Gosford Park (2001) - Smith triumphs in Altman & Fellowes' exquisite whodunit

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Scarlet roses and a menu attached to a waiter's backside with the title, tagline and impressive list of stars make up this inviting poster for Robert Altman's Gosford Park

A British family patriarch invites to a grand hunting weekend in 1930s upper class England. The family and their servants cultivate etiquette, gossip and viciousness as usual. But then a murder occurs!...

Gosford Park is written by Julian Fellowes (Romeo and Juliet (2013)), based on an idea by co-producer/co-star Bob Balaban (The Last Good Time (1994)) and co-producer and Missourian master filmmaker Robert Altman (The Delinquents (1957)), whose 33rd feature it was.
It is a wonderful multi-character film with a terrific ensemble of whom especially Maggie Smith (Keeping Mum (2005)) and Kelly Macdonald (Finding Neverland (2004)) impress. Smith is tart and incredibly funny here.
Altman serves the whodunit in a breezy style without giving the misdeed more room than is necessary.
The British social reservation that's integral to Gosford Park may affect my own feelings about it a bit to the cool side, but it is certainly still a splendid picture.

Related post:

Robert Altman: The Company (2003) - Campbell, Turner and Altman's fine ballet picture

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 19.8 mil. $
Box office: 87.7 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 4.42 times its cost)
[Gosford Park premiered 7 November (London Film Festival) and runs 137 minutes. Balaban asked Altman if they could develop a film together in 1999, and upon Altman's response of an Agatha Christie-like whodunit introduced him to Fellowes. Shooting took place in England from March 2001 - ?. Filming took place with two cameras perpetually moving in opposite directions, forcing all actors to stay in character throughout every scene, all of which has at least one servant in them. The film opened #23 to a 241k $ first weekend in 9 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #9 and in 918 theaters (different weeks), grossing 41.3 mil. $ (47.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 17.1 mil. $ (19.5 %) and Australia with 4.5 mil. $ (5.1 %). It was Altman's most commercially successful film, following MASH (1970). The film was nominated for 7 Oscars, winning for Best Screenplay. It lost Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Smith and Helen Mirren) to Jennifer Connelly, Director to Ron Howard, all for A Beautiful Mind, and Art/Set Decoration and Costume Design to Moulin Rouge!. It won 1/5 Golden Globe nominations, 2/9 BAFTAs, 1/4 AFI award nominations, was nominated for a César award, 3 European Film awards and several other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 4/4 star review, translating to 2 notches higher than this one. Fellowes was inspired by the film to create his hit-series Downton Abbey (2010-15). Altman returned with The Company (2003). Smith returned in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002); Macdonald in Brush with Fate (2003, TV movie), State of Play (2003, miniseries) and theatrically in Intermission (2003). Gosford Park is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.51/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Gosford Park?

Dementia 13/The Haunted and the Hunted (1963) - Coppola's Gothic AIP castle horror

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Posters for Francis Ford Coppola's Dementia 13 seem to inform patrons that they would have to pass some kind of a psychiatric examination before seeing the film, - now that's creative marketing!

QUICK REVIEW:

A family in an Irish castle bicker over inheritance, as a mysterious ax murderer begins to wreck havoc.

Dementia 13 is the feature debut of master filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)), although the fact is contested, as he was heavily involved with directing a few other (dubious) films before it as well. It's a castle horror flick set and shot on location in Ireland. The film stirs up a traditional whodunit plot that is easily forgotten afterwards. Coppola wrote the script with the help of Jack Hill (Blood Bath (1966)).
But the staging of the proceedings stand out, as Coppola has directed the period plot in a modern fashion with close-ups, various quite visionary shots and actors that really act. William Campbell (Star Trek (1967), TV-series) and Luana Anders (Easy Rider (1969)), Bart Patton (THX 1138 (1971), voice) and Mary Mitchel (Panic in Year Zero! (1962)) are top-billed, and Patrick Magee (Tales from the Crypt (1972)) plays a small part.
The movie contains an ax murder that seems to have inspired The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and a deeply atmospheric opening sequence, (the SPOILER heart attack on the lake scene.)

Related review:

Francis Ford Coppola: Apocalypse Now (1979) redux version - The horror of war

Watch the hammy trailer for the film here

Cost: Between 30k-42k $
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertainty
[Coppola was one of the budding, young filmmakers attached to Roger Corman's (The Wild Angels (1966)) American International Pictures, who had provided him with 22k $ left over from The Young Racers (1963), which had wrapped under budget. Coppola himself raised another 20k from selling the European rights without Corman's knowledge. Dementia 13 was shot in 9 days and has since come to be regarded as a Gothic cult movie by some. This Indiewire article claims that it recouped its expenses at the box office.]

What do you think of Dementia 13?

The Name of the Rose (1986) or, The Monk Dective and the Monestary Horrors

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Adventure springs to mind from this neat, painted character-poster for Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose

The Name of the Rose is an adaptation of Italian writer-philosopher-semiotician Umberto Eco's (The Prague Cemetery (2011)) first novel and the fourth movie from French director Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Bear (1988)).
Annaud had developed and nursed the project for 4 years and taken his time with studies of the novel, the medieval portrayal and facts presented. And with the casting of all the monks in the film that all have very distinct and interesting faces.
Rose is a whodunit crime thriller set in the very unusual place of a 13th century monastery in Northern Italy. Here, a monk has thrown himself off the roof of the monastery in a hailstorm, and soon other eerie irregularities follow. William of Baskerville is a learned monk from another, more liberal order, who is called upon to solve the mystery. And he does so with the aid of his young apprentice, Adso.
Sean Connery (Time Bandits (1981)) is a major reason to watch Rose, although his casting wasn't obvious at the time of production, when his career was in a slump. But seeing him tackle the Sherlock Holmes-inspired character (Holmes is also referenced in a few lines in the film) is a joy. He has the warmth and humor that takes some of the gruesomeness out of the film, and the possibility of anything supernatural at hand never seems a possibility due to his straight-shooting nature.
As Adso, we get a 17 year-old Christian Slater (True Romance (1993)), who breaks his celibacy with a poverty-stricken girl in a feisty sex scene. Annaud's keen sense of the sensual is very clear throughout Rose, a film with lots of intellectual and religious ideas floating around, which is aptly balanced with the horrors of the monastery and the vileness of its inhabitants, as Annaud tackles the occult to great effect and seems to revel in the stuff. Most vile of them all is Ron Perlman (Drive (2011)), whose already somewhat ghoulish features have been heightened greatly to suit his menacing, humpbacked character here:

Ron Perlman in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose

The details:

F. Murray Abraham (The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) plays the adversary, who arrives late in the film after it has lost some pace.
Still, it is a very enjoyable time and a very specific, different, exotic place to be taken to for a couple of hours.
The film seems to have an implicit, agnosticist skepticism of all the (Christian) religion involved, which is represented mainly as ludicrous or of very poor consequences, but Baskerville also shows another, lighter alternative, retaining his Christian faith. And the ending is definitely no rejection of strong faith and quite memorable.
Annaud is working on his Chinese adventure movie Wolf Totem (2015) at present.

Related review:

Jean-Jacques Annaud: The Bear/L'Ours (1988) - Amazing bear story for (almost) the entire family

Watch the original trailer here

Sean Connery and Christian Slater in Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose

Budget: 18.5 mil. $
Box office: 77.1 mil. $
= Big hit, - mainly in Europe, (Rose only made 7.2 mil. $ in the U.S.)

What do you think of The Name of the Rose?
Other unusually located whodunits that you want to recommend?