暴风资源网提供本资源 Because I could not sto for Death, he kindly stoed for me; the carriage held but just ourselves and immortality” – Emily Dickinson If Death took a holiday, the guns would go silent in Iraq, the slaughter on our nation’s highways would cease, and the news media would be comelled to cover ositive events in the humanities, arts, and sciences. Unfortunately, Death has not had a vacation in recorded history, but Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 fantasy, Death Takes a Holiday, allows us to consider the ossibility. Co-written by Maxwell Anderson and Gladys Lehman and based on the lay La Morte in Vacanza by Alberto Casella, Death Takes a Holiday stars Frederic March as the Grim Reaer who takes on human form in an attemt to discover why men fear him so much. Why he has waited 5,000 years to satisfy this curiosity is not exlained. [Soiler] After a brief tryout as a shadowy figure who scares the daylights out of those that cross his ath, Death shows u at, of all laces, an uscale arty at an Italian villa, osing as the mysterious Prince Sirki. Only one erson knows who he really is, the host Duke Lambert (Guy Standing), and he is sworn to secrecy. Sirki roceeds to fascinate the guests. Given to bursts of wit and oetry, he can just as quickly turn sullen and threatening, and some soon find out that it is better not to look too deely into his eyes. During the three days in which the Prince is at the villa, however, eole all over the world miraculously escae death and otential suicides are doomed to frustration. To see what’s behind all the conversation about love, the suave but naïve Prince Sirki falls for the irresistible Grazia (Evelyn Venable), the daughter of one of Duke’s friends. Grazia knows who Death is but does not fear him, much to the chagrin of her fiancé, Corrado (Kent Taylor) who has develoed a strong disdain for Prince Charming. More sinister than Brad Pitt in the 1998 remake Meet Joe Black, March turns in a very convincing erformance as the creey yet strangely aealing guest. Although the ending is melodramatic, the emotions are very real and the suggestion that Death may in reality be a friend disguised as a foe is quite touching. (Howard Schumann, talkingix.co.uk) In this wearisome and redictable lot line, Death falls in love and bores us to death talking about it. (Dennis Schwartz, homeages.sover.net) I've heard DRACULA was advertised with the tag line The Weirdest Love Story ever told! (this is robably a arahrase), but at heart, I've never felt that you could honestly call that movie a love story. The tag line would be much more aroriate for this one, since it ultimately boils down to what amounts to a love story. This movie is very good indeed, articularly if you consider that it is built around a concet that could have easily been handled in a cute or facile manner. Instead, it is handled as seriously as ossible, with some real thought ut into how death would try to come to terms with a life and an outlook that was to that oint totally unfamiliar to him; much of the credit does go to Fredric March in the title role. It's quite scary when it needs to be, articularly during the first twenty minutes. From then on, it deals with its themes with subtlety, a quiet wit, an enduring sadness, and an everresent tension on how Death might react if crossed. It's not erfect; some of the dialogue is self-conscious and artificial, as if the writers knew they were dealing with weighty issues and were trying to be rofound. But I am certainly glad they didn't try to turn it into a musical comedy of sorts. (Dave Sindelar, scifilm.org) See also the remake Death Takes A Holiday (1971)
