(Past) The First Post

Musings on Annie Hall, Masculinity and 70s Action Cinema, Revolver and Vito Cipriani, Oliver Reed

Well, this is my first post. I'm reeling from watching Annie Hall. For a comedy, that movie sure is depressing. For the first time, I'm struck by how well-observed the character of Alvy (played by Woody Allen) is: I hate to say it, but in Alvy I recognise an exaggerated version of the 'tics' that have plagued my own dealings with the 'fairer sex'--hesitancy, insecurity, a fear of the vulnerability that accompanies revealing our emotions.

Yes, Alvy is a shorter version of a 'guy's guy': his whimpering persona is a hyperbolic representation of the flaws that govern mens behaviour.

As stated above, the name for this blog comes from the movie Blood in the Streets (also known as Revolver and In the Name of Love): Vito Cipriani is a character played by Oliver Reed. In the early 70s, Reed played a number of no-nonsense action characters, in movies like Sitting Target (directed by Douglas Hickox)--a classic that needs to be released on DVD right this minute (do ya hear me?)--and Don Medford's The Hunting Party (another of my favourite movies).

In Blood in the Streets Reed plays a prison warden whose wife is kidnapped. I should point out that Reed's wife is played by the astoundingly gorgeous Agostina Belli: if only I could meet a woman like that.

Reed is forced by the kidnappers to release a prisoner, a petty thief played by Fabio Testi. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Reed's wife has been kidnapped by some French politicos who had arranged the assassination of another French politician/businessman, who had turned against his 'class' and threatened to expose some corruptions at the heart of the government. The politicos want Testi dead because he is the only man who knows that the man the politicos had accused of the murder (Testi's friend) was dead before the assassination took place. At the end of the movie, Reed is offered a choice: kill Testi and get his wife back, or let Testi live (and reveal the conspiracy) and suffer the consequences (Reed's wife to be accused of the murder of a musician, and Reed's career to be destroyed). As Reed is told by one of the politicos, 'Society has many means of protecting itself: bureaucracy, red tape... and the revolver'.

Reed makes the choice: he kills Testi, and his wife is returned to him. However, in the closing shot his wife realises what has happened and backs away from Reed: Reed has fought hard, but has ultimately alienated the wife he loves and for whom he has struggled.

Reed is brilliant in this movie: tough, tender and desperate in all the right places. And it's this 'old school' idea of masculinity and its treatment in popular culture that I want to celebrate and examine in this blog.

Okay, now that long-winded introduction is over, let the good times roll.