Fedora (1978) User Reviews

We had faces then...and we kept them!

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 20 June 2015]

Billy Wilder's second-last film comes full circle from 1950's Sunset Boulevard.

Fedora begins with a news announcement of the great actress' death. Dutch Detweiler (William Holden) narrates the film, and attends Fedora's lying in state. He recalls what led up to that moment, and the story begins.

Dutch (William Holden) has a script that is perfect for the actress Fedora (Marthe Keller), a Garbo-like myth wrapped in a legend, who lives a reclusive life in Corfu.

One day, he sees her in town and reintroduces himself - they knew each other 30 years earlier. He is astounded by her unchanged beauty. She wears gloves because her doctor can't do anything about aging hands. and she asks him for a few dollars. When he asks if she received his script, she says that they hide the mail from her.

After some spying on Fedora, Dutch comes to the conclusion that she is not being well treated and is imprisoned. Desperate to see her, he tries every way he can to gain entrance to the house, and at one point actually breaks in, only to be knocked out by someone who acts as her chauffeur. When he comes to, he's in his hotel, and a week has passed. And lots has happened.

Fedora is based on the story in Tom Tryon's book, "Crowned Heads," which is three stories - the first about a Lana Turner-type, the second a combination of Clifton Webb and Ramon Navarro, and the third Fedora, actually based on Dietrich, Garbo, and a few other actresses. The first two stories were kind of sleazy. Fedora is really the best one.

I remember this did not get good reviews at the time. Billy Wilder had no end of problems with it. It did not get a full release internationally or nationally; it was not publicized; and it was so badly cut that audiences laughed in all the wrong places when it was shown initially.

It's pathetic to me that a great talent like Billy Wilder was treated so badly by modern Hollywood, but I'm not surprised.

I think this is an interesting story and if Wilder had been allowed to do what he wanted, it would have been a marvelous film. One of the things that brought it down for me was the abominable performance of Marthe Keller. This role brought an end to her brief Hollywood career.

What really bothered me was all the dubbing. Neither Knef's nor Keller's voices were used, and it's obvious. The actresses just sound dubbed with very little effort at performances. I may be overly sensitive; that dubbing sound is a big turnoff for me, but maybe not for others.

I think this plays better on television than it probably did in the theaters, and it's definitely worth seeing for Holden at least, who is Joe Gillis had he lived.

A series of unfortunate events spoiled what this film could have been, but it's still Billy Wilder, it's still William Holden, and you can't go too wrong.

A minor Wilder's offering with major 'behind-the-scenes' insights...

[ElMaruecan82 · 7/10 · 30 September 2016]

Billy Wilder is celebrated for a streak of movies that starts with the groundbreaking film-noir "Double Indemnity" and "Lost Weekend" and ends with the comedy classics "Some Like it Hot" and "The Apartment". In between, you have such titles as "Sunset Blvd.", "Stalag 17", Sabrina" and "Witness for the Prosecution", I guess if any movie lover was asked about the 10 greatest movies from the Golden Age, a fistful of Billy Wilder films would be mentioned.

This is just to say that this is the kind of legacy a foreign director, who escaped from the Nazis and never got rid of his German accent, can be damn proud of, he literally owned American cinema and defined many genres. After the sixties, he still had a share of enjoyable movies but they never reached the same iconic status. And when the New Hollywood was built on the ruins of the studio system, Billy Wilder became the incarnation of old school, conventional cinema: big names, big stars and big stories. Wilder's motto was "thou shall not bore the audience" but then came a time where moviegoers, mostly grown-up baby boomers, were enthralled by the spectacle of Bonnie and Clyde's machine-guns, the French Connection' chase, Scorsese's mean streets and the intimacy of the Corleone family. Wilder became the bore, audience-wise.

"Those kids with beards are running things" laments the has-been Larry Detweiller aka "Dutch" played remarkably by William Holden, and his words couldn't have echoed more Billy Wilder's resentment toward the new ways of Hollywood or what was left of it. In the midst of the raging bulls and easy riders' era, the merit of "Fedora" is to provide the interesting insight from a director of the old generation. When the time of Ford, Minnelli or Hitchcock was over, Wilder was still here and made one, deliberately conventional and classic move… or movie, so against the current it was meant to fail. But now, after four decades, "Fedora" has aged surprisingly well. It's not a masterpiece but the story is likely to content the movie lovers we are.

In fact, it illustrates this quote from Jean-Luc Godard: "the best way to criticize a film is to make one". And Billy Wilder, adapting the novel 'Crowned Heads', paid a tribute to the Golden Age through the portrayal of Fedora, a star who used to be big but then saw her stardom fade, only to resurrect a few years after. When asked if there was any similarity between "Fedora" and "Sunset Blvd.", Wilder naively said no, but even though it wasn't intentional, one can't have a cinema-themed Billy Wilder's film, featuring William Holden, much more in the narrator's role, and not have "Sunset Blvd." in mind. If anything, the film comes full circle with the classic noir: in the 70's, the Golden Age was the silent era, they didn't need blazing guns and naked breasts, only dialogues and faces.

