The Best Awards Night in Australia - Nominations for the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards - All welcome - 11 February at the Rose of Australia Hotel Erskineville

N0MINATIONS FOR THE BEST AUSTRALIAN FILMS OF 2025

 

 

BEST FILM

 

Inside

INSIDE                                                                                               

PRODUCERS: KATE GLOVER, MARIAN MacGOWAN

KANGAROO ISLAND                                                                     

PRODUCERS: TIMOTHY DAVID, PETER HANLON, BETTINA HAMILTON, DANIEL M ROSENBERG, LEONA CICHON

THE SURFER                                                                                    

PRODUCERS: LEONORA DARBY, JAMES HARRIS, ROBERT CONNOLLY, JAMES GRANDISON, BRUNELLA COCCHIGLIA, NATHAN KLINGHER, NICOLAS CAGE                                                                     

THE CORRESPONDENT                                                               

PRODUCER: CARMEL TRAVERS            

BRING HER BACK                                                                          

PRODUCERS: SAMANTHA JENNINGS, KRISTINA CEYTON

 

BEST DIRECTOR

Bruce Beresford

BRUCE BERESFORD, THE TRAVELLERS

LORCAN FINNEGAN, THE SURFER 

DANNY PHILIPPOU, MICHAEL PHILIPPOU, BRING HER BACK   

KRIV STENDERS, THE CORRESPONDENT

CHARLES WILLIAMS, INSIDE

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A LEADING  

ROLE

Richard Roxburgh, The Correspondent

LUKE BRACEY,THE TRAVELLERS

BRYAN BROWN, THE TRAVELLERS

VINCENT MILLER, INSIDE

GUY PEARCE, INSIDE

RICHARD ROXBURGH, THE CORRESPONDENT

BEST SCREENPLAY

Kiah Roache-Turner

PETER DUNCAN, THE CORRESPONDENT

DANNY PHILIPPOU, BILL HINZMAN, BRING HER BACK

KIAH ROACHE-TURNER, BEAST OF WAR

CHARLES WILLIAMS, INSIDE

                                                                      

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Radek, Ladczuk

ANDREW COMMIS ACS, INSIDE

GEOFFREY HALL ACS, THE CORRESPONDENT

RADEK LADCZUK, THE SURFER

AARON McLISKY ACS, BRING HER BACK
MARK WAREHAM ACS, BEAST OF WAR

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A MALE ACTOR IN A

SUPPORTING ROLE

Jai Courtney, Dangerous Animals

JAI COURTNEY, DANGEROUS ANIMALS

COSMO JARVIS, INSIDE

JULIAN MCMAHON, THE SURFER

JONAH WREN PHILLIPS, BRING HER BACK

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A LEAD

ROLE

Rebecca Breeds, Kangaroo Island

REBECCA BREEDS, KANGAROO ISLAND

SALLY HAWKINS,  BRING HER BACK

SUSIE PORTER,  THE TRAVELLERS

DAISY RIDLEY, WE BURY THE DEAD

LILY WHITELEY, KANGAROO

 

BEST PERFORMANCE BY A FEMALE ACTOR IN A

SUPPORTING ROLE

Deborah Mailman

ADELAIDE CLEMENS, KANGAROO ISLAND

MARTA DUSSELDORP , WITH OR WITHOUT YOU

DEBORAH MAILMAN, KANGAROO

BROOKE SATCHWELL, KANGAROO

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE, DIRECTOR: LORIN CLARKE, PRODUCER: RICHARD KEDDIE

EDGE OF LIFE, DIRECTOR: LYNETTE WALLWORTH, PRODUCER: JO-ANNE McGOWAN

JOURNEY HOME, DAVID GULPILIL, DIRECTORS: MAGGIE MILES, TRISHA MORTON-THOMAS, PRODUCERS: RACHEL CLEMENTS, JIDA GULPILIL, LLOYD GARRAWURRA, TRISHA MORTON-THOMAS, MAGGIE MILES

