France in the 15th Century: The country is marked by the wars with England and internal power struggles. King Charles sees himself powerless against the state. Suddenly a young woman named Johanna emerges from the people, who claims that the Archangel Gabriel appointed her to save France. First the king doubts her words, but he sees that the people, through her are gaining new courage.Read More »
PLOT: A kabuki actor’s mistress hatches a jealous plot to bring down her lover’s son.Read More »
This is the only movie the great French actor Charles Vanel (‘The wages of Fear’ by H. G. Clouzot) wrote and directed (he also directed a short film ‘Affaire classee’ in 1931) during his long career (the longest career of any film actor from 1908 to 1988).
A man (played by Vanel) who is working in a mine has recently married a beautiful young woman (Sandra Milovanoff, an actress who have worked with Sacha Guitry and Rene Clair among others). They strongly love each other but everyday they have to live separated because he has to go to work. One day, three children decide to make some tricks nearby the mine. Their ‘games’ have a very dramatic ending because part of the mine collapse and the man is injured and trapped under the rocks. After the rescue, the man survives but he is completely disfigured to the point that he has to wear a mask when he is in public and even in front of his wife. The happiness he and his wife were living in their everyday life starts to fade.Read More »
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Here is the 1935/1936 original version of “An Actor’s Revenge”, which was hugely popular at that time and a high point in Kazuo Hasegawa’s career. In fact, he even chose to remake this film as his 300th film work, helmed by Kon Ichikawa.
The original film has 3 parts and runs 310 mins long, released. However, like most pre-1945 jidaigeki, it has been seized and re-edited by GHQ during the occupation era. And now, only this truncated version which runs only 97 mins exists.Read More »
When Charley can’t pay his bill at a restaurant, he is forced to become a waiter.Read More »
A New York tramp (Jolson) falls in love with the mayor’s amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt.Read More »
The escape of a man during the Spanish Inquisition.
The only film directed by actor Gaston Modot,
the merciless tale of Villiers de l’Isle-Adam “Conte cruel”Read More »
1939 national policy film set in Manchuria.
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Song of the White Orchid was a co-production of Toho and Mantetsu, the railway that served the colonial region of Manchuria, and the first film in the Kazuo Hasegawa/Shirley Yamaguchi (Ri Koran) “Continental Trilogy.” Handsome Hasegawa (representing Japan) runs up against an impertinent Yamaguchi (representing the continent); not surprisingly, in the course of the film the woman comes around and realizes the benevolent intentions of the Japanese. In Song of the White Orchid Yamaguchi leaves Hasegawa, who plays an expatriate working for the railway, because of a misunderstanding. She joins a communist guerilla group plotting to blow up the Manchurian railway. Learning of the subterfuge that led to the misunderstanding, she renews her faith in Hasegawa—and by extension Japan—and tries to undermine the plot.Read More »
Richard T. Jameson wrote:
Little known stateside but long esteemed in Europe, The Crime of Monsieur Lange is simply one of the very greatest films directed by Jean Renoir (it was made a few years before Grand Illusion and Rules of the Game). René Lefèvre (Le Million) takes the title role of a nebbish who clerks for a penny-press publisher by day, and by night writes feverish potboilers about a Western hero named “Arizona Jim”. Lange’s encyclopedically venal boss (Jules Berry) discovers his secret and immediately starts exploiting it, as he exploits everybody and everything within range. Life sublimely imitates pulp fiction and vice versa in the brilliant screenplay by Jacques Prévert (who would later write Children of Paradise). The movie blends sociopolitical protest, tender satire, and astonishing poetry without breaking a sweat, and its climax – an amazing synthesis of theme, dramatic, emotion, and inspired camerawork – is one of the transcendent moments in screen history.Read More »