Fedora was the biggest of her time, mentioning real-life stars and fictional movies as if the film was set in a parallel universe yet close to the reality, just like Norma Desmond interacting with Cecil B. De Mille, as to emphasize the dream-like aura of Hollywood. Then she abruptly ended her career and lived in in remote locations on the Riviera and started to make movies again after a few years of absence, this is where Dutch comes, trying to approach her to star in an adaptation of Anna Karenina, He notices some strange happenings, Fedora seems imprisoned by a group of people as colorful as intimidating: an old Countess with a husky voice (Hildegard Knef), a mysterious plastic surgeon played by Jose Ferrer and a sinister watchdog played by Frances Sternhagen (she was the sheriff's wisecracking wife in "Misery").

The "Sunset Blvd." déjà vu deepens and Dutch' investigation leads to the ultimate revelation about the story of Fedora. And it is intriguing and haunting within its own limitation with a fascinating mix of real actors like Henry Fonda and Michael York, in the intrigue. The main problem with the film is that the peripheral characters actually work better than the central one, Holden is perfect but like many critics pointed out, there had to be an actress of Marlene Dietrich' caliber to play the faded star because the flashbacks don't leave us with the conviction of a Golden Age aura on Fedora. There had to be a Katharine or Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, but I guess the film was victim of its era, Wilder didn't have the same touch and only his old buddy William Holden was here to close the loop with "Sunset Blvd.".

But I love the way the film feels like a swan song of the old school and close the curtain on Wilder's five-decade contribution to Cinema, as if he was paying a final tribute to his art. He would later make a film with Lemmon and Matthau, a remake of a French classic farce but the film was of such abysmal quality it was dismissed as part of Wilder's canon, and "Fedora" is a worthy ending to his prolific career. I didn't necessarily enjoy the film, I would say I watched it with mere curiosity, able to appreciate its intent more than its result, but the making of the film is very fascinating, seeing the old Wilder wrestling with the new system to get his film made, along with I.A.L Diamond, is a great lesson of humility and determination.

After knowing the truth about Fedora, which is a self-referential cased of Naked Empress, Dutch says it would make a better story than the one he had in mind; I guess the same goes with the making of 'Fedora',

Unjustly overlooked

[Dave Godin · 8/10 · 22 September 2002]

It puzzles me why this film appears to have been so forgotten and neglected because I find it richly entertaining and, like so much of Wilder's work, it shows an abiding, (although not uncritical), love / hate of Hollywood and all it represented. Wilder has no illusions about the Monster Hollywood could be in its heyday when it created an almost parallel universe which consisted of those on the inside the industry, and the rest of us who paid homage at the box-office. Both parties were almost entirely oblivious of the reality of life as experienced by each other.

FEDORA is much more bitter-sweet than SUNSET BLVD., (his other film with which it is natural to compare it, and of course the presence of William Holden in both makes this even more compelling), but here we see people who, having made a pact with the devil of Hollywood fame and fortune, find it is a two edged sword that keeps them in the service of its mores and values forever, even though the effort of doing so nearly makes them die from exhaustion. Death or permanent seclusion is the only way to preserve a legend's immortality.

Beautifully structured, and with some excellent dialogue, all the cast acquit themselves with credit, and I find it a fascinating and valuable glimpse into a world that has now gone forever and which is never, ever likely to return. Perhaps more reflective and introspective than we expect a Billy Wilder film to be, but all the more richly satisfying for it. Highly recommended.

little gem

[Kirpianuscus · 29 April 2018]

Many reasons for see this little gem. the performances, the atmosphere, the crumbs of old Hollywood, the tragedy of glory in passing time. and a touching story. remembering "Sunset Blvd". but being, for its bitter poetry, so different. for me, the basic motif for see it was the presence in cast of William Holden. and this "key" works. for discover not exactly a world but a form of survive. and its precise limits. a film about the traits of past. and meeting with wise use of suggestion, from illustrious names to small details of biographies for transform the film in a form of trip across Hollywood Golden Age.

If only

[arichmondfwc · 7/10 · 20 December 2004]

I devoured Tom Tryon's book and I made my own film in my mind. Needless to say, I loved it. Then I heard that Billy Wilder was going to direct the film version. Perfect, I thought, perfect. I wanted to write to Mr. Wilder to let him know about the film I had already in my mind, not camera shots, naturally, but casting. There was only one actress who could play the Garboesque Fedora in all her mysterious splendor and that was Vanessa Redgrave, then,at that exact moment in time. She was the only actress who could be all the other actresses we've always known and loved rolled into one. That in itself made her unique, spellbinding. Rachel Kempson a great British actress plus Vanessa's mother in real life, to play the old lady. The film was made with Marthe Keller and Hildegarde Kneff in those roles. I hoped for Terence Stamp to be the actor of Fedora's dreams. They chose Michael York. I remember a review by Pauline Kael I believe, when she came to review Michael York in this film her comment was succinct: "Michael York plays himself, unconvincingly". Maybe this is a suitable case for remake. With all due respect to Mr. Wilder, one of my heroes, maybe Cameron Crowe should have a go.

