Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 103
Three Reviews by Andre Bazin
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Notes
1. Bazin’s review o f Ivan the Terrible first appeared in French in Esprit, 14, no. 121
(April 1946), pp. 667-671. Translated here, for the first time, with the permission o f
Madame Janine Bazin.
2. Capital o f the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, in the southeastern part.
3. City in the west o f the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, on the Volga.
4. And, as it turned out, Eisenstein’s last. He died o f a heart attack in 1948 at the age o f
fifty.
5. Directed by Vladimir Petrov (Part 1 ,1937; Part II, 1939).
6. This review (o f Niagra) was first published in French in L ’Observateur (17 Sept.
1953), then reprinted in Volume 3 ("Cinema et sociologie”) o f Bazin’s four-volume
Qu 'est-ce que le cinema? (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1958-1962), pp. 61-64. Translated
here, for the first time, with the permission o f Madame Janine Bazin.
7 Editor’s note: As was Billy Wilder to understand the connection between hyperbolic
vampishness and farce when he cast Marilyn Monroe in her greatest role, as Sugar
Kane in Some Like It Hot (1959).
8. Editor’s note: It does exist in French, however, except not in one word: "chutes de
reins,” which means "small o f the back” and suggests the curvaceousness o f the areas
surrounding this spot. The original title o f Bazin’s review was “Chutes de reins et
autres Niagara,” which is untranslatable because it plays on the words “chutes,” which
means “falls” (as in Niagara Falls), and “reins,” which means “kidneys” (a euphemism
in French for “bottom” or “back”).
9. This essay (on Scarface) was first published in French in Esprit, 14, no. 122 (1946),
pp. 841-844. Translated here, for the first time, with the permission o f Madame Janine
Bazin.
10. A protectionist measure against new foreign movies imposed by the French government
after World War II.
11. Raft played Guino Rinaldi, Tony (Scarface) Camonte’s bodyguard and lifelong friend.
Camonte was played by Paul Muni.
12. Bazin is referring here to Guignol, the winsome rogue o f Punch-and-Judy shows who
always manages to beat his nemesis, the gendarme (policeman), to a pulp.