Category: Filmography

Dir: Serge Moati
Star: Klaus Kinski, Bernard Blier, Marie Dubois, Jean-Luc Bideau
a.k.a. Nuit d’or

Two years after supposedly being disposed of, in circumstances which are, at least initially, very murky, Michel Fournier (Kinski) comes back from the grave. And, as you can imagine, he’s not happy. Fournier announces his return with notes and creepy dolls, sent to those responsible for his alleged “death.” They include his brother, Henri (Bideau), and police commissioner Pidoux (Blier), who got Fournier accused of being the “golden chain killer,” for (again, supposedly) murdering a little girl.  Muddying the water further is Michel’s previous relationship with Henri’s wife Veronique (Dubois), which led to a daughter, Katherine.

Michel abducts the young girl, and uses her as leverage – though quite what his endgame is with this kidnapping, remains rather opaque. It may be an attempt to rekindle the flame with Veronique, though child kidnapping seems a bit of a poorly conceived option. Indeed, the same could be said for quite a few other elements, such as the “Nuit d’Or” casino which gives the film its title, and where it both opens and closes. While there are suggestions that Michel was a heavy gambler, it’s never clear how this quite fits into the overall scenario.

Similarly, there’s the weird, almost apocalyptic, religious cult to which he has ties: The Temple of the Son of the True Light. They hold their services in a car-park decked out with drapes, quote heavily from the Book of Revelations and their leader appears to be a midget in a coffin. Michel ends up using fellow disciple Sister Andrée (Anny Duperey) to watch over Katherine, though her stricter approach to their captive triggers its own problems. It’s perhaps significant that Michel ends up being too damn weird for the cult, who turn him in to the cops, via a disembodied voice. Imagine, if you will, Jim Jones throwing his hands up and saying, “Who the hell is this weirdo? I don’t want anything to do with him!” 

The scenes with Michel opposite Katherine certainly possess disturbing elements, as shown in the still on the right. Some of this is hindsight, in the light of subsequent accusations by Klaus’s real daughter, Pola. But it’s also unsettling in the context of the movie, with the allegations regarding Michel as a killer – apparently high-profile enough, he’s recognized by a woman in the street while waiting for his daughter. But like the other elements mentioned above, these just don’t gel into anything approaching a coherent whole. This could be a decent policier, following Pidoux’s efforts to solve the kidnapping. Or been told from the point of view of Henri and Veronique, as their marriage unravels under the pressure of events. Or been a roaring rampage of revenge for Michel, getting his own back on those who wronged him. It nods towards each angle, yet is unsatisfactory as any of them, perhaps not helped by a 78-minute running time that restricts much development.

Director Moati has spent most of his career in TV movies and/or documentaries, and I do suspect this is the kind of material which would need a far stronger hand to control it. Some places have compared it to an Italian giallo, and while I can see where this is coming from, it doesn’t quite have the atmosphere, combining horrific elements with eroticism, which I’d generally expect. That said, there is one scene which anyone who has watched this will remember: the puppet show Michel puts on for Kathleen, to explain the situation to the child. This includes marionettes in the form of all the major players, including one of Michel/Kinski (shown, top) which is both disturbingly creepy and lifelike. Or perhaps, because it’s lifelike. The scene in question is below: since it’s unsubtitled in the clip, here is the narration Michel provides.

“Once upon a time, there was a man called Michel. He was alone. All by himself. No one loved him. His father, Charles, was always finding what he did was wrong. His brother, Henri, was jealous because Michel had met before him a very beautiful queen. Véronique. Queen Véronique loved Michel very much. So… Charles and Henri wanted to make Michel disappear. But Michel was not dead. He was in Africa. There, all alone, he was thinking about Queen Véronique and the little princess Catherine. You. He loves them so much. He says to the queen, “Come.” He says to the princess, “Come.” All three go away. And they are happy together. Sleep, Catherine. Sleep…”

There’s a decent supporting cast, also including Maurice Ronet as the owner/operator of the casino. Blier would go on to work with Kinski again, making his penultimate movie appearance in Kinski’s Paganini.. Michel’s mother is played by the venerable German actress, Elisabeth Flickenschildt, in her final role, who had worked with Klaus on a couple of the Edgar Wallace films during the sixties, including The Indian Scarf. One oddity: though speaking his own dialogue in French, when shown in his home country, Kinski’s voice was dubbed back into German, by Hans-Michael Rehberg.

