Recently I've stumbled onto a few of the films made by the late Paul Bartel. I always liked him from his roles in films like "Rock 'n' Roll High School" and "Tales of the City," but I had no idea he was the man who made "Eating Raoul" (which I've been dying to see for years) and "Death Race 2000" (which I finally saw a week or so ago). As you can tell, I have bad taste... While browsing through a used video store, I found Rhino's release of this film, which was packaged with "Naughty Nurse" and an intro by Bartel himself.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good "Secret Cinema" is. The acting was good all-around, though some would probably gripe about the bad dubbing (particularly Helen, the black woman, who's voice never once matched her lips). With the Twilight-Zone-ish premise of someone who's unaware that their life is being filmed, this seems to be the original, made long before "The Webbers" (an always-overlooked gem) and the dull "Ed TV" and "The Truman Show." And I just have to rave about the woman who played three roles - she cracked me up in her role as the nurse! Amazingly for a film of this era, the picture quality was outstanding - usually you get a rather worn print, filled with scratches, anomalies, and cigarette burns - but the Rhino print looked like it just came out of the editing room. Now I'm curious to see the "Amazing Stories" remake again. I know I saw it years ago, but I remember absolutely nothing about it.
As for the companion short film, "Naughty Nurse," it doesn't seem to fit with the tone of "Secret Cinema." With its strange eroticism and bizarro ending, it seems better suited to play with "Death Race 2000" or perhaps "Eating Raoul." But that's a different review...
