Classics

  • Wallace Fox – Bowery at Midnight (1942)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorUSAWallace Fox

    Bowery at Midnight casts Bela Lugosi as Professor Brenner, a psychology instructor at New York University (which looks a lot like Berkeley in the exterior shots!). When not enlightening his students — most of them buxom Monogram starlets — Brenner is engaged in charitable work, running a mission in the Bowery. In truth, however, the kindly professor is a fiend in human form, who uses his mission as a front for a vast criminal empire. When Judy (Wanda McKay), one of Brenner’s students, stumbles onto the truth, she’s targeted for extermination by the Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde prof.Read More »

  • Hiroshi Inagaki – Muhomatsu no issho AKA The Rickshaw Man (1958)

    Hiroshi Inagaki1951-1960ClassicsDramaJapan

    In the turn of the Twentieth Century, the rickshaw driver Matsugoro “Matsu” is a happy man and a troublemaker well-known by everyone in his village. One day, Matsu sees an injured boy, Toshio, and brings him home. His mother Yoshiko Yoshioka asks Matsuo to take the boy to the doctor and then her husband Capt. Kotaro Yoshioka asks her to reward Matsu. However the rickshaw man refuses the money and becomes a friend of the family. When Kotaro unexpectedly dies, Matsuo helps Yoshiko to raise her son. Soon he falls in love with her, but he does not dare to open his heart to Yoshiko since they belong to different social classes.Read More »

  • Hiroshi Inagaki – Muhomatsu no issho AKA The Life of Matsu the Untamed (1943)

    Hiroshi Inagaki1941-1950ClassicsDramaJapan

    Matsugoro is a poor rickshaw driver whose animated spirit and optimistic demeanor make him a favorite of the town. Matsu helps an injured boy, Toshio, and is hired by the boy’s parents, Kotaro and Yoshioko, to transport the boy to and from doctor appointments. Matsu comes to love the boy and his parents. When Toshio’s father dies, Matsu becomes a surrogate father, helping to raise the boy and secretly falling in love with Toshio’s mother Yoshioko. But Matsu knows there is a great gulf between their classes and there seems no hope that Matsu can ever be more than the rickshaw man to the mother and son.Read More »

  • Lew Landers – The Return of the Vampire (1944)

    1941-1950ClassicsHorrorLew LandersUSA

    Bela Lugosi rises from the crypt in this blood-curdling horror classic! In 1918, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200-year-old Hungarian Vampire, prowls the English countryside, feeding from the jugulars of the villagers. But Tesla’s reign of terror is interrupted when a pair of scientists, Lady Jane (Frieda Inescort) and Sir John Ainsley (Roland Varno), drive a railroad spike through his heart. The “un-dead” Tesla remains safely entombed for two decades until the impact from a stray Nazi bomb accidentally releases him. Along with his werewolf servant Andreas Obry (Matt Willis), the resurrected vampire now plots vengeance on the family that put a halt to his nocturnal feasting.Read More »

  • Prem Kapoor – Badnam Basti AKA Alley Of Ill Repute (1971)

    1971-1980ClassicsDramaIndiaPrem Kapoor

    Based on a novel by Hindi writer Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena, it centers on a love triangle between two men and one woman on the margins of society.

    Badnam Basti is considered one of the first Indian films to explore queer relationships. Based on a novel by Hindi writer Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena, it centers on a love triangle between two men and one woman on the margins of society. The film is noted for its adventurous editing, strong performances, neorealist style, and the music by Vijay Raghav Rao, one of postcolonial India’s most innovative composers. Although Badnam Basti was recut and rereleased in 1978, it has since faded into obscurity; until recently, the film was presumed lost.Read More »

  • Gregory La Cava – Unfinished Business (1941)

    1941-1950ClassicsGregory La CavaRomanceScrewball ComedyUSA

    Synopsis
    In Unfinished Business, a light romantic comedy directed by Gregory La Cava, Irene Dunne plays a young woman worried she’s “going to seed” after spending her life in small-town Messina Ohio caring for her sister and father and having no love or adventure for herself. After her sister marries, she spontaneously takes the train ride to New York she’s always fantasized about to seek a career as a singer. On the train she meets a womanizer (Preston Foster) who sweeps her off her feet and leaves her flat at the station. She marries on the rebound (Robert Montgomery) but remains torn between two lovers — who happen to be brothers.Read More »

  • John Ford – Stagecoach (1939)

    1931-1940ClassicsJohn FordUSAWestern

    Synopsis:
    John Ford’s landmark Western revolves around an assorted group of colorful passengers aboard the Overland stagecoach bound for Lordsburg, New Mexico, in the 1880s. An alcoholic philosophizer (Thomas Mitchell), a lady of ill repute (Claire Trevor) and a timid liquor salesman (Donald Meek) are among the motley crew of travelers who must contend with an escaped outlaw, the Ringo Kid (John Wayne), and the ever-present threat of an Apache attack as they make their way across the Wild West.Read More »

  • Satyajit Ray – Apur Sansar (1959)

    1951-1960ClassicsDramaIndiaSatyajit Ray

    Quote:
    “The World of Apu” is the third and final installment in the film trilogy of Satyajit Ray’s (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar) Apu has grown to manhood and has been forced to give up his studies and find employment. Unable to find work, he is writing a novel based on his life. In a representation of an arranged marriage Apu nobly stands in for a distraught bridegroom. He had never seen his wife before the ceremony but together they find brief happiness. Tragedy again befalls Apu as his pregnant wife dies in childbirth. His son is brought into the world but blamed by his father for his mothers death. Apu matures, overcomes and sets forth with his boy, Kajal, to Calcutta to continue his adventure and start a new beginning.Read More »

  • Satyajit Ray – Heerak Rajar Deshe aka Kingdom of Diamonds (1980)

    1971-1980AsianClassicsIndiaSatyajit Ray

    Synopsis

    Hirak Rajar Deshe is the second movie of the Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne series directed by Satyajit Ray. An unique aspect of the film is that most of the dialogues exchanged by the protagonists of the film are rhyming. Satyajit Ray was initially apprehensive whether this approach would be liked by people as it was a novel one but it was a great success.Read More »

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