I. Luria – Google

Now that I am no longer a movie snob I can really enjoy "Sisters"! When it came out, 1973, I preferred Bresson to almost all directors. Now I delighted in the quick mood shifts from dry dark to corny to sardonic and back to scary and then an erotic twist. The last sequence at the bucolic train station with cow and the couch and the private investigator up on the telephone pole is PERFECT! I feel that Di Palma has every good quality a film director should have and I also was happy to hear the Herrmann score because his music is wild wild and wild

This is a good movie about racism with a dialogue that is NOT politically correct. British colonialist hostility and working class disdain for colored people living in England in 1950's London. A pretty mixed race college girl who has been "Passing" is found stabbed to death in Hempstead Heath. What seems to be a B detective film becomes a pretty good declaration of another sort of pervasive Sin.

I'd hoped for better! This is a weird combination of talents and perhaps miscasting. Warren Beatty is delightful and irresistable as the romantic lead. Leslie Caron should have played this role when we loved her in "The L-shaped Room" ten years earlier. Here she is just too sophisticated, worldly wise, and conniving to be swept off her feet by a wanna be film-maker, who can't pay his rent (yet somehow has an abundance of champagne!). A word here about the fact that William Peter Blatty of "The Exorcist" fame wrote the screenplay. I know, I know; The theme song is sung by Tom Jones! I kept feeling disturbed, like when the baby doctor; a suitor and employer of Leslie Caron; a famous child specialist, is preparing a paper on infants feeling robbed of their feces when the toilet flushes it away!!! Not such a light thought... OR when after a short time alone together, Warren Beatty has the baby of Leslie Caron undressed down to a diaper and appearing in his soft core porn. Also shots of the baby on the potty, or drunk froma mixed up baby formula and other things... So, Arthur Hiller is directing the humor with cameos by giants like Hermione Gingold and Lionel Stander in another movie world entirely. Light-hearted glib and silly. It is this contrast between silly and sneaky that makes this film difficult to believe and hard to love.

For me this was just right X-tra outre and no frills attached. All the characters are on the edge an edge we are forced to be on the whole time. Even the end of the final episode is frightening and with a shiver that stays with you. The back story for me was- I was recalling a performance by an actress in a Midsomer Murder episode -"Garden of Death" and wondering what this actress who had so creeped me out and drawn me in simultaneously had been performing in since then. So I looked up the cast on IMBD and found her name is Victoria Hamilton and so I found this other TV series What Remains and jackpot there she was doing that kind of delivery that makes you want to slap her! She's excellent but the entire cast is great like only British ensembles can be.

Ben Gazzara, James Stewart, George C. Scott -three magnetic, wonderful actors in great form; enjoying their craft and playing with each other. At times the ensemble almost seems to look lovingly at each other because they jive so well - like jazz musicians jamming who occasionally glance over to nod their appreciation. Speaking of Jazz what a cool soundtrack by Duke Ellington especially those final three high notes notes at the end of the movie. I guess every film buff likes this movie- a lot but, if you are a young viewer try this movie on for size. It is just about as good as it gets!

THIS IS A GREAT FILM - ANY ONE OF THESE ACTORS HAVE MADE A FILM WHICH MIGHT INSPIRE ONE TO WANT ACT OR WRITE OR DIRECT A MOVIE OF THEIR OWN. AND SIDNEY LUMET DID A TERRIFIC JOB DIRECTING THESE TALENTED GUYS. CERTAIN MOMENTS ARE JUST BEAUTIFUL MAYBE LEE J COBB'S TEARS WERE THE MOST FELT, BUT, EACH ACTOR HAS A TIME WHEN HE REVEALS HIS CHARACTER LIKE A COSTUME COMING OFF. NICE SCRIPT! I SEE WHY HENRY FONDA WANTED TO PRODUCE IT- HE KNEW IT WAS SPECIAL AND ALL THAT WAS NEEDED WAS TO CAST IT STRONG AND FIND THE DIRECTOR WHO COULD MOVE THEM ALL. CERTAINLY AFTER WEEKS OF THE DEPP V. HEARD TRAIL THIS WAS LIKE A CLEAN SHOWER