by the in-laws, who refuse for lack of space. They end up in a slum, in the basement of an ABR building.All the brothers are looking for work: Simone (excellent Renato Salvatori), Rocco (Alain Delon, touched by grace), Ciro and Luca (both more discreet). Simone becomes a boxer at the local club and aims for a professional career. He falls in love with Nadia (bright Annie Girardot), a 25-year-old prostitute who will never love him. She will finally fall in love with his brother Rocco, the same one who will be much more skillful with gloves in hand on the ring, leading Simone, jealous, into a black rage. But Rocco refuses any confrontation with his brother. As such, a terrible scene censored and reintegrated into this new version is the turning point of the film.However, to reduce “Rocco and his brothers” to this opposition between the two brothers would be to ignore Visconti’s cinematographic mastery. Thus, through the prism of this a priori Manichaean history, the director explores a plurality of social and political themes: the uprooting of a family from the south to the north of Italy, the living conditions of the industrial proletariat, the ambition, family honour and the hope of social elevation. A landscape of violence where the infinite tenderness of one and the bestial brutality of the other are opposed. Failed boxer, unhappy lover, Simone sinks into delinquency and crime: theft, rape, prostitution and murder.Every time, Rocco covers him and pays for him. In the end, he’s as guilty as his brother. Doesn’t he shout it himself at the end?

This is one of my favourite movies of all time. I first saw it as a youth on it's original release. I was blown away by the locations, the filming, editing, story line. This is the movie that made me an Audrey Hepburn tragic. It was the coolest of the cool at the time. The car, the clothes, the styling and the Cote Azur and Provence countryside. But is also had depth. Although the advertising gave the impression that this was another romantic comedy, it is really a drama. It has a hard edge that has to a lot to say for modern relationships. Now and then. The script is really great and the acting of a high standard in most cases. Particularly Audrey Hepburn. I believe this to be one of her best performances. Albert Finney is also very good although not an altogether likable character. Eleanor Bron and William Daniels are both very effective and very funny as the Maxwell-Manchesters. The movie is showing its age a bit maybe because it was such a movie of it's time. So hip and Euro 60's. And the theme music is just beautiful. Henry Mancini once said that it was his favourite movie score of his music and I would have to agree.This Blu-ray version is great. Fantastic quality and the commentary by director Stanley Donen is worth a listen.

It's not fair to everyone to ask me to review any Audrey Hepburn movie, because she can do no wrong, she is style elegance, humour, charm, what more to say?-oh yes the film, well it's an intelligent examination of the various stages of marriage told through flashbacks tp happy times to present difficulties.Hepburn has married Albert finned and is having fun, but as life goes on the usual strains begin to occur, witty intelligent movie, great locations in the south of France. An excellent watch, very good performances and acting from both.