The movie has the germs of some interesting ideas, and isn’t short on style, either. It’s nice to see Klaus firmly front and center, and his performance works, because Kinski is a well-cast choice for the character. However, the film as a whole never meshes the elements together. It feels to me the biggest problem is a script that apparently can’t decide what it considers important, and ends up leaving all its components under-developed and, thus, underwhelming. The ending doesn’t complete the film with an exclamation point, or even a full-stop, more like a set of ellipses, petering out in a way which could hardly be a greater disappointment if it tried. It remains worth a look for the acting, and for the puppet-show, though I wonder, what happened to the Kinski marionette? I’m a little surprised it didn’t go on to have its own, successful career as a cheaper (and, certainly, more amenable!) alternative to the real thing…

Dir: George Roy Hill
Star: Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, Klaus Kinski, Sami Frey 

Based on a novel by renowned British author, John Le Carre, this is story of Charlie (Keaton), a young and idealistic actress who is recruited by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence arm, despite her own, strongly pro-Palestinian views. Under the control of Martin Kurtz (Kinski), she is seduced by Joseph (Voyagis) and becomes part of the Mossad plot to locate and target Khalil (Frey). He’s a Palestinian bomb-maker, whose devices have already resulted in many deaths. Charlie will play the girlfriend of Khalil’s younger brother, who has already been captured by Mossad, in order to get close to the subject. But even for an actress, taking on such a role comes with a terrible emotional cost, as Charlie discovers.

The general consensus appears to be that the film is not a very good adaptation of the book. According to Roger Ebert, it “lacks the two essential qualities it needs to work: It’s not comprehensible, and it’s not involving. They made a real effort to pull off the daunting task of filming John Le Carré’s labyrinthine bestseller, but the movie doesn’t work.” I haven’t read the book, so can’t comment on that aspect, but on its own terms, the film does seem to be considerably lacking on the motivation front. In particular, for someone apparently so fervently devoted to the Palestinian cause, Charlie’s conversion into an agent for their greatest enemy is neither credible nor convincing. Her relationship with Joseph falls some way short of authenticity either.

It’s not the first time that director Hill seemed to struggle with the process of adapting a well-respected literary work to the big screen. While he had great popular and critical success with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, his efforts to translate novels into movie were much less noteworthy. Neither Slaughterhouse-Five and The World According to Garp have endured as well, and Girl likely should be filed in the same drawer. It’s the flaws with the central characters which were the largest problem, and perhaps inevitably, when you try to distill a 500-page, densely-packed book down into a couple of hours, something has to give, somewhere. It doesn’t appear to have been the plot, of which there’s more than enough.

I did find it admirably even-handed. There have been plenty of other films which covered the undercover war between Mossad and their terrorist adversaries in the wake of the Munich massacre, but these have generally leaned more heavily toward the Israeli viewpoint. This is more neutral, and certainly considerably more cynical in its approach. Both sides have no qualms at all about using and deceiving people to achieve their ends, and it’s fortunate the script follows the novel to its downbeat conclusion. where Charlie is basically broken by the mission, and the realization she has been utterly played as a patsy by Kurtz and his crew.

The film is also on considerably better ground when working as a “spy procedural” depicting the nuts and bolts of clandestine operations, and the convoluted lengths to which organizations will go. [You’ll never trust a detour sign again] For example, there’s a very well-crafted and interesting sequence where Charlie is dropping off a car in a European town, before catching the train to Munich. The surveillance and counter-surveillance tactics deployed by both sides make for intriguing viewing, as do the lengths gone to fabricate artifacts creating a believable romance between Charlie and Khalil’s brother. On the other hand, the script appears unable to tell the difference between Nottingham and Dorset, a clunky mistake which I’m sure was not made by Le Carre.

Kinski is on the other side of the coin, having taken the role of a terrorist who hijacks an Israeli plane in Operation Thunderbolt, seven years previously. Though it feels a bit odd to have somebody like Klaus, who fought as part of the Nazi Wehrmacht in World War II (albeit briefly and extremely badly, by his own account!) playing an Israeli. Kurtz makes for a good character – I found him a more compelling figure than Charlie, certainly. He’s a puppet-master who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes – of everyone, in particular of Charlie – with an almost fanatical dedication to the cause, and a ruthless disregard for the consequences to the puppets. Yet he’ll also pause operations to check in with his wife.

