Saturday Night At The Movies: RAPTURE

I've written before about the somewhat enigmatic French juvenile actress, Patricia Gozzi [b. April 12, 1950], who created a more enchanting body of cinematic work before turning 16 than most ingenues produce in their entire careers.

She is credited in just seven films with only two, maybe three, lead roles: In LES DIMANCHES DE VILLE D'AVRAY [aka SUNDAYS AND CYBELLE, arguably the first "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" film], she's an endearing, open-hearted 11-year-old orphan; Hardy Kruger co-headlines as a brooding, emotionally scarred bomber-pilot veteran who may or may not be a pedophile. In her final film to date, she was first-billed in something called LE GRABUGE [a.k.a. HUNG UP], of which I know nothing except that it would have been released when she was 22 or 23. Between those movies was the one that got me right between the eyes while watching Turner Classic Movies at some wee small hour at least 10-15 years ago and has haunted me even since: 1965's RAPTURE. Some nice fellow has uploaded a recording of the pan & scan print that gets aired on the Fox Movie Channel at 4:05AM once every five and three-quarters years, so here's the film in 11 parts:



If people recognize RAPTURE director John Guillermin's name at all, it's for THE TOWERING INFERNO and the '70s KING KONG remake, maybe for the campy SHAFT IN AFRICA -- which is a shame, since he seems to have had a long string of solid, fascinating films in the '60s; from the brutal 1960 Peter Sellers vehicle NEVER LET GO to 1966's WWI epic THE BLUE MAX to 1969's BRIDGE AT REMEGAN, which I remember as being quite honest while still compelling. Guillermin's highwater mark has to be this film, although a large of part of that is due to Patricia Gozzi's haunting acting.

Or is it her acting? I guess we can never really know if it was her dramatic skill that makes this performance so compelling or if it was casting kismet, or perhaps Gozzi had that motion-picture photogenic quality that Kenneth Tynan famously ascribed to Great Garbo; I'm paraphrasing from memory, but he essentially said that Garbo wasn't a great actress but could project her being onto celluloid in a way that produced great acting in the roles she played. It's something more active than "star presence" and deeper than mere charisma. As raw an actress as Gozzi was, she could tap into that vein at times.

The story goes that she stopped acting after getting married, had some children and lives a happy, very private life working as a French-English translator somewhere. Even that's rather Garbo-esque.

Then again, this movie's magic might evaporate when you don't see it once in the middle of the night and then rely on your memory to not embelish and improve it as you think about the film a few times a week over the next decade or two. You tell me, did this movie and/or Gozzi's performance move you?

*******

ps. judging by the stills in this fine tribute video, maybe it's better that Gozzi's reputation rests on solely on SUNDAYS and RAPTURE; HUNG UP looks not-so-great, even by proto-exploitation-movie standards:



pps. Dear Criterion Collection,

I see that RAPTURE's Gozzi, Guillermin, male lead Dean Stockwell and screenwriter Stanley Mann are still alive; please interview as many of them as possible and/or record a commentary track for this film immediately. Thanks in advance.

yours in christ,
-- milo george

ppps. Dear Criterion Collection,

Hello again! While I'm at it: I see that SUNDAY's Gozzi, Krueger and writer/director Serge Bourguignon are still alive; please interview as many of them as possible and/or record a commentary track for this film immediately. Additional thanks in advance.

yours in christ, again,
-- milo george