La Rose de Fer

 (1973)

A young couple meets at a wedding dinner and makes a date for the following day. They meet at an abandoned train yard for a bicycle trek/picnic. She grows tired in front of a huge old cemetery, so they decide to explore. After their lunch, they are feeling amorous, and with typical Rollin characters like a scary clown, a caretaker, an old woman and a vampire hanging around, they go into a crypt for privacy. When they emerge, it is dark, and as they try to find their way out, they give in to panic and then insanity. She finds peace, somehow, through an iron rose ornament, then we have an interlude at the seashore with her walking naked. Finally, she must return and join him for eternity.

The Iron Rose, one of director Jean Rollin's most obscure films, will likely be found in the horror section of your favorite video outlet, but is not conventional horror by any stretch of the imagination. Rollin calls it an art film and my High School English teachers would have loved it since it is dripping with obvious symbolism. The imagery, as is always the case with Rollin's films, is hauntingly beautiful, the pace is deliberate, and the star beautiful.

I have always believed Jean Rollin's films are a genre unto themselves, and this one is a quick watch, and fascinated me. So what does it mean? Honestly, I have no idea.

I think the following theory would have gotten me an A in Senior English:

"The couple meet and begin their journey at a wedding, which is all about beginnings. We then go into the journey portion of their life together, as evidenced by the trains, then the bicycles, then finally the walk in the cemetery. Note that as they progress through their lives, each mode of travel gets slower. Then they have sex, presumably including orgasm, AKA, the little death, and find that they are now permanently stuck in the cemetery. She accepts it first, knows she is about to cross over to the other side as symbolized by the seashore, and realizes that true freedom and living is through death, but must help him accept it. Thus, basically, this is Rollin's Thanatopsis, or view of death."

Yes, Mr. Clough would have been proud.

 

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Francoise Pascal does full frontal and rear nudity.

IMDb: 5.3

 

Francoise Pascal

 

Shelly Duvall in Thieves Like Us

Helen Mirren in Caligula

Julie Delarme in L'Ile Bleu

Miguel y William

The movie is a lot like "Shakespeare in Love", based on a "What if..." Shakespeare had met Cervantes.

Leonor de Vibero (Elena Anaya) lives in England where she is involved with a young writer named Will Shakespeare (Will Kemp). But she has to go against her will to Castille, where she is to get married with a rich Duke. There she meets Miguel de Cervantes (Juan Luis Galiardo), who is fascinated by her beauty and offers to write her a play for her Wedding. Meanwhile William travels to Spain to stop this nonsense, and there the most famous English writer meets the most famous Hispanic writer.

Elena is a beauty and she looks great throughout the movie.

Scoop's note: in case you had forgotten your history, the great writers were indeed contemporaries. Cervantes was the older by 16 years, but their lives were so perfectly in synch that they died on the exact same day, April 23, 1616. Shakespeare was 51 or 52 (his exact birth date is not known), Cervantes 68.

To my knowledge, there is no day to compare with that sad April 23rd which took the two great literary giants. The only similar situation I can recall was July 4th, 1826, which was the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the death date of two of the most important founding fathers: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, America's second and third presidents. Adams' last words were said to be "Thomas Jefferson still lives," or some words to that effect. ("Thomas Jefferson survives" is another variation.) Adams was 90, Jefferson a mere lad of 83. He had been only 33 when he wrote the Declaration.

Incidentally, Adams's final statement was factually incorrect. Adams actually outlived Jefferson by a few hours, but was unaware of the latter's passing. Jefferson's last words were, "Shit, that hurts."

Elena Anaya

Miriam Giovanelli

The Comedy Wire

Sen. Larry Craig has entered the dictionary.  The online Urban Dictionary has accepted the phrase "wide stance," Craig's excuse for why a cop in the next toilet stall thought he was trying to reach under the divider with his foot.  They define it as a euphemism for "closeted homosexual." Lexicographers say "wide stance" is all over the Internet now, but they don't know if it will last.  It's getting a lot of competition from another new term with the same meaning that ironically also comes from the Craig story: "toe-tapper."

*  Larry Craig is single-handedly bringing the funk back to Funk & Wagnell's.



On this day in 1968, the first manned Apollo mission into space, Apollo 7, was launched.  On the same date in 1975, Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham.

*  So today, we honor men who dared to go into cold, scary places where no man had gone before.



BIRTHDAYS -  Daryl Hall (58). Trivia: The Son of
Sam was supposedly inspired to commit his murders
after hearing Hall & Oates' song, "Rich Girl."

*  The surprise was that he didn't murder Hall & Oates.

*  Good thing he was in prison when they announced the Spice Girls reunion.