Classics

Quote:
“Dans la ville blanche” was a turning-point in Tanner’s career as a director. Bringing him renewed public acclaim, it’s most striking aspects are silence, stark poetry and sombre melancholy.
It also marked a change in his aesthetic approach. Although escape and the desire for solitude had always been key Tannerian themes, they had previously been developed on a left-wing foundation and characterised by conversation and playful fantasy, a paradise of puns and facetious remarks in which his characters were at home. There is nothing of the kind in this film.
The Swiss director must have been inspired by his younger days in the merchant navy in imagining this portrait of a sailor (sublimely acted by Bruno Ganz) who abandons everything to merge body and soul into Lisbon. At the beginning of the film, Ganz remarks to a barmaid that the clock in her bar is not indicating the right time. She replies: “The clock is right. It’s the world that is wrong.”
An ode to Lisbon and the pursuit of freedom, the film won a César award for Best French Language Film in 1984.
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From Classic film:
One of the earliest films about anti-Semitism in the U.S.A. (though Oscar Best Picture winner, The Life of Emile Zola (1937) dealt with the subject in France), this Best Picture winner ironically competed against another (better?) film based on the same, Crossfire (1947). The former is a story about a gentile writer who pretends to be Jewish and then experiences the prejudice firsthand, while the latter explores a murder whose anti-Semitic motive is at first unknown. Additionally (even stranger?), these two similar films competed with a Dickens classic & two traditionally Christmastime films The Bishop’s Wife (1947) and Miracle on 34th Street (1947). But Best Actor nominee Gregory Peck & Director Elia Kazan (winning an Oscar with his first nomination) proved a more powerful combination than the three Roberts (Young, Mitchum, Ryan – though Robert Ryan was nominated for Best Supporting Actor) & Director Edward Dmytryk, who received his only Academy Award nomination.Read More »

Olga and Ruth become friends. Olga is independent, separated from her husband, living with an immigrant pianist… Read More »

The real-life career of the notorious female spy known as “Fraulein Doktor” inspired several films of the 1930s. Stamboul Quest stars Myrna Loy as a seductive espionage agent, working on behalf of the Kaiser in 1915 Istanbul. American medical student George Brent crosses Loy’s path, and the two fall in love. Divided between romance and duty, Loy opts for the latter, and apparently causes Brent’s death. She goes mad with grief, and is packed away to a mental institution, where her fevered reminiscences provide the lengthy flashback sequences in this film. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

Frenzy is a 1972 thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and is the penultimate feature film of his extensive career. The film is based upon the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern, and was adapted for the screen by Anthony Shaffer. La Bern later expressed his dissatisfaction with Shaffer’s adaptation.[1] The film stars Jon Finch, Alec McCowen and Barry Foster and features Billie Whitelaw, Anna Massey, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Bernard Cribbins and Vivien Merchant. The original music score was composed by Ron Goodwin.

Frenzy was Hitchcock’s first film to earn an R-rating in the United States, as Psycho was originally released unrated.Read More »

Quote:
The 1993 remake of The Secret Garden is a beautifully produced rendition of the classic Frances Hodgon Burnett novel about a young girl (Kate Maberly) who discovers an abandoned garden on her uncle’s large Victorian country estate, as well as an invalid cousin she didn’t realize she had. With the help of a local boy, the girl sets out to restore the garden and, once it is blooming again, she discovers it has magical powers. After it has flowered, she brings her cousin to the garden, and he is magically healed. Although this version of The Secret Garden isn’t quite as strong as the original 1949 movie, the story is nevertheless moving in any format and the production is very beautiful to look at. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ All Movie GuideRead More »

Plot:
A film of five separate comedy to drama segments–directed by Visconti, Bolognini, Pasolini, Franco Rossi and de Sica. The international cast includes Clint Eastwood, Annie Girardot and Alberto Sordi, and features Silvana Mangano. Important Note: This film has been manufactured from the best-quality video master currently available and has not been remastered or restored specifically for this DVD release. 16 x 9. Important Note: This film has been manufactured from the best-quality video master currently available and has not been remastered or restored specifically for this DVD release. From Warner Brothers Website!Read More »

Plot

When a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer defects to the West with a story of an agreement between the Russians and Cubans and the existence of a “mole” within the French intelligence service, CIA agent Nordstrom (John Forsythe) enlists the aid of his friend and French agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), encouraging him to accompany his daughter Michèle (Claude Jade) on her honeymoon with journalist François Picard (Michel Subor) as a premise to get him to New York. André accepts, but his wife Nicole (Dany Robin) is worried for him.

After managing to get hold of some seriously damaging papers from the visiting Cuban official Rico Parra (John Vernon), in New York to appear at the United Nations and staying in Harlem to show solidarity with “the masses”, sneakily of course, a concerned Devereaux jets off to Cuba and catches up with his mistress Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor), who is now secretly involved with a local underground movement whilst also being involved in another way with Parra. Parra finds out and kills Juanita in a highly stylized memorable scene. Devereaux then is recalled to Paris, where he attempts to get to the bottom of this whole leak problem. Michèle wants to reconcile her parents.Read More »

Only Saps Work (a double entendre) is an early sound Paramount light romantic comedy with Leon Errol playing what seems at first an inept crook who tries to rob Richard Arlen. Arlen takes pity on Errol, which causes him major grief in being seen with Errol, but Errol also helps him in his romance with Mary Brian. Charley Grapewin is Brian’s father, and Anderson Lawler is her rather unpleasant sweetheart. Stu Erwin plays an ambitious, boneheaded bellboy. With Fred Kelsey and George Pat Collins playing…well, if you know them, you know what they play.Read More »