Classics

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Thorne Smith is a name one hardly ever hears these days, and that’s a shame. In the 1920s and early ’30s, he was the popular author of a genre-defining series of novels in which mortal men broke out of their humdrum lives to embark on comic-erotic, supernaturally tinged adventures in the company of an exciting woman (or women). The most popular of these, Topper, was filmed in 1937, three years after Smith’s death. (Smith’s novel The Passionate Witch also became the basis for a classic film comedy, I Married a Witch (1942), and later the TV series Bewitched.)Read More »

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What happens when we die? Probably nothing, and we damn sure can’t take anything with us. But just try telling that to Pharaoh Khufu (Jack Hawkins), who has amassed an ungodly amount of wealth in Howard Hawks’ soapy historical drama Land of the Pharaohs and wants nothing more than to buried with it. Enlisting the help of aging architect/slave Vashtar (James Robertson Justice) to design an intricate robber-proof tomb, Pharaoh Khufu spares no expense — and by that I mean “works thousands of slaves to death and raises taxes” — to ensure that it’s built exactly to spec and will preserve his body and treasures for all eternity. But when his second wife Princess Nellifer (Joan Collins) secretly plots to separate the two of them, a chain of lies and deceit as big as the Great Pyramid itself is set in motion.Read More »

PLOT: A story that explores family conflict between 2 sisters and their painter father before the World War 2, in Intramuros, Old Manila.Read More »

An Italian adaptation of The Sea Gull by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
A young writer is trapped between his awful actress mother (Laura Betti) and the knowledge that he has only a mediocre talent as a playwright and almost no force of character. After the young man in this story suffers the loss of his mistress to his self-satisfied novelist stepfather, his self-respect is so shattered that he commits suicide.Read More »

The U.S. Cavalry knows that traveling the unmapped Arizona Territory canyons and trails in search of a woman kidnapped by Apaches could mean riding into a trap. So they ask the help of Ward Kinman, a prospector and scout who knows both the terrain and the ways of the warring tribesmen. Nearly a decade after Billy the Kid, Robert Taylor saddled up a second time and portrayed Kinman in Ambush, the film that began his steady string of work in a genre that suited him like a Colt .45 tucked easy into hip leather. Marguerite Roberts (True Grit) offers a script filled with blazing action and romantic subplots. Among the co-stars: Chief Thundercloud (Tonto in The Lone Ranger serials of 1938 and 1939). From Warner Brothers!Read More »

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As if it weren’t obvious already, Raoul Walsh’s Strawberry Blonde confirms what most men have known for decades: Betty’s always a better choice than Veronica. This charming comedy starring James Cagney, Olivia de Havilland, and Rita Hayworth may be over 80 years old — and it mostly takes place in the 1890s — but it’s still as accessible as ever, providing you don’t mind overused music cues and/or extended flashbacks. It’s the kind of crowd-pleasing fare that’s solid enough for “movie night” yet equally easy to enjoy as a light and breezy afternoon matinee.Read More »

An American boy turns out to be the long-lost heir of a British fortune. He is sent to live with the cold and unsentimental lord who oversees the trust.Read More »

Immanuel Rath is a stuffy, disciplinarian professor who is shocked to discover his students passing around a postcard of Lola-Lola, a singer at The Blue Angel cabaret. Hoping to catch his students there, Professor Rath visits the nightclub and witnesses Lola-Lola’s performance. Entranced by her dissolute charms, he gets drunk on champagne and spends the night with her. The ensuing scandal causes him to lose control of his students and he is terminated from his position. Returning to Lola, he agrees to marry her and joins the troupe. His humiliation at having to play a clown onstage is compounded by Lola’s attraction to the strongman Mazeppa. To make matters worse, the troupe returns to the professor’s hometown, forcing him to acknowledge how far he has fallen.Read More »

Il Gobbo (internationally released as The Hunchback of Rome) is a 1960 Italian drama film directed by Carlo Lizzani. It is loosely based on the real life events of Giuseppe Albano, an Italian partisan that was one of the protagonists, from 1943 to 1945, of the Roman Resistance against German occupation. (From Wikipedia)Read More »