MOVIES I FORGOT TO REMEMBER

What The Hell Did I Just Watch?

Silent Scream, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Amityville 3-D, The Nesting, and Dead & Buried. Even when presented with evidence that I actually saw these "classics," it's still news to me. 

"Movies are the memories of our lifetime." Martin Scorsese

The Fabelmans (2022) - Steven Spielberg

Except when they're not. 

I've loved movies all my life. And of all the things that make film the art form that speaks to me with the most eloquence, my favorite is its magical ability to feed dreams and create memories. Indeed, the miracle of making lasting memories is so much a part of what I associate with movies that I seldom consider when it's not. Which is most of the time. 

Not every movie can, nor needs to be, the kind of movie we never forget. But I'm always amazed how some films, through no effort on my part, practically fuse themselves to my psyche on contact, while others slide off like Teflon.

Which brings me to the subject of this post. 

Saying

To Movies I Forgot I Ever Saw

(Something tells me I'm not the only one who doesn't remember seeing this

 1987 comedy starring Shelley Long and Corbin Bernsen)

A recent spate of hysterical weather here in L.A. left me with plenty of time and zero excuses not to give my apartment a thorough cleaning. While clearing out a particularly Fibber McGee-ish closet, I came upon a box crammed with old movie reviews I'd written between the years 1976 to 1990. (Since my teens, I'd gotten into the habit of taking a pen and pad with me to the movies, scribbling notes in the dark to be later transposed into reviews written for my eyes only.) The discovery of this stack of files, containing roughly some 600 typed (my Wite-out® addiction was out of control) and handwritten reviews, mercifully put an end to cleaning for the day as I immersed myself in reading about all the films I'd seen during that time.

Even the oldest of my essays felt familiar after a paragraph or so; my feelings about the films reviewed not really having changed much over the years. What surprised me was when I came across several reviews of movies I would have sworn I hadn't seen at all. Reading them failed to jar a single memory. No bells rang. No flashes of recognition. No memories retrieved. A complete blank. An entire experience vanished. 

I certainly don't expect to remember every detail of every movie I've seen. But at the very least, I DO expect to remember that I saw the damn thing.  

Michael Douglas and Sharon Gless in The Star Chamber - 1983

Did I see this crime thriller? Yes. Do I remember seeing it? No. Allow me to volunteer an "Ode to Cinema" quote they can maybe try out on the next Academy Awards Broadcast: "Some movies stay with you for a lifetime. Some movies stay with you for the time it takes to walk from the theater to your car." 

That this "Lost Movie" phenomenon can be ascribed (in varying degrees or combinations) to: 1) The sheer number of movies I've seen in my life, 2) My age, 3),  the "forgetability factor" of the films themselves (virtually all are escapist genre films), and, perhaps most significantly, 4) the advent of Cable TV (which introduced me to movies I would never have paid to see)—only adds to its fascination.

So, as a change of pace from posting about films that are meaningful to me and that I've never forgotten, I thought it'd be nice to give a shout-out to the movies I've completely erased from my mind. For this reason, the critiques and comments will come from reviews written when I first saw them. There are 20 films in total, the uniting factor being that had you asked me if I'd seen any of them, I'd have said, "Definitely, not!"

****

Andrew Stevens-Derrel Maury-Kimberly Beck-Robert-Carradine-Steve Bond

A bullied teen exacts bloody retribution on his tormentors in this cynically prescient High School horror film /social allegory.

What I wrote in 1982:

"As there is not a single authority figure or teacher to be found anywhere on campus, my lingering thought was that the titular massacre must have happened before the opening credits. A shade more ingenious than your average teen horror flick, but hands-down the worst-acted, 'Massacre at Central High' is an odd mix of astute and tacky. But by the end, I'm not sure which won out." 

Carol Lynley-Wendy Hiller-Edward Fox-Honor Blackman-Olivia Hussey

Playwright John Willard's influential 1922 murder mystery (big house, reading of the will, unsavory would-be-heirs, mad killer on the loose) receives its 6th screen iteration in this 1978 UK release that didn't cross the pond until 1981.

