Valerie | |
---|---|
Directed by | Gerd Oswald |
Screenplay by |
|
Produced by | Hal R. Makelim |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Ernest Laszlo |
Edited by | David Bretherton |
Music by | Albert Glasser |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Hal R. Makelim Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 82 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Valerie is a 1957 American Western film directed by Gerd Oswald and starring Sterling Hayden, Anita Ekberg and Anthony Steel.[1][2] The film was apparently inspired by Akira Kurosawa's 1950 classic Rashomon.[1]
Rancher John Garth is arrested for critically wounding his wife Valerie and killing her parents. During Garth's trial, contradictory flashback sequences are depicted.[1]
Filming for Valerie started in December 1956.[3] It was the only film that Anthony Steel and Anita Ekberg made together during their marriage.[4]
Variety called the film "a challenging experiment."[5]
In a contemporary review in Baltimore's The Evening Sun, reviewer Hope Pantell wrote: "This opus opens with an assortment of bodies, then proceeds to show, sometimes in painfully long-winded fashion, how they got to be so stiff."[6]
Writing in The Philadelphia Inquirer, reviewer Samuel L. Singer assessed the lead actors' performances: "Lovely Anita Ekberg, Swedish beauty, displays her charms and engages in a limited amount of histrionics. Sterling Hayden is grimly nonsmiling as her husband, and Anthony Steel, her real-life husband, is convincing as the minister."[7]
Valerie was released on DVD by MGM Home Video on September 26, 2011 via MGM's MOD (manufacture-on-demand) program through Amazon.com.