Teuvo Tulio, coast to coast.

"The Finns called him their Valentino, the 'Wild Bird' of the national cinema." J Hoberman in the Voice: "BAMcinématek is using the more prosaic Master of Melodrama. But to judge from the four-feature sampling that begins Monday, director-writer-producer-actor Teuvo Tulio (1912 - 2000) is a cinematic 'found object' as ferocious as South Korea's outlaw genre artist Kim Ki-young (subject of a recent Walter Reade retro) or the Mexican maestros of the cabaretera who may someday get their due."

Cullen Gallagher previews these "four masterpieces of melodrama, all made between 1938 and 1946," in the L Magazine: "Paradise and innocence lost are Tulio's preoccupations, and his characters are invariably naive girls who are turned wayward and wanton by corrupting men. But within this paradigm, Tulio expresses a sexual and moral sophistication that surpasses anything made in Production Code-era Hollywood."

The series runs through November 24, overlapping with Discovering Teuvo Tulio, running at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley from November 15 through December 4.

Related: "How did Theodor Tugai turn into Teuvo Tulio?" at the Finnish Embassy.

And a Finnish tribute.

Posted by dwhudson at October 29, 2008 9:32 AM