Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

DÉJÀ VU

If unaware of the chronology of Vincente Minnelli’s pictures you may wonder why his 1962 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse has a vague familiarity: change locales, time periods and actors in the hot air conflicts, you’d be tempted to claim you’re revisiting a disguisedly kitschy but far less funny 2 Weeks in Another Town, the director’s hysterical La Dolce Vita soaper released the same year. Both are surfeit with a mélange of accents, competitive screamer performances (three ladies tie for dishonors in 2 Weeks), sets by stuffmeisters George Davis and Keogh Gleason, and ever-present gargoyles and predictability. Having decided to remake Valentino’s silent 4 Horsemen, MGM overlooked the pre-ordained conclusion: Minnelli as director of a serious oracle about man’s inhumanity is a primer on the Peter Principle, which somehow didn’t become early warning when he wanted Alain Delon as the handsome Argentine. MGM demanded a “big” star for roadshow marquee value and not so big Glenn Ford arrives looking ridiculous in black gaucho drag. And frustrated: he had to get his cues from Ingrid Thulin, whose accent was so thick in English only a shred of her voice remains—having been dubbed by Angela Lansbury, whose talents needed to be employed to do the same for Ingrid’s Return from the Ashes and her so-bad-it’s-a-comedy Cassandra Crossing. (With or without dubbing she would have been an intriguing Eva Peron and did become a mommie dearest cult favorite in Visconti’s The Damned.) For Glenn, acting opposite a foreign actress was déjà vu: only two years earlier he made another epic flop remake Cimarron, in which he starred with Austrian Maria Schell (and if the few who saw that intended roadshow hadn’t any difficulty with her diction, they definitely had trouble with the dumb-dumb conclusion). The international cast assembled for the central family doesn’t have any recognizable bloodline connections, tho a few members share bad acting genes: Lee J. Cobb in 2 alarm fright white hair and Yvette Mimieux as Glenn’s sister are over-the-top appalling and fittingly dispatched. Out of respect, C. B., P. L. and P. H. are best left unmentioned. The economized montages, with horsemen galloping through tinted news reel footage and lavish culinary decadence at ritzy clubs, have zilch moral potency, and equally negligible are the dirty looks the extras as citizenry give the Germans marching into Paris. After preview audiences rendered their dissatisfaction, Ingrid’s vox wasn’t the only problem yanked: plans to roadshow the movie and Alex North’s score were terminated. Though André Previn as replacement would write one of the loveliest romantic themes heard in the 60s, his music for the rest of the drama as lackluster as Minnelli’s direction. Redemptive morsels: 4 Horsemen is really about Glenn and Ingrid’s gloves and coats in entrances and exits.to escape the

(Available at YouTube, Mantovani’s version of the love theme cuts through the foreplay and his own established hackery to get to its melodic hook.)

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ralphbenner@nowreviewing.com