His performance received some praise at the time, for example People magazine said Klaus, “steals what there is of the picture. Kinski is pure Le Carré. Keaton is pure Hollywood.” However, Ebert wrote that his performance “seems intended for a standard thriller. There is no sense of the man’s past, of his intelligence, of his torn emotions, of the doubts he has about the job that Charlie is being asked to do.” I’d disagree, with at least some of that. Kurtz comes across as very smart: it feels as if he is playing chess, while everyone else in the film is playing checkers. Except for Charlie, who is struggling to come to terms with the tactical subtleties of noughts and crosses.

Le Carre also shows up in a cameo, and it was amusing – albeit, probably just to me! – to notice a very young Bill Nighy, playing one of the members of Charlie’s theater company, who is also her boyfriend. This was a full two decades before I first remember noticing him in Shaun of the Dead. At the time of this film’s release, the New York Times wrote it “could have been done successfully as a television mini-series,” amd [erhaps Nighy will also show up in the impending BBC version of the series, due to start filming in 2018. That will be directed by renowned Korean film-maker, Chan-wook Park, who made Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, and a six-part series might be better equipped to handle the densely-packed structure of the source material. 

Dir: Paul Verhoeven 
Star: Lutz Moik, Hanna Rucker, Paul Bildt, Paul Esser
a.k.a. Das Kalte Herz

First things first. Despite its presence at the time on both Klaus’s IMDb page and Wikipedia (update: it appears to have been removed from the former in early 2018), there is very severe doubt at to whether Kinski ever appeared in any released version of this film. It appears possible that he may have auditioned for a role and even appeared helped with some screen tests, but the consensus of discussion appears to be that he is not even visible as a background extra. Unless someone can prove otherwise, this is therefore included here solely for completeness. [Also note: this is not directed by “the” Paul Verhoeven, who would only have turned 12 that year. This is a different Paul Verhoeven, whose son Michael has followed in his father’s footsteps and forged a solid career in German cinema]

That said, I certainly didn’t feel like this was a waste of time, despite the lack of any apparent Kinski content in it. I was particularly reminded that, in the early days after World War II, up until about 1952, the border between the two parts of Germany was not the “Iron Curtain” it would later become. Consequently, an East German production such as this, made by state film company DEFA, could still make use of cross-border talent like Moik and Rucker – not least because the West German film industry was all but dead in the post-war rubble, and not encouraged by the Allies. This was also the first East German film made in color. But despite its origins in a fairy-tale published when Karl Marx would still have been in short pants, the Socialist subtext here is not exactly subtle.

Peter Munk (Moik) is a poor charcoal-burner who lives in the Black Forest. He yearns to escape his life of poverty and marry the beautiful Lisbeth (Rucker). He sees his chance when he meets the legendary Glasmännlein – basically, think of a German leprechaun – who gives Peter two wishes, “and then a third, if he is not foolish.” It’s clear that Peter never played D&D: I did, in my college days, and know from experience there, that all wishes must be extremely carefully worded, for any loophole will be ruthlessly exploited. Rather than taking the time to consider his options, Peter rushes straight in. “I wish first, that I can dance better than the dance king, Hannes Schlurker (Peter’s rival for Lisbeth’s affections), and that in the pub, I always have as much money in my pockets as that rich Ezekiel (the town’s most successful businessman).”

I know my old dungeon-master would have immediately called that two, due to the use of the word “and” in the wish. However, the Glasmännlein is a little more forgiving – apparently having realized Peter is quite capable of digging his own grave – and lets it slide. His follow-up is even more esoteric: “I wish for the beautiful Winkfritz glassworks, which will be auctioned tomorrow.” Even the Glasmännlein is taken aback, pointedly asking Peter, “What do you know about the art of glassmaking?” Still, the charcoal-burner persists, and gets what he wants. But it turns out to be not what he needs. While he does win the heart of Lisbeth, the glassworks is a financial disaster, and one of those loopholes in his first wish leads to Peter teetering on the edge of ruin.

