This film was about as good as late 60's suspense goes. You have two old broads out to get each other, and a pesky dog that knows the truth. Oh man, good times.
Lets see if I can sum this up...Mrs. Marrable finds herself widowed and left with a pile of bills, and the contents of her husband's briefcase. The briefcase sounds like it belongs to Mr. Boddy (i.e. Clue the board game) as it contains 1 Rusty Dagger, a Stamp collection, and some framed bugs of some sort (that reminded me of Grissom on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation). Anywho, cut scene to someplace notable different with a sort of Southwestern Old lady feel.
There Mrs. Marrable gets up the courage to do her first killing. In goes the housekeeper, and in goes a pine tree. Time passes and the pine trees grow more numerous and in stair step formation. It reminds me of the birth a kid every 2 years sort of thing some people do. Don't know how they would do that, but who am I to judge. Back to the story...or at least the overview.
Anyway, the housekeeper that gets the most screen time is of course, the one that has a fabulous red wig, and a fiery conniving temper. Lets just say, a bit of faking a possible poison in pheasant is hilarious, and probably gutsy.
I thought this movie was great, from the somewhat random side characters to the conniving and truly insane main characters. Aunt Alice is the fiery red wigged housekeeper that comes to discover the truth about her friend that just disappeared. They do a great job keeping you guessing if Mrs. Marrable will do Alice in or not. And then when you think you figured it out, you expect to be wrong.
I give it 4 stars, for being suspenseful but not gory.
Crazy like a Fox? Pfft More like crazy like "The Cow".
The Cow is brought to us by the home-made black and white syling movie-makers of Iran. Smuggled out in the 70s it's considered to likely be the best Iranian film made to date. That isn't saying much. The entire movie spanning 100 minutes has so little plot that it's amazing how much time it takes to tell the tale. Don't worry though the movie still has bandits (that sometimes look like ninjas), random great characters (like the man who always talks through his window and never leaves his house), and a love story, well actually two.
Hassan is the one man in town that is lucky enough to have a cow. He loves his cow; he plays with the cow. He walks around with the cow and picks food for it. He shoos away local children who want to touch or feed the cow. He seems in all accounts to regard the cow more than he regards his wife. Yet, for some unknown reason he goes on a day trip and doesn't bring the cow. The cow almost immediately dies, presumably from separation anxiety. The townsfolk are so concerned about what will happen to Hassan when he finds out, they decide to hide the cow and tell Hassan it ran away, so he won't get upset.
Madness ensues as Hassan is unwilling to accept the idea that HIS cow would leave. In fact, he's certain his cow never left because it's still there. He quickly degrades from believing he knows the cow is there to taking the cow's place. To even calling for himself to protect him when he feels threatened. The movie progresses a little more simply to show us what happens to a man who both thinks and insists he's a cow.
Overall the movie is odd. The best parts of it are the mad cow moments. Anytime you see a man-cow throw himself into a support beam, then break it off and attack his/his master's friends you know its a good film. This alone must be the one support for all the awards that were given the film. Hassan (Ezatolah Entezami) received the Golden Hugo in Chicago International Film Festival in 1971. He also went on to make many more random movies, that might or might not be great. Who knows??
Three Stars for Absurdity