we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

looks like i picked the wrong way to

quit sniffing blue light

of my life we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

[Music]

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time

i'm patrick o'reilly i'm jesse bayless

and i'm richard wells and today marks

the 40th anniversary of the release of

niginsky

on march 21 1980. it was written by hugh

wheeler

based on a book by romala naginski based

on

the diary of maslov nizinski directed by

herbert ross and released by paramount

pictures

this was executive producer harry

saltzman's second attempt at a naginski

movie

the previous attempt was a co-production

with albert brockley 10 years earlier

and was cancelled in pre-production

that version was written by edward albee

who had written like who's afraid of

virginia woolf

and it was directed by tony richardson

who had won best director

for tom jones in 63 prior to

that attempt the first attempt is

referred to as najinski

unfinished project but it never actually

got

filmed and edited in completion i think

i would have liked this film more

if i had known it was based on a real

person

before i watched it instead of after i

watched it oh i didn't realize you

didn't know that it was a

biographical thing i i had no idea

because i don't know anything about

ballet

and i didn't know that this was a real

person

well there you go herbert ross was

brought on

after directing the turning point in

1977

possibly because of his connection to

mikhail barishnikov

who appeared in that film barishnikov

turned down the role of nijinsky here

and the role was played by george

yalapenia who was his stand-in on the

turning point

the film is also the very first

appearance of actor jeremy irons

we start the film uh with a long dark

hallway where we're slowly pushing into

voslov naginski and a straitjacket

staring blankly ahead

spoiling the film yeah well also though

i didn't realize what i was looking at

until

it reappeared as the last shot i'm like

oh that's what that shot was

yeah well i for me i noticed it

so i was just like oh okay whatever this

is it's gonna end up with him going

crazy i guess

we cut to a hotel in budapest in

february of 1912

sergei enters a hotel with cloth over

his mouth because he seems

germaphobic or something doesn't play

into the plot anywhere beyond this scene

but he comments that his bell boy has a

strong back and could be a dancer

but asks how old he is and when he says

12 he's like you're too old

he goes and he wakes up naginski in his

hotel room even though the physician's

like oh pete's on bed rest he needs to

recover um and he says hey i booked us

three tours in france and england

and he gives them a gift which is like a

shard of a clay pot with a fawn painted

on it

and they share a kiss through this the

germ cloth

doesn't count if it's through the sheet

yeah exactly

well it's like you also like you have to

pay attention to which side was on your

mouth and which side is on the other

person's mouth

it was it was like 1911. i don't think

that anybody's really

looking out for germs at this point he

had the cloth for some reason

but uh also i thought like

that this was the first implication that

they were lovers right yeah

um but then there's a line of dialogue

they're talking about the shepherd voice

it's like that's for you not for me it's

like

oh so he's not gay

oh no i i think that line was just to be

like i'm not the person who like

stares at boys all day that's your thing

you're the one who stares at me i don't

i don't

go around looking for other men uh we

cut to the home

of romela who is with her sister in a

bedroom

uh getting ready to go see naginski star

in

a ballet and her sister is very jealous

she goes to the show with her mom

and she says that she wants to be a

famous dancer and her mom is i guess an

actress retired or

right or failed i'm not sure but she

basically talks down all of

her daughter's hopes and dreams she's

like oh that you change your mind so

often about what you want to be like

after we saw that rodan exhibition you

said you were going to be

a giant pterodactyl bird yes

i did have a hard time writing rodin

with an with an eye

i kept trying to put the kaiju name in

here

this is another this is another case of

us being uncultured swine

yes oh i forgot to put the disclaimer um

exhibit but it was where are

the monsters statues no no no kaiju

yeah um we don't know anything about

ballet or

like classical music or anything in

general

so uh if you do anything in general we

literally don't know anything so if you

do like those things you might as well

skip the rest of this episode

because i just wanted like a skip dance

button every time ballet started

because i don't i don't know i can't

tell when it's supposed to be

good or bad yeah and i did i did skip

all the performances i was like

scrubbing through again it would have

been so much faster oh my god this movie

