Classics

  • Martin Fric – Zivot je pes AKA A Dog’s Life (1933)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyCzech RepublicMartin Fric

    Young music composer Viktor Honzl in vain looks for work. He is prevented from committing suicide by a technician of the gasworks who shortly beforehand has disconnected his gas due to past due bills. In the disguise of an older, serious, musical scholar Viktor obtains work in a music publishing house. So he may court Eva, publisher Durdys’s daughter, who he likes quite a bit, he recommends to the owner that he also employ his nephew. Understandably, this is he himself, in his every-day form. For Viktor, however, this becomes an extremely complicated situation as he switches in the place of business from the clothes of the uncle and then back again from the clothes of Viktor the nephew.Read More »

  • Gregory La Cava – Gabriel Over the White House (1933)

    Drama1931-1940ClassicsGregory La CavaUSA

    Newly inaugurated President Judson Hammond is content to live out the next four years exercising a hands-off approach and leaving the problems of Depression America to local authorities. But after a miraculous recovery from an auto accident, Hammond is ready to take on every social ill and neither Congress, gangsters nor the nations of the world will stop him.Read More »

  • René Clément – Le mura di Malapaga AKA The Walls of Malapaga AKA Beyond the Gates (1949)

    1941-1950ClassicsDramaFranceRené Clément

    Synopsis:
    After murdering his mistress and being hunted by the authorities in France, Pierre (Jean Gabin) stows away aboard a ship bound for Genoa, Italy. Though he’s immediately robbed after arriving, things look up for Pierre when he meets Cecchina (Vera Talchi), a kind-hearted young girl who introduces him to her mother, Marta (Isa Miranda). Pierre and Marta fall in love, but the French police are closing in on him and the new couple may not have much time left.Read More »

  • Harry Lachman – La belle marinière (1932)

    1931-1940ClassicsFranceHarry Lachman

    A film thought to be lost until 5 reels (out of 9) were found in the UCLA archives. It was derived from an eponymous play by Marcel Achard which allowed to reconstruct he synopsis. Jean Gabin is the captain of the Cormorant, a horse-drawn barge, living happily along the canals with his sister Mique and Sylvestre (Pierre Blanchar), his fellow mariner and friend. The film starts with Gabin rescuing a young lady named Marinette (Madeleine Renaud) who had fallen in the canal for unsaid reason. Gabin soon also falls (for her), they get married and the boat is renamed ‘la Belle Marinière’ (the handsome she-mariner). During the wedding party returns Sylvestre (a handsome he-mariner) who had been away for the necessities of the script. He will now be the object of a growing interest from Marinette which results in the expected confict between the two men.Read More »

  • Clarence Brown – Song of Love (1947)

    1941-1950Clarence BrownClassicsDramaUSA

    Quote:

    Undeniably one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses, Katharine Hepburn nonetheless only had one voice. She used it to massive effect but anything that really warranted an utterly different accent tended to make her look horribly miscast. Of all the great actors she was the one who seemed to be horribly miscast most often, whether it be as a Chinese peasant girl, a queen of Scotland or a backwoods hillbilly. Here, playing the nineteenth century pianist and composer Clara Schumann, I expected another horrible miscasting, but found that the film’s very human story utterly engaging regardless what accents are brought to bear.Read More »

  • Mervyn LeRoy – A Majority of One (1961)

    1961-1970ClassicsDramaMervyn LeRoyUSA

    Mrs. Jacoby, a Brooklyn widow whose only son was killed by the Japanese in World
    War II, reluctantly agrees to accompany her daughter, Alice, and her son-in-law, Jerry
    Black, on a trip to Japan, where Jerry is to help negotiate a trade agreement. En route by
    ship, Mrs. Jacoby’s resentment of the Japanese subsides when she meets Mr. Asano, a
    Japanese industrialist whose family also was struck by tragedy during the war. Their
    friendship ends, however, when Jerry suspects that Mr. Asano, who is also a
    negotiating member of the trade committee, is ingratiating himself with his mother-in-law
    for political gain.Read More »

  • John Boulting – Lucky Jim (1957)

    1951-1960ClassicsComedyJohn BoultingUnited Kingdom

    Plot
    Jim Dixon (Ian Carmichael) feels anything but lucky. At the university he has to do the bidding of absent-minded and boring Professor Welch (Hugh Griffith) to have any hope of keeping his job. Worse, he has managed to get entangled with boring and neurotic Margaret Peel, a fellow teacher. All-in-all, the pub is the only friendly place to be. His misery is completed at a dreadful weekend gathering of the Welch clan by the arrival of son Bertrand (Terry-Thomas). Betrand is loud-mouthed and boorish, but has as companion the delightful Christine Callaghan, the sort of marvellous and unattainable woman Jim can only dream about.Read More »

  • Grigoris Grigoriou – I limni ton stenagmon AKA The Lake of Sighs AKA The Groaning Lake (1959)

    Drama1951-1960ClassicsGreeceGrigoris Grigoriou

    Ioannina, in the beginning of the 19th century. The whole Greece is under Turks. Ioannina is governed by the fierce and vulgar Ali Pasas. Ali’s eldest son, Muchtar, falls in love with a young Greek widow, Frosyni. The problem is, he’s married to the vindictive and cruel Chanife. And the muslim penalty for having an affair with a married man is death…Read More »

  • Yorgos Tzavellas – I Agni tou limaniou AKA Agnes of the Port AKA Lily of the Harbor (1958)

    Drama1951-1960ClassicsGreeceYorgos Tzavellas

    Captain Giakoumis makes the big decision to forsake the sea and live peacefully close to his wife and his adopted son, Andreas, who is about to sit for examinations in order to become a lieutenant. However, a terrible secret burdens his soul. He has a daughter, Agni, whom he had years ago when he had an affair with Maria, a prostitute from Troumpa. Maria, before she died, expressed the wish that Giakoumis recognize their daughter as his child. He, however, refused, since Agni ended up becoming a prostitute. The girl, to take revenge on her father, starts an affair with her half-brother with the intention of dragging him down into the mud. In the end, however, she falls in love with him, and this love blesses everyone and everything.Read More »

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