THE WOLVES ALWAYS COME AT NIGHT , DIRECTOR: GABRIELLE BRADY, PRODUCERS: JULIA NIETHAMMER, ARIUNAA TSERENPIL, RITA WALSH

YURLU | COUNTRY, DIRECTOR: YAARA BOU MELHEM, PRODUCER: YAARA BOU MELHEM, MAITLAND PARKER, TOM BANNIGAN PARKER, TOM BANNIGAN

                                                                                                            

BEST MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

Cornel Wilczek (left)

MATTEO ZINGALES, JOSIE MANN, KANGAROO

ARIEL MARX , KANGAROO ISLAND

FRANCOIS TETAZ, THE SURFER

CORNEL WILCZEK, BRING HER BACK

MICHAEL YEZERSKI, DANGEROUS ANIMALS 

 

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Sheree Phillips

NICHOLAS DARE, TOGETHER

ESTHER ROSENBERG, BEAST OF WAR

FIONA DONOVAN APDG, THE CORRESPONDENT

VANESSA CERNE, BRING HER BACK

SHERREE PHILLIPS, WENT UP THE HILL

 

BEST EDITING

Kasra Rassoulzadegan

TONY CRANSTOUN, THE SURFER

VERONIKA JENET, THE CORRESPONDENT

GEOFF LAMB, BRING HER BACK

KASRA RASSOULZADEGAN, DANGEROUS ANIMALS   

STEPHEN EVANS, KIAH ROACHE-TURNER,REGG SKWARKO,                            BEAST OF WAR       

                                                                                                     

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Lesbian Space Princess

LESBIAN SPACE PRINCESS, DIRECTORS: EMMA HOUGH HOBBS, LEELA VARGHESE, PRODUCER:TOM PHILLIPS

MAGIC BEACH, DIRECTOR: ROBERT CONNOLLY, PRODUCERS: CHLOE BRUGALE, ROBERT CONNOLLY, KATE LAURIE, LIZ KEARNEY

THE LOST TIGER, DIRECTOR: CHANTELLE MURRAY, PRODUCERS: NADINE BATES, RYAN GREAVES, CHANTELLE MURRAY, KRISTEN SOUVLIS

 

SPECIAL AWARD IN HONOUR OF DAVID STRATTON

 

THE DAVID STRATTON AWARD FOR INTERNATIONAL

CINEMA

BUGONIA, DIRECTOR: YORGOS LANTHIMOS

EMILIA PEREZ, DIRECTOR: JACQUES AUDIARD

I’M STILL HERE, DIRECTOR: WALTER SALLES

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, DIRECTOR: PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON

Emilia Perez

DATE: WEDNESDAY 11TH FEBRUARY 2026

 

TIME 7PM FOR 7.30 START

 

VENUE: THE ROSE OF AUSTRALIA HOTEL, ERSKINEVILLE 

1 Swanson Street Erskineville (just near Erskineville Station)

 

TICKETS: $35 PER HEAD (INCLUDES A LIGHT SUPPER)

 

CASH ONLY EVENT: BOOKING ESSENTIAL. BOOK @ filmcriticsaust@bigpond.com

 

DRESS CODE CASUAL/LOUNGE

 

DRESS CODE: CASUAL/LOUNGE

Happy 11th Birthday to and from FILM ALERT 101

Vale David Stratton 1939-2025

Happy Birthday to Film Alert 101. This blog started up in November 2014. Since that time there have been 3177 posts and, allegedly according to the stats kept by the blog itself 2,321,193 page views. Over the last twelve months the page views have exceeded 708,000. The highest viewed post over the last 12 months may perhaps be a surprise to many, myself included, but it was signposted as an Open Letter to Bill Mousoulis about Angie Black’s THE FIVE PROVOCATIONS. It was posted way back on 13 September 2018 and I cant really explain why it would continue to be so favoured. If you want to read it  click here  

The highest page views of all time have been recorded for a fiery piece from the late David Stratton who, back in August 2020 took serious exception to MIFF caving in and withdrawing the film THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN from its line-up. David’s piece click here  followed an earlier one by Tom Ryan, also in the top ten of all time click here and both of them led to a strong response from critic Karl Quinn which is also in the Top Ten. click here Nothing like a bit of film festival controversy, as I discovered when, way back in 2016, I published what was for a long time the most read post, a piece by Tony Rayns about the state of the Busan Film Festival and the sacking of its then director click here 

Here’s Tony’s final paragraph of that one.

