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Topic: Spanish Prisoner

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	"The Spanish Prisoner"(1998)
		What's so wonderful and even revolutionairy about "The Spanish Prisoner" is that it defies all the laws of current filmmaking.
		It is a thoughtful, outstanding film that challenges the audience, and that's a rarity in these times, where films are exactly opposite of that; films today are simply a chance for the audience to sit back and tune out their mind.
		"The Spanish Prisoner" is one the year's best, it's a smart, challenging film that dares the audience to follow along.
	www.angelfire.com /il/MovieGuide/spanishA.html (329 words)

	TheMovieBoy Review: The Spanish Prisoner (1997)
		David Mamet's "The Spanish Prisoner," is a puzzle of a film, one that starts off simply enough but begins to stack story development upon story development, and twist upon twist until we really actually have to be paying close attention to be able to follow everything.
		It is a compliment, because "The Spanish Prisoner" is a thinking-person's film, and the complex story flows so effortlessly that it just goes to show how brilliant Mamet is as a writer.
		The delight in watching "The Spanish Prisoner," doesn't so much have to do with the intricate plot, but more about the sly, entertaining interactions that the characters have with each other, thanks to the exquisite dialogue, which is nothing short of flawless.
	themovieboy.com /reviews/s/97_spanishprisoner.htm (398 words)

	The Head Heeb: 419 and its ancestors Nick
		Those who were suckered into this paid for one failed rescue attempt after another, with the fictitious prisoner continuing to languish in his non-existent dungeon, always just one more bribe, one more scheme, one more try, away from being released.
		The author dates the Spanish prisoner scam to the 1920s, but versions of it exist from at least the nineteenth century - and, according to some sources, the sixteenth.
		The reason many sources date the Spanish prisoner fraud to the 1920s is that it became popular late in that decade.
	headheeb.blogmosis.com /archives/014878.html (654 words)

	O.F.C.S.: The Online Film Critics Society (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Prisoner sports a spartanly refreshing script chock full of tidy and often overlapping dialogue.
		It's deliciously handled by its ensemble cast, particularly Campbell Scott as the bemused corporate executive who is taken for one heck of a conniving, and later deadly, journey of industrial espionage.
		The Spanish Prisoner, be warned: there's a potential con artist on every corner -- the grifter's rapturous equivalent of any expanding metropolitan Starbucks franchise.
	ofcs.rottentomatoes.com /pages/pr/1990overlooked/ofcs37 (291 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner
		The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet's fifth and latest film as writer-director, is the most accessible and conventional of the movies he's directed -- which I have slight reservations about, but more on that later.
		And on that level, The Spanish Prisoner is absorbing, sharp, and darkly funny.
		The Spanish Prisoner may be a hermetic Hitchcockian doodle (I had the same reaction to The Usual Suspects), but it's a compelling exercise -- David Mamet's variation on a theme.
	www.angelfire.com /movies/oc/spanpris.html (652 words)

	DVD Talk Forum - View Single Post - Please Review Spanish Prisoner
		But don’t form any opinions when you see the PG rating, as The Spanish Prisoner is a consummate example of how profanity, violence, nudity, and sex can be absent from a film, yet you can walk away from it feeling like you’ve had ample dosages of all these.
		The environment of The Spanish Prisoner is meticulously controlled by David Mamet, and that environment includes the dialog, the sets, and the characters.
		The Spanish Prisoner is perhaps the cleverest film I’ve seen, and the very good DVD presentation does this remarkable film justice.
	www.dvdtalk.com /forum/showpost.php?p=629771&postcount=8 (1000 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner: For once, a movie of Hitchcockian proportions
		David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner is an exemplary specimen of the genre, not only being a tense thriller in its own right, but also providing some serious subtext to go along with all the precise movements of the clockwork plot.
		The Spanish Prisoner is written and directed by David Mamet - and, speaking of adjectives, "mametian" is also the word.
		The Spanish Prisoner is rated PG - and thus has not a single four-letter word.
	www-tech.mit.edu /V118/N29/prisoner.29a.html (491 words)

