Ill-Starred Thirteenth Festival of Cannes

Abstract

Faced with the depressing quality of most of the twenty-seven competition films and the generally lack-lustre atmosphere of the Thirteenth Annual International Film Festival held at Cannes May 4-21 this year, one was sorely tempted to believe there was something to the malevolent power that superstition accords the number 13 after all. There were, of course, a number of first-rate films, but the day by day average of pretentiousness or mediocrity stretching over nearly three weeks was pretty rough on the faithful filmgoer. Boosted in advance by the popular press as having the most scandalous collection of films ever presented in a festival, the actual projection revealed a singularly unappetizing and often downright dreary detailing of sexual vagaries. The range of deviation was unquestionably wide: incest, rape, voyeurism, homosexuality, and seduction of a twelve-year-old. In is context adultery and prostitution appeared rather old hat. Let it not be thought, though, that any of these subjects were treated lightly or that any of the deviations were shown to have an agreeable side: all were seen from a heavily moral viewpoint. The festival opened and closed with the showing of two long American films, both of which rather spectacularly bored the sophisticated, largely Parisian, audience. Ben-Hur for all its Oscars, its millions, and its monumental ballyhoo, provoked many a titter, and at its end won only the barest flutter of polite applause. The final film, Savage Innocents, a hybrid entered under Italian colors, directed by American Nicholas Ray, acted by Japanese Yoko Tani and 15