Thorold Dickinson, 10/4.

Philip Horne, co-editor of Thorold Dickinson: A World of Film, has a terrific piece in the Guardian on why the director did not "follow in the footsteps of his fellow countryman and acquaintance Alfred Hitchcock" but is nonetheless deserving of far more attention than he's received until now:

His highest achievement is The Queen of Spades (1949), based on Pushkin's 1834 story and judged by Martin Scorsese "a masterpiece, one of the very best films of the 40s." Brought in to direct at only five days' notice, Dickinson persuasively recreated St Petersburg in 1815 on a shoestring, and all in a tiny old studio in Welwyn Garden City, next door to the Shredded Wheat factory. It's an astonishing piece of work, an intense study of desire, ruthless ambition and madness, with great performances from [Anton] Walbrook as the obsessed Suvorin and Edith Evans as the Old Countess who has sold her soul to the devil. Dickinson weaves a hallucinatory vision from Oliver Messel's magnificent sets, Otto Heller's fluid cinematography and Georges Auric's richly various, atmospheric score.

The Barbican in London screens The Queen of Spades and Secret People tomorrow and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery and Gaslight on Monday.

Posted by dwhudson at October 4, 2008 7:45 AM