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Posted: |
Nov 8, 2009 - 12:33 AM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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This film, produced by MGM's long-time intellectual creative artist/director, Albert Lewin, appears to have been a co-production with Mexico set up by Lewin for MGM distribution, but not owned outright by MGM.
As I was also curious about it, some years ago a friend gave me a very poor videotape of the film that he had gotten from some outside distributor who now controls the film. I don't believe it's been seen publicly for decades, and I personally found it to be marginal entertainment. I wish I could remember who now claimed to own it---not MGM (Turner-Warner), however.
Most of Lewin's personal work as writer/director has always been of interest and curiosity, including, in addition to THE LIVING IDOL, cultish entertainments like THE MOON AND SIXPENCE, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, MADAME CURIE, THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI, SAADIA, and PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (also a Lewin independent production originally released by MGM, but now owned elsewhere).
While I've always found Lewin's films, if not total classics, usually exotic and/or compelling to watch, I feel sure they are a cultivated taste for most audiences.
Lewin, the intellectual, was apparently interested in mind-puzzles, and I once read an engrossing multi-page article by a scholar analyzing the very careful arrangement of the prop toys, childrens alphabet blocks, and objects in the attic room in DORIAN GRAY and how they change positions from scene to scene as commentary on the plot developments and mind-set of Gray's character! Fascinating!
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