Synopsis:
A signalman on a quay sees a fight between two men. One of the men is deliberately pushed into the water and the signalman cannot save him, but decides to keep his suitcase which later finds is full of banknotes with a value of £5000.Read More »
Synopsis:
Just before Christmas, Joe Miracle, a returning WWII war hero, comes home to learn that gangster Barney Teener has taken over his nightclub and murdered Joe’s partner. Joe loots the club’s safe for $100,000 and then finds sanctuary in a settlement house ran by Jenny Jones. Mistaking him for a down-and-out musician, she helps him understand the importance of her work. “Early” Byrd, a newspaper columnist, learns Joe’s true identity and writes a column that puts Barney on his trail. The gangsters recover the money, after setting fire to the settlement house, but Joe steals it again, and returns to the gutted welfare house disguised as Santa Claus, and gives the money to Jenny to rebuild. There, Tenner and his gang catch up to Joe.Read More »
A heroic People’s Liberation Army nurse continues caring for wounded and getting them safely to hospital even though she has been wounded.Read More »
”A strange movie that remains in the memory years after you’ve seen it. It’s silly, sentimental and has a ridiculous premise, but also lasting power. Stockwell is a 12-year-old sent to live in the country with his singing-waiter grandfather O’Brien after his parents are killed in the Blitz. The shock of this turns Stockwell’s hair green, leading the townsfolk to vilify him and forcing the child to understand that a different appearance can be hard, but can make you strong. It’s a fable on racism and the horror of war for children.” – Channel4 comRead More »
Synopsis:
In 1858 France, Bernadette, an adolescent peasant girl, has a vision of “a beautiful lady” in the city dump. She never claims it to be anything other than this, but the townspeople all assume it to be the virgin Mary. The pompous government officials think she is nuts, and do their best to suppress the girl and her followers, and the church wants nothing to do with the whole matter. But as Bernadette attracts wider and wider attention, the phenomenon overtakes everyone in the the town, and transforms their lives.Read More »
Synopsis:
School for Postmen (French: L’École des facteurs) is a short film directed by Jacques Tati in 1947. Tati plays a French postman adamant to prove he can be just as fast as American postmen at delivering mail. The film includes several sight gags that involve his bicycle. He replicated most of the action here in his first major feature film, Jour de fête, released two years later.Read More »
It is one of those happy memories of our childhood, which sometimes is better to leave untouched in order to preserve the first naive impressions. The fabulous atmosphere and unusual interpretation of the story, together with the vivid images of the characters and magnificent game of actors create the truly magnetic effect. Even though the film is shot during the times of post-war hardships, it is filled with such a kindness and sincerity that you want to watch it again and again. At this difficult time Yevgeny Shwarts, Nadezhda Kosheverova and Mikhail Shapiro managed to create a beautiful fairytale, which fills the hearts of viewers with the unforgettable sense of miracle.Read More »
Mark Donskoy, the Russian filmmaker whose fame rests upon his brilliant “Gorky Trilogy” of the late 1930s, came up with another artistic triumph in 1944’s Rainbow (originally Raduga). With understandable creative rage, Donskoy depicts life in a Nazi-occupied village at the beginning of World War 2. The German conquerors are above nothing, not even the slaughter of small children, to break the spirit of their Soviet captives. Suffering more than most is Olga (Nataliya Uzhviy), a Russian partisan who returns to the village to bear her child, only to endure the cruellest of arbitrary tortures at the hands of the Nazis. Eventually, the villagers rise up against their oppressors-but unexpectedly do not wipe them out, electing instead to force the surviving Nazis to stand trial for their atrocities in a post-war “people’s court.” (It is also implied that those who collaborated with the Germans will be dealt with in the same even-handed fashion). Brilliantly acted by virtually everyone in the cast, Rainbow is a remarkable achievement, one that deserves to be better known outside of Russia.Read More »
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Of the four movies Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made together, Dark Passage is the forgotten stepchild. Sandwiched between The Big Sleep and Key Largo, Delmer Daves’ innovative and suspenseful mystery-thriller caused barely a ripple at the box office upon its initial release. Maybe the gritty, post-war themes of isolation and paranoia hit too close to home, or the use of a subjective camera alienated audiences. Whatever the reason, Dark Passage got a bum rap from critics and public alike. And while it may not rank up there with the best of Hollywood noir, the film flaunts enough style and substance to merit appreciation.Read More »