What I wrote in 1982:

"Enjoyable in its old-fashioned familiarity, the film's somewhat shapeless execution (I can't tell if it's supposed to be a gentle spoof or intended to be taken seriously) prevents it from being entirely effective as either. Still, it's fun to simply watch the interplay of the film's better-than-it-deserves cast. I know 'The Cat and the Canary' is intended to be a bit of escapist fluff, but even lightness doesn't have to be this weightless."

 

Lee Majors, Robert Mitchum, Valerie Perrine-Saul Rubinek 

A hotshot advertising whiz discovers his agency is using subliminal advertising to influence a political campaign. This 1980 Canadian production was released in the US in 1981, almost simultaneously with the similarly-themed Albert Finney sci-fi thriller Looker.

What I wrote in 1982:

" 'Agency' misses the mark by failing to find a way to make the danger potential of subliminal advertising even remotely exciting. Not to mention cinematic. Lee Majors is as stiff and inexpressive as ever; lovely Valerie Perrine is wasted; and not even Robert Mitchum…oozing reptilian menace from every pore…is able to pump some juice into this suspense-free, anti-thriller."

Caitlin O'Heaney-Don Scardino-Tom Hanks 

Undistinguished slasher flick about a spurned bridegroom who flips his lid and homicidally targets brides-to-be. Notable only for being the film debut of Tom Hanks.

What I wrote in 1982:

"A tiresome excursion into the well-traveled territory of psycho-killer on the loose. No attempt is made to make us understand the killer or care about the victims, so the whole affair takes on a rote, shooting ducks in a gallery feel. The nondescript and interchangeable victims are lined up solely for the purpose of being picked off…as regular as clockwork."

Petula Clark- Cathleen Nesbitt-John Castle 

Actress Diane Baker (Marnie, Strait-Jacket) produced this family drama about a girl from a broken home who copes by retreating into fantasies fed by the Peter Pan book she's always reading.

What I wrote in 1982:

"Cathleen Nesbitt is very charming as a former actress fallen on hard times in this sweet, sentimental movie about the validity of found families and the unavoidability of growing up. Though it plays out like one of those Afterschool Specials on TV--its 60 minutes of plot pulled like taffy to extend to a 90-minute running time--it's a movie with its heart in the right place. And it's nice seeing Petula Clark in a movie again."

Edward Albert-Erin Moran-Ray Walston-Grace Zabriskie-Sid Haig

A Roger Corman-produced Alien rip-off that was, at a budget of $5 million, the B-movie King's most expensive film. The movie's oh-so-familiar plotline recounts the horrific fate that befalls the members of a rescue vessel dispatched to a distant planet in search of survivors of a marooned ship.  

What I wrote in 1982:

"This motley group of rag-tag rescuers couldn't get a kitten out of a tree. Certainly not with pint-sized Erin Moran on hand as a kind of fire-sale Sigourney Weaver. Gore and gross-outs stand in for suspense and character development in this imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery knockoff that hews so closely to Ridley Scott's infinitely superior film, it could have been made on a faulty fax machine."   

Rachel Ward-Leonard Mann-Drew Snyder

A mad killer on a motorcycle terrorizes students at a Boston girls' school. Notable for being the film debut of Australian actress Rachel Ward and the ignominious final film of British director Ken Hughes (Casino Royale, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). 

What I wrote in 1982:
"This instantly disposable entry in the shock/shlock horror race is so similar to a host of others that you'll swear you've seen it before. In other words, it's one of those movies where all the women know a mad killer is about, yet insist on venturing out alone or seeking refuge in places that offer no escape. The appearance of the stunning Rachel Ward is the film's sole note of distinction."

Nell Schofield-Jad Capelja-Jeffrey Rhoe

Australian coming-of-age comedy about two teen girls desperate to be accepted by the in-crowd of surfer boys. A 1981 release, this early effort from Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies, Crimes of the Heart) opened in the US in 1983. 

What I wrote in 1984:

"A teen beach movie with a feminist perspective sounds like a great idea. Too bad the perspective of the two girls at the center of this authentic-feeling look at adolescent peer pressure is roughly level with your average doormat. Realistic perhaps, but 80 minutes of boorish chauvinism hardly makes up for 5 minutes of triumphant female rebellion just before fadeout."

Johnny Yune-Margaux Hemingway-Raf Mauro  

The late Korean-American comic Johnny Yune lends often wince-inducing old-school brand of stand-up humor (all one-liners & obvious setups) to this Jerry Lewis-style vehicle about an innocent who gets mixed up with the Mafia.

