Joanna (1968) Genevieve Waite, Donald SutherlandDirector: Michael SarneCo-stars: Christian Doermer, Calvin Lockhart108 minutes, ColorDVD-R: Region ALLWaite is a naive young woman who has come to London to study art. She has an affair with her teacher Doermer and takes up with Forster-Jones, a black woman living off of rich men and welfare. She introduces Waite to an entirely different world. Waite has another affair, this time with Scheuer, while Forster-Jones takes up with wealthy lord Sutherland. The four go off to Sutherlands home in Morocco, where he confides to Waite that he is dying of leukemia. He explains that his slow death has taught him to live life to the fullest by committing himself to others. He sponsors a show of Doermers paintings and then dies. After the funeral Waite takes up with Forster-Joness brother Lockhart, a nightclub owner, who gets mixed up with gangsters and ends up in the slammer. Waite, now pregnant, returns to her fathers home to have the child. Slightly surreal, with sunshine-and-roses songs by poet McKuen, the film is most notable for its attempt at dealing openly and honestly with miscegenation. However, the rest of the film falters, particularly from the confusion between what is real and what is imagined. Sutherland steals the film as the dying man. Sexual liaisons are only hinted at: lots of necking but relatively little else. (Sarne may have been trying to make up for this when he made MYRA BRECKENRIDGE). The American release was cut down from the version screened at Cannes and the English release.
$10
Go to
ScooterMoviesShop
