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Milan Calibre 9 (made in 1971 and released the following year) is the first chapter of the famous “Milieu Trilogy”, continued with Manhunt (La mala ordina) and ending with The Boss (Il boss) in which Fernando di Leo explores the different aspects of the world of organized crime. The title of the film is taken from a story by Giorgio Scerbanenco which is part of the book I Centodelitti. This Russian writer also inspired certain parts of scripts ( Stazione centrale ammazzare subitofor the bomb package, Vietato essere felici and La vendetta è il miglior perdono for certain characteristics belonging to the main character, Ugo Piazza). But basically, di Leo created this film independently, using the noir genre as a vehicle for his own sociological, anthropological and also philosophical ideas about the world of crime.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson

Cage of Gold was a rare non-comic effort from Britain’s Ealing Studios. Jean Simmons stars as Judith, who awakens the morning after her wedding to discover that her new husband has deserted her. Later on, she is told that her husband is dead. After a period of mourning, Judith remarries–only to be subjected to blackmail by husband number one. It’s all a racket, of course, but Judith doesn’t go to the police until it’s almost too late. Featured in the cast of Cage of Gold as a slimy smuggler is Herbert Lom, who later gained worldwide fame as Inspector Dreyfus in the “Pink Panther” comedies.Read More »

Quote:
“First, some back­ground information on the making of the film. Celati had spoken for some time about his wish to make what he called a “pseudo-documentary.” That is, the “realism” of the documentary would be maintained in terms of overall structure and style, but the film would be constructed according to a highly self-conscious artistic vision. In a recent interview, Celati was asked what aspects of the documentary interest him the most, and he responded: “Non credo molto ai documentari, perché l’idea che le immagini ti mostrino davvero come è fatta la realtà appar­tiene a un modo di pensare che non è il mio. A me sembra che i documentari siano racconti come tutti gli altri. Però mi piace poco anche l’idea di ‘fiction’ in cui il cinema è irrimediabilmente incastrato” (“Il sentimento dello spazio” 25-26). Clearly, the mixing of “real” documentary and “fictional” art film forms acts on both, blurring the boundaries between life and art, internal and external.Read More »

PLOT SUMMARY
Plot? Are you kidding or what ?There is no plot! This is 57 minutes of naked French weirdness.
Directed by porn king Michel Ricaud and starring a French theatrical troupe in the tradition of Grand Guignol (pronounced Grahn Geen-yol), this shocker contains three gore-drenched, sex-filled tales.
In the first, a sadist with a voodoo doll tortures an attractive woman. The catalogue of humiliation includes vomiting, menstrual trauma, pins through nipples, and finally death.
Next, a possessed woman is tortured by a crazed zombie, who slices off her nipples and gouges out her eye before disembowelling himself. Finally, a woman is attacked by a vampire and returns to life as a lascivious temptress.
– source:hiroshimavideo.comRead More »

American reporter Steve Martin, on his way to Cairo for an assignment, has a stop over in Tokyo. During the layover, he decides to visit his old friend Dr. Daisuke Serizawa. However, the night before he lands, his plane passes over an area where a ship suddenly exploded and caught fire killing all hands.Read More »

In a tenement, men and women fight in the same trench of a gray battle. Their dreams, their passions, their problems and hopes are the same for hundreds of millions of people who are struggling to make their way to happiness.Read More »

Synopsis:
Like his fiery study of a popular milieu in Fièvre, Louis Delluc’s early masterpiece of impressionist cinema, La Femme de Nulle Part, is almost impossible to see outside of rare archival projections in Paris. Shot in natural settings, and stripped of all that is not cinema, Delluc’s psychological drama featuring symbolist muse Eve Francis is an experiment in ‘direct style.’ A fascinating study in the relationship between past and present, memory, dream and reality, this revolutionary film would be a source of inspiration for successive filmmakers, from Francois Truffaut to Alain Resnais.Read More »

One of Rohmer’s most obscure works (the IMDB’s is the only filmography which lists it), a black-and-white short film, “Changing Landscapes” (“Metamorphoses du paysage”), made for TV in 1964. It appears to be part of a series with the overall title Vers l’unité du monde: L’ère industrielle. It’s a series of shots of the countryside and its transformation into an urban landscape, with a voiceover (in French, subtitled into English). The end credits call it “Une émission de Maurice Schérer” (i.e. Rohmer, using a variation of his real name). The cinematography is credited to Pierre Lhomme, a DP of some distinction but one who never worked on any of Rohmer’s features. “Changing Landscapes” is full-frame, running 22:20. It’s in remarkably good condition, with only a few scratches here and there. This tele-essay will no doubt be much too dry for a general audience, but Rohmer fans and completists will be glad to have it. (DVDTimes)Read More »

A nobleman, posing as a necktie salesman, falls in love with the daughter of a circus puppeteer, even though he is already married to the daughter of his country’s war minister.Read More »