What I wrote in 1984:  

"'They Call Me Bruce' is a road-movie comedy that's funny in the offbeat, low-budget, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink way that 'Airplane' is. The idea of Margaux Hemingway as a villain is promising, but she remains the most well-known, least well-used member of the cast."

Linda Blair-Stella Stevens-Sybil Danning-Tamara Dobson-Nita Talbot-Edy Williams

A women's prison film starring Linda Blair. Now you know the entire plot and premise. What gets me is how I could ever forget a movie with a cast as camp-tastic as this. 

What I wrote in 1984:

"It takes place in one of those prisons where false eyelashes and blow-dryers are more plentiful than shivs and cakes with files baked into them. The cast alone is a hoot: prison warden Stella Stevens barks all of her lines; Linda Blair (who must have a patent out on these kinds of roles) goes topless; Tamara' Cleopatra Jones' Dobson leads 'the sisters' in a riot, and eternal starlet Edy Williams is on hand as an extra. "

Samantha Eggar-Linda Thorson-John Vernon

A Chorus Line meets Friday the 13th in this casting couch slasher about a cattle call audition that has wannabe actresses vying for a role to (literally) die for.

What I said in 1984:

"Samantha Eggar, who really must have had some mortgage payments to meet, easily outclasses her co-stars in this contrived-yet-derivative slasher flick that should be a lot more fun than it is. Also, there's something perverse about making a movie about actresses, yet failing to cast any. And whose idea was it to cast the monumentally colorless John Vernon as a dynamic, sexually dangerous movie director?"

Teri Garr-Michael Keaton-Martin Mull-Christopher Lloyd-Ann Jillian

Husband is fired from his job, so wife becomes the breadwinner. Call the Press.

What I wrote in 1984:
"The comedy in this movie feels as fresh and up-to-date as an episode of Ozzie and Harriet. Keaton and Garr are as charming as all get-out, but the entire film feels like one of those TV commercials where a grown man has no idea how a refrigerator works… dragged out to 90 minutes."

Maggie Smith-Michael Palin-Denholm Elliott-Liz Smith

The class-conscious wife of a small-town chiropodist in postwar (meat-rationing) England hopes to gain a cultural leg-up by stealing a pig intended for a banquet celebrating the Royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip.

What I wrote in 1988:

"This very British comedy about class, social climbing, and bodily functions is a delight from start to finish. Maggie Smith is probably the screen's most gifted vocal gymnast. She can wring more comedy and pathos out of the simplest line of dialogue than any actress I can think of. Michael Palin wisely bows to her clear comedic domination of their scenes together." 

Jane Alexander, William Devane, Lukas Haas, Kevin Costner-Mako

The threat of nuclear war was on everybody's mind in the early '80s, spawning several films (The Day After -1983 [made for TV], Under Fire - 1983, and Silkwood -1984). This particular plea for disarmament was initially conceived as a PBS American Playhouse TV exclusively production and humanizes the political argument by focusing its lens on a northern California family.

What I wrote in 1984:

 "Achingly painful depiction of a nuclear holocaust that hits so much harder because there's not a trace of 'disaster movie' spectacle or sensationalism. And precious little sentimentality. That the annihilation of mankind is viewed from the perspective of one unexceptional family seems to drive the nightmare of it all straight to the heart."

 Annette O'Toole-Martin Short-Paul Reyser

The all-important "third date" is the subject and setting of this comedy about two people single burdened with too many fronts they're trying to keep up.

What I wrote in 1989:

"An uneven but thoroughly delightful romantic comedy of the '80s that manages to be both charmingly sentimental and touchingly straightforward in chronicling the self-inflicted pains and humiliations of the modern dating scene. Ten years after 'Annie Hall,' it's nice to know the 'nervous romance' is still good for a laugh or two."

Rita Tushingham-Jackie Burroughs

When I wrote about Claude Chabrol's film Le Cérémonie (1995) on these pages back in 2017, I'd completely forgotten that I'd actually seen this artless Canadian adaptation of the same source novel

(Ruth Rendell's A Judgement in Stone – 1977). Tushingham plays a mentally fragile housekeeper with a guarded secret in this psychological thriller that's also something of a family affair: It's the directing debut of Tushingham's then-husband, cinematographer Ousama Rawi, and her daughter Aisha portrays Tushingham's character as a little girl.