“I had very little first-hand knowledge of the “dark days” under military governments in Korea (my first visit to the country was in 1988, when the worst was over), but I know from Russia, China and Singapore amongst other countries how authoritarian governments work. They don’t believe in debate and don’t tolerate opposing points of view. Their first instinct is not to meet opposition with counter-arguments but to silence it. When Busan Metropolitan City Council tells BIFF not to screen a documentary that’s critical of the government, it’s a textbook example of an attack on free speech and an impulse to silence opposing voices. Apparently Korea’s right-wing politicians haven’t noticed or understood the changes since 1993. Apparently they are nostalgic for the “dark days” of censorship, of silencing dissenting voices and of strict social control. I’ve always thought that Korea has a very bright future, and I’ve said so in public many times, but the pig-headed political tactics of Busan’s city council mark a step back into the past. It makes no sense to me.”

 

Sentiments that are still relevant all over…

 

Over the last twelve months the following people were contributors and I thank them all: Janice Tong, Rod Bishop, Bruce Hodsdon, Barrie Pattison, Tom Ryan, David Hare, John Baxter, Joel Archer, Frank Shields, Pat Fiske, Adrian Danks, Michael Organ, Ray Edmondson, James Vaughan, Bruce Beresford, Alena Lodkina, Peter Tammer, John Timlin, Barrett Hodsdon and Zac Tomé.

If you click on any of the names above it will take you through to one of their contributions.

CINEMA REBORN - AUGUST NEWSLETTER - Vale David Stratton, Dates for 2026, Links to Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato

 

CINEMA REBORN AUGUST NEWSLETTER VALE DAVID STRATTON Cinema Reborn mourns the death of our Founding Patron and long time supporter David Stratton. We send our condolences to his Susie and his family. One of the greatest cinephiles has left us but his life, his work and his pleasure in the cinema will remain. David was a stalwart supporter of Cinema Reborn from well before our first edition way back in 2018. He went out of his way to help us get going and was a presence at our programmes from the beginning. In 2018 he introduced our screening of ONE FROM THE HEART Francis Ford Coppola’s remarkable musical. Cinema Reborn screened, free of charge, Coppola’s own 35mm print of the film, a deal negotiated by another great cinephile and friend of David, the late Eddie Cockrell. David was also on hand to introduce our still all-time box office record holder, the 4K restoration of Luchino Visconti’s THE LEOPARD way back in 2021. We think we may also have been privileged to publish his very last piece of writing, a memoir about Robert Altman, Leonard Cohen and McCABE & MRS MILLER, which appeared only in our 2025 printed catalogue as part of a wealth of material on the film assembled by editor Anne Rutherford. It’s hard to pin down what David’s greatest achievement was but for many cinephiles of the world it was the screening on SBS of a couple of thousand films, presented for decades as part of his Cinema Classics seasons. So many of the programs were seen with English subtitles for the first, and possibly still only, time. Their popularity could be measured by reports of bootleg VHS copies, complete with David’s introduction and closing remarks, being rented out in the video stores of the world. David Stratton made a major contribution to cinema and to cinephilia and his name will never be forgotten. CINEMA REBORN 2026- DATES AND VENUES Cinema Reborn 2026 will be rejigging our format. In 2026 in Sydney and Melbourne we will open on a Friday evening and conclude our season on the next Sunday. In Sydney the season will run from Friday 1 May to Sunday 10 May and in Melbourne from Friday 8 May to Sunday 17 May. We expect over that time to screen between 20-22 programmes in each city, depending on the running times of each of the films chosen. There will be repeat screenings of some of the films on weekdays in Sydney from Monday 4 May to Friday 8 May and in Melbourne from Monday 7 May to Friday 11 May.  MAKE A DIARY ENTRY NOW! MELBOURNE APPOINTMENTS Cinema Reborn welcomes David Heslin into our team of supporters in Melbourne. David has agreed to edit our hopefully splendid promotional booklet which will be due on the shelves of the Ritz and Lido Cinemas on 15 March 2026 and contain full program details, booking info and more. Cinema Reborn has also appointed Grace Boschetti as our Melbourne Co-ordinator. Grace will be in charge of our liaison with the Lido Cinema to ensure our films and our presenters are all ready to go. IL CINEMA RITROVATO HIGHLIGHTS Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato is the mothership of film restoration events. It now attracts over 5000 visitors, screens from morning till late at night in six cinemas, plus outdoors nightly in the city’s Piazza Maggiore. It tallies up more than 150,000 admissions. Three members of Cinema Reborn’s Organising Committee attended this year’s event and have returned with a huge wishlist of possible titles for our 2026 season. If you would like to know more about what was screened in 2025 click here For several years Ehsan Khoshbakht one of the four program directors has published a poll in which he records the votes of scores of those attending. Each voter records a “Favourite” and a “Discovery”. The individual choices and the tallies are compiled on Ehsan’s website which you can find if you click here. CINEMA REBORN E-MAIL LIST Please pass this on to your friends who may be interested in Cinema Reborn’s activities and invite them to join our mailing list by sending an email to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com View

