{"id":10502,"date":"2015-01-21T21:32:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T02:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10502"},"modified":"2015-01-22T01:10:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-22T06:10:46","slug":"dvd-dream-of-kings-a-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10502","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Dream of Kings, A (1969)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"DreamOfKings\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Very Good<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Warner Archive<\/a> (MOD)<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a00 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0June 22, 2009<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A gambler resorts to desperate actions and indulgences when he’s told his son is dying.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0 (None)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

What begins as a small drama about a liar, gambler, womanizer, father, and proud Greek turns into a much different film when lead character Matsoukas (Anthony Quinn) makes the first of several terrible decisions and pushes the story in a direction that may have worked in Harry Mark Petrakis\u2019 novel, but in Daniel Mann\u2019s film it causes Matsoukas to lose some badly needed audience sympathy.<\/p>\n

One could regard\u00a0A Dream of Kings<\/b>\u00a0as a variation on\u00a0Zorba the Greek<\/b>\u00a0(1964), especially since it reunites Quinn with co-star Irene Papas \u2013 Quinn also has a dance scene which is pivotal in illustrating the disintegrating relationship with wife Caliope (Papas) \u2013 but it\u2019s really a tale of a loser whose personal problems eventually push him towards a desperate act, one that goes completely against his moral fiber and being a self-described \u2018honest gambler.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the working class Greek neighbourhood of Chicago, Matsoukas is a kind of community motivational counselor, an elder whose experience in the steel industry during his younger years and religious devotion to his homeland sometimes brings in older men or wayward teens and their moms in need of some sage \/ practical advice. He charges a pittance for his meek services, but uses his gambling acumen to magnify the day\u2019s income, even though in most cases the thrill of having a great hand and maintaining a perfect bluff is often all that he takes home.<\/p>\n

Living in a cramped tenement building, the Matsoukas family consists of father, mother, a vitriolic mother-in-law whose pension keeps the roof over their heads, two daughters, and an ailing son (future\u00a0Kung Fu<\/b>\u00a0star Radames Pera) whom Matsoukas believes will not die if he\u2019s brought to Mount Olympus and bathed in the rejuvenating light of the Greek sun.<\/p>\n

Eschewing the advice of his wife and family doctor, an angry Matsoukas goes for a late night drink, and on the way home, stops at the rear of a local bakery run by a widow he’s been admiring from his office window. Whether it’s due to the booze or his own ego, he makes the wrong moral choice and starts an affair with Anna (Inger Stevens).<\/p>\n

Everything that can go wrong does, but as the script by Petrakis and Ian McLellan Hunter (Roman Holiday<\/b>,\u00a0Your Ticket is No Longer Valid<\/b>) takes Matsoukas to the finale, the real problem becomes one of focus, and interpretation.<\/p>\n

Quinn is amazing \u2013 it\u2019s a subtle performance with a lot of dark emotional subtext which harkens back to the live fifties teleplays that bubbled with frank topics and grungy emotions \u2013 and there\u2019s no doubt Papas and Quinn have perfect screen chemistry, feeding off each other\u2019s energy, but the character of Anna is so weak it almost crashes the film. Stevens had little dialogue or character depth to mine, so watching her suddenly switch from a jittery, paranoid woman to a temptress willing to give all to this strange older man makes absolutely no sense. If the character was in the novel, one hopes she had a greater purpose, because here she’s a throwaway character that really adds nothing to the story, nor deepens the divide between Matsoukas and Caliope. (Stevens and Quinn reportedly had a history, so perhaps her casting was merely a job for an old friend.)<\/p>\n

Worse is the stilted, chunky dialogue which, when characters are having high-pitched fits, sounds like functional prose lifted from the novel but poorly shaped to suit the needs of a film.\u00a0A great example is the contrast between Matsoukas coming home drunk at the film\u2019s beginning, wrestling with Anna, and playfully teasing until the two have sex versus the Big End Confrontation in a bathroom, where he arrives home battered and bruised and she lets loose, venting the anger kept shuttered since their marriage began to falter. Even Anna\u2019s parting tirade to Matsoukas is quite awful, but Mann treats the scenes as kitchen sink drama, making the aforementioned bathroom scene kind of fascinating to observe: the actors play the scenes with full, true emotional intensity; Mann covers the performances with close shots to grab as much honesty as possible, even when slightly out of focus; and the inadequate dialogue just dribbles to the floor.<\/p>\n

