Plot: Johnny runs away from Father O’Hara’s orphanage and becomes a roller skating star with the help of Mary Reeves. He becomes involved with women, including Polly, who only love him because he is a champion, not, as with Mary, out of love for him. Then he gets polio. Written by Ed StephanRead More »
Synopsis:
Lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career defending crooks in trials. He has never realized that there is a downside to his success, until he meets the dancer Vicki Gayle. She makes him decide to get a better reputation. But mob king Rico Angelo *insists* that he continues his services…Read More »
Plot Outline:
Two Chicago musicians are accidental witnesses to a gangland massacre and suddenly find themselves in even more urgent need of a job that will take them out of town for a while. Joe (Tony Curtis) is the smooth talker, and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) is the worrier. But both find themselves out of their depth with the disguise they have to adopt to avoid the mob – two new recruits to an all-girl jazz band.
As “Josephine” and “Daphne” the boys have to avoid detection and stay out of trouble. Not easy when “Josephine” falls for “Sugar” (Marilyn Monroe) who is the singer in the band, and “Daphne” is targetted by an aged playboy (Joe E. Brown).
Life gets really complicated when Joe adopts another male persona to seduce “Sugar”, and the Chicago mobs turn up for their convention at the hotel where our heroes are playing. Read More »
A wanted murderer, Billy John, is captured by Ben Brigade, a bounty hunter, who intends to take him to Santa Cruz to be hanged. Brigade stops at a staging post, where he saves the manager’s wife from an Indian attack, and enlists the help of two outlaws to continue his journey more safely. However, the Indian attacks persist, the outlaws plan to take Billy for themselves, tempted by the offer of amnesty for his captor, and Billy’s brother Frank is in hot pursuit to rescue him. But Brigade has plans of his own.Read More »
Quote:
Visionary director Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs tells the story of Atari Kobayashi, 12-year-old ward to corrupt Mayor Kobayashi. When all the canine pets of Megasaki City are exiled to a vast Trash Island, Atari sets off in search of his bodyguard-dog, Spots. With the assistance of his newfound mongrel friends, he begins an epic journey that will decide the fate and future of the entire Prefecture.Read More »
In 1984, upon learning that his friend Harry Smith was being evicted from the Breslin Hotel, Allen Ginsberg encouraged Robert Frank to use his new video camera to document the move. Over a one-week period, Smith shows Frank examples of his collection of art, books, indigenous recordings and films.Read More »
In this sequel to MY FRIEND FLICKA and THUNDERHEAD, young Ken McLaughlin buys a trotting horse named Crown Jewel, intending to train and race her. However, Thunderhead, the stallion he released to the wild, returns and steals Jewel to add to his herd. Ken gets Jewel back and also succeeds in bringing Thunderhead home before competing in a trotting race. His chief opponent is Beaver Greenway, a washed-up former champion driver whose granddaughter Ken is in love with.Read More »
A fast-paced western with a romantic twist, this was one of the last films pairing director Budd Boetticher and popular cowboy hero Randolph Scott before Scott’s retirement. John Hayes – Scott – left the Civil War behind him when he took on the job of managing the Overland Stage Lines out of a small Colorado town. Clay Putnam has not forgotten that the Confederacy lost and he plans on robbing Hayes Overland Stage of one of its gold shipments from California to the North. He wants the gold to stay in the South to revive the Confederate cause. Meanwhile, his wife Norma -Virginia Mayo – complicates matters since she was Hayes’ old flame, and Putnam’s cronies want the gold for themselves.Read More »
The omnibus film New York Stories is the product of three powerhouse filmmakers, with the best saved for last. The film is divided into three stories, each exploring a different aspect of life in the Big Apple. Life Lessons, directed by Martin Scorcese, is a Dostoevsky-like tale of the rarefied Art World, with Nick Nolte as a self-indulgent abstractionist who loves Rosanna Arquette, but can’t bring himself to lie to her about her negligible artistic talents. Life Without Zoe, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, is more than a little reminiscent of Kay Thompson’s Eloise stories, with 12-year-old Zoe (Heather McComb) running amok at the Sherry-Netherland hotel while her parents are embarked upon a world-girdling vacation. The last and (as we said) the best is Woody Allen’s Oedipus Wrecks, wherein a schnooky Jewish lawyer (guess who?) inadvertently “creates” the Jewish Mother From Hell: thanks to a misguided magic trick, Allen’s mama (the incomparable Mae Questel) becomes a huge spectral vision on the New York skyline, telling everyone within earshot about her son’s inadequacies! The cinematographer lineup on New York Stories includes Nestor Almendros, Vittorio Storaro and Sven Nykvist, whose very different photographic styles blend with for more harmony than the three directors’ approaches.Read More »