
Cinemateca Portuguesa, located on Rua Barata Salgueiro in the centre of Lisbon, is a wonderful place for cinephiles.
Great posters and marvellous black and white stills from the 1940s adorn the foyer walls: Bogart in All Through the Night, Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World!, Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine in Rebecca, Spencer Tracy in Edward, My Son, Bogart and Bacall in The Big Sleep, Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce, René Clair’s I Married a Witch, and Basil Rathbone, definitely the best Sherlock Holmes, here in Errol Flynn’s 1938 version of The Adventures of Robin Hood.
Cinemateca has a single screen and what glorious seats! Even better than the ones at 7ᵃ Arte, these Cinemateca seats recline in decadent luxury.
I’m half-expecting an usher to approach garbed in a toga, dangling a bunch of grapes before me.
A fine old polished piano stands to the left of the stage complete with two pairs of brass candlesticks to allow the pianist to read the music in a darkened auditorium.
There is no allocated seating, which means that I am free to sit wherever I want.
The ticket price is a very reasonable 175 escudos, roughly eighty pence in British money.
An arty, black-clad crowd of forty or so is present at today’s showing.
Today’s film is The Window, a 1949 RKO production directed by Ted Tetzlaff.
It stars Bobby Driscoll as young Tommy, a boy whose imagination causes him to cry wolf one time too many; Barbara Hale as Mary Woodry; Arthur Kennedy as Ed Woodry, Tommy’s exasperated parents; Paul Stewart as Joe Kellerson; and Ruth Roman as Jean Kellerson. The Kellersons are the villains of the piece.
Tommy, excellently played by Bobby Driscoll, is a compulsive teller of tales.
He tells his pals that he and his family are going to leave New York for a ranch out west, that they are going to kill whoever they need to in order to make it safe there, and so on and so on.
This is one story too many for his parents, who subsequently refuse to believe him when he claims to have witnessed a murder committed by the Kellersons, the couple living upstairs.
The Kellersons are outwardly respectable, but in reality a seedy pair.
The plot revolves around the refusal of the police and Tommy’s parents to believe him, and also the efforts of the Kellersons to make Tommy have an ‘accident’ so there will no longer be a witness to their crime.
‘The Window’ is a terrific thriller.
Music is used brilliantly, building up to nerve-wracking crescendos interspersed with heavy, ominous silences which in turn are broken out of with considerable virtuosity.
Manuel Cintra Ferreira’s Cinemateca notes use a very apt Portuguese adjective to describe the mood of this film: ‘hitchcockiano’.
Bobby Driscoll steals the show as Tommy, but he gets classy support from Barbara Hale as his mother. She radiates goodness, even though her patience is tried beyond its limit by Tommy’s antics. It’s a nicely understated performance from Hale.
Arthur Kennedy as Tommy’s father is also an admirable figure, despite the hint of whimsy in the earnest moral lessons he imparts to his over-imaginative son.
Ruth Roman plays Jean Kellerson as a dishevelled but not yet desperado individual. She is not as evil as her husband Joe is.
As Joe, Paul Stewart oozes unredeemable malice. They make a great, disturbing couple.
‘The Window’ first showed in Portugal in 1950.
It then reappeared in 1965.
It’s back now in 1991.
If it recurs with similar frequency and if I’m in Lisbon in 2011, I’ll happily take the opportunity to watch it again.
After the film I drift out of Cinemateca down Avenida da Liberdade to the beautiful funicular that ascends Calçada da Glória.
Built by General Electric in 1904, this wonderful old funicular takes me up to the edge of Bairro Alto.
On the other side of the street stands the Port Wine Institute, which shares a building with the Portuguese Cinema Institute.
I’m now sipping exquisite twenty year old port, meio seco and aloirado, in the refined ambience of the Port Wine Institute bar.
There are wooden beams across the ceilings, and exposed brick walls. Low-slung, comfortable armchairs and stools are set around dark glass tables. A fifteen-foot long bar counter has eight stools lined up along it, with an array of tempting port bottles in the background.
Subtle illumination is provided by lamps of various shapes and sizes strategically placed around the two-level drinking area. Two intricately patterned lampshades are placed at ground level near where I am sitting. Their light throws an almost stained glass window effect onto the walls.
A taciturn waiter in black trousers, white shirt and maroon waistcoat drifts discreetly around the room.
What a great place to wind up after a film.
Related Posts: ‘Vertigo’, Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA); ‘Strangers On A Train’, The Phoenix, East Finchley, London