Ten to One

Bire on vardi

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Cast + Crew

Memduh Ün
Memduh Ün
Lütfi Akad, Memduh Ün
Cornell Woolrich (novel)
Mustafa Yilmaz
Various
Semih Sezerli (art director)
Diamendi Filmeridis
Fatma Girik, Tamer Yigit, Hüseyin Baradan, Reha Yurdakul, Diclehan Baban

By 1963, the French New Wave had already made its mark in Turkey, and the fashions, jazz, and obligatory ennui, along with the occasionally experimental camera tricks, are all on display in Memduh Ün’s highly entertaining Bire on vardi (US: Ten to One). Very loosely based on the same Cornell Woolrich novel that inspired 1946’s eponymous Deadline at Dawn, the film centers around two lost souls, Fatma (Fatma Girik) and Mehmet (Tamer Yigit), who meet at a club where Fatma works as a taxi dancer; hailing from the same town in the countryside, both have struggled with dashed dreams and disappointments since arriving in the city. A short while later, Fatma agrees to accompany the repentant Mehmet as he returns the money he stole from a millionaire’s home earlier in the day; when they arrive, however, they find only the man’s corpse. This commences an action-packed night of intrigue and survival involving criminals, police, strange encounters, attempted murders, fistfights, shootouts, and mind-altering substances. Setting a majority of the action inside the millionaire’s mansion, where his corpse lies in the living room the whole time, Ün and his team create a house of horrors by the final sequence, utilizing high angles, extreme closeups, shattered mirrors, empty corridors, creaky doors, and translucent blinds to maximize suspense at every moment (dampened only by the occasional smooth jazz of the soundtrack).

By Michael Bayer

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Fatma (Fatma Girik) and Mehmet (Tamer Yigit) discover the body.

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