He goes back into the forest and meets another legend, the malicious giant Dutch Michael (above). He convinces Peter that the heart is the cause of all woes, and allowing Dutch Michael to add Peter’s to his collection – which includes Ezekiel’s – will put him back on the road to business success. Yes, the brick-like moral here is that the rich are literally heartless. Peter is soon back on top indeed. But only at the cost of his humanity, which eventually leads to the loss of Lisbeth, and his realization that he made a terrible mistake. Fixing things will first require tricking Dutch Michael into returning Peter’s heart,  then hoping the Glasmännlein will be as good as his word, and give Peter a chance to fix things with his third wish.

Probably not much of a spoiler to say that, as in all good fairy stories, everyone lives happily ever after, having learned a valuable lesson about something. Specifically here: money can’t buy contentment, and the pursuit of wealth is only going to cause misery, for you and those around you. Oh, and: Proletariat of the world, unite! In the film’s defense, much of the morality on view was not added, but came from the original story, written by Wilhelm Hauff and published in 1827, shortly before his death at the young age of 25. However, it’s perhaps the good fit with Communist philosophy which brought it to the attention of DEFA – they did excise the scene where Peter uses a cross to repel Dutch Michael, allowing him to escape.

It is not the only adaptation of Hauff’s work. There are reported to be two other versions of this story, though the only one about which I could find much, is the 2016 movie, in which Moritz Bleibtreu (Lola’s boyfriend from Run Lola Run) played Dutch Michael and Frederick Lau (the male lead in Victoria) was Peter. Three years after this version, DEFA adapted another of his stories, Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck, which became the studio’s most successful production ever, selling almost 13 million tickets [Heart of Stone is third on the list, at 9.78 million]. Hauff also wrote the first version of the story which would become the infamous Nazi film, Jud Süß, though without the anti-Semitic agenda of the cinematic version.

This is a solid bit of story-telling, which does a good job of not talking down to its audience (unlike some fairy-tale adaptations), and kept me interested throughout. Moik manages to play both hero and villain of the piece effectively, and the setting creates a world where the magical and mundane can co-exist. If you’ve seen other East German films and series in the genre, such as The Singing Ringing Tree, this is very much cut from the same cloth. It was an engaging exercise to think about which role Klaus could have had in the film. I can’t really see him as the romantic lead, even at a relatively early stage in his career. One of Ezekiel’s henchmen seems more likely, or perhaps even Dutch Michael?

Particular thanks to the East German Cinema Blog for the subtitles which allowed me to review this.

Dir: Ákos Ráthonyi
Star: Joachim Fuchsberger, Sabina Sesselmann, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski

Probably the most interesting thing about this krimi, is it was shot in two entirely separate versions: one in German, and one in English, in a co-production with British studio Omnia Pictures. The latter movie was called The Devil’s Daffodil, a slightly more catchy title than the German one, which translates as “The secret of the yellow daffodils” The movies have different lead actors, but a number of the same supporting cast, including Lee and Marius Goring, who appear in both [According to Wikipedia, Lee spoke five languages fluently – English, Italian, French, Spanish, and German – as well as being “moderately proficient” in three more, Swedish, Russian, and Greek]

The plot in both is the same, and focuses on two different crimes. In London, someone is killing attractive young ladies, and leaving yellow daffodils at the scene of the murder. Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, airline security consultant Jack Tarling (Fuchsberger) discovers heroin being smuggled inside the stems of… artificial yellow daffodils. He flies to London to visit the import-export company for whom the shipment was intended, only to find that all documentation regarding the order has mysteriously been lost. At first, company secretary Anne Ryder (Sesselmann) seems to remember it, but she suddenly clams up, under orders from her boss, Raymond Lyne.

When the employee responsible is fished out of the Thames, very bereft of life, the investigation has to make its way past this literally dead-end. But it turns out that there is another angle which Tarling can explore: all the murdered women worked at the somewhat questionable “Cosmos Club”, a bar and cabaret. For it turns out, there is a link between the psycho killer and the heroin smuggling. Tarling gets help from Scotland Yard – who knew they were so happy to let a private security consultant basically run a criminal investigation? There’s also Ling Chu (Lee), a Hong Kong policeman who was involved in the smuggling case back East. It turns out he has both a personal interest in the case, and not quite the same respect for suspects’ rights, as his Western colleagues.

