One of my all time favorites.

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Much maligned in the US, "Some Call It Loving"is a film that's not going to be for everyone...or suite everyone's tastes. But that doesn't mean it should be ignored, because at its core lies a well- made, deliberately told film about loneliness, love and dark desire.As with most of director James B. Harris's films, the pic is centered around a disillusioned loner who wants to change the status quo. In this case, a jazz musician who wants more from his relationships than the kinky game play that has become the norm in his mansion. Although our "hero" is surrounded by comely women who want to throw themselves at him, he wants more. He wants love. Companionship. He think he's found it in a mysterious girl who he has awakened from a long sleep, but the girl may be more of a puzzle than he can handle.This is a film more about style than story. And on that level, it succeeds well, with gorgeous cinematography and a haunting theme melody by the director's brother Bob Harris. Overall, it's great that this lost little film has finally been given a significant release after spending 40 years in obscurity. For cinema lovers, it's worth checking out. For those who already admire in its renegade spirit and minimalist approach, enjoy the new release by Etiquette Pictures. It's everything we could have hoped for. Maybe one day Hollywood will wake up, and realize what a wonderful director James B. Harris is. We can only hope.

An obscure oddity, chastised and forgotten in its time. A different take on the Sleeping Beauty story which is complimented with interestingly composed shots, surreal characters, narrative peculiarities and great music. It's a warm piece of Americana that invokes weird nuns, freak carnivals and a rambling Richard Pryor. Basically all the stuff that makes America great. Despite the strange elements inherent in the movie, it still comes off as artfully dramatic. Love cannot be forced and no one is perfect for one another, the film explores how futile it is to make this happen when a man has the perfect opportunity to mold a sleeping beauty into his ultimate love. It is somewhat a shame that the film hasn't found an audience outside of Rosenbaum's essential 1000 and some Cinemageddon weirdos as it could easily slot itself into the fanbase cult of Harmony Korine and beyond. Watch it at 3am and let it mesmerize and sedate you.

For those who would trash this film as so much convoluted garbage--Freudian or otherwise--I have only these words: The Very Thought of You. The scene in which this song is included is the only thing which makes this film worth watching. Of course, the inclusion of the song, good as it is, cannot save this film from the trash heap. The concept is imaginative enough. The story concerns what appears prima facie to be a familiar theme, but which incorporates the kind of surrealistic realism that was characteristic of John Collier. His characters are dreamers with noble ideals and high expectations. Only to find that the real thing, once encountered, is nowhere near what they had imagined. Another story by Collier in this same mold, by the bye, is "The Chaser," which did become a Twilight Zone episode.The well-read viewer will probably be able to overlook the bizarre elements which clutter this film for just a moment and appreciate its sublime theme. In the end, however, the bizarre elements drown out any attempt at profundity. The viewer, like the characters in the film, is left feeling vaguely disillusioned, if not outright cheated.The song deserves mention immediately because I believe that the sentimental romanticism of The Very Thought of You expresses very well the intention of the film's director. As envisioned by him, the song lingers in memory. Unfortunately, the director's intention is out of step with the writer Collier's original intention and it shows. The whole production is out of sync with its purpose. This is not a good film. I'd give it one and a half stars, and that's for the song.

The cinema is such a magnificent art that it enables artists to minutely examine the darkest crevices in the human psyche. Here we have one of the strangest examples of this possibility. Zalman King makes a superb central character of Robert Troy who brings a 'sleeping beauty' from a fairground to his West Coast mansion. It emerges that she has been artificially kept asleep - drugged by her fairground owner. The mansion to which she is brought is a cavernous affair populated simply by two women, whose relationship with Troy is never fully articulated. There are clear suggestions of necrophilia here as Troy's obsession with the sleeping girl become more explicit, but the film doesn't pursue these lines, leaving the audience to make connections and draw its own suspect conclusions. One of the most disturbing aspects of the film is in the scene in which Jennifer relates to Troy how she had experienced being asleep and just remembering how the men in the fairground kissed her... and more. However, she had only the alternative of oblivion to compare these half-perceived experiences with so regarded them as precious, but Harris doesn't moralise.Although the British video that I watched (I had seen the film in the cinema before) promotes the fact that Richard Pryor is in the cast, he is, in fact, the weakest part of the film - playing a drug/booze-crazed friend of Troy. Carol White also has a strange part as the possibly Lesbian dominatrix, who regularly dresses as a nun in the weird role-playing games that pass for life in the mansion. Visually the film concentrates on darkness with many strange chiaroscuro effects in the mansion lit by dim chandeliers and candles. When Jennifer (Sleeping Beauty) and Troy take a trip, it is mainly shot at night in anonymous, faceless locations. It seems to me that one of the few real clues to the heart of the film is in the choice of Nat King Cole's 'The Very Thought of You' as the key musical motif. This points, it seems to me, to the notion of the film being a reflection of the way that love enters and distorts the mind of the lover. Finally, in this extraordinary film - made by one of Kubrick's closest associates of the time - we see mystery in almost every aspect. Where, if at all, does the flashback with which the film opens end, for example? There are relatively few movies that make you think that there is a whole new area of human existence, but this is one of them. It may be tacky and lacking in 'taste and decency' on occasion, but this is cinema of the fine line between decadence and depravity - it isn't 'nice', but it's, to use another Nat King Cole title, unforgettable.