Mark Rappaport
Mark Rappaport is an American independent/underground film director who has been working sporadically since the early 1970s. A lifelong New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, he graduated from Brooklyn College in 1964. His films are often marked by high camp, melodrama, deadpan humor, ennui, often using music, archival footage and excerpts from Hollywood films. Central to Rappaport's work is the relationship between the audience and media, particularly pop culture, which is his most recurring theme. An example of this is his first feature, Casual Relations, released in 1973. It is a bricolage of unrelated scenes, often announced by intertitles. One such title informs us that a character decided she would spend all day watching television. The scene that unfolds, approximately seven minutes in length, features just that: the character, in one continuous shot, watching television as the audio from three Hollywood films is heard. There is very little movement in the frame. Then the scene ends and the film moves on to the next scene. Rappaport has been noted by Roger Ebert, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Ray Carney, J. Hoberman, Dave Kehr, and Stuart Klawans.
Director
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The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
From the ground-breaking director of ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES, Mark Rappaport takes us on a hilarious and provocative romp through the hidden and not-so-hidden undercurrents of Hollywood's Golden Years. Dan Butler acts as tour guide as he uncovers (despite efforts to launder...Watch Movie -
Rock Hudson's Home Movies
“It was all up there,” says Rock Hudson (Eric Farr) at the start of this rule-breaking, dizzying assortment of clips from Rock Hudson’s Hollywood career that make up Mark Rappaport’s feature film, ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES. Employing a narrative commentary from beyond the...Watch Movie -
Local Color
A young artist seeks inspiration from an older man (and freedom from his own father) in this wise and warm coming-of-age tale, one infused with a love for impressionist art and loosely based on director/screenwriter/artist George Gallo's own life. The quiet, dreamy John would rather visit museums...Watch Movie -
From the Journals of Jean Seberg
An unmistakable master of the intersection between documentary and narrative, Mark Rappaport easily ranks among the great filmmakers of our time. As Jonathan Rosenbaum noted in the introduction to his Cineaste interview with the director from 1996, "Rappaport virtually...Watch Movie
-
Chain Letters
"Life is a river. A very dirty river," one protagonist decrees in Mark Rappaport's last narrative feature before he embarked on a 1990s trilogy of quirky, highly personal documentaries about Hollywood (such as ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES). Made in Manhattan during the worst early depths of the AIDS...Watch Movie -
Impostors
A polysexual vaudeville playing promiscuously with melodramatic intrigue, camp and intellectual gamesmanship, IMPOSTORS remains as unclassifiable as it was in 1979. Its slippery "plot" centers on the romance between besotted Peter (Peter Evans) and elusive Tina (Ellen McElduff). She's a faithless...Watch Movie -
Exterior Night
Using extensive rear projection to remarkable effect (actors, in color, against black and white backgrounds and all photographed in high definition), Mark Rappaport evocatively plays with the themes of noir while contemporizing the stakes involved. In EXTERIOR NIGHT, there is no past. There is no...Watch Movie -
John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie
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The Scenic Route
Making relationships work is murder, sometimes literally, in Mark Rappaport's 1978 feature, a Strindbergian battle between (and within) the sexes that filters melodrama through the gallery sensibility of 1970s video art and myriad other cultural reference points. Coolly...Watch Movie -
Blue Streak
An adroit expansion on the notion of a "blue" movie, Mark Rappaport's early short BLUE STREAK contrasts the rarified realm of classical composition with an unspoken assortment of words predisposed to human sexuality, all layered over footage of a room filled with naked women and men. At the...Watch Movie -
Mark Rappaport: The TV Spinoff
In MARK RAPPAPORT: THE TV SPINOFF (originally made for public television, though try to imagine such an experimental sensibility on PBS today), Mark Rappaport begins musing on "the movies" and then quickly turns to the subject of "my movies" in this raffish introduction to his...Watch Movie -
Mur 19
Mark Rappaport's first film commences with Gerald Mur "studying the cinema" in the form of a blow-up glamour shot of "La Garbo." Then "the cinema" studies Gerald (from numerous angles) followed by a standoff as filmmaker and subject circle one another, dueling with cameras to determine who's...Watch Movie
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Mozart in Love
Mark Rappaport's second feature film (amongst a remarkable string of off-beat, experimental narratives that runs from CASUAL RELATIONS to CHAIN LETTERS) takes off from the deliberate anachronism of using modern props, performance styles and attitudes to evoke the romantic entanglements of the...Watch Movie -
Postcards
A long-distance love affair is prolonged through a series of postcards in Mark Rappaport’s extraordinary short film, one of the director’s first experiments in video. The "deliciously ironic" (according to the Los Angeles Times) POSTCARDS tracks a romance played out entirely on assorted mailings...Watch Movie -
The Circle Closes
An examination of four different films, which to varying degrees, center on a prop or an object or an item that crosses various characters lives and passes from hand to hand in THE CIRCLE CLOSES. The story in each film is, to a certain extent, told from the point of view of...Watch Movie -
Max and James and Danielle...