would have been 10 minutes long that's

not true it's still pretty long

i'd like that you skipped all the dances

and it still took you an hour and a half

to watch the first hour

how does this happen back back to the

rodan point

she says she says they saw a rodan

exhibition and that romola claimed that

she wanted to be hungary's first

great sculptress you were going to be

hungary's first great sculptures

which is a word that i used during our

review of

last married couple and you guys both

made fun of me because you said they're

just called sculptors

so i just wanted there's a little

vindication here i'm using 1912

terminology but sculptris is a thing

that i didn't invent on my own

she uh during during the ballet she's

clearly fascinated by nijitsuki's

performance

but afterwards we hear the show is

losing money and they need to find more

people to

invest in it jeremy irons shows up as

mikhail

and he's the choreographer for the

company and he's heard a rumor that

sergey is planning

a ballet specifically for vasilov to

star in and he's upset about that

because

he likes to pick everything out and he

uses all of his own people and

and he thinks that foslov is just

sergei's boyfriend and doesn't deserve

to be the center of one of his

choreography works that's what they're

called right choreography works

do you ballet experts who didn't heed my

warning

sergey tells him that there's nothing to

the rumor and that he sometimes has to

indulge him

uh to just keep him working for the

studio and not to worry about it

romela sneaks into a rehearsal because

she wants to speak with sergey

diagolev which my uh talk to text

knew how to spell i was very impressed

but

when she tries to speak to him he walks

right past her

because he knows that people are there

to just try and get jobs from him and he

doesn't react to them yeah

but uh she decides she's going to stick

around and just watch najinsky practice

uh voice to text says she sticks around

to watch

the jet ski practice it's not perfect

technology but it's getting better

guys i think that that would have made

for a much more interesting movie yes

the jetski dancing around on stage

richard's not fast-forwarding through

any rehearsed choreographed jet ski

dance

no i'm watching that see

uh we cut to greece in march of 1912.

sergey and oginski are on vacation

exploring the ruins of ancient greece

i'm assuming that they're trying to get

inspiration for his

for his play yeah for his show dance

thing

belly belly you're gonna do the

the belly they keep calling it bally

like it's a total fitness

the boys do football not bali is that a

thing still

what bally's valley's total fitness

i'm pretty sure it is maybe not like i

don't know i feel like that ended with

the 90s

valley who valley high

no all right no another musical naginsky

asks

sergey if he's ever been with a woman

and sergey responds that he has been

with

three and a half women god najibski's

like

what was the half time well she was cut

in half by a buzz song

well actually he says when was the

halftime and i wanted him to say like

oh in the middle of the game which half

they defer to the second half but he

says he says when was the half time and

he says

well i suddenly said to myself in the

middle of this

this is it ridiculous

made me laugh really hard they look at a

lot of ancient greek art

and naginsky sees the ancient pot with

the painting of the fawn on it again

um and he's like oh this is from the

same period right he's like don't

worry about that you're just playing the

fawn you don't need to know the

historical accuracy of stuff we have

people for that

so just ignore it uh we moved back to

the theater where leo or leon

is presenting the costumes for the show

and uh sergey

and mikhail are sitting in the stands

with him

mikhail is very offended by the costumes

because they're much more revealing than

he wanted them to be yeah

and he thinks that sergey is just a

pervert and that he just wants to see

naked people and he doesn't care about

the ballet

the bally the ballot

mikhail's objections are overruled by

sergey who says his taste is impeccable

even when it's bad

i liked that line later mikhail walks in

on leo and

vaslav discussing his bally

and we cut to monte carlo in april of

1912.

april of 1912 a significant month in the

history of the world uh but for some

reason the sinking of the titanic plays

no part in

any of this story okay anytime you hear

april 1912 you're expecting

some important person related to these

people is dead well

they kept they kept making such a point

of showing the exact

month and it was like is this building

up to like world war one

and is it trying to keep us on our toes

for something but it like

never plays a factor i mean i think that

the point of the dates was just to show

you

how quickly this all sort of progressed

maybe this all happened in a very short

period of time

anyway we're in monte carlo now in april

of 1912.

