Dreams that money can buy (1947) Hans RichterHans Richter and some of his friends in the old time surreal avant-garde gang; Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Max Ernst, decide to get together and direct a surprisingly accessible (for these guys this is Oceans 11), film about a man who sets up a business selling dreams to people, who cant' have any of there own. After all, as our narrator Joe, informs us, "If you can look inside yourself, other people shouldn't be any problem". Assorted "characters" come into the Dream shop, a gangster, a repressed banker, an overzealous pamphleteer, a blind man, a bored housewife, etc, and all are given dreams, each one directed by a different surrealist; Ernst, Duchamp, Ray, etc. Which alternately, delight, offend, disturb, and annoy there patrons. In that respect it's a little like an anthology film, with each dream, a story in the story, the best of which is a satire of conventional(1940's) relationships, staring two mannequins who fall in love and get married. It's a surprisingly charming and funny little feminist music video (I want the soundtrack, just for this sequence). Though the rest of the music is handled by experimental composer John Cage, who gives the film both a traditional comedic tone and one of ambiguous drones and general avant-garishness.