What I wrote in 1988:

"A thriller that really struggles to find its footing. The idea of Rita Tushingham as a homicidal housekeeper is distinctly irresistible, but the result is a jumble of missed potential. Hampered by the flat look of a made-for-TV movie and a tone that careens recklessly from character study to exploitation horror, not even Tushingham's considerable talent can salvage this pedestrian handling of a not-uninteresting premise."

Melanie Griffith-Tommy Lee Jones-Sting-Sean Bean

A thriller set in Newcastle, England, that has American Tommy Lee Jones and expatriate Melanie Griffith somehow getting embroiled in money laundering, shady land deals, and romantic triangles. All set to a sax-heavy jazz score. Directing debut of Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas). 

What I wrote in 1990:

"Curiously affectless romantic thriller full of mood and atmosphere and a lot of posturing by its pretty cast. At least the dull action is intermittently enlivened by Melanie Griffith's scary punk haircut. Behind the MTV music video lighting and smoke effects are one very good actor and three OK ones in search of a movie."

Whoopi Goldberg-Sam Elliott-Ruben Blades-Jennifer Warren-Brad-Dourif

A Los Angeles detective is on the trail of a drug kingpin pushing a particularly potent strain of cocaine with the street name…you guessed it, fatal beauty.

What I said in 1988:
"Whoopi Goldberg, the actress Hollywood hasn't a clue as to how to use, is cast in a routine cop flick that clutches its pearls like a Southern white lady every time Goldberg has a scene with love interest Sam Elliott. Better than 'Burglar' (1987) but a long way from 'The Color Purple' (1985)." 

Eric Stoltz-Judith Ivey-Jennifer Jason Leigh

The arrival of a stranger threatens the close relationship of two sisters bound by a scandalous secret. 

The directing debut of Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls).

What I wrote in 1988:

"In a nutshell: Snidely Whiplash comes between Polk Salad Annie and Cracklin' Rosie. A tense & exciting third act is the payoff for making it through this swamp & sweat bayou thriller about a mysterious 'handsome stranger' who disrupts the lives of two sisters who run a hotel out of their decaying Louisiana mansion, yet still find time to harbor a dark secret." 

Diane Lane-Michael Woods-Cotter Smith-Tyra Ferrell

A department store window designer is stalked and terrorized by a man fixated on the provocative content of her window displays. This erotic suspense thriller had the ill fortune of opening the same day as Fatal Attraction. 

What I wrote in 1988:

"Behind that awful, Barbara Cartland-type title is a fairly effective, if derivative, suspense thriller. Diane Lane plays a department store window dresser who lives in what looks to be Jennifer Beals' loft apartment from 'Flashdance,' and whose sexually overheated, Laura Mars-style widow designs attract the attentions of a loony out to make her life pure hell." 

####

I guess movies are no different than all of life's experiences; we don't get to decide which will be the ones that stay with us for a lifetime. But while a past experience can never be relived, movies are forever. Maybe I'll rewatch one of these forgotten gems and see if this time anything "sticks." 

Be sure to check out the Companion Piece essay to this post:  
MAKING A MEMORY: CINEMA & THE CULT OF LONGING

May all your movie experiences be more memorable.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2023

THE TENANT 1976

Spoiler Alert: Crucial plot points are revealed in the interest of critical analysis and discussion

Somewhere beyond the boundaries of the healthy, adaptive kind of Cultural Paranoia that I, a Black gay man, accesses daily to navigate hostile environments of discrimination and racial bias; on the far side of whatever amorphous fears are harbored by the kind of people who routinely dress in fatigues and buy anything with the word “Tactical” on the packaging; past the limits of the alternately narcissistic/masochistic borders of “Everyone’s out to get me!” delusional paranoia…there lies the macabre Twilight Zone that is Roman Polanski’s brilliant The Tenant. A bizarre, Kafkaesque exploration of social alienation and encroaching madness that film critic Vincent Canby accurately described as a nightmare vision of “Emotional isolation that becomes physical.”

