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The Queen of Spades
Series: Thorold Dickinson’s World of Cinema
Director: Thorold Dickinson, Country: United Kingdom, Release: 1949, Runtime: 95

It’s interesting that Dickinson’s two greatest films were both period pieces, starring the great Viennese actor Anton Walbrook, and that on both occasions he was called in at the very last minute to take over from another director (in this case Rodney Ackland). On Gaslight he had 20 days, and on this adaptation of Pushkin’s novella Pikovaya Dama, he had four, which, given the film’s baroque splendor, eerie refinement of mood, spectacular recreation of 19th century St. Petersburg and overall assurance, is nothing short of miraculous. The Queen of Spades is arguably Dickinson’s masterpiece and unquestionably one of the high points of English cinema, not to mention one of the finest tales of the supernatural ever put on film. Walbrook is excellent, as always, and Dame Edith Evans is riveting as the old Countess Ranevskaya, who has sold her soul to the devil in order to win at cards. “By any standards,” says Scorsese in Horne and Swaab’s book, “The Queen of Spades is a masterpiece.”




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