CINEMA REBORN - OCTOBER NEWSLETTER - A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI + DAVID STRATTON, ROSS CAMPBELL and BILL MOUSOULIS

A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI Tom Zubrycki (pictured above) is one of Australia's leading documentary film-makers. For over forty years  he has chronicled Australian society. His awards include the Stanley Hawes Award in recognition of an outstanding contribution to Australian Documentary, the Cecil Holmes Award from the Australian Directors Guild, and an International Emmy. Cinema Reborn, OZDOX and the Randwick Ritz are proud to present  a screening of newly restored copies of two of Tom’s highly regarded landmark films: KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984) and HOMELANDS (1993). Tom will introduce the films and take part in a conversation about his life, career and documentary film-making in Australia. The evening will be hosted by Maree Delofski - filmmaker, scholar and historian. KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984)  A day by day account of a sixteen day underground colliery sit-in strike which led to the storming of Parliament House in Canberra. The story is mirrored through a family of one of the striking miners. KEMIRA premiered at the Sydney Film Festival, had a cinema release and won awards including the AFI for Best Documentary, Silver Bear in Leipzig, and Best Film at Tyneside.  HOMELANDS (1993). A story about a refugee family living in Melbourne but torn apart by their conflicting desires to return to their homeland in El Salvador or to stay in Australia. HOMELANDS follows the personal dramas in the life of the family over eighteen months. The film had a nation-wide festival and cinema release and was awarded the Film Critics Circle Prize for Best Documentary. International festival screenings included Cinéma du Réel, IDFA and Margaret Mead. Tom would like to acknowledge the work of Ray Argall who has lovingly restored both of these films. 5.00 PM ON SUNDAY 8 DECEMBER BOOKINGS CLICK THIS LINK DAVID STRATTON’S NEW BOOK AUSTRALIA AT THE MOVIES Coming in November is David’s new book, the third of his critical studies of the history of Australian film. David has been kind enough to send through the Introduction to the book to allow Cinema Reborn friends and subscribers to get an early taste of what our longstanding patron’s book, a massive 660 page survey, delves into. Our thanks to him. The book goes on sale in November. The peaks and lows that have characterised Australian feature film production over a period of 30 years are the subject of this survey.  My aim has been to provide basic information, and brief critical commentary, on Australian feature films made between 1990 and 2020.  I previously published books about Australian films of the 1970s - The Last New Wave (1980) and the 1980s, The Avocado Plantation (1990) - but they were rather different from the current book, which is effectively an encyclopaedia that attempts to list all the feature films made over that thirty year period.   The 70s was a decade in which the Australian cinema, which had been virtually dormant for about thirty years, burst into life, thanks to Government support (Federal and State) and to a new sense of identity and cultural blossoming. Most of the young directors who made their first films in the 70s were interviewed for The Last New Wave and many of them went on to successful international careers. The 80s was the decade of tax concessions for the film industry, a period in which so many films were made that the level of quality inevitably declined.  