The Empty Canvas * (1963, Horst Buchholz, Catherine Spaak, Bette Davis) – Classic Movie Review 9082

The 1964 Italian drama The Empty Canvas [La Noia] [L’Ennuie et Sa Diversion] stars Bette Davis, who makes a mistaken trip to Rome for director Damiano Damiani’s film of Alberto Moravia’s novel La Noia. She should have been warned by the novel’s translated title: Boredom.

She plays the rich, widowed Southern American mother of half-Italian boy Dino (Horst Buchholz), a young artist in Rome who has an obsessive fling with Cecilia (Catherine Spaak), a nymphomaniac model, including covering her nude body with 10,000-lire banknotes. [Spoiler alert] Eventually Cecilia leads Dino to have a breakdown but he is prompted back to health by his mother.

‘Miss Bette Davis’, as she is billed, dressed to the nines (or tens) in elegant frocks and short blonde drag queen wig, starts over the top and works upwards to the scene where she catches the young lovers in her bed. Her amusingly camp performance is the only reason for watching. Otherwise The Empty Canvas is boredom.

Horst Buchholz stars as half-Italian boy Dino in The Empty Canvas (1963).

Also in the cast are Isa Miranda as Cecilia’s Mother, Lea Padovani, Daniela Rocca, Georges Wilson, Leonida Repaci, Luigi Guiliani and Dany Paris.

Incidentally, though it is well known that to be ‘dressed to the nines’ (or ‘done up to the nines’) is to be dressed flamboyantly or very smartly, its derivation is uncertain. One theory is that tailors could use an extravagant nine yards of material to make a suit, and with so much material, there would be more kudos. Other explanations are emulating the Nine Worthies of the ancient world, the British Army’s 99th Foot Regiment’s smart uniform, the nine buttons on a medieval woman’s gloves, and the nine muses.

The Empty Canvas [La Noia] [L’Ennuie et Sa Diversion] is directed by Damiano Damiani, runs 118 minutes, is made by Compagnia Cinematografica Champion and Les Films Concordia, is released by Embassy Pictures (1964) (US) (with English soundtrack), is written by Tonino Guerra, Ugo Liberatore and Damiano Damiani and Roberto De Leonardis (dialogue adaptation), is shot in black and white by Roberto Gerardi, is produced by Joseph E Levine and Carlo Ponti, and is scored by Luis Bacalov.

It is shot in Rome, Italy

Catherine Spaak’s sole conversation with Bette Davis on the set was ‘hello’. Spaak revealed in 2015 that she actually wore a bikini in the infamous supposedly nude body 10,000-lire banknotes scene. The notes were glued to her body to stay in place while filming.

The prime of Miss Bette Davis:

Deception (1946)… http://www.derekwinnert.com/deception-%c2%bd-bette-davis-paul-henreid-claude-rains-classic-movie-review-2708/

A Stolen Life (1946)… http://www.derekwinnert.com/a-stolen-life-1946-bette-davis-glenn-ford-dane-clark-walter-brennan-charles-ruggles-glenn-ford-dane-clark-bruce-bennett-classic-movie-review-2742/

The Corn Is Green (1945)… http://www.derekwinnert.com/the-corn-is-green-1945-bette-davis-classic-movie-review-1332/

Mr Skeffington (1944)… http://www.derekwinnert.com/mr-skeffington-1944-bette-davis-claude-rains-walter-abel-richard-waring-classic-movie-review-2700/

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9082

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