Billy Wilder revisits the themes of his classic Sunset Boulevard in this 1978 drama about a Greta Garbo-esque Hollywood legend living in self-imposed exile in Corfu and an out-of-fashion producer who tracks her down at the isolated villa of an aging aristocrat. The apparently ageless Fedora (Marthe Keller) still looks young and beautiful but has become unstable and seems to be a kind of prisoner of the Countess Sobryanski (Hildegard Knef). Barry “Dutch” Detweiler (Sunset Boulevard star William Holden) eventually discovers the truth behind the legend of Fedora and her sudden disappearance years before. Made near the end of a productive career of more than 40 years, Fedora—based on a novella collected in Tom Tryon's Crowned Heads—was Wilder's penultimate film, and in many ways it serves as his tribute to the lost art of classic moviemaking, with the gauzy and glamorous look of an old Hollywood romance and a lush score by Miklós Rósza. Stylistically a bit out of sync with the 1970s, Fedora is ultimately a tragic story of youth, fame, and identity in the culture of celebrity. Newly restored for DVD and its Blu-ray debut, this is recommended. (S. Axmaker)
Fedora
Olive, 114 min., PG, DVD: $24.95, Blu-ray: $29.95 Volume 30, Issue 1
Fedora
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