Alex North\u2019s music helps soften the film’s awkward sections\u2013 the composer creates a tense undercurrent in spite of a recurring main theme evoking Matsoukas\u2019 \u2018kingly\u2019 persona and grace \u2013 and the cinematography by Richard H. Kline (Mandingo<\/a><\/b>,\u00a0Body Heat<\/b>,\u00a0The Fury<\/a><\/b>) is both elegant and intense, but A Dream of Kings<\/strong> is a seriously uneven film; it manages to work only because the film\u2019s most engaging storyline \u2013 the disintegration of a marriage \u2013 is so beautifully realized by Quinn, Papas, and Mann.<\/p>\n

Quinn\u2019s often criticized for falling back on his grinning, benevolent Zorba alter-ego (or for that matter, the Zorba-esque buffoon Bombolini in\u00a0The Secret of Santa Vittoria<\/b><\/a>, also made in 1969), but Matsoukas is a complex man: stubborn, delusional, yet in the end always well-meaning, even when forcing an affair with Anna whom he feels deserves his motivational praise and virility to wake up from a widow\u2019s slumber.<\/p>\n

Long unavailable on video, this Warner Archives MOD features a very lovely transfer that shows off the great locations, and North\u2019s score sounds clean \u2013 a surprise to those familiar with the bullshit stereo soundtrack LP.<\/p>\n

A Dream of Kings<\/b>\u00a0was one of seven films produced by film exhibitors National General Corporation, which also includes\u00a0Robert Kennedy Remembered\u00a0<\/b>(1968),\u00a0Charro!<\/b>\u00a0(1969),\u00a0Latitude Zero<\/b>\u00a0\/\u00a0Ido zero daisakusen\u00a0<\/b>(1969),\u00a0The Grasshopper<\/b>\u00a0(1970),\u00a0The Cheyenne Social Club<\/b>\u00a0(1970), and\u00a0The Baby Maker<\/b>\u00a0(1970).<\/p>\n

Anthony Quinn and Irene Papas appeared in six feature films, including\u00a0Attila\u00a0<\/b>(1954),\u00a0The Guns of Navarone\u00a0<\/b>(1961),\u00a0Zorba the Greek\u00a0<\/b>(1964),\u00a0A Dream of Kings<\/b>\u00a0(1969),\u00a0The Message\u00a0<\/b>(1977), and\u00a0Lion of the Desert<\/b>\u00a0(1981).<\/p>\n

Dream\u00a0<\/b>is also noted as Inger Stevens\u2019 final feature film. After working in TV (most memorably in the 1960\u00a0Twilight Zone<\/b>\u00a0episode \u201cThe Hitch-Hiker\u201d), the actress slowly graduated to feature films, often paired with veteran (and aging) stars in comedies (A Guide for the Marrying Man<\/b>), westerns (Firecreek<\/b>,\u00a0Hang \u2018Em High<\/b>), and detective thrillers (Madigan<\/b>). Stevens committed suicide at the age of 35, two months after the film\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

After directing major stars in top dramas during the fifties Daniel Mann\u2019s subsequent films yielded rather uneven results.\u00a0Our Man Flint<\/a><\/b>\u00a0(1966) was fun escapism, but like\u00a0Dream<\/b>, the story of a gambler in\u00a0For Love of Ivy\u00a0<\/b>(1968) was similarly flawed, and quite unsatisfying. After the cult rodent thriller Willard\u00a0<\/b>(1971) and the grim\u00a0The Revengers<\/b>\u00a0(1972), Mann worked almost exclusively in TV, ending his career with the drama\u00a0The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains<\/b>\u00a0(1987).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB \u00a0<\/a>— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —\u00a0Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What begins as a small drama about a liar, gambler, womanizer, father, and proud Greek turns into a much different film when lead character Matsoukas (Anthony Quinn) makes decision and pushes the story in a direction that may have worked in Harry Mark Petrakis\u2019 novel, but in Daniel Mann\u2019s film it causes Matsoukas to lose some tenuous audience sympathy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[641,3296,1928,3298,3297],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2Jo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10502"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10558,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10502\/revisions\/10558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}