Armageddon fans take note: 2010 was the year of the RAPTURE – just not quite the one you were expecting. This cataclysmic event didn't hail from the wrath of God, but, as many Hollywood wags long anticipated, from the studios of 20th Century-Fox. Okay, I'm being way too title-cute for my own good. I admit it. This is actually a 1965 big studio attempt to cash in on the then-prolific sensual-friendly foreign film market. Movie RAPTURE came to us on Blu-Ray at the very end of last year, through the courtesy of Twilight Time.
So what is RAPTURE,already? It's a stunningly-shot English language black and white CinemaScope tapestry filmed on the Brittany coast concerning Can't-miss Narrative 101, i.e., young girl coming of age. Heard it before, eh? Well, there's a slight bump in the proceedings – la petit jeune fille est grande nuts! In fact her whole mishpokhe is bonkers. And isn't that what cinema is all about?
The basics are thus: adolescent fifteen-year-old Patricia Gozzi lives with her borderline demented father Melvyn Douglas and lusty housekeeper (knockout Swedish Ingmar Bergman thesp with the unfortunate moniker of Gunnel Lindblom) in a dilapidated coastal farm house.
Douglas, once a prominent judge, now spends his time writing and printing socialist pamphlets – the content of which he spouts at the drop of a straitjacket. He's very much like those lunatic subway show folk New Yorkers encounter daily during rush hour – and ones that make passengers yearn for the far more desirable entertaining alternatives of Mexican mariachi bands, terrifying break dancers or “Jesus be comin'” soothsayers.
Sired offspring Gozzi bides her time by communing with nature – specifically trying to rid the planet of annoying fowl by building a scarecrow. To this goal, she conspires with Gunnel to relieve papa of his best dress suit – presumably one that came with an extra pair of trousers. This provides the first of many traumatic moments in RAPTURE – and one that we shall further address in a moment. Gozzi's other dilemma is her blossoming puberty, which appears to be approaching with the rapidity of a Japanese bullet train. Gozzi's curiosity is piqued by spying on Lindholm's numerous midnight trysts. When asked about the men seen creeping into her boudoir, Gunnel replies that they are essentially jesters who come to make her laugh. Gozzi may be clinically insane, but she's savvy enough to know that she wants to laugh too...like rabbits!
Her contemplating joking on their laughter is temporarily put aside by the arrival of a mysterious drifter. In reality (a word I shouldn't be using in any context to describe this movie), he's an escaped convict; more importantly, he's Dean Stockwell, who quickly understands that compared to this group, his turn in Compulsion qualifies him for the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Before you can say “A rabbi and a priest walk into a bar...” Gunnel is grooming Stockwell for one of her special a stand-up sessions. Since he has appropriated the scarecrow's togs to elude the gendarms, Gozzi assumes that he is the anti-bird creature come to life – and her creation to boot. This helps send the girl's hormones into Jimmy Cagney/White Heat mode, and she violently attacks Gunnel with the nearest and convenient farm implement – appropriately, in this case, a hoe. Gunnel escapes, ostensibly to laugh her way across Europe, leaving Douglas, Gozzi and Stockwell to their own devices. Gozzi must have had access to Comedy Central, as almost immediately she successfully guffaws with the wanted felon in a seduction sequence sure to shock any viewer with the possible exception of Roman Polanski. Subsequently, the brazen Mann Act-defying pair head for Paris to set up shop as a goofy bogus husband and wife couple thereby drawing that fine line between Jerry Lewis and Jerry Lee Lewis. Alas there's trouble in paradise, and Gozzi's erratic/erotic behavior turns this bad seed into a pissed off seed. This sets in motion the tragic finale, which I'm too much of a good sport to reveal here.
Why does RAPTURE work? Beats me, but it never quite goes the Carol Burnett route that it so easily seemed destined for. This is of course due to the fact that it's intentionally out to ape an art house flick. It's shot in France by a French cinematographer (the extraordinary Marcel Grignon), scored by an acclaimed French composer (Georges Delerue) and directed by a...well...an English director, but with a French-sounding name (John Guillermin).
It's the cast that pushes RAPTURE over-the-top (in every sense of the word). Stockwell, who had previously scored in a Fox foreign-type pic (1960's Sons and Lovers) is pretty darn good. To underline how good, watch his understated histrionics...and then imagine what a lousy job someone like Warren Beatty would have perpetrated. Stockwell's subtle sexuality even extends to his eyebrows, which resemble two randy caterpillars looking for a room.
At this period (the mid-1960s), Melvyn Douglas was well on his way creating a cottage industry out of playing crazy old bastards. In the year prior to RAPTURE alone, he essayed the crotchety and dangerously senile military officer twice – once in the Civil War comedy Advance to the Rear and, more famously, in The Americanization of Emily. He channeled these showy late career parts with as much relish as Laurence Olivier’s sunset transformation into Albert Bassermann.
It's the French teen Patricia Gozzi, however, who makes RAPTURE the manic guilty pleasure that it so undeniably is. Gozzi, whose screen shelf life was but a few years (after appearing in only seven movies, she voluntarily retired at the ripe old age of twenty to happily live the life of a manager of a Parisian-based London corporation – a contradiction of terms if ever there was one). She burst on the screen in 1962 playing the abandoned subject of Hardy Kruger’s affections in Sundays and Cybele. It rocked the film world, but apparently pegged her as a Gallic hybrid of Lolita and Mouchette. Gotta say though – she knows how to work it. With her big glassy button eyes, bizarre actions and even stranger delivery, Gozzi turns every scene into a Michelle Bachmann moment. She occasionally reminds me of Isabelle Huppert in The Lacemaker – and that's high praise indeed. It's to Gozzi's credit that her savage emoting grounds RAPTURE safely into the respectable arena – quite a feat for this kind of loony extravaganza. I can only surmise the disastrous results had this been lensed in the U.S. with...oh, let's say, Joey Heatherton at the helm.
John Guillermin was an unusual choice to direct this sort of movie. Guillermin was most closely associated with macho action pics (Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, The Bridge at Remagen, Shaft in Africa, The Towering Inferno); the year after RAPTURE, he would shoot Fox's gargantuan WWI epic The Blue Max. To quote a British co-worker, Guillermin was generally acknowledged to be “...a right bastard.” I can't really add to that save to evoke an eyebrow-raising pot-calling-the-kettle-black instance wherein the director was termed obnoxious by David Susskind!
Twilight Time, as usual, had done an exemplary job of bringing RAPTURE to Blu-Ray. As one might expect, the quality, with the exception of one or two grainy shots, is spectacular. It truly does the hi-def format proud, and is a testament to Grignon's superb artistry. Delarue's music, one of his rarest scores, sounds great in its original mono form. We always must state that, like all Twilight Time, releases, RAPTURE offers the option of accessing the composer's work as an IST (Isolated Score Track); it also is a limited pressing of 3000 – so pick up your copy of this filmic basket of crazed fruit before it's committed...or you are.
RAPTURE. Black and White; Letterboxed [2.35:1; 16 x 9 anamorphic]; 1080p High Definition.
Twilight Time/20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment. Available exclusively through Screen Archives Entertainment [www.screenarchives.com]. SRP: $29.95.
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