Fedora (1978)

FEDORA  (1978)  ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Billy Wilder
    William Holden, Marthe Keller, Hildegarde Knef,
    José Ferrer, Frances Sternhagen, Henry Fonda,
    Stephen Collins, Michael York, Mario Adorf
An impoverished producer flies to Corfu on borrowed money to try to coax a Garboesque movie star into reading a script he's trying to sell. Then things start to get perverse. This is like a throwback to Wilder's "Sunset Blvd.", with an aging William Holden cast as the producer and an aging actress again at the center of a seriously twisted story. There's little of the dark, morbid wit that Wilder brought to the earlier film - it's plenty dark and morbid, but the wit has mostly gone missing - and while Marthe Keller (as the actress) and Hildegarde Knef (as the countess who houses and protects her) aren't bad, neither has the star power their roles demand. (Apparently, Wilder had hoped to cast Faye Dunaway and Marlene Dietrich.) Henry Fonda plays himself as the president of the Motion Picture Academy, and Michael York plays himself as Michael York.