I\u2019ve posted reviews of two film starring Anthony Quinn in 1969, a rare non-prolific year, given his expansive C.V. playing a diversity of characters. He\u2019s been accused of mining Zorba on more than a few occasions, but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a fully fair criticism when the two films reviewed here offer very different characters. Anthony Quinn + Accents + Emotionally Gregarious Characters don\u2019t always equal Zorba II.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In A Dream of Kings<\/a><\/strong>, Quinn reunites with Zorba<\/strong> co-star Irene Papas (now hold on\u2026 there\u2019s more) and plays a complex character in a crumbling marriage that\u2019s further aggravated by the near-terminal illness of his son. He\u2019s an honest gambler, a proud Greek (I said hold on!) and a man who just can\u2019t learn from his mistakes. Daniel Mann\u2019s film is quite flawed, but it just manages to get by because of Quinn and Papas. Their scenes are packed with emotional subtext \u2013 sometimes it emerges in speech, but often it\u2019s just looks and body language. It\u2019s a great performance by Quinn in a film probably remembered by soundtrack LP collectors because of Alex North\u2019s lovely score.<\/p>\n Also known for being Inger Stevens’ final feature film, Dream\u00a0<\/strong>was released as an MOD title by Warner Archive back in 2009.<\/p>\n Stanley Kramer\u2019s film version of this WWII set novel by Robert Crichton is kind of long\u2026 and takes a while to ease into the narrative, but it works, and it\u2019s a small cult film for all the right reasons. Great score by Ernest Gold, stunning cinematography, and among the supporting cast is Giancarlo Giannini, who looks 12 with his big brown curly mop. Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray is very nice, and includes an isolated score track that should please fans.<\/p>\n Cheers,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor Anthony Quinn stars in two flawed but worthy films from 1969: Daniel Mann’s A Dream of Kings (on DVD from Warner Archive) and Stanley Kramer’s The Secret of Santa Vittoria (on Blu from Twilight Time).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[3303,3296,1928,3316,741,2562,2563,3318,3317,3300,3299,740],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/DreamOfKings_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2K9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10549"}],"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=10549"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10560,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10549\/revisions\/10560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"DreamOfKings_Sp_poster\"](\"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/DreamOfKings_Sp_poster.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>To the other pole is Quinn in The Secret of Santa Vittoria<\/a><\/strong> playing a town buffoon, \u2018elected\u2019 mayor by Fascist schmucks hoping he\u2019ll do such a rotten job, they\u2019ll be back in power in no time. Problem is drunkard Bombolini is savvy, and startles everyone by being clever when evil Nazi schweins led by Hardy Kruger motor into the village wanting to abscond with their precious wine. How does Bombolini and the town tuck away 1.3 million bottles of primo vino?<\/p>\n
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