romula is meeting with an old classmate

who has

connections to this ballet company seems

like this is someone who she hated in

school

yeah and has since learned that oh she

has money and she has connections to

this

theater production so i'm gonna go

bother her

and pretend like we were best friends

and she just misunderstood so that i can

get into this

this uh company yeah she calls her out

on it later

but doesn't seem to care yeah and she's

kind of like doesn't even

yeah they're just joking about it but uh

she says that she wants to meet

sergey basically uh sergey meets with

baron de gunsburg for money who's more

than happy to shell out the cash

right he he says like he wakes up at

night like from nightmares because he's

afraid he's not giving enough money to

artists apparently he writes what people

owe him on his sleeves

like that's how he keeps track of debts

but he said that his valit keeps

washing his shirts before he can

transfer the numbers to any permanent

uh books mishka the mikhail that's his

nickname

jeremy irons uh enters and confronts

sergei

about voslov's play because by now it's

been confirmed that

a play is being centered around sergey's

boyfriend

and he says you're gonna shut that all

down and we're gonna start from scratch

and we're gonna actually cast somebody

for this

and uh sergey basically tells him

you're you can quit if you want your

contract is up in november

but uh it's up to me and you're really

not in a

position to make any kind of demands for

me mikhail basically surrenders and

leaves

and sergey admits that he feels like

he's losing his creative

ability and he needs to keep finding

new creative people to fill the void or

else the the whole company is going to

go down

romela and magda her childhood friend go

to a play

and during the play she turns and says

oh i would love to meet sergey

and she says oh well that's easy i could

set that up uh you could meet him after

and she's like yeah that's what i

thought

and she's just like oh i want to be

furious with you

and they're both just laughing about it

but they sit there and watch vaslav

and then magda says perhaps he'll fall

in love with you

and marry you and then romelu says idiot

like like yes that's what i want too but

you can't just say it out loud when

we're watching this play

romula or probably her money make a very

good impression

on the baron at the party after the play

or the ballet

he decides to introduce her to sergey

because more people should be throwing

money at this company

just him and sergey

seems to approve but he basically says

that the maestro has to say yes

it's not up to me because i'm not

discriminating enough of the talent

so he says go meet with the maestro she

goes to the maestro and the maestro says

go take some more dancing lessons and

come back to me she's like all right

that's great thank you so much

all right i have a four-step plan right

but at least there's like

everything's laid out and she knows what

she has to do in what order

we cut to paris in may of 1912 the

titanic is now underwater

nobody cares uh mikhail confronts sergey

about vasilov's play preempting his at

this theater

uh basically the two belays are playing

in a row the ballets are going to be in

a row

for their debut and mikhail is concerned

that everyone will leave before

his show finishes because it's so late

at night especially the critics

right and sergey's had enough of

listening to mikhail argue into one ear

while he's trying

to listen to the rehearsal performance

with his other ear

and he says fine we'll trade you can

have the first show of the night i don't

care

get out i'm gonna ask them to start the

song over because i couldn't hear any of

it because you were talking to me but on

his way out of the theater mchale bumps

into

voslov and calls him a filthy pederast



because he's basically deciding

once once this trade was complete that

was that was the last thing he's going

to do for him yeah that he's gonna be

leaving the company

uh we get the performance of the ballet

that included the fawn and

at the shall we say climax of the

performance

that's not let's not say that let's not

say that okay uh the fawn is dancing

around

and it falls in love with another

character who leaves like a scarf on

stage

he humps it into the stage four and

everyone starts booing immediately

well in the audience it's mixed there

are some people who are

who are applauding it right but the the

i would say the overriding

sound here is people booing yeah and

that's the first indication that we get

it's like

oh that wasn't that wasn't in the script

and then as the curtains closed these

two other stage hands run up and they're

like

why did you do that and he's like i

didn't do it it was the fawn

uh historically that that when this

happened

the there were a lot of people in

defense of it like other famous like

i don't doubt it creative artists were

like no that was that was pretty

provocative and crazy yeah and sergey's

not upset at all he's ecstatic because

he said the whole time that what he

thought was his talent was finding

people who can embody the characters

and that he was so inside this

character's head that he

that he just took this action on his own

and it completely changed the nature of

the play and he loves it

and he knows that they're gonna sell out

the rest of the season because it's so

provocative

then we get this scene where a guy's

playing the piano but he's playing it

exaggeratedly badly

so that we know oh no he's not

apparently this is great and everyone's

crying because it's so beautiful

um i thought the joke was supposed to be

that this guy's

terrible at his job and then he wrote a

bad song no but it's stravinsky

right and uh it's wonderful and uh

the pianist does a few rehearsals with

vaslov

trying to count him out like the steps

of the ballet

but vaslov can't keep the number

straight because the pattern changes

constantly

[Music]