Max Ophuls, James Mason and Danielle Darrieux: the legendary director and two of his favorite actors. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls film (although they should have been). What might that movie have been like? It’s...Watch Movie
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Debra Paget, For Example
Debra Paget was a contract player for 20th-Century Fox, whom they groomed and coached for stardom. But she never quite caught on. Maybe the movies weren't interesting enough. Or maybe she didn’t stand out from the rest of the pack. Or the studio didn’t take enough care in...Watch Movie -
Becoming Anita Ekberg
BECOMING ANITA EKBERG is an exploration of how the construct of "Anita Ekberg" became an internationally famous sex goddess as a result of the careful cultivation of her image in various movies, both in Hollywood, by Frank Tashlin, and in Europe, by Federico Fellini. It's an...Watch Movie -
I, Dalio
The great French actor, Marcel Dalio, who has the lead role in Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME, also appears in Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION. In both films he plays a character who is Jewish, as Dalio was in real life. In fact, in most of the French films he's in the 1930s, he almost always plays...Watch Movie -
Our Stars
Stars of the 1940s and 1950s, were they cast for their mutual affinities or for their commercial appeal? If and when they were re-starred years later, did the magic still work? Did sparks still fly? The movie business, a machine that manufactured romance and desire at the same time that it...Watch Movie
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The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk
A video essay exploring the frequency and meaning of that particular prop in a wide variety of Sirk movies. Is it a device that traps and keeps women in an artificial world with a limited point of view? Or is it a gateway to the past and the future, and a distorted but...Watch Movie -
Chris Olsen - The Boy Who Cried
In the movies since he was an infant, Chris Olsen appeared in films by some of the best directors of the 50's. Even though he never became a famous child actor, he was in a handful of the most iconic fifties movies. He "retired" at the age of fourteen. Looking back on his life...Watch Movie -
Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie
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The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie
Producer
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Rock Hudson's Home Movies
“It was all up there,” says Rock Hudson (Eric Farr) at the start of this rule-breaking, dizzying assortment of clips from Rock Hudson’s Hollywood career that make up Mark Rappaport’s feature film, ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES. Employing a narrative commentary from beyond the...Watch Movie -
Local Color
A young artist seeks inspiration from an older man (and freedom from his own father) in this wise and warm coming-of-age tale, one infused with a love for impressionist art and loosely based on director/screenwriter/artist George Gallo's own life. The quiet, dreamy John would rather visit museums...Watch Movie -
From the Journals of Jean Seberg
An unmistakable master of the intersection between documentary and narrative, Mark Rappaport easily ranks among the great filmmakers of our time. As Jonathan Rosenbaum noted in the introduction to his Cineaste interview with the director from 1996, "Rappaport virtually...Watch Movie -
Chain Letters
"Life is a river. A very dirty river," one protagonist decrees in Mark Rappaport's last narrative feature before he embarked on a 1990s trilogy of quirky, highly personal documentaries about Hollywood (such as ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES). Made in Manhattan during the worst early depths of the AIDS...Watch Movie
-
Impostors
A polysexual vaudeville playing promiscuously with melodramatic intrigue, camp and intellectual gamesmanship, IMPOSTORS remains as unclassifiable as it was in 1979. Its slippery "plot" centers on the romance between besotted Peter (Peter Evans) and elusive Tina (Ellen McElduff). She's a faithless...Watch Movie -
John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie -
The Scenic Route
Making relationships work is murder, sometimes literally, in Mark Rappaport's 1978 feature, a Strindbergian battle between (and within) the sexes that filters melodrama through the gallery sensibility of 1970s video art and myriad other cultural reference points. Coolly...Watch Movie -
Blue Streak
An adroit expansion on the notion of a "blue" movie, Mark Rappaport's early short BLUE STREAK contrasts the rarified realm of classical composition with an unspoken assortment of words predisposed to human sexuality, all layered over footage of a room filled with naked women and men. At the...Watch Movie
-
Mozart in Love
Mark Rappaport's second feature film (amongst a remarkable string of off-beat, experimental narratives that runs from CASUAL RELATIONS to CHAIN LETTERS) takes off from the deliberate anachronism of using modern props, performance styles and attitudes to evoke the romantic entanglements of the...Watch Movie -
The Circle Closes
An examination of four different films, which to varying degrees, center on a prop or an object or an item that crosses various characters lives and passes from hand to hand in THE CIRCLE CLOSES. The story in each film is, to a certain extent, told from the point of view of...Watch Movie -
Max and James and Danielle...
