1941-1950

“A film that has garnered recognition for its cinematography and direction by eliminating sentimentality and unaffectedly capturing the quiet life of a mountain temple. A Hometown in Heart demonstrates the camera technique and directorial skill of movies that appeared after the liberation of Korea.”
A Hometown in Heart, adapted from playwright Ham Se-deok’s A Little Monk (Dong-seung), was hailed upon its release as “a masterpiece that marked a new pinnacle in Korean moviemaking after the liberation.” Eschewing new-school sentimentality to quietly express a boy’s longing for maternal love, the film unfolds the everyday lives of three generationsthe head monk, a young monk, and a little child monkagainst the backdrop of a quiet temple in the mountains.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Of the many films (English and American) bearing the title Carnival, only one was based on the Compton MacKenzie novel of the same name. This 1946 melodrama stars Sally Gray as a 19th century ballet dancer who makes an unfortunate career move by marrying a taciturn Cornish farmer (Bernard Miles). Sally soon longs for the bright lights of the big city, and for the arms of her artist lover (Michael Wilding). Her husband is all too aware of this; and when the lover comes calling to renew the affair, the husband shoots Gray to death. The first film version of Compton MacKenzie’s Carnival was filmed in 1931 as Dance Pretty Lady. Read More »

About the fate of Anne, a peasant girl who finds herself among the inhabitants of the «Dream» furnished rooms in a town of Western Ukraine. They are unfortunate people who can’t be settled in life that shuts the door on them. Only Anne manages to realize her dream of worthy existence: having overcome serious difficulties she finds herself in the USSR.
Source : www.mosfilm.ruRead More »

When she was a little girl, Liuba came to town with her widowed mother to live in the block of flats owned by her aunt Anna Iwanowna. The wealthy and cold-hearted Anna Iwanowna barely accepted them as tenants. And no sooner did Liuba’s mother die than she wanted to send her niece to the orphanage. Fortunately, Pawlin, Anna Iwanowna’s janitor, decided to adopt her and he brought her up with affection. When she grew up, the beautiful Liuba fell in love with her aunt’s son, Dodja, a good-looking but profligate army officer. Wishing nothing more than an affair with Liuba, Dodja did not hesitate to play the comedy of love to her. When she realized what Dodja was really after, Liuba was devastated and in desperation accepted to marry Pawlin, her benefactor, who had been infatuated with her for years. Alas, in the middle of the wedding party Dodja danced with Liuba and eloped with her. Written by Guy Bellinger Read More »

In the winter of 1868, Eben Frost (William Demarest) goes to a Boston pawnshop and redeems a silver medal, inscribed to “Dr. W.T.G. Morton, the Benefactor of Mankind, with the Gratitude of Humanity.” Frost drives to a country farmhouse and gives the medal to Morton’s widow, Elizabeth Morton (Betty Field) who explains to her daughter, Betty (Donivee Lee), that Frost was the first person given anesthesia by her father, Boston dentist Dr. W.T.G. Morton (Joel McCrea.)Read More »

The movie focuses on the plight of ten war orphans hailing from different cities across Japan. With nowhere to go, they scavenge around train stations, scratching out an existence by means of black market work for a one-legged tramp whilst avoiding being picked up by the police for vagrancy. Soon however, they find a more inspiring role model in the figure of a nameless soldier just repatriated after the war. An orphan himself, the soldier also has no home to return to, and so sets out across the country with the kids in tow in search of work before settling on the goal of leading them to the orphanage where he himself grew up.Read More »

Summoned by the dying General Sternwood, Philip Marlowe is asked to deal with several problems that are troubling his family. Marlowe finds that each problem centers about the disappearance of Sternwood’s favoured employee who has left with a mobster’s wife. Each of the problems becomes a cover for something else as Marlowe probes.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Paul Brenner
Attempting to Americanize Greta Garbo to appeal to American audiences (since most of the foreign markets for Hollywood product had been cut off due to World War II), M.G.M.’s Two-Faced Woman succeeded in making Garbo angry enough to announce her retirement from the screen. Two-Faced Woman was Garbo’s final screen appearance, as the legendary actress slipped into a reclusive existence that lasted until her death. This George Cukor romantic comedy casts Garbo as ski instructor Karin Borg Blake. She gives lessons to wealthy American playboy Larry Blake (Melvyn Douglas), and the two fall in love and marry even though Larry has a girlfriend named Griselda Vaughn (Constance Bennett) waiting for him back in New York. Returning to New York, Karin fears that Griselda will win Larry back. In an effort to foil Larry’s imagined dalliance, Karin poses as her own twin sister, Katherine, hoping to get Larry to fall in love with her instead of Griselda. Larry is onto the scheme and plays along with her, pretending to fall in love with Katherine. But this infuriates Karin, who can’t believe that her husband would fall in love with her sister, and she storms back to her ski resort..
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Meet the Pioneers (1948), Anderson’s first film, a documentary short about a mining engineering firm.Read More »