As Norma Desmond said, "The Pictures Got Small

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 29 August 2007]

William Holden made his fourth and final film for Billy Wilder who he always considered his lucky director. With such films as Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, and Sabrina to their credit who wouldn't consider that lucky? Fedora doesn't quite belong in the same category as those others from the golden years of Wilder and Holden. Still it's an interesting film to watch and you can never make a visually bad film in the Grecian Isles.

Holden plays Barry Detweiler an interesting older variation on Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard. Imagine if Gillis had avoided Norma Desmond's bullets and had gone on to a great film career and you have Barry Detweiler.

But the digs that Norma Desmond had in Sunset Boulevard compare badly to the splendor of the regal exile that movie legend Fedora has on the Grecian isle of Korfu. It's been a mystery how Fedora has managed to appear eternally young.

Back in the day Holden had a fling with Fedora and he's played here as a young man by Stephen Collins. Hoping to cash in on a quick roll on the beach from the Fifties, Holden has a script for a new version of Anna Karenina. After much scheming he does get into see Fedora, played by young Marte Keller.

Unfortunately some intriguing things keep bringing Holden back and in the end he does uncover the secret of Fedora's eternal youth. Let's say it was something not available to Norma Desmond.

Best performance in the film for me is Jose Ferrer, a quack plastic surgeon who has attached himself to Fedora as part of her entourage. Ferrer steals every scene he's in, that man was never bad in anything he did.

Maybe Fedora would have been a classic if Marlene Dietrich had come back to play the part of the old countess that Hildegard Knef did and Faye Dunaway had played Fedora. Personally I think the part of the countess was too close to home for Dietrich, but Wilder definitely wanted her.

What a film that would have been.

Underrated Billy Wilder film with intense drama, plot twists and being finely performed

[ma-cortes · 7/10 · 8 June 2021]

A shamefully overlooked movie , it is Wilder's testament with a lot of attractive ingredients as brooding drama , thrills , sensitive theme , amazing twist finale, in a word , emotion . It deals with a washed-out producer : William Holden who attempts to hire an old star called Fedora : Marthe Keller , she is nowadays retired and living at a mansion in Corfu along with a cripple countess : Hildegard Knef , their assistant : Frances Sternhagen and a mysterious doctor : Jose Ferrer.

Dramatic and witty film about cinema world containing realism, illusion, a twisted love story and tragedy . A flashy film and cynical at times , compellingly made by the great maestro Billy Wilder , at his last feature along with Buddy Buddy, but Fedora only superficially does it resemble Sunset Blvd . Colorfully set on Corfu , including nice cinematography by George Fisher , but a perfect remastering being really necessary . It explores deeply the basis of the cinema by thought-provoking and deranged portrayals of tarnished stars and the disastrous attempts to make time stop , providing a narrative assurance beyond the grasp of most filmmakers today.

Accompanying by a sensitive and stirring musical score by classy composer Miklos Rozsa . This moving motion picture was stunningly directed by the great Billy Wilder , giving one of the most sublime achievements of the Seventies , though it failed at the international boxoffice . Wilder was one of the best Hollywood directors who made various masterpieces and with special penchant for comedy , such as : The Major and the Minor , The Seven Year Itch , Sabrina , Some Like Hot The Apartment , One Two Three , Irma La Douce , Kiss Me Stupid , The Fortune Cookie , Avanti , The Front Page . Although Wilder also made Film Noir and Dramas, such as : The Lost Weekend , Double Indemnity , Five Graves to Cairo , A Foreign Affair , Ace in the Hole , Stalag 17 , The Spirit of St Louis , Witness for the Prosecution , Fedora , among others .

The Legend Must Go On

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 5 June 2011]

The former successful and famous Polish actress Fedora (Marthe Keller) commits suicide at the Mortcerf Station, jumping off in front of a train. The broken Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler (William Holden) attends the funeral at her house in Paris and recalls that he might have caused her death.

Two weeks ago, Dutch traveled to Greece Island of Corfu seeking Fedora out in the Vila Calypso, located in an isolated island owned by the bitter Countess Sobryanski (Hildegard Knef). Fedora has been living an unsocial reclusive life for the last years in the villa with the countess, the plastic surgeon Doctor Vando (José Ferrer) and her assistant Miss Balfour (Frances Sternhagen), since she abandoned the set of a film that she was shooting in London with Michael York.

