"Spector of the Rose" may be overwritten and overwrought, but it also has mood to spare and is strangely haunting.
It was Samuel Goldwyn who said that it is the last five minutes that makes a film memorable, and "Specter of the Rose" has a stunning last five minutes. But the first eighty-five are more problematic.
Haidi Kuznetsova (Viola Essen), a young ballerina in Madame La Sylph's ballet school, is in love with Andre Sanine (Ivan Kirov) a brilliant dancer who is recovering from the death of Nikki, his previous love. La Sylph (Judith Anderson) warns Haidi that Sanine is going insane. He hears music, "Le Spectre de la Rose" that no one else can hear, and probably murdered Nikki - Sanine is an anagram for insane after all. Haidi marries him anyway.
When they embark on a successful ballet tour, Sanine suffers a breakdown. They leave the tour and book into a high-rise hotel. After the exhausted Haidi falls asleep, the internal music overwhelms Sanine. He becomes the Spirit of the Rose and commences to dance armed with a stiletto - "The rose has a thorn". In a truly startling sequence he dances around the apartment like a trapped animal before he takes that Nijinsky-like leap. It's a scene that stays with you.
Writer/director/producer Ben Hecht created an intriguing plot based on two of his earlier short stories, and the famous ballet. Although Judith Anderson's La Sylph is superb, Hecht also created some characters that drag the story down. Michael Chekhov as failed impresario, Max Polikoff and Lionel Stander as failed poet, Lionel Gans, overstay their welcome with ponderous dialogue and lots of it. Gans is also creepily attracted to Haidi.
It shows the dangers facing the auteur. Where another director may have considered some passages of dialogue overripe and jettisoned them, Hecht the director seemed to fall in love with every word Hecht the screenwriter wrote.
There is a whiff of tragedy about the two leads. Both were dancers with theatre backgrounds. This was Kirov's one and only movie and Essen only made one other. In Kirov's case you can see why, he is a pretty strange actor, almost distant, but as one critic noted, his alien presence was perfect for this part. He had a great physique, and the set of jumps (entrechat) he completes just after he first appears is pretty impressive, but his acting was leaden.
Not so Essen. Why a studio didn't grab her is a mystery, she had an unusual beauty, not unlike Pier Angeli or Gail Russell, and like them she died young, but she could act as this film proves.
George Antheil's rippling score sweeps the film along from the opening titles, and although studio bound, the cinematography, often shot at a low angle, is classy.
The film has similarities to the more successful "A Double Life", starring Ronald Coleman. In that film, the actor becomes possessed with his role as Othello. It came out around the same time as "Specter of the Rose" as did "The Red Shoes", but Hecht's film predates them both - did he spark a trend?
"Specter of the Rose" has flaws aplenty, but it also has an indefinable mood that makes it one of the strangest, most intriguing films you are likely to see.
It was Samuel Goldwyn who said that it is the last five minutes that makes a film memorable, and "Specter of the Rose" has a stunning last five minutes. But the first eighty-five are more problematic.
Haidi Kuznetsova (Viola Essen), a young ballerina in Madame La Sylph's ballet school, is in love with Andre Sanine (Ivan Kirov) a brilliant dancer who is recovering from the death of Nikki, his previous love. La Sylph (Judith Anderson) warns Haidi that Sanine is going insane. He hears music, "Le Spectre de la Rose" that no one else can hear, and probably murdered Nikki - Sanine is an anagram for insane after all. Haidi marries him anyway.
When they embark on a successful ballet tour, Sanine suffers a breakdown. They leave the tour and book into a high-rise hotel. After the exhausted Haidi falls asleep, the internal music overwhelms Sanine. He becomes the Spirit of the Rose and commences to dance armed with a stiletto - "The rose has a thorn". In a truly startling sequence he dances around the apartment like a trapped animal before he takes that Nijinsky-like leap. It's a scene that stays with you.
Writer/director/producer Ben Hecht created an intriguing plot based on two of his earlier short stories, and the famous ballet. Although Judith Anderson's La Sylph is superb, Hecht also created some characters that drag the story down. Michael Chekhov as failed impresario, Max Polikoff and Lionel Stander as failed poet, Lionel Gans, overstay their welcome with ponderous dialogue and lots of it. Gans is also creepily attracted to Haidi.
It shows the dangers facing the auteur. Where another director may have considered some passages of dialogue overripe and jettisoned them, Hecht the director seemed to fall in love with every word Hecht the screenwriter wrote.
There is a whiff of tragedy about the two leads. Both were dancers with theatre backgrounds. This was Kirov's one and only movie and Essen only made one other. In Kirov's case you can see why, he is a pretty strange actor, almost distant, but as one critic noted, his alien presence was perfect for this part. He had a great physique, and the set of jumps (entrechat) he completes just after he first appears is pretty impressive, but his acting was leaden.
Not so Essen. Why a studio didn't grab her is a mystery, she had an unusual beauty, not unlike Pier Angeli or Gail Russell, and like them she died young, but she could act as this film proves.
George Antheil's rippling score sweeps the film along from the opening titles, and although studio bound, the cinematography, often shot at a low angle, is classy.
The film has similarities to the more successful "A Double Life", starring Ronald Coleman. In that film, the actor becomes possessed with his role as Othello. It came out around the same time as "Specter of the Rose" as did "The Red Shoes", but Hecht's film predates them both - did he spark a trend?
"Specter of the Rose" has flaws aplenty, but it also has an indefinable mood that makes it one of the strangest, most intriguing films you are likely to see.