Max Ophuls, James Mason and Danielle Darrieux: the legendary director and two of his favorite actors. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls film (although they should have been). What might that movie have been like? It’s...Watch Movie -
Debra Paget, For Example
Debra Paget was a contract player for 20th-Century Fox, whom they groomed and coached for stardom. But she never quite caught on. Maybe the movies weren't interesting enough. Or maybe she didn’t stand out from the rest of the pack. Or the studio didn’t take enough care in...Watch Movie
-
Chris Olsen - The Boy Who Cried
In the movies since he was an infant, Chris Olsen appeared in films by some of the best directors of the 50's. Even though he never became a famous child actor, he was in a handful of the most iconic fifties movies. He "retired" at the age of fourteen. Looking back on his life...Watch Movie -
Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie -
The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie
-
I, Dalio
The great French actor, Marcel Dalio, who has the lead role in Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME, also appears in Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION. In both films he plays a character who is Jewish, as Dalio was in real life. In fact, in most of the French films he's in the 1930s, he almost always plays...Watch Movie
Editor
-
Rock Hudson's Home Movies
“It was all up there,” says Rock Hudson (Eric Farr) at the start of this rule-breaking, dizzying assortment of clips from Rock Hudson’s Hollywood career that make up Mark Rappaport’s feature film, ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES. Employing a narrative commentary from beyond the...Watch Movie -
Local Color
A young artist seeks inspiration from an older man (and freedom from his own father) in this wise and warm coming-of-age tale, one infused with a love for impressionist art and loosely based on director/screenwriter/artist George Gallo's own life. The quiet, dreamy John would rather visit museums...Watch Movie -
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
From the ground-breaking director of ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES, Mark Rappaport takes us on a hilarious and provocative romp through the hidden and not-so-hidden undercurrents of Hollywood's Golden Years. Dan Butler acts as tour guide as he uncovers (despite efforts to launder...Watch Movie -
From the Journals of Jean Seberg
An unmistakable master of the intersection between documentary and narrative, Mark Rappaport easily ranks among the great filmmakers of our time. As Jonathan Rosenbaum noted in the introduction to his Cineaste interview with the director from 1996, "Rappaport virtually...Watch Movie
-
Chain Letters
"Life is a river. A very dirty river," one protagonist decrees in Mark Rappaport's last narrative feature before he embarked on a 1990s trilogy of quirky, highly personal documentaries about Hollywood (such as ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES). Made in Manhattan during the worst early depths of the AIDS...Watch Movie -
Impostors
A polysexual vaudeville playing promiscuously with melodramatic intrigue, camp and intellectual gamesmanship, IMPOSTORS remains as unclassifiable as it was in 1979. Its slippery "plot" centers on the romance between besotted Peter (Peter Evans) and elusive Tina (Ellen McElduff). She's a faithless...Watch Movie -
John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie -
The Scenic Route
Making relationships work is murder, sometimes literally, in Mark Rappaport's 1978 feature, a Strindbergian battle between (and within) the sexes that filters melodrama through the gallery sensibility of 1970s video art and myriad other cultural reference points. Coolly...Watch Movie
-
Mur 19
Mark Rappaport's first film commences with Gerald Mur "studying the cinema" in the form of a blow-up glamour shot of "La Garbo." Then "the cinema" studies Gerald (from numerous angles) followed by a standoff as filmmaker and subject circle one another, dueling with cameras to determine who's...Watch Movie -
Mozart in Love
Mark Rappaport's second feature film (amongst a remarkable string of off-beat, experimental narratives that runs from CASUAL RELATIONS to CHAIN LETTERS) takes off from the deliberate anachronism of using modern props, performance styles and attitudes to evoke the romantic entanglements of the...Watch Movie -
The Circle Closes
An examination of four different films, which to varying degrees, center on a prop or an object or an item that crosses various characters lives and passes from hand to hand in THE CIRCLE CLOSES. The story in each film is, to a certain extent, told from the point of view of...Watch Movie -
Max and James and Danielle...
