Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Martin Bradley Certainly not the late masterpiece some people have claimed it to be but Orson Welles' "The Immortal Story" is still extraordinary in ways so many films aren't. It clocks in at under an hour so it really is the perfect miniature. It is a film about the art of story-telling with only four main speaking parts. Welles could just as easily have done this on the radio and yet visually this is extremely beautiful, (it was his first film in colour), and still typically 'Wellesian'.He adapted it from a novel by Isak Dinesen and he, himself, plays the role of the old merchant in the 'story' of the old merchant who hires a young sailor to sleep with his young wife, (Jeanne Moreau is the woman hired by the merchant to play the wife in the story). The sailor is played by the English actor Norman Eshley and he's painfully wooden but he doesn't upset the flow of the piece; in fact, his banal, robotic diction actually fits it. No masterpiece then, but this short piece, which almost feels thrown together, stands head and shoulders over the best work of many lesser directors.

HAROLD HIRSCH I just saw The Immortal story for the first time today thanks to TCM. I was impressed by the otherworldly quality of the film. Reading through the IMDb reviews I was surprised that no one speculated as to why Wells chose this story. To me the answer seems obvious. The film is about a lonely old man who wants to bring a story he has heard to life. He knows that he cannot accomplish the task alone so he turns to a minion in his employ to arrange the set piece and hire the players. Ironically even when he succeeds, it becomes clear that no one will ever hear the recounting of the story. This is how Wells probably viewed his own life. ​Throughout his film career he struggled unhappily with his dependence on the help of producers and his need to control actors in order to bring his artistic visions to life. Sadly, even on the few occasions when he successfully got films completed, to him it seemed as if he never really had an audience.

Charles Herold (cherold) A number of people who have reviewed this here have watched this film over and over, but I think once has proved enough for me. While it is only an hour, it moves slowly, and while there is an appealing oddness to the proceedings I was never caught up in it. The basic idea is intriguing (less so if you read the reviews here, many of which give away more than they should) and Moreau is quite affecting, but I find the glowing comments of other viewers downright peculiar.To me, this feels like an adaptation of a story (by Isaac Dineson) that would probably be better read. A tremendous amount of voice over commentary and soliloquies are threaded through, and my feeling is if you need this many words to tell a story, it is probably not a good film story. Like everything by Welles, it is worth watching. While it feels cheaply made, it still exhibits his sense of composition and his unique sensibility. But ultimately it's not especially good (at least based on one viewing) and certainly far from Welles' great works.

Hollywoodshack Welles' film is a great comment on greed and the love of riches, and how futile it is when you can't take it with you after life ends. Wealthy Mr. Clay demands his assistant make the story he heard on ships from sailors come true. He pays the daughter (Jean Moreau) of a business partner he ruined and a poor young sailer (Norman Eishley) to sleep together one night so Clay can be the godfather of the child they conceive since Clay couldn't father children with his own wife. There is an ironic surprise for this plan when it completes, Welles using a brilliant color scheme and expert camera angles through every shot and scene. Clay's character is especially good with Welles filling the stuffy, wicked sturdiness of his portrayal almost like greed and evil personified.