and he's not as good a dancer as people

who maybe aren't sergey's boyfriend

might be and

when he complains to sergey about it

sergey basically says oh

are you offering to quit because that's

what would happen here i wouldn't

fire vaslav i would be firing you

and we get all these scenes of him just

trying really hard to

teach foslov the numbers which reminded

me of the scene in citizen kane when

there's the

person at the piano trying to teach uh

citizen kane's girlfriend how to sing

the notes

and she's just a bad singer

[Music]

easier to show that someone's bad at

singing then they can't keep up with

these this number set that i have no

idea what you're doing

and i would be just as confused as him

uh another dancer takes a shot at

dancing to

the same counting basically and when she

can't keep up with it

nigensky loses his patience with her and

just chews her out in front of the

entire

production he meets with

the baron and the baron says well you

know i'm still going to put my money

into this play but

i wish i had something short that i

could put in front of it like a shorter

ballet

that maybe i could have my name on like

i want to put my mark on something

and then he pitches him this terrible

tennis ball

which i don't know if the joke was

supposed to be that it's terrible or if

it's actually terrible

but it does bomb so i feel like

my artistic sense i'm giving myself some

credit here

for recognizing that this was a dumb

idea for our ballet

romela is invited to train with the cast

she has done a good enough job with her

separate dance instructor in hungary and

then come back to train with the maestro

and now she's

in the room with voslov training and she

compliments him on his way out of a

rehearsal

a ballet about native americans goes

poorly

booze are overpowering the stage to the

point that they can't even hear the

numbers or the music being counted off

and they're throwing garbage up onto the

stage i imagine it's their programs the

only thing that they probably would have

had with them

well i didn't people used to bring

rotten fruit to performances just in

case they were bad

i don't i don't know yeah but everybody

basically rushes the stage and throws

everything on stage

they book a series of shows in south

america yeah because the uh russian

venue that they had

uh burned to the ground yes so they're

hanging out on a beach

between that tour and this tour and

vaslov is

uh poking fun at sergei for being afraid

of the water

because like a gypsy or a fortune teller

told him that he was going to drown

that's how he would die then he says oh

well maybe that's what's going to happen

on the way to south america maybe the

ship will sink or something and he's

like please don't make fun of me

just go build sand castles or something

and then fazlov gets upset because he's

being treated like a child

nujinski basically has a meltdown about

being overworked

and sergey says if you want me to step

away from the show i'll step away from

it for this tour

and he's like oh you're just saying that

because you don't you're afraid of the

water and you think you're going to

drown it's like no i

legitimately care about you being able

to do this performance and if i'm

stifling you or if i'm driving you crazy

then maybe we

maybe would be good for both of us if we

took some time apart romula tries to

convince foslov to write his own ballets

in the absence of any work coming in

from sergey

the baron intercepts a telegram that

sergey is looking for someone

to play the lead in their south american

performances

other than voslov because the joseph

character is supposed to be 15.