There were, of course, significant highlights during the decade, but in writing about them for The Avocado Plantation I divided the films into genres rather than placing the major focus on the film directors. I had always planned to follow these books with another about the 90s, but the pressures of participating in a weekly television programme, and other commitments, intervened and the years slipped by.  So now there’s a lot of catching up to do, and the following pages contain an account of feature film production (and sometimes co-production) over three decades. I have attempted to include every feature film made in Australia between  1990 and 2020, but during a period when an increasing number of films are being independently made and when release patterns are increasingly chaotic, I haven’t been entirely successful in accomplishing this. I have no doubt that some films are missing, but I hope there are not too many of them. …I hope this book will provide useful information and perhaps encourage further investigation and research into some of the forgotten feature films of the past quarter century. David Stratton BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE…. Veteran Melbourne cinephile Ross Campbell has published a remarkable memoir titled …MELBOURNE AT THE MOVIES: Confessions of a Certified Cinephile. The book is a labour of love chronicling what Ross describes as the excitement and brilliance of the city’s vibrant film culture as seen through the life of a movie obsessed Melburnian. More information and a link to purchase IF YOU CLICK HERE BILL MOUSOULIS PRESENTS MY DARLING IN STIRLING Stalwart supporter of Cinema Reborn and champion of independent Australian cinema Bill Mousoulis is screening his new film in Sydney on Wednesday 16 October at the Randwick Ritz.The film premiered at the Adelaide International Film Festival and is a contemporary and experimental musical, Bill’s 11th feature in a career spanning 40 years. My Darling in Stirling is a low-budget community effort, highlighting the town of Stirling situated in the Adelaide Hills. A fairy-tale but realist musical, where every line is sung, it is a joyful but also melancholic film, about lost innocence. A young woman, Emma (Amelie Dunda), studying at university and living at home with her mother and brother in the Adelaide suburbs, falls in love with a cafe waiter Nick (Henry Cooper), (both pictured above) who lives and works in the town of Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Entranced by the man and the town, she begins to feel a sense of excitement and vitality in her life. My Darling in Stirling is inspired by the all-singing 1964 film directed by Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There will be a filmmaker introduction prior to the screening and a Q&A after the film, moderated by film critic Anne Rutherford. "A dream film, a bittersweet celebration of ordinary life."- Frankie Kanatas, Senses of Cinema "The film has compact eloquence, stylistic finesseand emotional force."- Adrian Martin, Film Critic: Adrian Martin CINEMA REBORN DATES FOR 2025 In case you need to make a diary entry, Cinema Reborn 2025 takes place at the Randwick Ritz from 30 April to 6 May and the Hawthorn Lido from 8 to 13 May. Programme announcements from early in the New Year and full programme published in mid-March.

On Josef von Sternberg's THE LAST COMMAND (USA, 1928) - An entry from David Stratton's new book MY FAVOURITE MOVIES:FROM A CENTURY OF FILMS AND THE WORLD'S BEST DIRECTORS

Editor’s Note: What follows is one of the one hundred and eleven entries in David Stratton’s new book “My Favourite Movies: From a Century of  Films and the World’s Best Directors” 

Here’s the publisher's blurb for the book

Australia's best-loved film critic shares the movies which are his personal favourites of all time, as well as titbits and insights from the leading directors and actors he has met over half a century.

