1931-1940

Espionage, war and romance in the Far East in 1904: Russian naval officer Boris Ranewsky marries Youki, the sister of a fanatical Japanese officer – but war is imminent…Read More »

STRANDED is a lightweight but enjoyable romance starring George Brent and Kay Francis.

A world of girders and cable – that’s where Mack Hale works, supervising the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. In its shadow is a world of hopes and fears. That’s where Lynn Palmer works, aiding travelers stranded in an unforgiving city during the depths of the Depression. In this fast-paced romantic drama directed by two-time Academy Award® winner* Frank Borzage, Kay Francis and George Brent portray a young couple threatened by gangsters eager to muscle in on the construction payroll. The plot is crisp but Stranded is equally engaging as a snapshot of time and place as Lynn does her best for an unwed mother, a destitute boy, four giggling mail-order brides and more bewildered folks grateful for her helping hand.Read More »

Quote:
Kazuo Hasegawa has wild friends and hates being compared to his stepbrother, Reikichi Kawamura, who is steady, works hard at his taxicab business, and is amiable. That’s why he left home a year ago. Now he has heard his mother is ill, and wants to come home, but thinks she hates him. That’s nonsense, says Kawamura. Hasegawa agrees to reform. Just then two men come in and want to hire a cab. Everyone has gone home for the evening, so Hasegawa shows his willingness to reform by taking the fare. They drive to a distant house. They ask him to wait. While he does so, Kinuyo Tanaka pops out, begs him to help her escape. He does so. The two men are her step-brother, and the man everyone wants her to marry…. except her, of course.Read More »

Traveler Allan Gray arrives in the village of Courtempierre and takes lodgings in a small inn. Gray has a great interest in the supernatural, particularly vampires. He’s barely settled in when he feels a sinister force descending upon him. In the night an old man enters his room to tell him ‘she must not die’. One of the old man’s daughters, Leone, has been bitten by a vampire. In order to break the curse, Gray and Leone’s sister Gisele must find the original vampire and drive a stake through her heart.Read More »

Synopsis:
In Austria, Katrin is lonely after her sister’s marriage and she agrees to marry her father’s research associate Dr. Walter Fane. Fane takes her to China but constantly ignors her in favour of his medical research. Lonely Katrin has an affair with Jack Townsend of the British Embassy. When it is discovered by Walter he becomes very bitter. Fane travels to fight a cholera epidemic and Katrin goes with him and helps. They grow closer together than ever before but Walter is knifed in a riot incited by the burning of a cholera infested town. Now their new found happiness will depend on Walter’s survival.Read More »

When 11 young Parisian women mysteriously disappear, the police recruit Adrienne Charpentier, the friend of the latest victim, to investigate. The only thing which seems to link the disappearances is that each of the victims replied to a small ad in the newspapers. In answering a number of ads herself, Adrienne meets some suspicious individuals, but they all turn out to be innocent. Then she meets a cabaret performer, Robert Fleury, who instantly falls in love with her. Soon after marrying Fleury, she discovers damning evidence that inculpates him as the murderer of the missing women…Read More »

Quote:
Fascinating remake of Sternberg’s “Docks of New York.” The geometric and pictorial aspects, as in the case of many Japanese films, and especially those of this time period, fascinate as much as the story. The push/pull, attraction/repulsion dynamic of the romance between the lowly ship stoker and the “fallen woman” he rescues from drowning gives a charge to the claustrophobic confines of their scenes together. The fight scenes between the men fascinated me also: a chaotic melange of sprawling limbs, bodies leaping over one another, sharp jabs and uppercuts.Read More »

When the village of Boom, in Flanders, learns a Spanish Duke and his troops plan to pass the night, the 4-man army deserts and the Mayor plays dead; so the Mayor’s wife organizes the townswomen to greet the invaders and preserve the peace with womanly wiles.Read More »

Because he can pass as a Russian, A.J. Fothergill is recruited to spy on the revolutionary movement in Russia in 1913. He becomes imprisoned in Siberia, as a revolutionary, until the 1917 uprisings. Amid the turmoil of the civil war between the red and white armies, he tries to flee Russia along with the beautiful Countess Alexandra.Read More »