Comedy

“Only for those abnormal” (an IMDB review by RodrigAndrisani)

The music for this film is composed by the greatest composer of film music of all time, Ennio Morricone. But it’s almost nonexistent and as little as it is, it’s not great. Deliberately maybe, because the subject itself, with capital M, is Madness, The Madness of Humanity. Place of the action: the crazy world we live in, a world where those who do not kill, do not use drugs, etc., are abnormal. Here’s what the director Elio Petri himself says, in his book “The adventurous history of Italian cinema”: “It’s a film about the société du spectacle. In the society of the spectacle it’s not the spectacle of life, there is only the show that gives you the impression that you live, while you don’t live from long time ago.Read More »

Summary
A man uses the principles of double-entry bookkeeping to settle his accounts with society.Read More »

When the lead of the musical he’s putting on quits, Ted Sturgis (Gower Champion) searches for a new headliner. Newcomers Joanna Moss (Helen Wood) and Suzy Doolitle (Debbie Reynolds) do well at open auditions, and Madelyn Corlane (Marge Champion), Ted’s ex and a former starlet herself, is also in contention. As two of the women face personal dilemmas that threaten their participation in the musical, a final audition is held, and when each shines, the lead is chosen in an unorthodox way.Read More »

STORYLINE:
The peace of a small fishing village is shattered by the coming of a young, and stunningly beautiful, wife of a local guest-worker. She intends to live in her father’s house, which in the mean-time became a pub. From that moment her revenge begins, toying with to people, their passions and interests. This comic-erotic dimension a lyric element is added, her relation to a local musician. That relation, and the life of the whole village, ends in tragedy.Read More »

Narrator falls in love with a beautiful girl. Unfortunately she isn’t alone: five guys follow her every time no matter where she goes – to work, in park or in bed.Read More »

A model marries a struggling engineer; but he won’t let her keep her job, and they can’t pay the bills, while she is wooed by a wealthy drinker.
Michael Martin (Gene Raymond) tells Paul Dodson (Ned Sparks) he knows of a better job, and they get fired. Michael asks modeling Carolyn (Barbara Stanwyck) to marry, but she wants to keep her job. After work they go dancing. Michael now earns $35 a week; but Carolyn makes $50. They get married during his lunch hour. Carolyn cries and quarrels with Michael. He hits an officer and is put in jail. In court the drunk Hugh McKenzie (Robert Young) is fined and meets Carolyn. She pleads for Michael, and he gets 30 days or $50. Hugh loans them the money. Michael’s electricity is off. Hugh is paid and reluctantly leaves.Read More »

Quote:
Pseudolus is the laziest slave in Rome and has but one wish, purchase his freedom. When his master and mistress leave for the day he finds out that the young master has fallen in love with a virgin in the house of Lycus, a slave dealer specializing in beautiful women. Pseudolus concocts a deal in which he will be freed if he can procure the girl for young Hero. Of course, it can’t be that simple as everything begins to go wrong.Read More »

Quote:
The multi-part film is a difficult kind of cinema to get right but Duvivier’s Le Diable et les dix commandements is a rare exception where the form succeeds admirably. The film consists of seven roughly 15 minute sketches, each showing what may happen if one or more of the Ten Commandments is broken. Each sketch is self-contained (except for the last which returns to the first) and linked by a nasty slithery serpent who has a very strange sense of humour. The sketches are either mini-dramas, usually with a clever twist at the end (the best instance of this being the second sketch: “Do not commit adultery”), or comic. The sketch featuring “Do no steal” is an outrageous comic farce with Jean-Claude Brialy and Louis de Funès, made even more hilarious by Duvivier’s unsubtle attempt to ape the New Wave film directors.Read More »

A circus is in town so Bout-de-Zan (Rene Poyen) decides to sneak off and see the elephant while everyone else is sleeping. Once there he decides the best thing to do would be to steal it and the two then set off for many misadventures.Read More »