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• Wilder's Little Seen Brilliant Movie

  • David Atkins
  • 8/14/11

  Billy Wilder a brilliant film maker and my candidate for the Screen's Greatest Director filmed Tom Tryon's story Fedora about a Garbo-like actress. William Holden, a Wilder favorite stars. In Cameron Crowe's great book on Wilder, the Director bemoaned the choice of Marthe Keller but was too far along in the film to make a change. Wilder was on record in the book 'Kim Novak On Camera' noting the fine work of Kim Novak and Kim would have been splendid as both the younger and older "Star". Coupling the problem of this film as it got little distribution from Allied Artists which was failing as the film debuted. I sure wish TCM would screen this film, it is brilliant and William Holden, and Henry Fonda do very well in this film of a screen star named Fedora ( read Garbo)

• Underappreciated film

  • John Cooke
  • 1/31/09

  Fedora is not perfect, but it is an underappreciated film with great performances from William Holden and Marthe Keller. It's a fascinating counterpoint to Sunset Blvd. and should be shown with it on a double bill. The original Thomas Tryon story is a classic, so it is a shame the movie doesn't quite do it justice, but it does come close and is very true to the source material. A lost gem of the 1970s.

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