Wondering what to watch next? Discover a new movie or a new director among David Stratton's personal favourites!

These are the movies Australia's best-loved film critic, David Stratton, has watched again and again. There are dramas, comedies, thrillers, musicals, westerns and arthouse classics from a century of filmmaking. From Casablanca to The Big Sleep, On the Waterfront  to Lorenzo's Oil, and Jaws to Animal Kingdom, here are hundreds of hours of great entertainment. 

Each movie is reviewed, with details and behind-the-scenes stories that will enhance your experience of movies you have seen before. David has met many of the directors and actors, and he includes anecdotes and memories you won't find anywhere else. 

Keep David Stratton's My Favourite Movies on your coffee table, and you'll find yourself dipping into it time and time again.

Author bio:

David Stratton AM is an award-winning film critic, film historian and lecturer, television personality and producer. He has served as President of the International Critics Jury for the Cannes and Venice Film Festivals, and was for 28 years co-host with Margaret Pomeranz of SBS's The Movie Show and ABC's At the Movies. A former critic for international film industry magazine Variety, he currently writes for The Australian. He is author of four books on film, The Last New Wave, The Avocado Plantation and 101 Marvellous Movies You May Have Missed, and a memoir I Peed on Fellini.

A perfect Christmas gift. To buy David’s new book from Booktopia JUST CLICK HERE

 

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The Last Command (U.S.A., 1928)

Paramount.  Director: Josef von Sternberg.  88 mins.

First seen: Union Theatre (University of Sydney), August 26, 1967

 

‘Hollywood 1928! The Magic Empire of the Twentieth Century.’ These opening titles – written by Herman J. Mankiewicz who, 13 years later, would be the co-author of Citizen Kane– introduce Leo Andreyev (William Powell), a Russian director preparing a film about the Russian Revolution.  A photograph of an extra who is willing accept payment of only $7.50 per day catches his eye; his assistant says the man claims to be the cousin of the late Czar.  

William Powell, Emil Jannings, The Last Command

Former Grand Duke Sergius Alexander (Emil Jannings) is living in a squalid boarding house and eagerly goes to the Eureka Studio next day, joining a large crowd of potential extras (‘The Bread Line of Hollywood’).  As he dons costume and makeup, and pins on himself a medal the Czar himself had given him, Alexander remembers the year 1917 when he was Commanding General of the Russian Armies.  He orders the arrest of two civilians: one is Andreyev, “Director of the Kief [sic] Imperial Theatre”, and the other Natacha Dabrova (Evelyn Brent), an actress; both are supporters of the imminent Revolution.  Andreyev escapes from custody, but Natacha stays to (presumably) become Alexander’s mistress. 

 

At the outset of the Revolution she helps him escape and shortly afterwards dies when the train in which she’s travelling crashes into an icy river.  In the present, Andreyev prepares a scene in which Alexander hits a dissident soldier with a riding crop (just as Alexander had hit Andreyev ten years earlier).  With the Russian National Anthem playing and the camera rolling, Alexander gives his last command: “Forward to Victory.  Long live Russia”.

Evelyn Brent, Emil Jannings, The Last Command

The Last Command is a showcase for the great Swiss-born German actor Emil Jannings, who specialised in roles in which he was humiliated, usually by a younger woman.  He had worked for the best German directors, Ernst Lubitsch and F.W. Murnau, and his role as a loyal hotel doorman demoted to the squalid role of washroom attendant in Murnau’s Der Letzte Mann– mis-translated in English as The Last Laugh(1923) - had made him world-famous.  

 

He arrived in Hollywood a star; The Last Command was the second film he made there and he would subsequently work again with Josef von Sternberg on Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel, 1930), one of the first talkies produced in Germany, in which Jannings’ character suffers humiliation from a dazzlingly youthful Marlene Dietrich.  Jannings’ role as the Russian aristocrat reduced to working as a Hollywood extra is one of his most powerful; he is a brutal but charismatic leader of men in the Russian scenes, and a pathetic shadow of a man, given to uncontrollable shaking, in the Hollywood scenes.