Adapted for the screen with almost religious faithfulness by Polanski and longtime collaborator Gerard Brach from the 1964 novel Le Locataire Chimérique by Roland Topor, The Tenant marks the Academy Award-winning director’s 9th feature film. It also marks what many consider to be the third and final entry in his unofficial Urban Paranoia Trilogy (aka, his Apartment Trilogy): Repulsion – 1965, Rosemary’s Baby – 1965, & The Tenant – 1976. 

For his part, Polanski flatly denies ever deliberately setting out to make a contemporary terror triptych. But admirers of his work have seized upon the thematic recurrence in these films of many of the director’s most fervent obsessions: paranoia, alienation, sex, psychosis, subjective reality, and cramped dwellings. Each film in the trilogy is a modern-gothic study of urban dread set in a different, obliquely-threatening, impersonal city (London, Manhattan, and Paris, respectively). Their eerie narratives unfold largely within the oppressive confines of decaying apartment structures, wherein rooms take on the character of four-walled prisons-of-the-mind, mirroring the progressive mental deterioration of their psychologically isolated protagonists.

The lead character in The Tenant is male (Polanski himself, his 3rd on-screen appearance in one of his own films), signifying the trilogy’s sole departure from having a woman as the central focus of a storyline. 

It's neither coy nor misleading when I say that The Tenant does not disrupt the gender prominence of the trilogy. 

Roman Polanski as Trelkovsky

Isabelle Adjani as Stella

Shelley Winters as The Concierge

Melvyn Douglas as Monsieur Zy

Jo Van Fleet as Madame Dioz

Lila Kedrova as Madame Gaderian

There's a scene in the movie musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever where Barbra Streisand—as wallflower go-a-longer Daisy Gamble—discloses to hypnotherapist Yves Montand the results of a vocational guidance test: "Healthy, adjusted, and no character. I mean, no character of any kind. I mean, not even any…characteristics!”

Well, that describes The Tenant's Monsieur Trelkovsky in a nutshell. Trelkovsky, a soft-spoken Polish-born office clerk of indeterminate disposition who continually has to remind people he’s a French citizen, is a fellow who tiptoes through life as though he holds only a month-to-month tenancy on his own body.

During what can only be assumed to be a severe mid-‘70s Parisian housing shortage, Trelkovsky is so desperate for lodgings that he pursues—with a self-interest bordering on the ghoulish—the not-yet-vacated apartment of a not-yet-dead attempted suicide. The tenant, a young Egyptologist named Simone Choule, threw herself from the window of her flat just days before and now lies in a coma at a nearby hospital.

Faced with a moral conundrum (his wish to acquire the apartment is the silent, simultaneous wish that she won’t recover), Trelkovsky, in a gesture bearing the outward appearance of sympathy, but could just as likely be a cagey "calculation of probability" field trip—visits Mlle Choule in the hospital. Wrapped head to toe in bandages, the Egyptologist indeed looks like a mummy herself, with nothing of the woman beneath visible save for a single staring eye and a gaping mouth from which a tooth is conspicuously, grotesquely missing.

Presented as though it were a bonus feature of the apartment, the concierge shows
Trelkovsky the hole Simone Choule's body made in the glass awning four stories below

Simone Choule dies shortly after this visit (brought to a jarring conclusion when the patient lets out a soul-rattling scream at the sight of the stranger at her bedside). And Trelkovsky—pragmatically heedless of any possible bad omens augured by gaining advantageous self-benefit at the price of another's misfortune—wastes no time moving into the apartment. An apartment that hasn’t yet been entirely cleared of the dead woman’s possessions.

Early scenes show Trelkovsky getting what he wants by adopting a persona of over-polite inoffensiveness (e.g., he finesses the bulldoggish concierge by paying her a gratuity and placates the surly landlord by appealing to his financial practicality). These passively assertive acts suggest that perhaps Trelkovsky’s outwardly suppressed identity is more of an adaptive skill; a tool a Polish émigré hones in a city where being “foreign” instantly brands one a target of suspicion and distrust.

Presuming that a certain characterlessness and malleability of personality are what Trelkovsky has always relied upon as a survival mechanism to go about life as unobtrusively as possible; The Tenant effectively puts the turn to the screw by making this quality in Trelkovsky...a “vacancy of self”...the tragic flaw that will come to seal his fate. 

