City for Conquest (Anatole Litvak, 1940)

A captivating and tragic symphony of New York, this precursor of Raging Bull tells the story of two brothers, one a boxer, the other a musician rising from the slums of the city. The elder, James Cagney’s Danny Kenny, is a prize-fighter who eventually loses both his girl (Ann Sheridan) and his eyesight. Only when his vision is gone, does he begin to see his place in the world and opens – perhaps in an allegorical move –a newsstand. It is from his modest kiosk that he listens to his kid brother’s triumphant debut classical concert. The idol of Madison Square Garden falls so the new god of Carnegie Hall can rise. Litvak’s nods to sophistication didn’t sit too well with Cagney who wanted Raoul Walsh to direct, and more rawness and action. Litvak’s re-examination of Cagney’s popular persona – similar to what he achieved with Edward G. Robinson in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse – irked Cagney, as did his unfamiliar, camera-oriented style. Yet, it is not hard to see how much Litvak has toned down and sometimes even repressed his signature methods in favour of Warner’s fast-paced, editing-based house style. But who else could give Cagney the scene at the end when, in his blurred vision, the image of Ann Sheridan comes into full focus? It is one Litvak’s most lyrical moments and one of Cagney’s most moving.

L’Équipage (Anatole Litvak, 1935)

Opening with the same train whistle that closed Cœur de lilas (1932), Jean, a young officer in the French air force during WWI, bids farewell to his lover Denise and heads for the front. There he comes to admire the unpopular Lieutenant Maury whose gunner he becomes, only to discover that Denise is in fact Maury’s wife. Following this revelation, the two men head off on a suicide mission where the hard choice has to be made between fraternal loyalty and grand passion. The final sequence after the battle is pure Litvak: in a sacrificial gesture, Maury pretends he is not aware of his wife’s love for Jean. The deepest of emotions are swept under a rug, left unspoken.

Anatole Litvak Retrospective | The Schedule

Anatole Litvak (in the middle) with his buddies Billy Wilder and John Huston

JOURNEYS INTO NIGHT: THE WORLD OF ANATOLE LITVAK

Viaggio nella notte: il mondo di Anatole Litvak

Il Cinema Ritrovato 2024

All the screenings at the Jolly cinema

The schedule subject to change until official announcement in early June

A couple more screenings will be added to other venues, including to Modernissimo's schedule

The Deep Blue Sea (Anatole Litvak, 1955)

Italian poster for The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea plays as part of the Anatole Litvak retrospective at Il Cinema Ritrovato, on June 28, 2024. The note below from the the festival catalogue. – EK

THE DEEP BLUE SEA

This rarest of all Anatole Litvak films is about Hester, a middle-aged woman whose suicide attempt at the beginning of the story sparks off two flashbacks, one from the point of view of the upper-class husband she has abandoned and the other from the view of the younger, capricious ex-RAF pilot for whom she has left her husband. Back to the present, the film revolves around her desperate attempt to win back her lover, only to realise she is yearning for something she can’t have.

Anatole Litvak Retrospective at Il Cinema Ritrovato

Anatole Litvak with Deborah Kerr

JOURNEY INTO NIGHT: THE WORLD OF ANATOLE LITVAK

An unjustly overlooked master with an international career spanning six decades, Anatole Litvak made some of the most riveting and innovative films in the history of cinema that, save for a few titles, are hardly seen or discussed today. The Kyiv-born director of masterpieces such as L’Équipage and City for Conquest made films in Germany, France, UK and eventually Hollywood. This first-time overview of his dazzling career features films from all these bases of production, works that are ripe for rediscovery with their sweeping camera movements, long takes, ironic cutting, and splendid use of décor. Litvak’s films dive into a nocturnal world of flawed and unstable men and women whose identity crisis for Litvak reflects the crisis of the world between the Russian Revolution and the Second World War – a time of awakening and political turmoil that Litvak experienced first-hand.