Dutch brings the screenplay with a version of "Anna Karenina" to offer to Fedora, with the promise that investors would finance the film if Fedora accepts the lead role. Fedora, who is impressively young, is receptive to the offer, but the countess and the doctor tell that she is mentally unstable and paranoid and can not act again.

When Dutch discovers that Fedora will be secretly sent to a mental institution owned by Dr. Vando in Mortcert, he tries to rescue the actress from the island but he is hit on the head and faints with a concussion. One week later, when he awakes, he learns that Fedora is dead. Dutch travels to Paris and meets Countess Sobryanski that him the truth about Fedora.

"Fedora" is the swan song of Billy Wilder, with an engaging story; a complex screenplay and many twists about aging, selfishness and loss of youth and identity. The plot has many elements of "Sunset Boulevard", with a washed-up producer looking for a former glamorous Hollywood actress that surprisingly has not aged like she should and might represent his comeback to the glory. The secret about Fedora and her friends is unpredictable. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Wilder's last artistic success

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 12 December 2019]

If you don't see the twist coming from a mile away, then this might be the first movie you've ever seen. It's obvious, and a bit frustrating that the movie holds onto that secret so long, but it does get revealed at the halfway point allowing the rest of the film to focus on more interesting things. It's not Wilder's finest moment, but it's good little mystery and characters study.

The casting of William Holden as Barry Detweiler feels completely intentional with a knowing nod towards Sunset Blvd. He's out to find a reclusive actress who has holed herself up in a castle-like residence. This actress, Fedora, is not allowed to go out of her house alone without several escorts. She's allowed no visitors. Detweiler sneaks onto the island and peers over the wall to see that Fedora isn't treated like the star she is, but more like a prisoner. The Countess, who owns the estate, berates the actress mercilessly. The bearded doctor keeps an eagle eye on everyone, and the personal assistant, Miss Balfour, helps. Detweiler just wants to get the great screen actress a script he's trying to produce and will only get off the ground if he can convince the reclusive Fedora to star in his picture.

They meet in town after Fedora just gets away from her handlers and enters a tourist shop where she's desperate to get her hands on some film. Detweiler follower her and provides the cash that she doesn't have on her to get the film, a rather exorbitant hundred dollars. They have a moment, but there's a disconnect between them. Back at his hotel, Detweiler writers Fedora a letter where he outlines his brief dalliance with the world famous actress several decades before, where they shared a single night in the middle of production of one of her films. It's no surprise that she can't recognize him that easily considering the time since and brevity of the affair.

Detweiler gets invited to the house because of his persistence where the Countess meets him and tells him to leave them alone. But, he insists, the script he has is an adaptation of Anna Karenina and perfect for Fedora, but the Countess won't have it, even after Fedora sneaks into the conversation and expresses great interest in the role. The whole group disappears the next day, leaving Detweiler to search the grounds where he gets hit over the head, convalesce for a week, and waken to discover that Fedora had died in Paris in the previous few days.

This is about halfway through the film, and Detweiler confronts the Countess's household at Fedora's funeral where the Countess reveals the truth. Fedora wasn't Fedora. The Countess was actually Fedora. Fedora was the Countess' daughter. The second half of the film is largely dedicated to a series of flashbacks that tell the story of how the original Fedora maintained her youth through experimental treatments from her doctor, how one treatment went wrong and scarred her face, how her daughter ended up playing the part of Fedora for Henry Fonda when Fedora was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar, and how the new Fedora returned to film. She then fell in love with Michael York while filming a movie with him, threatened to blow the lid off the whole secret, and got pulled from public life in the middle of filming. She resorted to drugs (the film she was buying wasn't film) and her mother secluded her to protect her in addition to the secret.

The movie has two real problems. The first is that the plot twist is easy to predict really early. It's just simply too obvious that the young woman (hidden by sunglasses and a hat at all times) isn't over sixty years old, and the Countess too obviously has a secret that could only be that she's actually Fedora. Thankfully, the movie doesn't rely on that for its entire runtime. Even then, though, while the mystery itself is easily guessed, the drama around Detweiler trying to reconnect with Fedora for rather crass purposes is handled well.

I also have an issue with the fact that the second half of the film is a series of flashbacks. It's mostly that it's not really standard storytelling. However, once I came to terms with the structure and followed the drama unfolding, I was able to go along with it as the dramatic focus shifted from Detweiler's efforts to the younger Fedora's efforts at self-actualization in the hands of her mother who won't let go.

I think that it ultimately comes together, just enough to call good, but it's still minor. It has a very familiar cheap 70s feel from movies made in Europe at the time. There's even a moment where Detweiler speaks as Wilder and bemoans how Hollywood had been taken over by the kids with beards (the likes of Spielberg, Scorsese, Lucas, and de Palma) and it's hard to get work funded anymore. This feels like a last gasp of a great filmmaker in the middle of very changing times. He's grasping onto newer things like production methods while trying to tell stories that speak to him. It's a twist on an old, classic story he, himself told, but it's obvious that his heart wasn't in it anymore.

