A rarity: King Queen Knave, 1972

I did a piece some months ago on Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, and the impossibility of seeing his earlier films now.

Since then DEEP END from 1970 has been rescued by the BFI and there is now a 3 disk dvd (as per previous post on it), and I have finally got my hands on a copy of his 1972 KING QUEEN KNAVE, another quirky oddity. Given that it stars David Niven and Gina Lollobrigida with again John Moulder-Brown, its surprising that it was shown so little at the time and hardly since then. It is a very black comedy from the Nabokov novel and features Brown as the orphaned teenager who has to go and stay with his uncle and his attractive wife Martha (Lollo). Before too long of course the teenager has erotic fantasies about his glamorous aunt, there is that hilarious seduction scene and it seems the aunt has a plan of her own to get rid of her husband ....

Brown as the clumsy, short-sighted teen, wearing thick spectacles, is very funny here and Gina is as ever, sensational. Good to finally catch it, now where is THE ADVENTURES OF GERARD? Jerzy's new one ESSENTIAL KILLING is just out on dvd too, one to investigate.

Next rarity: Visconti's THE STRANGER, from the Camus novel, from 1967 with Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Karina.