Though interested in Simone's friend, Stella, Trelkovsky, by lying about knowing Simone and keeping his occupancy of her apartment a secret, must keep part of his true identity hidden.  

The apartment building Trelkovsky now calls home can be summed up by a term coined in Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery; a neurotic’s jackpot. Almost immediately after moving in, Trelkovsky begins to suspect every tenant of being a furtive, inhospitable oddball who, when not lodging noise complaints about his every move; monitoring his comings and goings; or staring into his apartment from windows across the courtyard, is working in concert in a plot to get him to somehow become Simon Choule and give an encore performance of her dramatically gravitational exit.

But after an incident at Simone's funeral (where his sexual guilt turns a eulogy into a fire and brimstone lambaste), it's apparent Trelkovsky isn't what you'd call a reliable narrator. 

Thus, The Tenant builds suspense by sustaining a disconcertingly ambiguous tone throughout. One is never quite sure whether Trelkovsky's horrors are psychological (a mental breakdown), sociological (xenophobia), or supernatural (anyone for a mummy’s curse?)

Trelkovsky: Tomb Raider

Clockwise from top left: 1. The mummified Simone Choule. 2. Trelkovsky receives a postcard of an Egyptian sarcophagus. 3. In a hallucinative state, Trelkovsky sees Egyptian hieroglyphs on the building’s communal bathroom wall. 4. Trelkovsky is given one of Simone's books, The Romance of a Mummy by Théophile Gautier (1858). 

Simone being an Egyptologist, rather than merely being a bit of backstory info about the former renter, becomes a prominent theme underscoring the somewhat paranormal shift The Tenant takes in its second act. The fact that so many of Simone Choule’s left-behind items (books, drawings, sculpture) reflect her interest and immersion in the culture of ancient Egypt makes Trelkovsky’s swift occupancy of her apartment feel as though he’s somehow disturbing the resting space of the deceased. Similarly, the Egyptian belief in immortality, with its attendant burial rituals devoted to preserving the body and the soul's rebirth, finds its queasy contemporary correlative in Simone Choule’s medical mummification. Swathed in bandages, Simone and her staring eye and missing tooth horrifically reference the Egyptian “opening of the mouth” ceremony; a rite performed to return the human senses to the soul in the afterlife.

Self-Alienation / Fragmented Identity

Trelkovsky’s “possession” by Simone is entirely superficial (he gains absolutely no insight into the woman’s self) signaling his metamorphosis is more a self-generated delusion than an act of actually "becoming" Choule. Amounting to little more than the appropriation of only the most external signifiers of Simone's identity—clothes, makeup, cigarettes, hot chocolate, books—Trelkovsky turning into Simone feels less like The Tenant seeking to explore the flexible quadrants of gender and more like surrealists Topor and Polanski merely attaching existential theory to the question "Do clothes make the (wo)man?"

Trelkovsky's one success at making human contact.
Unable to prevent his own suicide, Trelkovsky intervenes in the possible suicide of Simone's unrequited suitor George Bedar (played by Jacques Narcy). Bedar's romantic misdirection (he was apparently unaware of Simone's disinterest in men) mirrors Trelkovsky's inert sexuality

In Rosemary’s Baby, Polanski toyed with the notion of ancient evil (pagan witchcraft and Satan worship) surviving into the 20th century. A similar vein is mined in The Tenant’s paralleling of Egyptian mythology (immortality and the dominance of the soul in determining self) with the dissociative aspects of modern urban life (the separate-yet-together existence of apartment-dwelling) that prioritize the individual. I.e., a civilization that values holed-up privacy, solitude, keeping to oneself, and minding one’s own business can foster relativism and the solipsistic view that the mind alone is sovereign of the self.

But if the mind is the sole determiner of self, is each person then ruled by their own individual perception of reality?

Heads, attached and disembodied, figure as a motif in The Tenant. Ceramic busts appear in the apartments of Trelkovsky (Egyptian, of course) and Mr. Zy. Trelkovsky has a hallucination that his neighbors are playing football with a human head (Simone's or his own) in the courtyard

A drunk Trelkovsky ponders the philosophical, metaphysical,
and mythical concepts of "self"

The Tenant premiered at The Regency Theater in San Francisco in the summer of 1976, and I was beyond excited to see it. Expectations were high, as it had been two years since the release of Chinatown. The Tenant’s chilling teaser trailer (with the soon-to-be-unfortunate tagline “No one does it to you like Roman Polanski”) promised a welcome return to type from the director who scared the hell out of me when I was eleven with what was then...and still remains...my #1 favorite motion picture of all time: Rosemary’s Baby.