	Self-referential movies: The Spanish Prisoner
		The Spanish Prisoner reminds us, both diegetically and extra-diegetically, that people can pretend to be what they aren't, that our judgments about who's "sincere" and who's "lying" can't be credited, and that although creations such as fiction films can be rigged to look spontaneous, they are in fact totally controlled.
		What we see in The Spanish Prisoner (as in, I have argued, Vertigo) is not one character misleading another, but manipulation of all characters—and the audience above all—from above.
		It is significant that The Spanish Prisoner turns on a snapshot that will supposedly prove that Jimmy Dell didn't really disembark from a luxury seaplane as Joe assumed, but merely seemed to.
	www.movies-seivom.org /SpanishPrisoner.html (1024 words)

	"The Spanish Prisoner" / a review from Christian Spotlight on the Movies
		The Spanish Prisoner stars Campbell Scott as Joseph Scott, a young urban professional who's about to sell his "Process" (as it's known) to a nameless corporation.
		If The Spanish Prisoner were made with a Hollywood budget (perish that thought), it would star Michael Douglas.
		A post viewing critique of The Spanish Prisoner left the group I was with finding the plot riddled with holes.
	www.christiananswers.net /spotlight/movies/pre2000/i-spanprisoner.html (675 words)

	Metroactive Movies \| The Spanish Prisoner
		But The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet's latest, is a retread, an unconvincing story about confidence artists.
		You'd believe the formality, the burning obsession under the ice; and there's enough of the air of fraud in Martin's classiness that when Gatsby's roots are exposed it wouldn't seem like a cheat.
		The Spanish Prisoner (PG; 112 min.), directed and written by David Mamet, photographed by Gabriel Beristain and starring Steve Martin, Ben Gazzara and Campbell Scott.
	www.metroactive.com /papers/metro/04.16.98/spanishprisoner-9815.html (483 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Like last year's The Game, The Spanish Prisoner expends considerable time and energy (though in a much sparer style than that of Fincher's film) detailing a Chinese box of conspiracies and disguises piled up against Joe Ross (Campbell Scott).
		Pidgeon's character, for example, picks a sort of friendly fight with Ross over whether, when Jimmy Dell arrived in the island resort of Saint Estephe, where the three characters meet, he did so on board a seaplane that alights near the beach while she and Ross are taking pictures of one another.
		The Spanish Prisoner, however flauntingly clever, however conceptually interesting, is a fairly remote exercise for the audience; yes, Mamet's dialogue still fascinates, but not as much as it did when he wasn't just talking to himself.
	www.people.cornell.edu /pages/nkd4/spanpris.html (645 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner
		In The Spanish Prisoner, playwright-filmmaker David Mamet returns to one of his favorite subjects: the way people lie to each other.
		The Spanish Prisoner is an immensely entertaining contrivance, an elaborate maze where well-lit passageways turn out to be blind alleys and anyone who offers to give directions is not to be trusted.
		But this is also Mamet lite: The unfolding of the clever, red herring-stuffed plot takes precedence over everything, and the characters are defined solely by their roles within the con game.
	www.metrotimes.com /movies/filmarchive/18/30/18_30SpanishP.html (358 words)

	Political Film Society - The Spanish Prisoner
		The Spanish Prisoner, directed and written by David Mamet, is a film about a con.
		In The Spanish Prisoner, the thing of value is a "process," developed by a research scientist who works for a New York firm, to control the world market in widgets.
		How he is ultimately exonerated, though without notes for the process, is the reason to wait until the surprising end of the film.
	www.geocities.com /~polfilms/spanishprisoner.html (458 words)

	Spanish Prisoner - Page 1
		art Hitchcockian thriller and part shaggy-dog story, The Spanish Prisoner offers a suspenseful and entertaining ride into a world where almost none of the characters is what he appears to be.
		The picture's plot is pure film noir: Joe Ross (Campbell Scott), a dedicated young scientist who has single-handedly created a process that will earn his employers a fortune, is frustrated by the vague promises of financial remuneration offered by his boss, the evasive Mr.
		The Spanish Prisoner was shot in 36 12-hour days on a budget of approximately $10 million with no studio affiliation.
	www.theasc.com /protect/mar98/spanish/pg1.htm (773 words)

