1930s

Synopsis
A modernist lady sculptor seeks a model for a statue to be put in front of a Berlin hospital, and finds him in the form of a London policeman-boxer. She’s also interested in having a child.Read More »

Producer Joe Pasternak was making “Deanna Durbin pictures” long before he’d discovered Durbin – and indeed, long before he’d left Hungary. Pasternak’s 1935 musical “Peter” stars Franciska Gaal as Eva, a 17-year-old gamine who ekes out a living as a street singer. While wandering past an open courtyard, Eva confronts a young burglar, who orders her to change clothes with him so he can make a quick getaway. With nothing but her newfound male garb to her name, our heroine poses as a boy named Peter so that she can obtain a job selling newspapers. In this guise, she experiences all manner of hilarious misadventures, and even finds true love in the form of a handsome doctor (Hans Jaray). Peter was directed by Herman Kosterlitz, who as Henry Koster would later helm several of Joe Pasternak’s Hollywood musicals. (Hal Erickson, Rovi)Read More »

Visionary documentary that contrasts the conditions of life in small towns and in the industrialized cities, starting with a brief portrait of pre-industrial United States, then moving into the modern chaotic, industrial and commercial city to reflect on the effects of this environment on family life and the raising of children, and finally proposing a return to a simpler life, in an idyllic “new city” in Maryland, constructed as a New Deal project, to promote proper upbringing of children, as well as a stable family life.Read More »

The Criterion Channel writes:
The first of three film adaptations Universal made of Fannie Hurst’s tear-jerking novel chronicles the fate-battered relationship of Ray (Irene Dunne) and Walter (John Boles), two star-crossed lovers seemingly thwarted from being together by circumstances and time. Tracing their relationship across decades—as the married Walter ascends to prominence as a wealthy financier while Ray remains in the background as the perpetual “other woman”—BACK STREET offers a beautifully restrained and deeply affecting vision of self-sacrifice in the name of love.
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Plot:
This film is an adaptation of the historical novella by Nikolai Gogol. It tells the story of an old Zaporozhian Cossack, Taras Bulba, and his two sons, Andriy and Ostap. Taras’ sons studied at the Kiev Academy and return home. The three men set out on a journey to Zaporizhian Sich located in Southern Ukraine, where they join other Cossacks and go to war against Poland.Read More »

Quote:
One day, Camille Morestan, owner of a bicycle shop, finds himself juryman in the trial of a young woman, Nathalie, who is accused of murdering her lover. Moved by Nathalie’s story, Camille manages to convince his fellow jurymen of her innocence and she is acquitted.
With nowhere to go, Nathalie accepts Camille’s kind offer of a room in his house and a job in his shop. Only Camille’s son, Claude, knows that Nathalie was tried for murder, but he falls madly in love with her. Meanwhile, one of the jurymen continues to harangue Camille…Read More »

Two innocent men are wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The fiance of one of them convinces a police detective of their innocence, and together they try to find the real killer before the men’s execution date.Read More »

Made in 1936. The eldest son of Edo Kitamachi Magistrate Toyama Kinzaemon, Kinshiro, is the heir to the Toyama family, but after he thought that Shinnosuke, his stepmother, Fusae’s son, would succeed in his place, he left home, became acquainted with the yakuza and got into trouble. Even though his father, Kinzaemon, seemingly disregarded Kinshiro, he was concerned about him every day. His stepmother was also worried. One night, the couple go separately to find out about Kinshiro.Read More »

A chambermaid impersonates the fictional subject of a composite photo that won a beauty contest, with whom a famed aviator falls in love.Read More »