Yes, Christopher Lee is not just speaking German, he’s portraying a German-speaking Chinaman. If this had been a random example, it might have been one thing [this was the sixties, after all, when even Mickey Rooney got to play an Asian]. But for whatever reason, it was something of a regular occupation for Lee in the decade. It started in 1961 with his portrayal of Chung King in Hammer’s Terror of the Tongs, and after his role here, he went on to play evil genius Fu Manchu no less than five times for producer Harry Towers between 1965 and 1969.

Kinski plays Peter Keene, a ne’er-do-well who is the son of Lyne’s former Royal Air Force commander. Lyne took the son under his wing, in what he claims is “Christian charity,” in an attempt to steer the young man out of the trouble and bad company into which he had fallen: “Debts, unfunded cheques, black market… He was a good for nothing. Wasn’t even a good criminal.” Lyne gives Keene a job as a barman at the Cosmos Club, but the young man is also useful as a tool for taking care of any problems Lyne needs handled. There also appears to be a significant dose of mental instability in Keene’s character, which plays right into Kinski’s wheelhouse, especially during the later stages.

In addition to being filmed at Shepperton Studios, there’s some nice location work here, both around Piccadilly Circus and in a finale at Highgate Cemetery, then largely abandoned and in a state of aesthetically pleasing disrepair. But that isn’t enough to salvage what seems a particularly poorly thought-out and executed plot. It’s difficult to figure out what anyone’s motives are here, and Tarling is blandly uninteresting as the hero. They’d have been better off making Ling the central character, as his refreshing lack of moral scruples might have made for an interesting twist. He’s also fun to watching, spouting “old Chinese proverbs,” that he freely admits are entirely made-up. This was the first of five times that Lee and Kinski would act in the same movie – although not necessarily sharing any screen time. The next occasion would be the following year, in the similarly horticulturally titled, Secret of the Red Orchid. 

Outside of that pair, this is just not very interesting, though I was at least entertained by the burlesque show-tune which enlivens the middle of proceedings at the Cosmo Club. Their leading showgirl, “Mademoiselle Gloria”, chirps out a cheerful little ditty on stage to a pseudo-Parisian policeman, with lyrics such as “When a man sees me, he immediately thinks about I’amour – because I’m totally natural.” All the while, she keeps popping behind a pseudo-Parisian hoarding to remove items of her clothing. It’s entirely PG-rated, and you can hardly imagine anyone finding it erotic, but it does have a certain innocent charm. More than one source indicates that Kinski’s autobiography has him reporting he slept his way through most of the female cast and crew here – one imagines Mademoiselle Gloria was near the top of his list.

I’ll have to dig out my copy and see if I can find the relevant passage…

Dir: Shūji Terayama
Star: Isabelle Illiers, Klaus Kinski, Arielle Dombasle, Kenichi Nakamura

This ill-conceived sequel follows in the wake of 1975’s film version of The Story of O. Originally published in 1954, the novel was effectively a precursor to 50 Shades of Grey, depicting a consensually sado-masochistic relationship between the titular lady and Sir Stephen, the man who became her master. This movie is based on the sequel, Retour à Roissy (Return to Roissy), which came out in 1967. Despite that title, it’s set in Shanghai, with Sir Stephen (Kinski) taking O (Illiers) to become an employee in a Chinese brothel.

There, she has sex with various men, and becomes the subject of obsession of a young Chinese man (Nakamura), who glimpses her through the window of the brothel, and strives to accumulate enough money for a session with O. Meanwhile. Sir Stephen is having sex with his other mistress, Nathalie (Dombasle), after chaining O up and making her watch. There’s also a subplot about revolution being plotted by the downtrodden workers of Shanghai, with Sir Stephen being shaken down for contributions, and beaten up when he refuses to comply. Nathalie leaves Stephen, and when her younger suitor eventually saves up enough to get his wish, the lord sees O smile during the subsequent coupling; that cannot be tolerated, and he shoots dead his rival for her affections.

