Mr. Universe (Hungary, 1988) 96 min color DIR: György Szomjas. SCR: Ibolya Fekete, Ferenc Grunwalsky, György Szomjas. PROD: Gábor Dettre. MUSIC: János Karácsony. DOP: Ferenc Grunwalsky. CAST: Mickey Hargitay, Stefan Amházi, André Balog, Dezsõ Balázs. (Zeitgeist Films)
A decidedly unusual premise – a subtitled, foreign-language film shot in the United States- as two Hungarian filmmakers go on a road trip across America to Hollywood to pitch a movie project to Hungarian native, former Mr. Universe, ex-second husband of Jayne Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay. Along the way, they ask anyone they meet about their thoughts of the man. Since Mr. Universe is from another era, their inquiries are often met with blank expressions. This road movie is also a deconstruction of cinema, as the action is intercut with numerous onscreen titles, featuring quotes by everyone from (of course) Jean-Luc Godard (whose films were often movies about the the movie being shown) to fellow Hungarian Bela Lugosi about the state of the movie business, or their very individual theories of the art. This grainy film becomes an anti-movie, but it is a fascinating look at cultural collusion, and a bittersweet portrait of chasing dreams. This journey into the heart of darkness ends when they finally meet Mickey at his castle overlooking smoggy LA (look fast for his and Jane’s daughter Mariska, star of TV’s Law and Order: Special Victims Unit), the film becomes anticlimactic, and purposely so. Mickey Hargitay calmly says that he doesn’t want to make movies anymore, and the two men just seem to shrug, hit the road again, and think up another project to develop. If the film had ended any other way, it perhaps would’ve been dishonest in its portrayal of how creative pursuits often end in disappointment, and yet there is always another idea on the horizon.
Originally published in “Short Takes”, Vol. #1, Issue #11. This column, which randomly collected capsule reviews of films, for once had a theme: all the movies were previously broadcast on Jay Scott’s Film International program.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.