	Review: The Spanish Prisoner (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Although there are plenty of holes that Mamet has no interest is sewing up (trying to solve every riddle in The Spanish Prisoner is an exercise in futility), this is a smart film that develops a central character we can sympathize with — a modern version of Josef K. from Kafka's The Trial.
		The difference is simple: those two films are for viewers who prefer to turn their brains off while The Spanish Prisoner is for anyone who likes to think and feel along with the characters.
		Although most viewers of The Spanish Prisoner will be personally unfamiliar with the kind of sinister plot that Joe stumbles into, the concepts of corporate greed and backstabbing will hit closer to home.
	movie-reviews.colossus.net /movies/s/spanish.html (890 words)

	Mutant Reviewers from Hell do "The Spanish Prisoner"
		As I thought, the first 45 minutes or so of The Spanish Prisoner plod along like a really boring David Lynch flick.
		Since you know that this is a film in the "mindf**k" arena, from the start one is cataloging clues even though the mystery even hasn't taken place yet.
		Spanish Prisoner and the Winslow Boy: Two Screenplays: [book]
	www.mutantreviewers.com /rspanish.html (515 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner (1997) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		I suppose that all the Mamet fans will groan as I make these comments, but once and for all, and contrary to popular belief: David Mamet is not an overwhelming genius.
		However, I can watch my cats stalk each other throughout the house night after night AND still, even they are less predictable than the plot "twists" in the spanish prisoner.
		What I felt like was a prisoner to this movie which was a lackluster attempt on Mamet's part to be clever.
	us.imdb.com /Title?0120176 (451 words)

	James Sanford reviews The Spanish Prisoner (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Also paying close attention to Joe's situation is Susan (Rebecca Pidgeon), a secretary with saucer eyes and a loose tongue who seems to think she can ride Joe's coattails to become a wheel in the company.
		The one constant in "The Spanish Prisoner" is that nothing is as it appears.
		The Ross/Dell relationship often teeters on the edge of love and hate, in the same way Robert Walker and Farley Granger's did, and the inclusion of a carousel scene near the end seems to confirm that "Train" was definitely on Mamet's mind.
	www.interbridge.com /jamessanford/spanishprisoner.html (491 words)

	THE SPANISH PRISONER
		Usually played to bilk someone out of a small amount of cash or property -- therefore less likely to draw much heat from the police -- such cons are often comparable to pickpockets and come off as nothing much more than annoying.
		The awkwardly titled "The Spanish Prisoner" -- named after an older and more elaborate con -- takes that criminal deception to a higher level and, in doing so, creates an ever growing maze of conspiracy that would make even Oliver Stone proud.
		Except for the often incongruous dialogue, this is a decent, intelligently constructed thriller that will keep you unsure of the resolution right up until the very end.
	www.screenit.com /movies/1998/the_spanish_prisoner.html (1612 words)

	'The Spanish Prisoner': From Mamet. A Con Game. Secrets. Very Complicated
		That's all Mamet needs to send "The Spanish Prisoner" spinning into pure chicanery, about which no more ought to be said here, except that this is his sleekest and most engaging film thus far.
		"The Spanish Prisoner" is played by an ensemble cast that never misses a beat of the filmmaker's staccato rhythm.
		Rating: "The Spanish Prisoner" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested).
	partners.nytimes.com /library/film/040398prisoner-film-review.html (656 words)

	The Spanish Prisoner
		In The Spanish Prisoner game, a con man identifies a potential mark: someone with wealth and naivete.
		The con man convinces the mark that he serves a dethroned princess who is being held prisoner in, say, Spain.
		The con man is there too, but then the Spanish spy shows up and murders the con man. (It's an act.) The mark is terrified, and the princess runs to his side, kisses him tenderly, and tells him that she must go into exile or she endangers his life as well as her own.
	www.bigempire.com /gooden/spanishprisoner.html (1066 words)