Max Ophuls, James Mason and Danielle Darrieux: the legendary director and two of his favorite actors. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls film (although they should have been). What might that movie have been like? It’s...Watch Movie
-
Debra Paget, For Example
Debra Paget was a contract player for 20th-Century Fox, whom they groomed and coached for stardom. But she never quite caught on. Maybe the movies weren't interesting enough. Or maybe she didn’t stand out from the rest of the pack. Or the studio didn’t take enough care in...Watch Movie -
Chris Olsen - The Boy Who Cried
In the movies since he was an infant, Chris Olsen appeared in films by some of the best directors of the 50's. Even though he never became a famous child actor, he was in a handful of the most iconic fifties movies. He "retired" at the age of fourteen. Looking back on his life...Watch Movie -
Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie
-
The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie -
I, Dalio
The great French actor, Marcel Dalio, who has the lead role in Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME, also appears in Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION. In both films he plays a character who is Jewish, as Dalio was in real life. In fact, in most of the French films he's in the 1930s, he almost always plays...Watch Movie
Writer
-
Local Color
A young artist seeks inspiration from an older man (and freedom from his own father) in this wise and warm coming-of-age tale, one infused with a love for impressionist art and loosely based on director/screenwriter/artist George Gallo's own life. The quiet, dreamy John would rather visit museums...Watch Movie -
The Silver Screen: Color Me Lavender
From the ground-breaking director of ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES, Mark Rappaport takes us on a hilarious and provocative romp through the hidden and not-so-hidden undercurrents of Hollywood's Golden Years. Dan Butler acts as tour guide as he uncovers (despite efforts to launder...Watch Movie -
From the Journals of Jean Seberg
An unmistakable master of the intersection between documentary and narrative, Mark Rappaport easily ranks among the great filmmakers of our time. As Jonathan Rosenbaum noted in the introduction to his Cineaste interview with the director from 1996, "Rappaport virtually...Watch Movie -
Chain Letters
"Life is a river. A very dirty river," one protagonist decrees in Mark Rappaport's last narrative feature before he embarked on a 1990s trilogy of quirky, highly personal documentaries about Hollywood (such as ROCK HUDSON'S HOME MOVIES). Made in Manhattan during the worst early depths of the AIDS...Watch Movie
-
Impostors
A polysexual vaudeville playing promiscuously with melodramatic intrigue, camp and intellectual gamesmanship, IMPOSTORS remains as unclassifiable as it was in 1979. Its slippery "plot" centers on the romance between besotted Peter (Peter Evans) and elusive Tina (Ellen McElduff). She's a faithless...Watch Movie -
Exterior Night
Using extensive rear projection to remarkable effect (actors, in color, against black and white backgrounds and all photographed in high definition), Mark Rappaport evocatively plays with the themes of noir while contemporizing the stakes involved. In EXTERIOR NIGHT, there is no past. There is no...Watch Movie -
John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie -
The Scenic Route
Making relationships work is murder, sometimes literally, in Mark Rappaport's 1978 feature, a Strindbergian battle between (and within) the sexes that filters melodrama through the gallery sensibility of 1970s video art and myriad other cultural reference points. Coolly...Watch Movie
-
Mark Rappaport: The TV Spinoff
In MARK RAPPAPORT: THE TV SPINOFF (originally made for public television, though try to imagine such an experimental sensibility on PBS today), Mark Rappaport begins musing on "the movies" and then quickly turns to the subject of "my movies" in this raffish introduction to his...Watch Movie -
Mozart in Love
Mark Rappaport's second feature film (amongst a remarkable string of off-beat, experimental narratives that runs from CASUAL RELATIONS to CHAIN LETTERS) takes off from the deliberate anachronism of using modern props, performance styles and attitudes to evoke the romantic entanglements of the...Watch Movie -
The Circle Closes
An examination of four different films, which to varying degrees, center on a prop or an object or an item that crosses various characters lives and passes from hand to hand in THE CIRCLE CLOSES. The story in each film is, to a certain extent, told from the point of view of...Watch Movie -
Max and James and Danielle...
