Specter of the Rose

1946 "You are my love... my life... my doom!"
5.7| 1h30m| NR| en
Details

Ballet dancer Sanine may have murdered his first wife. A detective thinks so, and he's not the only one.

Director

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Republic Pictures

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Viola Essen

Reviews

Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!
UnowPriceless hyped garbage
Borgarkeri A bit overrated, but still an amazing film
Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Myriam Nys An all-American young man, who is an excellent classical dancer, has risen to fame under the Russian-sounding name of Sanine. After the sudden death of his wife, Sanine sinks into a deep depression. Cared for by a kind-hearted and besotted ballerina, Sanine seems to recover both his mental health and his appetite for life. But what about the persistent rumours ? Did Sanine really kill his spouse ?"Specter" is an uneven and over-ambitious movie. At the same time it is an original and electrifying noir, notable mainly for its evocation of a certain kind of Russo-American ballet circa 1940-1950. Viewers interested in ballet, or in the history of ballet, are sure to enjoy both the music and the (excerpts from) performances. There is also a colourful depiction of the artistic bohème, with its age-old and universal problems : amorous rivalry, lack of money, nomadic employment, conflicts between real life and play-acting or between soaring vision and vulnerability. I'm sorry to say that the actor playing Sanine is both a beautiful man and a decent dancer, but not the most gifted of actors : watching him tackle a demanding, psychologically complex role is rather like watching a hamster drive a school bus. He redeems himself in his final scenes, which are genuinely chilling and unsettling. I do not think that anyone who saw Sanine's final exit, will ever watch "Le spectre de la rose" with the same eyes again...
dbborroughs Ben Hecht's major off the rails story about the possible murder of a ballet's star's first wife.It's a very deliberate film full of beyond purple prose and performances that are way to over the top to be anything but deadly serious. Laughably bad, I sat staring at the screen for fifteen minutes wondering what the heck I was watching, unsure if I should be laughing or not- finally I just started to laugh and went with it...I had no clue why anyone would chose to do this deliberately- especially when its some one who should know better. It was painfully awful in a way that only films that are supposed to be works of art can be. It's a film to make you go- you have got to be f-ing kidding me over and over again
BILLYBOY-10 Judith Anderson who was the nasty, evil Danvers in Rebecca and the miscast "big mama" with a British-Louisiana accent in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof plays a former ballerina who runs a ballet school (don't they all?). Lionel Sandler who became the gruff major domo in the TV series Hart to Hart, plays a gruff non-rhyming poet. Some other guy, plays an over the top effectual show biz promoter. This other guy decides to resurrect the career of a the brilliant ballet dancer Ivor Somebody,who may or may not have killed his wife a few months early and since then he has become a looney toon recluse;he hears music in his head and sees ghost dancers with his face. Anywho, he says he is OK now and begins a series of road shows and has a hot love and marriage to another dancer, I forget her name..she made two movies in her entire career...twice as many as Ivor. Well, as luck would have it, sometime after Kansas City, Ivor sort of starts going cuckoo again. Lots of drama and jumping and twirling which is suppose to resemble ballet ensues and instead of slitting his wife's throat he takes a flying leap out the plate glass window. Kerplunk. Some silly dialog for a couple of minutes. And then the movie ends. I streamed this on Netflix but the won't give me a pro-rated credit. The acting is dreadful. The dancing by Ivor is gymnastics, not ballet. The whole thing is awful.
Johnny Gunn I saw this once at the age of 20. I'm now 80. It's still on my top ten, all-time list. I remember Lionel Stander and "loving her with his eyes". I haven't seen it since. It's a most unusual, beautiful memory. Others on my list are "Separate Tables" (produced by Hecht who wrote "Spectre) and Witness for the Prosecution": Is anybody picking up a pattern? No, because "My Fair Lady" and "Quacker Fortune Has A Cousin Living In The Bronx" are there, too. Until I wrote this I hadn't realized that everybody in all these casts only truly fell in love ONCE. Until I wrote this I hadn't realized that I did, at 20, and still am, at 80. And, until I wrote this line I haven't written the minimum ten.