now vaslov plays this off like he knew

about it and that he says oh yeah we

both decided that because the character

is so young that they might need someone

else

but is the implication that he didn't

actually know about it and this is the

first he's hearing and he's trying to

play it off

well because he seems personally

offended

well he he's he's upset because they he

had already had this conversation with

sergey

yeah and sergey kind of let it drop

yeah i think that it just weighed on it

more because then the baron kept harping

on it like

and then he drops the second part of it

which is that he's working with mishka

yeah again to put that performance

together

and vaslov basically allah citizen kane

again

destroys his hotel room and uh

his ship cabin but yeah right his ship

cabin yeah the room that he's staying in

and uh uh romula finds him

collapsed in the corner crying about his

brother destroying the kitchen

when they were kids uh you get the

impression that the point of this is

that

mental illness runs in the family and

that his brother went crazy and

destroyed their home when when he was

young

and was sent away to an asylum of some

sort uh and the very first scene with

sergey and

vaslav he says something along the lines

of like it's the same thing going to

happen to me that happened to my brother

but she tries to calm him down with her

body

with her body parts and they make out

for a second before he just tears her

dress off

and then they get married because that's

what you do that's you got to make an

honest woman

so but this is actually my favorite

scene of the movie

of course it is there's boobs in it no

no no no not that part the

the marriage part oh right because they

get married

and and just just as they're getting

back from the wedding

right yeah uh the other dancer that he's

in love with

arrives and she doesn't even know about

the wedding

and she's immediately just talking to

him like kissing him and saying oh and

you can just see the look on his face of

like oh god

yeah i made a huge mistake and she's

like aren't you gonna introduce me to

this person who is this and he's like

this is my wife and then he just like he

stares at the camera his eyes he looks

like his head's gonna

blow up but it's also like he's still

wearing a top hat and she's still

wearing her

her outfit from the wedding it's like

yeah

this is my wife as of a few minutes ago

you missed it by that much

have you been here 10 minutes earlier

yeah i would have married you

who knows but uh we we clear up some

other misunderstandings

apparently sergey was unable to find a

young enough person to play joseph so

vasoff gets to play the part anyway

and the only reason he was working with

mishka was because mishka had another

ballet on his contract so he didn't have

a choice about working on it so

basically voslov got mad at sergey and

married this woman for no reason

because sergey hadn't even done anything

to upset him

so he loses it and uh

basically he's inconsolable and

he doesn't want to tell sergey about it

but

sergey finds out that he got married and

he basically says okay well then voslov

is dead to me

yeah you know i'm not gonna right it's

fired yeah

so uh which all happened like i mean

yeah to the real

yeah and i feel like we're not touching

enough on the history since this is a

semi-biographical thing

right that a lot of these things

happened not quite in this order or

in this time frame but these these

terrible terrible shows that he did

failed because he was crazy um

and you know the marriage to this also

crazy woman

who has been stalking him his whole life

yes was it his wife or

the other uh actress goes to the baron

and says we need to solve this problem

the other actress the other actors okay

she goes to the baron and she says

you know we need to solve this problem

this is terrible it's it's ruining

everything and the parent just does not

give a

about anything he's like where are my

peppermints

oh no oh no

wouldn't you know this would happen when

i'm out of my peppermints

vossoff basically wants desperately to

apologize

and when he's telling romula that he's

going to go and apologize romula gets in

his way and says

no no just stay here we'll fix

everything and he

smacks her and instantly regrets it and

she pretends like she understands

completely

and she says that she wants to go talk

to sergey on his behalf

um she says that she's totally willing

to basically surrender him

to sergey and beg for beg for

his love again she'll leave

she'll she'll be out of the picture yes

and so

she does she goes to see sergey and begs

him to take voslov

back and sergey refuses

and so vaslof has a breakdown and is put

in an asylum yeah i love it is like

he'll he'll probably go crazy from this

and he goes

yeah you're probably right cut two he's

already in a straight jacket

we're back to that first shot and then

uh

the credits start and we get the series

of black and white photographs and i was

like

holy crap that guy really looked like

those are just those are still frozen

well as it kept going i was like oh

these are just

this is literally from this film but

it's like why would you make them black

and white

if the movie was in color if they're not

i thought the whole point was going to

be like

look this this was a real person and