I do wish he had stopped with this, though.

Pictures which never got small!

[dbdumonteil · 8/10 · 11 July 2007]

"Fedora" was made with German and French money.It speaks volumes about what America thought of the commercial potential of one of its greatest directors.

As "Buddy Buddy" ,remake of a FRench comedy does not count ,"Fedora" is Wilder's last opus.And it is a good film,nay a splendid one regarded in context,the best last movie Wilder could make ,which is just as well ,because when epitaphs are seen as worthless,the things that came before can sometimes been retropectively tarnished by association."Fedora" stands in little danger to bring this about.It is a last film ,soon,like the others ,to yellow with age but never lose its poignancy.

Some said it was a poor man's "Sunset Blvd" .There are similarities: flashbacks,real-life actors (Cecil B.De Mille in "Sunset" Henry Fonda and Michael York" in "Fedora" ) and the terror of getting old ,the longing for eternity.There the comparison ends.

For "Fedora" was ,in 1978,a "modern" film which the European (notably the FRench critic) hailed as a young man's work."Fedora" is absorbing from start to finish:it is ,in turn,a romantic story (the affair with York) an investigation à la "Citizen Kane" ,a thriller and even a Gothic horror movie.William Holden,Hildegarde Knef , Swiss Marthe Keller,Mario Adorf and Jose Ferrer are all excellent.

The first scene when the heroine throws herself under the train recalls the techniques of the forties/fifties .Whereas "Fedora " is a thoroughly modern film,it manages to display nostalgia for the things we lost when the cinema began to lose its innocence or became intellectual or "got small!"The same nostalgia we felt in "Avanti" .The luminous blue Mediterranean sky is in direct contrast to the darkness of Wilder's earlier films noirs.

With "Fedora" Wilder came out blaring!

Wilder's next to last

[jc1305us · 7/10 · 18 February 2013]

After just finishing Ed Sikov's wonderful biography of Billy Wilder, I got interested in this movie, seeing as it was another pairing of Wilder and one of my favorite actors, William Holden. Shot in 1978, it has a very dream like quality to it, due to the cinematography, which adds to the somewhat creepy atmosphere of the movie.

Trying to track an elusive movie star who has retired to a Mediterranean villa to star in his latest film, Barry Detweiller (Holden) cannot seem to catch the elusive beauty. Her compound is secluded, and all access is restricted. His calls and letters go unanswered. But he must get in to see the elusive Fedora.

After sneaking in to the compound, Detweiller believes he has caught his quarry. But a strange turn of events, reveal to him that all is not what it seems in paradise. Wilder's next to last film, is something of a return to his great "Sunset Blvd' featuring another Joe Gillis like character, and a another Norma Desmond as well. The two movies do bookend each other I believe, and if you are a fan of the former, you should try and see the latter.

Keep young and beautiful!

[kennethwright2612 · 8/10 · 23 January 2003]

Billy Wilder revisits the territory of his Hollywood Babylon classic Sunset Boulevard, with the same male lead (William Holden) in an almost identical role as a washed-up screenwriter trying to get to a reclusive and mysteriously ageless one-time screen queen in order to pitch her a comeback script. Story elements include Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray and (off-screen) the many mad-doctor yarns of the 1930s and 1940s in which Boris Karloff messes about with Things We Were Never Meant To Know. Looks great in a brittle and glitzy 1970s way, as befits its scornfully depicted international-rich-white-trash milieu. Essentially it's a sombre but humanistic sermon on the hopeless worship of physical youth and beauty: as a medieval English writer put it, "who sows hope in the flesh reaps bones". A very relevant film for our narcissistic times, its only big flaw is that it's a mighty chilly piece of work, easier to admire than to love.

Genuinely strange...but very watchable

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 29 November 2021]

"Fedora" is the penultimate film that Billy Wilder directed (his final being "Buddy Buddy" with Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon) and I cannot recall another one of his films that is this unusual. The structure of the plot is very odd as well as the story...but if you are patient, it's well worth seeing.

The story is mostly set in Italy. An American film producer (William Holden) has come there to try to convince a timeless actress, Fedora, to come out of retirement and star in his new film. Unfortunately, his task turns out to be a lot more difficult than he anticipated and it turns into a strange mystery. When he finally is able to get around Fedora's handlers, she tells him she's being held prisoner by them and she desperately wants to escape. There is MUCH more to the story than you'd think at this point...and the plot goes in some very unexpected directions. There is much more I could say about the plot, but won't as it might give away some of these plot twists.

The acting is generally good, though I wasn't as impressed by Fedora nor the Contessa's acting. The story, while very oddly constructed, was interesting and I think that the film's lousy performance in theaters was very unfortunate, as it really is a creative and interesting story. Well worth seeing.