	Spanish Prisoner - Page 2
		When you are doing a film with a personal artistic look, like The Spanish Prisoner, it is easier to use one light source.
		Fortunately, on The Spanish Prisoner, "We didn't have selfish actors, the type who will say, 'You find me with the light.' I was very lucky, because we had tremendously gifted actors such as Campbell Scott, Ben Gazzara and Steve Martin, all of whom understood the lighting and did a great job of playing the light.
		The film is mostly set in New York and Boston, and its title refers to an ancient scam which echoes in the plot.
	www.theasc.com /protect/mar98/spanish/pg2.htm (850 words)

	'The Spanish Prisoner' (PG)
		Fortunately, about 40 minutes or so into "The Spanish Prisoner," which Mamet both wrote and directed, he gets into his materials and out of his infernal style and the movie seems to take off.
		As it turns out, there's no Spain and no prisoner anywhere in sight; "Spanish prisoner" is the name of an ancient confidence game in which the naive are gulled by the self-confident into parting with their treasures with alarming ease.
		I leave the details to Mamet, but the movie's surface of bright, brittle patter, initially off-putting, comes finally to serve as camouflage for the sinister movement of large and powerful forces.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/spanishprisonerhunter.htm (633 words)

	Spanish Prisoner (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		In The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet’s complex storytelling couples with terse dialogue in a gleeful exercise in the art of the con.
		The Spanish Prisoner survives despite some difficult to explain coincidences and some miraculous maneuvering by various players in the game.
		The Spanish Prisoner is the kind of film that grows on you.
	www.filmsondisc.com /dvdpages/spanishprisoner.htm (702 words)

	CNN - Review: Stilted script traps actors in 'Spanish Prisoner' - April 5, 1998
		His new movie, "The Spanish Prisoner" (which he wrote and directed) is an unbelievable mish-mash of Mamet-isms, the most glaring and obnoxious being a bent toward dialogue that sounds like it's being read from coffee-stained parchments rather than spoken, off the cuff, by actual human beings.
		"The Spanish Prisoner" stars Campbell Scott as Joe Ross, a corporate drone who's invented some sort of mysterious, money-making process for his company.
		There's a whole lot more to the twisted plot, so much, in fact, that it would be impossible to convey in two pages.
	www.cnn.com /SHOWBIZ/9804/05/review.spanish.prisoner (857 words)

	DVD Empire - Item - Spanish Prisoner, The / DVD-Video (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The trailer proclaims that THE SPANISH PRISONER was the hit of the Sundance Film Festival.
		His last movie THE SPANISH PRISONER is the best he has directed since his debut in 1987.
		The Spanish Prisoner was surprisingly good despite a somewhat lack luster ending.
	www.dvdempire.com /Exec/v4_item.asp?item_id=2761&partner_id=28174990 (431 words)

	'The Spanish Prisoner' (PG)
		Still, there is often something of Mamet's muscular and musical rhythms that is lost or muted when others filter the Obie- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright's material through their lenses.
		That's why Mamet directed by Mamet-as in his latest "The Spanish Prisoner"-is a bold, unwatered-down and idiosyncratic dish.
		Like Mamet's first directing effort "House of Games," "The Spanish Prisoner" is more a mental than a psychological puzzle.
	www.washingtonpost.com /wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/spanishprisonerosullivan.htm (540 words)

	Sergei Solovieff mystery -- World War I variant of the Spanish Prisoner Scam
		Yesterday, however a Spanish Inspector accompanied by two officers from Scotland Yard and acting under instructions of the Spanish Ambassador, who had previously interviewed the Home Secretary, arrested him on his way from the Hotel where he was staying, to the Steamship office.
		Now, according to spanish [sic] Laws if the costs of a trial and the indemnity are not paid within 90 days, all prisoner's belongings must be sold by public auction.
		From the evidence produced in Court, it seems that the motive of the crime was that a sister of the deceased who accompanied prisoner [sic] robbed him 500.000 francs [sic], and that deceased on arriving in Spain being sent for by his sister, met prisoner and in the altercation which ensured deceased was shot.
	www.samizdat.com /solovieff.html (7893 words)

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