Max Ophuls, James Mason and Danielle Darrieux: the legendary director and two of his favorite actors. Mason and Darrieux were each in several Ophuls projects but were never together in an Ophuls film (although they should have been). What might that movie have been like? It’s...Watch Movie
-
Debra Paget, For Example
Debra Paget was a contract player for 20th-Century Fox, whom they groomed and coached for stardom. But she never quite caught on. Maybe the movies weren't interesting enough. Or maybe she didn’t stand out from the rest of the pack. Or the studio didn’t take enough care in...Watch Movie -
Chris Olsen - The Boy Who Cried
In the movies since he was an infant, Chris Olsen appeared in films by some of the best directors of the 50's. Even though he never became a famous child actor, he was in a handful of the most iconic fifties movies. He "retired" at the age of fourteen. Looking back on his life...Watch Movie -
Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie
-
The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie -
I, Dalio
The great French actor, Marcel Dalio, who has the lead role in Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME, also appears in Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION. In both films he plays a character who is Jewish, as Dalio was in real life. In fact, in most of the French films he's in the 1930s, he almost always plays...Watch Movie
Cinematographer
-
John Garfield
Mark Rappaport completed his concise portrait of the legendary John Garfield in 2002, comprised (like much of his filmed essays) from existing film footage of the actor. Exceptionally engaging, Rappaport's extraordinary short contains more insightful observations of its subject than many...Watch Movie -
Mur 19
Mark Rappaport's first film commences with Gerald Mur "studying the cinema" in the form of a blow-up glamour shot of "La Garbo." Then "the cinema" studies Gerald (from numerous angles) followed by a standoff as filmmaker and subject circle one another, dueling with cameras to determine who's...Watch Movie -
Sergei / Sir Gay
As a teenager, Eisenstein signed his drawings with 'Sir Gay'. Roguish essayist Rappaport sees clear signs of his sexual preferences throughout the Russian’s film oeuvre. Numerous asides illustrate how Hollywood productions likewise frequently played with nods and winks and...Watch Movie
-
The Double Life of Paul Henreid
Paul Henreid, perhaps most famous for his roles in CASABLANCA and NOW, VOYAGER became a star at Warner Brothers during World War II, as the exotic lead with the European accent. After the war, his contract was cancelled and he was left to his own devices. He continued acting...Watch Movie -
I, Dalio
The great French actor, Marcel Dalio, who has the lead role in Jean Renoir's THE RULES OF THE GAME, also appears in Renoir's GRAND ILLUSION. In both films he plays a character who is Jewish, as Dalio was in real life. In fact, in most of the French films he's in the 1930s, he almost always plays...Watch Movie
Actor
-
Mark Rappaport: The TV Spinoff
In MARK RAPPAPORT: THE TV SPINOFF (originally made for public television, though try to imagine such an experimental sensibility on PBS today), Mark Rappaport begins musing on "the movies" and then quickly turns to the subject of "my movies" in this raffish introduction to his...Watch Movie -
Becoming Anita Ekberg
BECOMING ANITA EKBERG is an exploration of how the construct of "Anita Ekberg" became an internationally famous sex goddess as a result of the careful cultivation of her image in various movies, both in Hollywood, by Frank Tashlin, and in Europe, by Federico Fellini. It's an...Watch Movie

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