The Wide-Angle Distorted Perception Peephole Shot
Repulsion - Rosemary's Baby - The Tenant

 WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM 

It's not overstatement when I say The Tenant had me from the jump (pun possibly intended). After the sun-baked Southern California vistas of Chinatown, I was delighted with Polanski’s return to creepily claustrophobic interiors, menacing old people, and his lived-in, off-kilter brand of psychological horror. A movie that hits the ground running—with a dizzying, voyeuristic panning shot of apartment windows, revealing shifting glimpses of both Trelkovsky and Simone Choule staring through curtains at “the real(?)” Trelkovsky entering the courtyard to inquire about the availability of the apartment he already appears to be occupying—The Tenant is a film that wears its weirdness on its sleeve. 

That's the film's composer Philippe Sarde as the theater patron who prefers
watching Trelkovsky and Stella to watching the movie screen. It's a running paradox
in The Tenant that Trelkovsky's privacy decreases as his alienation increases.

Given invaluable, atmospheric assist by Swedish cinematographer Sven Nykvist and French composer Philippe Sarde, Polanski, in adapting Roland Topor’s novel, proves, as he did with Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby, he's adept at making someone else's nightmares seem as though they originated out of his own well-stocked store of personal demons and obsessions. Sharing Topor’s outsider's eye for finding the ominous in the ordinary (both are Paris-born sons of Polish-Jewish immigrant parents), the close-quarters dictates of The Tenant's setting allow Polanski to indulge his trademark canniness in turning living environments into starkly-rendered extensions of a character’s inner dread.  

Roland Topor, the surrealist artist, novelist, and playwright behind The Tenant, played
 Renfield opposite Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (1979). Topor's scatological preoccupations, dark humor, and absurdist worldview find their aesthetic twin in Polanski.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Psychological thrillers about personality theft, duality, and the fluidity of identity have fascinated me…forever. Especially when they spill over into possible supernatural/horror territory. Growing up the only boy of five children, parents divorced/mom remarries, Catholic school, gay, shy, and the only Black family in an all-white neighborhood gave me a leg-up in the “Who the fuck am I?” adolescent identity sweepstakes. So, films were my retreat, and movies that (melo)dramatized the puzzle of self: Vertigo (1958), The Servant (1963), Secret Ceremony (1968), Performance (1970), Images (1972), Obsession (1976), 3 Women (1977), Fedora (1978), Dead Ringers (1988), Single White Female (1992), and Black Swan (2010)—were my catharsis.

My recently having had the opportunity to read the novel prompted my partner and me to watch The Tenant last Halloween. My first time seeing the film in several years. This time out, I was struck by how many of the persecutory torments pushing Trelkovsky to the brink of madness (being persistently watched, always having his behavior monitored, instantly being branded a target of suspicion, prejudicially profiled, having his experience invalidated) is kinda like an average day for a Black person living in America. 

The terrorism of racism and "Living While Black" has always resulted in feelings of alienation, isolation, and anxiety among Black people, and movies like The Tenant have been a means of accessing those fears in a broad, generalized context. However, it wasn't until the release of 1995's Tales from the Hood by Rusty Cundieff, and Jordan Peele's Get Out (2017) that I ever saw a director illuminate the anxieties particular to racism and unique to the Black Experience in this country in the form and context of the horror genre.

The American cast members of The Tenant

PERFORMANCES

Polanski started out as an actor (and never stopped, if all those behind-the-scenes photos of him “directing by demonstrating” tell the tale), so I wasn’t really surprised by how effective he is in the role of Trelkovsky. Casting himself very much to type, Polanski essentially IS the Trelkovsky of Topor’s novel...there being the shadow of something unsavory about him even at his most vulnerable. And he's particularly persuasive in conveying the anxiety and jumpy self-absorption that accompanies his character’s intensifying psychotic delusions. 