I was rather disappointed...

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 6 August 2016]

...as this one seemed to just be retreading familiar ground. This was director-scenarist Billy Wilder's late '70s return to Sunset Boulevard territory, reuniting him with William Holden in a role not at all dissimilar to that which had skyrocketed the actor's career in the 1950 classic.

In this film he plays an aging independent Hollywood producer, desperate for a success, who travels to a Greek island with the hope of luring a reclusive Garboesque film queen out of retirement with a screenplay based on Anna Karenina. The star, remarkably well preserved with a bizarre collection of hangers on surrounding her (or are they imprisoning her?) is erratic, to say the least, once Holden finally succeeds in meeting her.

Wilder fans may be intrigued with the film's premise for a while (based on a story by Thomas Tryon) but this film largely told in flashback after beginning with the film star's Anna Karenina-like suicide in front of a train lacks the wit and sardonic black humor that had so distinguished Sunset Boulevard. In fact, this suitably bizarre tale has no leveling humor at all, and it is sorely missed.

The cast is adequate, nothing more. Holden, his character so integral to Sunset Boulevard, is largely reduced to the role of observer here, and Marthe Keller as the mysterious Fedora lacks any sense of depth or fascination as the aging Hollywood queen whose youthful appearance is eerily similar to that of a female Dorian Gray. Hildegarde Knef as an embittered Countess who lives with her, and Jose Ferrer, as her doctor, fill out the cast. There are also brief appearances by Michael York and Henry Fonda.

While ultimately the film must be judged a disappointment, considering the impressive pedigree of those involved, fans of Wilder will still want to see it - at least once. But there's only so much interest one can develop for a film in which it is difficult for its audience to muster any emotional involvement for any of its characters.

Mesmerising and Historically Valuable

[djj-2 · 30 June 2000]

I wish to defend Fedora somewhat from the sole previous IMDB reviewer. It is not a great movie such as "Sunset Boulevard" but it is hugely enjoyable and a real treat for anyone interested in old Hollywood, and the bitter-sweet quality of fading glamour.

Since the death of Marlene Dietrich, and especially with the publication of a biography by her daughter Maria Riva, it is now clear that Fedora is a direct portrait of Ms. Dietrich with much telling accurate detail.

Billy Wilder knew Dietrich and old Hollywood well, and even though made in the 70's, the film captures a genuine essence probably for the last time as figures from the golden age of film have since then moved into retirement and sadly largely slipped the mortal coil.

The real story of the EXTRAORDINARY Ms. Dietrich is better than any of her movies, and Fedora tells some of that story. It makes for more comfortable viewing than Maximillian Schell's documentary "Marlene".

Wilder is an intelligent director, which makes "Fedora" worthwhile viewing. I have always found "Sunset Boulevard" a little too arch and self-consciously aware; "Fedora" is a more lyrical piece by the director as an older man.

It may not be Sunset Boulevard, but....

[byron-116 · 7/10 · 1 November 2020]

....Billy Wilder's genius oozes in his final film. Fedora is an absorbing story with interesting twists. Good performances all over and some lovely shots of the beautiful Greek island of Corfu.

A clever screenplay indeed

[manumfernandes · 6/10 · 5 May 2020]

Thanks to mubi, I was able to see Billy Wilder's penultimate film. I was really enjoying the first half of it. William Holden was great as ever and the whole mystic surrouding Fedora and what was really happening at the mansion gripped my attention. However, I think that due to the casting of some actors, the things that got me so excited in the first half completely vanished in the second. Nevertheless, it's a really intelligent screenplay, courtesy of the mind of one of the greats, on the cult of a person, cinema's glamour and how it really works out, and the expectations we create for our loved ones and how that can corrupt them.

You Can't Go Wrong With William Holden and Billy Wilder

[phawley-251-115921 · 7/10 · 24 October 2021]

I'd watch this only for William Holden. His performance is spot on as usual, with expressions, character inhabitation that is so strong. He always acts "all the way through," not just in dialogue delivery - knowing when to enunciate strongly, throw away lines, deliver softly, etc. HIs movements, the way he strides across a hotel lobby, or looks off into the distance, informs his character. You see his experience, his ability to absorb the character.

I wish they had some of the more original picks for the Countess and the actress - people who could match Holden's performance. The entire movie would have been stronger. Wilder didn't think this movie totally worked, and I think part of it was the women actresses he was able to attain. The Countess was meant to be rough, but sometimes it was just grating barking and was too one note. A different actress would have communicated this roughness in a more nuanced performance. I desperately needed Holden to be matched with higher quality acting.

However, the plot, twists, commentary on Hollywood which Wilder was so good at, and scenery are all very interesting. The flashback devices were strong and creative. It was interesting and different to watch. And the deep commentary on Hollywood gives one much to think about. The light associations with Sunset Boulevard are also interesting.

