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• Engaging Psychological Drama

  • Augustine Sasso
  • 7/3/12

  Sidney Lumet has made some very good movies and some that seem a bit dated or just lack the punch because the rest of the world has caught up with them. This falls into the latter category. Maybe similar to the Hill with Sean Connery, The Appointment has Omar Sharif and Anouk Aimee near their peak of popularity. This had to have been a movie for its time, also like the Hill, because it's so well made. It's easy to dismiss dated movies as fake or lightweight. There's really nothing lightweight about it, and those who don't understand or appreciate movies and the art of filmmaking will always make that mistake. This movie is very much in the spirit of Antonioni's Blowup with it's pace and locations. The architecture and space reinforce the feeling of isolation, and paranoia. It's not an easy thing to pull off, but Lumet does so. It's a movie for young filmmakers to study and learn the language of filmmaking, and to also enjoy.

• WHO KNEW . . . ? ! ?

  • Dan Hand
  • 6/4/12

  "Lumet" is apparently the Yiddish word for "poseur" . . . .

• I WAS RIVETED

  • Sharon Morehead
  • 6/4/12

  I can say no more...........

• Obsession of The Appointment

  • Alexandra
  • 10/12/09

  A lesson in making assumptions and jumping to conclusions. Carla, a sensitive, intense woman is badly hurt when her finance abruptly drops her because an acquaintance steals a piece of jewelry from a high-priced call girl--jewelry that the fiance had given Carla, and which Carla explained she had lost. Fredrico first sees and falls in love with Carla when he sees her on a crowded street. He later is introduced to her by his colleague, the fiance. She entreats Frederico to talk to Renzo to find the reason he has dropped her. Renzo tells Frederico the story of the jewelry. Frederico, madly in love with Carla, determines to discover the truth of the story, and so arranges with the madam (who runs a furniture store as a front) to set up an appointment for him with this mysterious call girl. On the evening of the appointment, the woman fails to show up, and Frederico discovers that Carla has taken pills (because Frederico, thinking she was guilty, had been cruel to her) and is hospitalized. He assumes she is the same woman as the one who did not show up for the appointment. Later, her guileless tenderness persuades him to marry her, and he regrets his previous suspicions. Renzo drops hints in a taunting and telling way about "things you can believe" and "things you cannot" and Frederico's suspicions are again aroused. He calls the madam and asks her to arrange another appointment. In the meantime, his doubts cause him to again treat Carla cruelly, and, on the same evening as the appointment, she takes another overdose, this time actually dying in the hospital. The madam calls the next day, explaining the call girl was involved in an accident, but is now ready to meet him. Frederico is stunned to hear the woman is still alive, and learns, too late, his suspicions about Carla were unfounded.

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