A film by the great Wim Wenders which I heard of but I had no idea it was an adaptation of a Tom Ripley book, Ripley's Game to be exact. Most people know of the Talented Mr. Ripley which was made in the oughts w/Matt Damon which was a remake of a French film named Purple Noon from the 60's starring Alain Delon. To complicate things further, Ripley's Game was remade a few years ago w/John Malkovich playing Ripley, whew! Anyway this version which was made in '77 starred Bruno Ganz playing the dupe & none other than Dennis Hopper playing Ripley. In this version, a dying man is coerced to commit a couple of murders for money & the fact he's dying works in Ripley's case to convince him. Not bad w/the location shoots appropriately mangy & dirty as Germany may've looked like back then. Film lovers will be giddy to see directors Sam Fuller & Nicholas Ray in rare acting turns.

A couple of months ago, I bought and watched Paris Texas, directed by Wim Wenders. I searched his filmography to find some other potentially good movies. One of the movies that seemed interesting (to me at least) was this little gem with Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper. So finally I decided to watch it and I wasn't disappointed. The performances in English German and French are a bit « sketchy » and don't stand out too much, but other than that, this movie is good. The story is interesting and original. It's not just a standard crime drama like you would expect. The action and crime stuff is good and entertaining. The movie is slow, but it doesn't drag. But the best part about this movie, by far, is the cinematography, including the lighting and the colours.

I've seen many crime movies from the seventies and they all had one thing in common: the "dirty" look. The "dirty" look is hard to explain, but mostly it's abandoned, broken down buildings and streets, brown, grey, elephant pants, polluted streets, guns and big-ass cars. Those things give 70s crime movies that "dirty" look. I really like it, it fits well with crime stories. Der amerikanische Freund has that awesome "dirty" look, but it also has many many colours mixed in. The brightly coloured lights (neons, street lights, car headlights, etc.) reflect heavily on everything and the natural sunlight makes beautiful skies. It looks wonderful and it ads something interesting to the "dirty" look. There are also many great shots and colour choices that I liked throughout the movie.

This cinematography made this crime movie a whole new experience. I can't say this is a better movie than Serpico or Dog Day Afternoon, but at it looks way better. So if you're looking for something different that looks good, I would definitely recommend this german classic.

Any reader and fan (of which I am both) of Patricia Highsmith would reject the placement of this film in the "Noir" category. Highsmith was the author of several novels involving Tom Ripley. "The American Friend" is based on "Ripley's Game." Although born in Texas, Highsmith spent most of her adult life in Europe. The Europeon experience is an important feature of her novels. An even more important feature, one which seems to permeate every page, is a feeling much more than "Noir." This is not so much "Noir"; which, unfortunately, has grown to be synonymous with "Crime" in American Noir films of the past twenty years, as is an absence of morality. This amorality, personified in Tom Ripley is wonderfully fleshed out by Wim Wenders' direction of Dennis Hopper in "The American Friend". Ripley is a self-involved narcissist who breaks the monotony of his naval-staring to ruin the life of several people just to see if it can be done. His focus is Jonathan Zimmerman, an Ubermensch with a pre-school age son and an extremely devoted wife scraping out a life as a picture-framer while dealing with a chronic illness. Wenders completely places the viewer in Zimmerman's world as he putters around his shop between the occasional framing job only to come home to a horribly cramped apartment in the worst part of Hamburg. The viewer may be put off at the way the film plods along at times, but this is all part of the palette from which Wenders paints a world of futility for Zimmerman (and shared by residents of the post WWII/pre end of Cold War West Germany) as he begins to believe his illness is closing in around him worse than his life. The patient viewer allows a Wenders film to wash over them and breathes deep the atmosphere Wenders conveys - even if this atmosphere is terribly dreadful and smothering. Through his agent, Reeves, Ripley gives Zimmerman a chance to do right by his family by becoming a hit men of mobsters. The world closes in even more on Zimmerman as Reeves directs Zimmerman to perform the killing on a train. As Wenders moves his characters across Europe he transports the viewer within the dangerous pages of a Highsmith novel where the most everyday people are one step away the most horrible of acts. Who do we most identify with...Zimmerman?...Ripley? How close are we to these personas under the right - or wrong - circumstances. Give "The American Friend" a try and find out for yourself.