Watch Fedora For Free

Very well executed

Sorry, this movie sucks

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

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.

"Fedora" was Billy Wilder's last masterpiece, a perfect companion piece to "Sunset Boulevard" down to the casting of William Holden as the male lead, (here he's a down-on-his-luck producer rather than a struggling writer), and it is shamefully undervalued as if the film's very artifice isn't worth taking seriously, (indeed someone described the film to me as being so camp all the female roles should be played by drag-queens, missing the point by a mile). While at times darkly funny and certainly cynical, it is also deeply moving in ways we simply don't expect from Wilder. This is a movie that betrays an old master's love of movies, no longer biting the hand that feeds him but longing for the good old days when movie stars had faces that the camera adored. The story may be largely far-fetched, full of clever in-jokes and allusions to "Sunset Boulevard" and other movies about the movies but it remains a deeply affectionate homage rather than a mere pastiche; a triumph of style embracing content.Holden's uncertain acting may be the weakest thing in the picture, (it might have felt like a good idea at the time to cast the star of "Sunset Boulevard" but it doesn't really pay off), but to our surprise, the astonishing performances of both Marthe Keller and Hildegard Knef more than compensate; even Jose Ferrer is good here. And who, amongst movie lovers, won't be brought to tears by the scene in which Henry Fonda, playing himself, comes to deliver Fedora's honoury Oscar? View this, not as some half-hearted tribute-cum-horror movie about fading movie queens and the legacy and legend of Garbo but as a very great director's love letter to the industry that nurtured him and to the magic of cinema in general. Surely now this is ripe for rediscovery.

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

For Wilder buffs - and what serious film fan isn't - his penultimate film is a referentialists dream. The setting, Corfu, is not a million miles from Ischia, the setting for Avanti and where Avanti boasted two stiffs Fedora boasts one in a literal sense and one in a symbolic sense. The casting of Bill Holden in the lead invites direct comparison with Sunset Boulevard where a young Holden (Joe Gillis) lucked into an ageing movie star by chance and exploited the situation to the full; here, an older Holden (Barry Detweiler) contrives to get next to an ageing movie star who, he hopes, can rescue his flagging career. Wilder manages some pertinent barbs at the 'new' schools and practitioners of film-making, makes some risible casting choices in minor roles - Ferdy Mayne, Michael York, Marte Keller - but generally pulls off another minor gem. Well worth a place in any Wilder DVD collection.