An excellent little suspense thriller with an air of the occult, filmed on location in Morocco by Julien Duvivier. Two versions were made: a German version with Anton Walbrook, and this French version with René Lefèvre and Harry Baur.
One by one, a group of five travellers starts to die, apparently the result of a sorcerer’s curse…Read More »
Synopsis:
Less ambitious than his previous Golgotha, Julien Duvivier’s La Bandera is nonetheless more entertaining. A Foreign Legion yarn, La Bandera downplays spectacular battle scenes in favor of a romantic triangle. Accused of murder, Pierre (Jean Gabin) joins the Legion, with detective Lucas (Robert Le Vigan) hot on his trail. Both Pierre and Lucas fall in love with beautiful Bedouin girl Aischa (Annabella), which only intensifies their hatred of one another. The two antagonists are eventually forced to bury the hatchet when fighting shoulder to shoulder against uprising natives. The ending is rather startling, inasmuch as the audience was expected the actor with the best screen billing to get the girl.
— Hal Erickson (New York Times).Read More »
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Benegal’s successful feature debut is set in feudal AP and consolidated the New Indian Cinema movement. The politically inflected melodrama tells of a newly married urban youth, Surya (Nag, in his Hindi film debut), who is sent alone to his rural home to look after his ancestral property. Finding himself in the role of the traditional landlord, he has an affair with Lakshmi (Azmi, in her extremely powerful film debut), the young wife of a deaf- mute labourer (Meher), and she becomes pregnant. Her husband, believing the child to be his, goes to tell the landlord the good news but Surya, consumed by his guilt and afraid of being exposed, beats the man almost to death. Lakshmi then turns on her former lover with a passionate speech calling for a revolutionary overthrow of feudal rule. In the last shot, a young boy throws a stone at Surya’s house and then the screen turns red.Read More »
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René Clair’s ghost comedy begins melodramatically, with the story of a young man who seeks the hand of a politician’s daughter in vain. But when a mysterious doctor frees the spirit of the despairing young man from his body, the film takes a fantastic turn. From then on, the lover wreaks havoc on Paris in the form of an invisible phantom. With double exposures and imaginative tricks, Clair successfully capitalizes on the surreal, Dadaistic undertones of the story. Everything culminates in a breakneck chase through the streets of Paris.Read More »
When her father files bankruptcy and then dies, Rose’s fiancé jilts her; she takes a job as a maid in a Montmartre kindergarten with 150 poor children. Rose gives each child loving attention, and soon she’s their favorite. An especially needy child is Marie, a prostitute’s daughter. Rose and she bond, and Marie is jealous of all attentions paid Rose, especially those of Dr. Libois, the school’s physician. When Rose inadvertently guides the children through the educational experiment of a visiting scholar, and then discloses she has a college degree and is working beneath her station, the principal wants to fire her. Is there any way she can stay? And what will happen to Marie?Read More »
Miss Susan inherits the hotel from her auntie Barbara. At fist she thinks it’s the well known modern hotel Blue Star. Early on she finds out it’s another one with the same name, but much smaller and besides it’s forlorn. Instead of guests and personnel the hotel is freely occupied by three young men. Susan let them stay if they work for her, because she is determined to reopen the hotel. Soon first guest, Vladimir Rychta, arrives to the hotel and wants to arrange wedding feast there. Nevertheless his obstinate fiancée refuses to come to the old hotel and stay in the modern one. As the feast is canceled Mr. Rychta invites Susan to dine together. He becomes so enchanted by her, that he asks her to marry him. In the morning Mr. Rychta sends a telegram to his relatives that the wedding is off. Susan reads the telegram on its way and gets very unhappy. As she isn’t aware of the former fiancée, she understand it that Mr. Rychta has decided to not to marry her.Read More »
Synopsis:
Yuki is mistreated by her husband after they lose everything in the war. She tries to find comfort in another man’s arms, but the inhibitions of her class conditioning leave her with no way out.Read More »
Quote:
This film by Toyoda depicts the hard life of an unmarried mother in Tokyo. Umeko (Machiko Kyo), at 36, is working in a bar, struggling valiantly to keep her family together. Her 17-year-old daughter Takeko becomes increasingly upset by her mother’s constant drinking and yakuza boyfriend, and runs away from ho…Read More »
