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Skip of Fools. Remember Judgment at Nuremberg? Here, producer-director Stanley Kramer and adapter Abby Mann play Judge again, at sea. At the beginning of the 148-minute voyage to Germany in 1933, we are told: “This is a ship of fools. … If you look closely enough you may even find yourself on board.” And, at the end: “I can hear you asking, ‘What has all this to do with us?’ Nothing.” Well, sorry, but that’s right—though one may feel like a fool for having bought a ticket. Kramer and Mann bow vaguely leftward throughout, and one gathers that they still disapprove of, among other things, German music. (German music has been invented for the occasion, and though all hands speak in English, they sing in German.) At the same time, Kramer and Mann catch up with the decadent trend by aiming much of their propaganda at the Impossibility of Love. Most notably, Oskar Werner falls for Simone Signoret because “she’s real,” but she is also a drugaddicted prisoner and he has a very weak heart. Vivien Leigh is also involved in the mess, as yet another has-been beauty.

Darling. Rather slick and—as one might guess from the title—rather nasty, too. Director John Schlesinger and writer Frederic Raphael are much more clever at creating fools than Kramer and Mann are, and they are much more intent upon it. The darling is a dull English girl who goes bad and keeps getting bored. At length she marries an Italian prince and gets so bored one feels her heart must break. England is rotting, Schlesinger and Raphael keep telling us— not to mention Italy. They give no reasons, only satirical rot—unless the reason is that everyone is either foolish or rotten. Actress Julie Christie has the task of eliciting ever more sympathy for the darling as she grows ever more contemptible. Occasionally, she proves the task is, if thankless, not impossible.

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Skip of Fools. Remember Judgment at Nuremberg? Here, producer-director Stanley Kramer and adapter Abby Mann play Judge again, at sea. At the beginning of the 148-minute voyage to Germany in 1933, we are told: “This is a ship of fools. … If you look closely enough you may even find yourself on board.” And, at the end: “I can hear you asking, ‘What has all this to do with us?’ Nothing.” Well, sorry, but that’s right—though one may feel like a fool for having bought a ticket. Kramer and Mann bow vaguely leftward throughout, and one gathers that they still disapprove of, among other things, German music. (German music has been invented for the occasion, and though all hands speak in English, they sing in German.) At the same time, Kramer and Mann catch up with the decadent trend by aiming much of their propaganda at the Impossibility of Love. Most notably, Oskar Werner falls for Simone Signoret because “she’s real,” but she is also a drugaddicted prisoner and he has a very weak heart. Vivien Leigh is also involved in the mess, as yet another has-been beauty.

Darling. Rather slick and—as one might guess from the title—rather nasty, too. Director John Schlesinger and writer Frederic Raphael are much more clever at creating fools than Kramer and Mann are, and they are much more intent upon it. The darling is a dull English girl who goes bad and keeps getting bored. At length she marries an Italian prince and gets so bored one feels her heart must break. England is rotting, Schlesinger and Raphael keep telling us— not to mention Italy. They give no reasons, only satirical rot—unless the reason is that everyone is either foolish or rotten. Actress Julie Christie has the task of eliciting ever more sympathy for the darling as she grows ever more contemptible. Occasionally, she proves the task is, if thankless, not impossible.