Therese and Isabelle

The great work on this subject before Pinter’s Old Times.

Collège du Lys, where they make them, those lilies that bloom forever.

A mighty score by Georges Auric.

The Lickerish Quartet

Let us see what has been written of this masterpiece.

“But when he gets serious, he’s making a mistake.” (Roger Ebert)

“Russ Meyer’s sexploiters find their exact opposites in the work of Metzger.” (Time Out Film Guide)

“But what about pornography that grasps for art?” (Slant)

Score

The fashion photographer and his wife, the ecologist and the convent girl.

In costume they are a sailor, a nun, a Montana cowboy and a cover girl for Police Gazette.

The joker in the deck is a telephone repairman.

Winning one for the team is the whole idea, and if loyalties sway, the point is made.

Critics missed it of course, this comic tale set in “the Land of Plenty, bordering on Decadence to the north and Euphoria to the south...”

Naked Came the Stranger

The comical affair of a married New York morning-and-evening radio interview host with a childlike production staffer, also the comical revenge of his wife and co-hostess.

They mostly interview bores, a lesbian diet cookbook authoress, a film critic, etc.

The fortuitous ending is by way of Hutton’s X, Y and Zee.

Directed by Metzger as Henry Paris, from the best-selling novel written by professionals to debunk the best-selling novel.

The Image

A drama of the literary life.

The writer wrestles with his craft and deadlines. At one of those dreadful cocktail parties (the scene is Paris), he meets an old acquaintance, a dominatrix with a nearly perfect mistress. Perfection means no punishment.

The writer is allowed to share this slave in various ways (cp. Welles’ Hearts of Age), but having the girl causes a break.

The girl departs, who should knock on the writer’s door but the acquaintance?

A sublime work, turning De Sade to account in the very best of all possible worlds.

The Cat and the Canary

“Greed and power. That’s what it’s all about.”

A very simple affair of inheritance and envy. The New York Times (Richard F. Shepard) cocked a snook at it, there is no other word, and precisely missed the boat.

There is a pleasant echo of Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace in the two Army maniacs carving up their victims, who are manacled and dog-collared in a chair designed for less sanguinary experiments.

The genius of The Lickerish Quartet has a miraculous ease with the projection of a filmed will and is always on the spot with sharp glancing characterizations where a touch or two gives the surface and the rest is slowly revealed in constant motion.