The seventies was a boom time for art-porn, and though this is a little late to the party, fits snugly and moistly into the same niche carved out by the likes of Walerian Borowczyk. Director Terayama was a multi-faceted artist, whose output included poetry, plays. photography and both short and feature films, before his death three years after this, from that preferred malady of tortured creative types, cirrhosis of the liver. I can’t say I’ve seen any of his other work, so can’t say how this compares, but it does have some beautifully composed scenes, demonstrating Terayama’s photographic eye.

It also has more than I’d like of Klaus Kinski’s hairy arse, and I suspect the pitch which brought Klaus was on board was something like this:
  “So you’ll get to visit Hong Kong and have sex with attractive women.”
  “You mean, pretend to have sex with attractive women?”
  “No, actually have sex with them.”
  “What time does the flight leave?”

For if what we’re seeing here is not actual coitus, it’s a far more convincing imitation of it that is ever managed on Cinemax. Certainly the oral sex administered by O has real penis in her mouth, which lends credence to the theory Klaus wasn’t faking it either. This is particularly true of the first encounter, which sees Sir Stephen fucking – there’s no more descriptive word available for the steam-hammer pounding being delivered – one of the brothel’s whores. [Random note: while supposedly set in pre-war China, all the Chinese characters are played by Japanese actors and actresses]. All of the genuine carnality comes more that two decades before The Brown Bunny catapulted Chloë Sevigny to fame.

The problem is that, much like its more recent cousin, this film (“50 Shades of Klaus”, perhaps?) doesn’t have much to offer in terms of content, beyond its shock value. The original film, The Story of O, actually did a decent job of putting over the appeal of being on the M-end of a sado-masochistic relationship. While it still might not be something you would necessarily want to do yourself, you could at least see what participants might get out of it. Here? Absolutely nothing. There’s no sense of Sir Stephen and O having the slightest degree of mutual passion for each other. In fact, he doesn’t seem to care about her at all: the kind of stunts he demands of her in this, are more like things you’d do to get rid of a desperately-clingy girlfriend, rather than mutually beneficial attempts to cement your relationship.

This is particularly disappointing, since The Story of O‘s writer, Dominique Aury, co-wrote the script. But even outside of the sexual content, the rest of it is largely unconvincing, particularly the attempts at political commentary. At best, they dilute the focus, which should be on the Steven/O relationship with a fiery intensity. At worst – and this is much closer to where they lie – they have as much intellectual credibility as the opinions of an earnest high-school debate society geek. Even Kinski can’t do much to save proceedings, particularly in the dubbed version. It doesn’t help that his face is clad for much of the film in such an excess of white pancake make-up, I wondered if he was going to start walking into the wind or pretending to be inside an invisible box.

As noted earlier, Terayama knows his way around the camera, and the film does have some occasionally striking imagery and moments. O as a young girl, constrained by her father within a prison made entirely of chalk line on the ground (perhaps inspiring Lars Von Trier’s Dogville? That’s perhaps a stretch, but LVT has also showed himself not averse to including graphic sex in his movies either) One of the prostitutes is the only person who can hear music being played nearby, and after her suicide, the corpse rises out of the river by the brothel, on top of a grand piano. It’s the kind of grandiose moment which, logically, makes absolutely no sense, yet has to be applauded because of its insanity. There’s some creative use of filters, and overall, you can’t condemn the movie from a technical point of view.

From just about every other angle, however… Plenty of room for criticism, not least in that the sex scenes are virtually the only ones in which Klaus shows any enthusiasm for his role. It appears that Kinski wasn’t the only one in it purely for the paycheck either: Terayama supposedly took on the job, to finance some of his other artistic activities. It’s no surprise, therefore, that it comes off as far less memorable than, say, those works of Borowczyk such as La Bête. Successfully combining porn and art takes a significant degree of commitment, and it seems severely lacking from most of those involved here.

Dir: David Lean
Star: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin, Klaus Kinski

Adjusted for inflation, this is the most successful film at the North American box-office, in which Klaus ever appeared. The $111 million it took over half a century ago, would be close to ten times as much nowadays. Though it wasn’t even the biggest hit of the year: that was the other great totalitarian love-story of 1965 – the one with more nuns, The Sound of Music. Julie Andrews also kicked Omar Sharif’s butt at the Academy Awards, largely relegating Zhivago to technical awards, despite nominations including Best Picture and Best Director.