Wilder took risks in his career, and later in life. I admire him for it.

Billy Wilder's last masterpiece competes with his earlier masterpiece "Sunset Boulevard"

[clanciai · 10/10 · 9 September 2020]

William Holden was 60 when he made this, and three years later he was dead. 30 years earlier he had played a similar lead in "Sunset Boulevard" dissecting the same theme, also directed by Billy Wilder. Although they treat the same subject, they are extremely different, and there are oceans of differences between them. Gloria Swanson was a movie star from the silents who had become mummified in her great past, while Fedora is something of the contrary: she was in her heyday as great a star as Garbo, Dietrich, Crawford, Bette Davis and others like that but like Garbo resigned from the screen into total isolation, in which producer William Holden wishes to dig her out for a new version of "Anna Karenina", as the reputation of Fedora is that she, like Garbo, stopped aging and just remained as beautiful as ever. That's a movie legend of the kind that Hollywood and the film industry live on and which just can't be shattered. Fedora is a realist and does what she can to prevent the legend from dying, and succeeds - beyond death. That is what this film is about - the necessity of eternity, when once it has been granted by a world audience, and Henry Fonda even delivers an Oscar to her in her isolation of old age. William Holden says in his departure that a film with her of the true story would have made a much better film than the "Anna Karenina" manuscript, well aware that such a good film never could be made, but Billy Wilder made it.

Fedora

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 4 June 2023]

Perhaps not one of Billy Wilder's most famous of films, but this penultimate effort is certainly one of his more intriguing. The story is told starting from the moment of the death of the actress "Fedora" (Marthe Keller) and so it is basically about the circumstances that led to her being hit by a train (suicide/accident?). William Holden ("Dutch Detweiler") has seen better days as an Hollywood producer, and so determines to try and lure the legendary star from her reclusive existence in her Greek villa; surrounded by a rather acolytic coterie as obsessed with their own interests as with those of the actress; and at points we are not quite sure of the extent to which her housebound existence is entirely voluntary. Hildegard Knef ("The Countess") and José Ferrer ("Dr. Vando") add further to this mystery that seems as much of a swipe at the excesses, and vacuousness (splendidly epitomised by the good looking but shallow Michael York) of Hollywood as it is about the sadly maladjusted woman. Aside from Knef - who is on great form, the acting is a little uninspiring - there are some resemblances to "Sunset Boulevard" but I felt only marginally; this has neither the intense drama, nor the intimacy of that story - and Holden couldn't come anywhere near the performance he had delivered back in 1950. I did enjoy it; despite the print I saw being poor and rather shockingly edited (hacked?) but the denouement is pretty much telegraphed after about half an hour and so it loses out on any great degree of depth. Perhaps the very shallowness and fickleness Tom Tryon was identifying in his book?

Billy Wilder's Masterpiece "Fedora" :

[adventure-21903 · 10/10 · 25 May 2019]

Billy Wilder was a genius and filmed this movie in Europe with a batch of European funding sources.

William Holden -who won an Oscar in Wilder's Stalaag 17-stars and gives his usual smooth professional performance. Wilder wanted Garbo to come out of retirement for this movie, but the Great Star declined. Wilder went next to Marlene Dietrich who also declined. Wilder is on record saying Marthe Keller was a poor substitute playing both roles. I feel Kim Novak would have been a better choice. (Wilder liked Kim having worked with Kim on Kiss Me Stupid).

As in all Wilder films the dialogue sparkles, and while this film was not distributed. Allied Artists-a small studio-dropped out of distributing this fine film. it is much better than initially reviewed. Billy Wilder was a stickler for the script as written and this movie like Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, has great dialogue.

Billy wilder would make one more movie "Buddy Buddy and then retire. He is in estimation the greatest Director and what stars he had in his films: Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Jean Arthur, Ty Power, Shirley MacLaine, Charles Laugton, Kim Novak,, William Holden, Paula Prentiss,Walter Matthau, Audrey Hepburn, James Cagney,Marlene Dietrich, Fred McMurray and Gloria Swanson.

Sunset Blvd without the wit, charm, or style

[MissSimonetta · 6/10 · 10 June 2021]

FEDORA is a campy, misbegotten mess of a movie. The story feels like it should have gone through another rewrite or two before being committed to celluloid. The construction of the story itself is lumpy (the second half should have honestly been the first).

Most damning of all are the characters. I always say characters can survive being unlikable if they are also interesting-- unfortunately, the lot here are just plain awful without much in the way of interest. Say what you will of Norma Desmond-- she had a kind of pathos in her delusional nature and there was a sense of genuine tragic grandeur to her despite her narcissism. That and Gloria Swanson gave a performance for the ages. Here, Fedora is unsympathetic and uninteresting, played with no real flair or eccentricity or anything. About the best scenes involve her directing her own funeral as though it were a Hollywood epic, which is amusing.