this is what he looked like and the

first shot is like kind of further away

and i was like

wow he really kind of looks like him and

they get to the fawn shot i was like wow

i guess

there's a lot of makeup there so you can

make somebody look like and then the

next car it's like oh this is just

blatantly the actor from this movie yeah

these are all shots from this film and

it's not as if photos of this man didn't

exist

there's plenty of plenty of photos so i

just thought that was a weird choice to

end it with

black and white photographs of the actor

that played the character instead of the

actual person

um also the itunes visualizer

over the music of the credits yeah i was

like what is this supposed to be

representing

i feel like that was just like saltsman

was like oh no no no we have to do like

a weird colorful floaty thing that's

what we did on all the james squad

movies

they were like okay i guess it doesn't

really fit

what you're trying to do but because um

if if you're not familiar harry saltzman

obviously is

one half of saltzman broccoli that

co-produced the first

which half uh i think he's the broccoli

half

heir to the broccoli fortune um the

broccoli family did actually invent

broccoli though that's the craziest part

of that whole story

but saltzman and broccoli together

co-produced the first i think

nine eight or nine james bond movies

and then saltsman sold his half to

united artist

who still owns like united artists now

mgm property

yeah and mgm owns half of the rights to

bond with the broccoli family which is

why barber broccoli is now

in charge of the continuity and all the

eon productions

stuff but um yeah saltsman was not as

good with or as careful with his money

and in

the mid 70s had to give away his half

because

he ran uh technicolor into the ground

so he ran out of money uh director

herbert ross here

um has a lot of credits uh stuff that

people have heard of played against sam

with woody allen

uh funny lady seven percent solution

goodbye girl

footloose steel magnolias my blue heaven

it's really all over the place

yeah it seems like he hit every genre

there um the writer hugh wheeler

wrote the musical sweeney todd the demon

barber of fleet street

which is funny because sergey has this

big

black and white stripe with one shot of

white hair in the top of his head

and there's a scene where he's sitting

in a barber's chair getting a shave

uh in the film um the author romalin

oginski obviously

nachinsky's real-life wife wrote a book

which is why

some of the film might not be exactly

accurate to what really happened

by all accounts she was essentially a

stalker um

i think that film represents that pretty

well right i i think the part that i

take issue with

is did she go to sergei and say that you

can

have ozloff back or does she just go and

then not even see him and go back to

vaslav and said

yeah he doesn't want to see you again

and then muslim ended up in an asylum

i'm just going to make random

accusations with this woman but

something tells me that if you wrote in

a book like no look at this total

self-sacrificing move that i did and

there's no one to corroborate it then

it's possible that that scene didn't

even happen in real life but he did get

put in an asylum and she did take care

of him for the next 30 years before he

passed away

george de la pena was fossil off

naginski here we i said before he was

barishinakov's stand-in

in the turning point from the same

director but uh bershnikov apparently

didn't want to play nijinsky in this

movie

leslie brown was romela dapulski

and later romala and nijinsky she was

also in the turning point

and she's actually a dancer right um i

don't know

a lot of the credits for a lot of these

other people ronald lacy obviously oh

yeah ronald lacy you can't

not talk a uh he was uh

leon baxt here the guy who made all the

very provocative costumes but

uh he was president whidmark in the

adventures of buckaroo bonsai

and i'll let you mention his other

credit yeah uh he played the

uh the uh gestapo ss

agent uh in raiders of the lost ark he's

face one in the melting scene

yeah oh my goodness he's terrific uh he

also plays

kind of a crazier similar character in

red sonja yeah

he's a very he's a very strange

individual and he's great

yeah i think he does he does an

excellent job here and then uh

vernon dobchef played sergey grigor

gregorio yeah i don't know who that

character was i don't know who it was

either vernon damp chef

uh played the uh butler

in the less crusade uh when a hair

supporters pretending to be a scottish

lord coming to inspect the tapestries

if you are scottish law then i am mickey

mouse

jeremy irons was michael fokhein

obviously

we said before this is his first feature

but he's weirdly best known for scar's

voice

in lion king i would say if you ask

somebody something that jeremy irons was

in that's probably the first thing they

would say

oh i mean i would go uh did i heard

three

no no no you wouldn't i would i wouldn't

do that

not first you would say scarf first and

then you would say diehard three he's

the

the lesser grouper and he was also

played two characters in the cronenberg

film dead rangers which is amazing

um and he is currently the alfred to the

affleck batman well i guess affleck's

not batman anymore no no but he's alfred

in the

universe because well but will he