I've no idea what motivated Polanski to cast so many American actors in major roles in this Paris-set thriller (likely financial in origin, to secure American distribution or wide release). But the overall effect is so discordant it actually feels intentional. The clashing of Trelkovsky’s faint Polish accent against all those flat Yankee diphthongs dramatically emphasizes his "otherness.". At the same time, the incongruousness of the glaringly non-Gallic Shelly Winters, Jo Van Fleet, and Melvyn Douglas only seem to add another layer of wacko to The Tenant’s existing Theater of the Absurd vision of Paris. 

French cinema icon Claude Daupin makes a brief appearance (with Louba Guertchikoff)
 but his mellifluous accent is dubbed over with an affectless American voice 

Unfortunately, a similar decision to have many members of the film's French supporting cast dubbed (poorly) by American actors doesn't fare nearly as well. Certainly, a case could be made that those braying American voices coming out of the mouths of Trelkovsky's boorish friends is a reflection of how he sees them, but I only found it distracting. Polanski's eye for casting people with unusual and characterful faces is as sharp as ever, but hearing those commonplace voices coming out of those unorthodox faces was like having ice water thrown in my face. It jolts me out of the atmospheric dream world I'd rather be immersed in. 

Although sorely underutilized, I adore Isabelle Adjani in The Tenant. I only recently learned that Adjani's voice was dubbed by Dark Shadows actress Kathryn Leigh Scott. Seen here with Sam Waterston in 1974's The Great Gatsby

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Polanski films are always rich in visual motifs, and The Tenant is no exception. The aforementioned Egyptian details, mummification references, and emphasis on all things cranial. Present, too, are his amplified ticking clocks and distorted perception shots of hallways and rooms (in particular, a fabulous fever dream sequence where Trelkovsky is dwarfed by the furniture in his room).

La Peinture Lure (Hello, Google Translate)
It seems Polanski hired Roland Topor to paint this mystifying poster
that appears frequently and enigmatically throughout the film

But in a film about paranoia, it's simply genius to have so many characters sporting those ginormous spectacles that were so popular in the '70s. They're like portable windows with magnified eyes staring out at Trelkovsky. 

The Tenant is one of my top five favorite Roman Polanski films. It's an intriguing puzzle that yields a different solution every time I watch it.

BONUS MATERIAL

The First-Time Tenant

I moved to Los Angeles in 1978, and my very first apartment was a small furnished single on the second floor of The Villa Elaine Apartments in Hollywood. I was 20 years old, my first time away from home, and I couldn’t believe I was living within walking distance of THE Hollywood and Vine. The rent was $160 a month, including utilities, and I was in absolute heaven. Built in 1925, The Villa Elaine has since been declared a historical landmark. My old apartment now goes for $1650.

My Apartment Is In Here Somewhere
I lived in the Villa Elaine until 1981, moving to a courtyard-view apartment in 1979 that afforded a Rear Window panorama of my neighbors. Note the poster for The Tenant at bottom left

The day I moved into The Villa Elaine was Sunday, June 4, 1978. A date whose significance was compounded by what happened after I’d settled in and kissed my parents (who’d driven me and my blue storage trunk down from Berkeley for a weekend of whirlwind apartment-hunting) goodbye.

To exercise my freedom, I went out to look at my "new neighborhood." My walk took me to Hollywood Blvd., where the movie Grease was having its World Premiere at Mann's Chinese Theater. In those days, onlookers could stand and star-gaze in relative close proximity behind a velvet rope, so I was overjoyed at experiencing a real-life The Day of the Locust moment (minus the apocalyptic carnage) and screamed along with the rest when Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta arrived in a vintage car.

As I walked back to my apartment, the 1977 Rufus & Chaka Khan song “Hollywood” playing on a loop in my head; I was thoroughly over the moon. I couldn’t believe my first night in LA had serendipitously yielded such a quintessential, only-in-Hollywood experience. All of which I, of course, took as an omen that I had found my new home. And I guess it was; June 4th of 2023 will mark my 45th Anniversary as an LA resident.

The Villa Elaine courtyard as it looks today

I’ve lived in many apartments over the years, and I'm happy to say I've never had an experience even remotely similar to what’s in The Tenant.

Scene from "The Tenant" (1976)

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009  -  2023