To be honest, there is a lot that's potentially great here, mocking the shallowness of Hollywood culture with Wilder's trademark nastiness. Even the daughter's poignant romance with Michael York has a sense of mockery to it. However, the whole thing feels so tired and dated, and surely must have played so even in the 1970s. It feels like a bad TV movie, nothing like what you'd expect from the man who gave us SUNSET BLVD, SOME LIKE IT HOT, and THE APARTMENT.

A Top Movie About Movie-Making

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 20 June 2008]

Movies with a film-making background inevitably gain full attention from me, no matter how woeful their plots, lacking in skill their artistic pretensions, or miserable their production values. It's therefore most pleasing to find such a movie that is absolutely out-of-the-box in all aspects. Fedora ranks as one of the best movies-about-movies ever made. True, the mystery side of the plot is not exactly its strongest point. Although few members of a sophisticated audience would fail to grasp the obvious solution, the writers have neatly anticipated this problem by making the hero so desperate that he literally cannot see the wood for the trees. It's essential that we always remain sympathetic towards the hero, no matter how crass his actions, and this we certainly are as Holden brilliantly takes us through a replay of his role in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard. In what turns out to be the Swanson role, Hildegard Knef is also most compelling, and although Wilder was not happy with her performance, I thought Marthe Keller handled the title part with exactly the right edge of neurotic tension. Ferrer and Sternhagen contribute memorably forceful characterizations. Wilder's skillful direction is abetted by striking color photography from Gerry Fisher and a stirringly atmospheric Miklos Rosza score.

Clunky Hitchcockian oddity

[svendaly · 7/10 · 12 May 2020]

Seems the whole second half after the big reveal here is taken over by the explanation, which suggests it doesn't sit quite right. Certainly a fascinating watch and concept - however descends into high melodrama, perhaps not ill fitting considering the subject matter

Good story but treatment past its due date

[Maciste_Brother · 4/10 · 13 March 2007]

I enjoy the kind of outlandish stories like the one found in FEDORA. The whole story is so much larger than life that seeing the sorta mediocre result is disappointing because this story needed grandeur, big budget, big cast, big everything, to elevate the over-the-top story to its sublime glory. Oddly enough (and unfortunately for us) Billy Wilder's movie mimics the film's story to a tee. The story is about a famous but reclusive film star (obviously patterned after Greta Garbo) who lives on an isolated Greek island. A producer/writer (played by a too old William Holden) wants to meet with Fedora and have her come out of retirement so she can star in his new film. Fedora had already retired before but experienced a comeback a few years ago before disappearing from the silver screen, this time for good. When Holden meets Fedora, the woman seems totally crazy. The story that unfolds afterwards is preposterous, soapy, twisted, quasi-operatic and yet fitting, for a story about Hollywood.

The funny thing about FEDORA is how Wilder critiques old Hollywood and the then current Hollywood of the 1970s and proceeds to shoot himself in the foot. The convoluted story of a Hollywood legend unable to live up to her famous past is exactly what happened to Wilder when he decided to direct this film: Wilder was too old to direct this film. FEDORA, the film itself, is a pale example of what the director could do when compared to his films of the past, like SUNSET BOULEVARD and SOME LIKE IT HOT. Not only that, but Wilder also samples his older films' glory to drive his point in FEDORA, which, in turns renders the whole thing even more pathetic than it needed to be.

FEDORA, the film, is not really about the fictional story about a legendary actress but more about Billy Wilder, the director, a bitter old man trying to prove a point by showing to the world how over-the-hill he was.

The casting in FEDORA can only be described as disastrous. Hiring Holden was a very bad idea. His presence kept reminding me of SUNSET BOULEVARD, which even if that film was made in the good old days of the 1950s, was more sharp, more ironic, more iconic, more modern in its understanding of how image can distort reality than anything seen in FEDORA, which was made in 1978. Showing Marthe's breasts does not equate to anything than a pathetic attempt to be with the times. Casting Marthe Keller and Hildegard Knef was also a very bad idea. The voices for both actresses were dubbed throughout the entire film, which was needlessly distracting and watered down whatever attempt at acting those two tried to achieve. And Jose Ferrer looks bored out of his mind. In fact, the whole film looks bored, sounds bored, moves boringly. THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE, which share the same kind of improbable storyline, is, even as bad as it is, more fun and enjoyable to watch than this dreary thing.

The film's bite would have been more convincing if FEDORA had more punch to it, more life, more style, more irony. As it is, FEDORA is just sad and pathetic. It's a shame because like I said, I love these kind of stories and it annoys the heck out of me that Wilder was more concern in trying to voice a (tired) opinion than actually trying to create a great film first. A proper remake, with grand production values and a bit more class (the film creates a sorta repellent image of Garbo), and hopefully without Michael York, should be done one of these days. The improbable, over-the-top, almost operatic story definitely deserves it.