Cinema
واریته بهاری
Parviz Khatibi · 1949
Synopsis
Six comic sketches with no connection between them, taken from a revue the author had performed in the theatre. In one, Mirza Khandeh-ru, the man who always laughs, ends up in hospital on the operating table and does not stop laughing as his organs are removed one by one. The others stage the jokes the author gave on the radio and in his satirical newspapers, and he appears in them himself, alongside Taqi Zohouri and Jaleh.
Context
Esmail Kushan, who had just founded Pars Film, proposed to the author that he make a film composed of separate numbers, and the latter chose to adapt one of his revues. Filming took place on the upper floors of the Metropole cinema, in a garden in the Sarcheshmeh district, on Toupkhaneh Square and on Istanbul Street, with a clockwork Bell & Howell camera that forced the actors to hurry, the sound being recorded at the same time. Kushan, producer and cameraman, later admitted that it was not a good film, and it was a commercial failure.
Who it is for
A series of sketches in Persian, in black and white. Note that there is no continuous story, and that everything in it comes from revue theatre and radio satire.
Prizes and reception
The first sketch film in Iranian cinema, and its first adaptation of a play; Ezzatollah Entezami, Naser Malek-Motiei and Jaleh Olov made their screen debuts in it.