It wasn’t universally adored on release, and generally seems to be regarded as a bit less successful than the Lean/Sharif epic which preceded it, Lawrence of Arabia. Though it shares with that film an apparent belief that quality can be measured in minutes of running time. This was not uncommon in the sixties, peaking with Cleopatra, which premiered at a seat-numbing 248 minutes in length. This is relatively terse, at a mere 193 minutes in the original version (slightly longer in the 1992 re-release), although it doesn’t help that Zhivago opens with an overture – before even the MGM lion has shown up – and also extends itself with an intermission and an entr’acte.

The story takes place against the background of the Russian revolution. There’s a framing device, in which Bolshevik security officer Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness) questions a young woman whom he believes to be the daughter of his half-brother, the physician and poet, Yuri Zhivago (Sharif). She doesn’t remember much of her life or her father, so he fills in the lengthy back story. And in post-WW2 Russia, when a KGB officer wants to tell you a lengthy back story, you sit there and listen to the lengthy back story. Likely while trying to look incredibly interested, if you’ve any sense.

It’s basically a love-triangle, sprawling across three decades and thousands of miles of Eurasia. Yuri is orphaned as a child, and goes to live in Moscow with his mother’s friends. He studies hard, becomes a doctor and marries their daughter, Tonya (Chaplin). Meanwhile, Lara (Christie) is having an affair with a well-connected upper-class man, but being courted by young political firebrand Pavel Antipov (Tom Courtenay). When Lara’s mother learns of her daughter’s affair, she attempts suicide: Yuri is one of the attending doctors, which is how he meets Lara. She shoots her lover at a Christmas party, and marries Pavel, but works with Yuri as a nurse during World War I and the ensuing Bolshevik revolution. It’s during this time he falls for her.

After the war, Yuri is on thin ice, due to his decadent, bourgeois poetry, and Yevgraf arranges for his half-brother, Tanya and their child to find sanctuary in the Ural Mountains. However – what are the odds? – Lara shows up in a town nearby, and the two begin a passionate affair. This romance is interrupted only by Pavel now being a notorious Bolshevik commander, calling himself Strelnikov. Oh, plus Yuri’s involuntary recruitment into a local group of partisans for a couple of years. By the time he escapes, Tanya has fled to Paris, leaving Yuri and Lara to live happily eve… Nah, who am I kidding. This is gloomy Russian romance at its gloomiest. Long story short, they are split up, and years later (spoiler alert), Yuri drops dead of a heart attack on a Moscow street after seeing Tanya from a passing tram and trying to chase her.

There’s no denying the epic scope here, with some phenomenal photography,  courtesy of cinematographer Freddie Young (who replaced Nicolas Roeg a few days into the shoot). But I couldn’t quite bring myself to empathize with Yuri, who frankly, behaves like a bit of a dick to the loyal and dutiful Tanya. Look: you want to be with someone else, that’s fine. Go be with them. Don’t bounce back and forth, trying to have your blonde cake while eating the brunette version, too. It never works out for anyone. Maybe I’d cut him some slack, if we were convinced Zhivago was the genius poet frequently claimed: yet his actual poetry here is notable by its absence.

Let’s narrow the focus onto Kinski’s brief appearance. It’s a glorious performance, as anarchist Kostoyed Amoursky [not named in the film], who is one of the Zhivago’s fellow travelers, as they head east on a train, in a literal cattle car. He’s part of a forced labor platoon, convicted due to his counter-revolutionary views. While he may be captured, Amoursky is utterly unbowed, spewing venom and invective at everyone else, and proclaiming himself “the only free man on this train. The rest of you are cattle!” His preferred term of abuse appears to be “lickspittle,” a word which I feel deserves to be more frequently used in modern society – perhaps along with My Fair Lady‘s “guttersnipe.”

It’s only a few minutes of screen time in a very, very long movie, but is one of Kinski’s most scene-stealing roles. I was particularly surprised to see, despite being a relatively early entry – well before his partnership with Werner Herzog –  this is what you might call the archetypal Klaus role. By which I mean, an unhinged loose cannon, contemptuous of the world and absolutely convinced of his own moral and/or intellectual superiority. At a point where Kinski was mostly known for his performances in the German Edgar Wallace films, which were generally much more understated, it’s a fun precursor to the more… vocal, shall we say, roles which were to come.