Classics

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Life is hard in a Welsh mining town and no less so for the Morgan family. Seen through the eyes of the family’s youngest, Huw, we learn of the family’s trials and tribulations. Family patriarch Gwilym and his older sons work in the mines, dangerous and unhealthy as it is. Gwilym has greater hopes for his youngest son, but Huw has his own ideas on how to honor his father. Daughter Angharad is the most beautiful girl in the valley and is very much in love with Mr. Gruffydd, who isn’t sure he can provide her the life she deserves. Times are hard and good men find themselves out of work and exploited by unseen mine owners.Read More »

Reportedly unavailable on TV or video because Arthur Miller himself was unhappy with it, this 1951 film version of the classic play nevertheless features a bravura, barn-burning performance from Fredric March, who had been Miller’s original choice to play Willy Loman on the stage. (March turned down the part, and regretted it greatly, which led to his taking the movie part.)Read More »

Synopsis:
The story concerns the romance between Carmela and Antonio. Faced with the hostility of their parents, they symbolically shed themselves of all responsibilities to others in a climactic act of stark-naked bravado.Read More »

Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Madge Evans, Kay Francis, C. Aubrey Smith, Polly Moran, Alan Mowbry

Richard Grant (Barrymore) is a successful lawyer who believes that his many years of dealing with crime has taught him how to commit the perfect murder. He’s working for shady cad Gordon Rich (Mowbry) who informs Grant before a dinner party that he intends to marry his daughter, Barbara (Evans). Grant seethes with anger and, after dinner, kills Rich. It’s almost the perfect crime, but Rich’s troubled mistress Marjorie (Francis), becomes suspicious of Grant.Read More »

A woman believes she is beginning to lose her mind when she begins seeing ghosts and spirits.

As a comment on religious repression, familial ostracism, and subliminal incestuous urges, this film might have some value.Read More »

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The story of a mistreated donkey and the people around him. A study on saintliness and a sister piece to Bresson’s Mouchette.

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In the French countryside near the Pyrenees, a baby donkey is adopted by young children – Jacques and his sisters, who live on a farm. They baptize the donkey (and christen it Balthazar) along with Marie, Jacques’ childhood sweetheart, whose father is the teacher at the small school next-door. When one of Jacques’ sisters dies, his family vacates the farm, and Marie’s family take it over in a loose arrangement. The donkey is given away to local farmhands who work it very hard. Years pass until Balthazar is involved in an accident and runs off, finding its way back to Marie, who is now a teenager. But her father gets involved in legal wrangles over the farm and the donkey is given away to a local bakery for delivery work.Read More »

SYNOPSIS:
Originally produced in 1972 as a segment of the television series “Hollywood Television Theatre.”

Legendary filmmaker Jean Renoir’s suspenseful and romantic tale of a beautiful French actress struggling to avoid the deadly politics and forbidden passions of Nazi-occupied France.

During World War II, an acting company in occupied Paris is notified that a German officer will be stopping by to see their play. The stage manager–who also happens to be the lover of Carola, the lead actress–asks her to “play up” to the visiting German for the good of the play, but when the officer arrives, it becomes clear to the manager that the German and Carola have had a previous relationship, and that she is still in love with him.Read More »

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An abridged award-winning television adaptation of a famous play about an aging travelling salesman who’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His job is gone, and his family hates him for never being there. He tries mending things with them.Read More »

Peter High wrote:
Fushimizu Osamu’s immensely successful China Nights works the rich metaphorical possibilities afforded by the commonplace image of China as a disreputable “woman” in need of redemption. As early as 1911, popular historian Yamaji Aizan had characterized the nation as “not a powerless country like a single woman, but an infelicitous one like a prostitute.” Although it’s discretely muted, the film’s first scene introduces Ri Koran’s character as something perilously close to a “fallen woman”.Read More »