continue to

i don't know like superman says he's

still superman so

i don't know okay phil's coming back

that's he says that he hasn't been

officially fired from the role yet

um but you know

that's such a great way to put it i've

been officially fired

yeah he's like nobody told me that i'm

not superman the next time superman

shows up

but we've recast batman so it'd be weird

but he definitely wasn't superman in

shazam

so you don't know that we can see his

face

um that's why i know it was no no they

spent all that money and they just

forgot to use one of the shots with his

face

frederick yeager was uh gabriel astruc

he plays world war one ace in last

crusade

um and then the rest of the people i

didn't really recognize a lot of their

other credits

was there any other notes that you guys

had on the story uh the only other note

that i have

is a crew that uh

getting back to the indiana jones stuff

right is that this was shot by douglas

slocum

uh and uh i think that that

he is a very very big career

and uh you know obviously like although

i just mentioned indiana jones

uh he did like the lion in winter lady

vanishes

uh rollerball uh

you know in his his career goes back to

the 1950s

so i'd say that he is a very noteworthy

person to bring up sure that makes sense

jess up or down on this one uh this

would be a

downed return yeah i'm afraid it's

it's a down for me um just

just too long is very competently made

yes but yeah absolutely um i would say

for me that this is the downest

that i have that i can possibly say like

it's not the worst film it doesn't go at

the bottom of my list but it's the one i

am least likely to recommend to anyone

to see

because as as much as i feel like

there's a lot of great stuff here

presumably some of the dancing is good

the music is probably amazing

and i just have no idea but there's

nothing

in this movie for me yeah if you love

nijinsky

and dancing and ballet maybe

consider looking up a book about

nijinsky

books are probably more exciting than

this movie

oh wait we gotta do letterboxed yeah

this is troubling

yeah so i i struggled on the letterbox

for this one for a while because

like you said i this movie is

not worth watching for me but

it's it's a nice movie like it's good

high production value it's it's you know

it's well

shot it's got good actors in it but it's

just

not a good movie and so i just really

struggled as to where to put that

because

you know i think that story goes above

everything else

but and this doesn't really have that so

i have to put it kind of low on the list

but it's not as bad as a lot of bad

movies so

i ended up putting it somewhere in the

middle it ended up

just below simon and just above midnight

madness

okay richard uh yeah um

i think i'm gonna put this uh

between simon and cruising

okay it does it is above the windows

threshold uh it's right

it's right there at the edge i was gonna

maybe put it below cruising but i don't

like cruising so

yeah put it above it the cruising is

pretty offensive and terrible so

that sounds fair um for me i'm gonna put

this

between just tell me what you wanted

fatso

pretty close to the bottom that's low

yeah it's uh

like like we've said a couple times now

it's competently made but

there's literally no replay value to

this movie for me

especially as long as it is yeah and

with me being a complete rube when it

comes to ballet and

and judging dance for like i literally

thought the point of him playing the

piano like that was that

this guy's incompetent and everyone's

going to be furious that they hired this

pianist

and it's like no no that was great

that's exactly what they wanted

and that and an artist would recognize

that that was great

um it's just so a tonal and

disinteresting to me

but um yeah i think that's everything

for this one

um if you guys have any thoughts you'd

like to share with us we are vintage

video pod on twitter facebook instagram

and letterbox

or as i've said before you can find each

of our full movie rankings for the year

we can also be found at

vintagevideopodcast.com please consider

rating us on itunes to help people find

the show and if you find the time to

leave us a review

we will thank you personally in an

upcoming episode if you're feeling

especially generous you can also support

the show through patreon.com

vintage video podcast thank you so much

for listening and i hope you'll join us

next time when we'll be discussing

the changeling which imdb describes as

a man staying at a secluded historical

mansion

finds himself being haunted by the

presence of a specter

we leaving now with the trailer for the

changeling

within this old house live two residents

one of them is john russell composer

professor the other has been dead

for over 70 years

claire i'd like to talk to you about the

house

did you die in this house how did you

die

[Music]

whatever it is is trying desperately to

communicate

what is it in that house claire what is

it doing why is it trying to reach me

[Music]

it's a hand

[Music]

i'm john russell i'm living in your

house

senator look

you've got something of the senators he

wants it back

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

what is it

[Music]

many films will frighten you

but only a few can really terrify you

the changeling an experience beyond

total fear

you