I Am a Camera (film)
| I Am a Camera | |
|---|---|
Region 2 DVD cover
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| Directed by | Henry Cornelius |
| Produced by |
John Woolf Jack Clayton (associate producer) |
| Screenplay by | John Collier |
| Based on |
The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood (book) I Am a Camera by John Van Druten (play) |
| Starring |
Julie Harris Laurence Harvey Shelley Winters Ron Randell Lea Seidl Anton Diffring |
| Music by | Malcolm Arnold |
| Cinematography | Guy Green |
| Edited by | Clive Donner |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Independent Film Distributors (UK) Distributors Corporation of America (US) |
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Release date
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21 July 1955 (UK and LA) |
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Running time
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98 minutes |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
| Box office | £144,666 (UK) |
I Am a Camera is a British comedy-drama film released in 1955. Based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood and the play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten, the film is a fictionalized account of Isherwood's time living in Berlin between the World Wars. Directed by Henry Cornelius from a script by John Collier, I Am a Camera stars Laurence Harvey as Isherwood and Julie Harris recreating her Tony Award winning performance as Sally Bowles.
I Am a Camera was critically unsuccessful upon its release in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and the film was subjected to restrictive ratings. Long overshadowed by Cabaret, the 1966 stage and 1972 film adaptation of the same source material, contemporary critics have noted the historic interest of this earlier presentation.
In contemporary London, Christopher Isherwood attends a literary party for the launch of a memoir, the author of which he is surprised to learn is Sally Bowles. This knowledge sparks a reverie and the film flashes back to Berlin, New Year's Eve 1931. Broke and frustrated with his writing, Christopher plans to spend the night in but his would be gigolo friend Fritz insists they go to a night club to see Fritz's new inamorata, Sally Bowles, perform. Fritz hopes to live off Sally's earnings as a film star but his ardor quickly cools at the sight of her fiancé Pierre, with whom she plans to leave for Paris that night. Instead, Pierre absconds with her money. Chris, taking pity on her, invites her to stay at his boarding house. They arrange for Chris to move to a smaller room and for Sally to take his old room. Over the course of a long and unproductive winter in which Chris cannot write and Sally finds no work, Chris attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with Sally. She rejects him, saying it would spoil their friendship.
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Wikipedia