Re: RARA-AVIS: The Woman Chaser movie

From: Terrill Lankford ( lankford2000@earthlink.net)
Date: 03 May 2004


Bill,

I'm sorry you didn't get the bang out of this film that a lot of us did. I truly loved it. But my first encounter with it was the color version (which had the film-within-the-film and a few flashbacks in black and white) and I have to say I liked it just a bit better than the black and white version. Still, I thought it was a riot, no matter what the colors.

TL

www.terrillleelankford.com

On May 2, 2004, at 9:49 PM, William Denton wrote:

> Thanks to Mr. Wilson, who lent me the video, I was finally able to see
> the
> 1999 movie adaptation of THE WOMAN CHASER by Charles Willeford. I
> looked
> back through the archives and almost everyone who saw it liked it and
> said
> it was the most faithful of the three adaptations of Willeford's books
> (the others being COCKFIGHTER and MIAMI BLUES).
>
> One or two people didn't like it much, and neither did the reviewer in
> the
> New York Times. I'd say it's middling. Some scenes are well done,
> like
> the dance with Hudson and his mother, and some of the minor parts are
> well
> cast. The movie within the movie, what bits we see of it on screen or
> while it's being filmed, looks great. Willeford's book is very good,
> so
> it's got the right stuff to start with.
>
> The problem is not that it's a low budget, off-beat, black and white
> film
> noir homage with a lounge music soundtrack, it's that it's not an
> original
> low budget, off-beat, black and white film noir homage with a lounge
> music
> soundtrack. It often looks just like you'd imagine it would, camera
> angles, grainy film, and all.
>
> While watching it, I thought, man, if they'd handled it the way Stephen
> Frears and Donald Westlake did Jim Thompson's THE GRIFTERS, they'd have
> one hell of a movie. But that's a rare happening.
>
>
> Bill
> --
> William Denton : Toronto, Canada : http://www.miskatonic.org/ : Caveat
> lector.
>

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