 

The screenplay expects the viewer to believe that Evelyn Brent’s revolutionary falls in love with this character, who represents the opposite to everything she stands for, which is frankly a big ask; but Sternberg just about gets away with the contrivance (such narrative improbabilities were more acceptable in the cinema of the silent era).  

 

With its impressive sets, and boasting Bert Glennon’s fluid photography, The Last Command looks wonderful, and it also offers intriguing insights into “the Mecca of the World” (as one title describes Hollywood) in the dying days of the silent era.

 

Emil Jannings (and medal),
The Last Command

At this time the writing of inter-titles was a specialised task and was rarely given to the official screenwriter, who in this case was John F. Goodrich (working from a story by Lajos Biro).  Mankiewicz’s titles are suffused with dark irony (“She [Natacha] is pretty enough to merit my personal attention”, Alexander remarks when warned she is “the most dangerous revolutionist [sic] in Russia”.  Later, when he presents her with a pearl necklace, one of his men – eavesdropping – remarks that “That sort of thing should always be done after caviar.”  These are the pearls Natacha returns to Alexander to help finance his escape from Russia just before she is killed.  

 

Mankiewicz is disdainful of the Bolsheviks: a scene of men and women engaged in plotting is described as “A group of obscure people meet[ing] to decide the fate of Russia.”  The film’s ending foreshadows the resolution of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, made thirty years later.  “He was a great actor,” says the Assistant Director (Jack Ramond) as Alexander dies. “He was a great man” responds Andreyev – an unlikely line, perhaps, but in the context a satisfying one.

 

Josef von Sternberg

Josef von Sternberg (real name, Jonas Sternberg) (1894-1969) was born in Vienna and came to America with his family when he was seven years old.  His first film, The Salvation Hunters (1925) was a semi-experimental feature made entirely outside the studio system.  It was well-liked by influential people but Sternberg, who had a reputation of being difficult to work with, had major problems on his next two pictures, The Exquisite Sinner(1925), which he made at MGM and which was taken away from him and completely re-shot, and The Seagull, aka A Woman of the Sea(1926), which was a drama produced by Charles Chaplin as a vehicle for his long-time leading lady Edna Purviance.  Chaplin, it seems, disliked the film and shelved it; it has never been seen publicly.  

 

Despite these setbacks, Sternberg persevered and signed a contract with Paramount where, in 1927, he scored his first big success with Underworld, one of the earliest gangster pictures.  This was followed by The Last Command, The Drag Net (1928), another lost film, The Docks of New York(also 1928), and The Case of Lena Smith(1929), of which only fragments survive.  The Blue Angelwas so successful that Sternberg was able to bring its star, Dietrich, back to Paramount where together they made a delirious series of stunningly photographed melodramas: Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931),Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus (both 1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil is a Woman (1935).  His post-Dietrich period had its ups and downs, especially when he was unable to complete a prestige Alexander Korda production, I Claudius, in England in 1936.  The final film he completed was The Saga of Anatahan (1953), which he made on a sound stage in Tokyo (though Jet Pilot, which he started filming in 1949 for producer Howard Hughes, was finally released in 1957).  Sternberg was an innovative director and an unparalleled visual artist whose films repay repeated viewing.

The young unbearded David Stratton (l) with Josef
von Sternberg & Dugmore Merry (SFF President)
at the Sydney Film Festival, 1967

In 1967 I invited Sternberg to attend the Sydney Film Festival.  When he first arrived he certainly lived up to his advance reputation and proved to be a demanding guest, but during his stay we became friends and were on first name terms by the time he left after a two-week visit.  We remained in touch and I visited his home in Los Angeles in December, 1969.  He delighted in showing me some of his memorabilia (a letter from Sergei Eisenstein, photographs taken on the set of Duel in the Sun) and he took me to dinner at a Japanese restaurant before driving me back to my hotel in his ancient Jaguar.  Eighteen days later he died of heart failure.