Classics

  • Clarence Brown – Inspiration (1931)

    1931-1940Clarence BrownClassicsDramaUSA

    Inspiration is a 1931 English language film adapted from the Alphonse Daudet short novel Sappho (1884). It was adapted by Gene Markey, directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Irving Thalberg. The cinematography was by William H. Daniels, the art direction by Cedric Gibbons and the costume design by Adrian.Read More »

  • Jia-qi Ma & Gui-zhen Sun & Fulin Wang – Hong lou meng AKA A Dream in Red Mansions (1987)

    1981-1990ChinaClassicsFulin WangGui-zhen SunJia-qi MaTV

    Plot Summary
    Based on the mid-eighteenth century novel by Cao Xueqin, Beijing’s CCTV’s version of “A Dream in Red Mansions” (aka Dream of the Red Chamber) is known by many to be the ultimate and best adaptation of the story either on TV or film. It is a story about the tragic love of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu, and the prosperity and decline of the four notable feudal ruling-class families of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue. Daiyu is a beautiful and talented girl, but prone to ill health. The intelligent and carefree Baoyu, nonetheless, shows love toward her over the years and puts up with her sensitivity and ill-tempered personality. They, along with their family-favored and tactful cousin Xue Baochai, reside in the Grand View Garden. Read More »

  • Nikolai Ekk- Putyovka v zhizn AKA Road to Life [Original Cut] (1931)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaNikolai EkkUSSR

    Young hobos are brought to a new camp to become good Soviet citizens. This camp works without any guards, and it works well. But crooks kill one of the young people when they try to damage the newly build railroad to that camp.Read More »

  • Kenji Mizoguchi – Waga koi wa moenu AKA Flame of My Love (1949)

    Kenji Mizoguchi1941-1950AsianClassicsJapan

    Quote:
    A woman’s struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government. Eiko and Omoi are jailed because of a fire at a factory instigated by Chiyo, a servant girl from Eiko’s home in Okayama, who was sold to slavery. A few years later the 1889 constitution is proclaimed, Eiko, Omoi, and Chiyo are pardoned, and the Liberal Party is reinaugurated. However Omoi does not campaign for women’s rights. – imdbRead More »

  • Ken Russell – Savage Messiah (1972)

    1971-1980ClassicsDramaKen RussellUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    The Music Lovers. Mahler. Valentino. In these and other films, Ken Russell explores the lives of artists and in turn finds inspiration for his own considerable cinematic creativity. Savage Messiah belongs to that Russell oeuvre and it draws from the filmmaker a work often studied in its pace yet exhilarating in its impact. It is the story of the short, influential career of pre-World War I French sculptor Henri Gaudier and of his intimate yet platonic friendship with a Polish émigré 20 years his senior. Scott Antony and Dorothy Tutin, perhaps better known to theater aficionados, play the two leads. Movie fans will readily identify the third-billed player: Helen Mirren in a memorable early-career role as a flamboyant, uninhibited suffragette.Read More »

  • Ray Nazarro – China Corsair (1951)

    1951-1960AdventureClassicsRay NazarroUSA

    Plot:
    In this exciting actioner a daring Eurasian woman gets involved with a shipwrecked engineer whom she rescues from a remote island. Together, they have many romantic and exciting adventures as they try to keep a crook from selling her uncle’s priceless collection of antique jade.Read More »

  • George Fitzmaurice – As You Desire Me (1932)

    George Fitzmaurice1931-1940ClassicsDramaUSA

    An officer tries to convince an amnesiac bar entertainer that she is his long-lost lover.Read More »

  • Marcel Pagnol – Les lettres de mon moulin AKA Letters from My Windmill (1954)

    1951-1960ClassicsComedyFranceMarcel Pagnol

    It was to be Marcel Pagnol’s last film; like Mankiewicz, he did not make any movies (apart from a short) in the last twenty years of his life; probably busy writing his memoirs (“le Château De Ma Mère,La Gloire de Mon Père ” which were successfully tranfered to the screen by Yves Robert in the late eighties.).

    Alphonse Daudet’s short stories were tailor made for a Provençal director such as Pagnol;if you go to Provence,you can visit the windmill where Daudet was supposed to write his “letters” ;actually he never lived in this place,but in the castle of some of his friends near the legendary mill.But it’s true that most of the stories which were included in “LETTRES DE MON MOULIN” are true stories: Daudet was told about Maitre Cornille ,MR Seguin’s goat and others by peasants and shepherds he used to meet when he walked across the hills.Read More »

  • Frank Capra – Rain or Shine (1930)

    1921-1930ClassicsComedyFrank CapraUSA

    Synopsis:
    After her father’s death, Mary Rainey takes over the Rainey Circus (which operates twice daily, rain or shine) but runs into financial troubles. In one bit reminiscent of the Marx Brothers, the circus performers are up to some ridiculous antics at a dinner party with the family of Bud Conway, Mary’s beau. As times become worse and the performers go on strike, Mary must try to save the circus from rioting patrons.Read More »

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