1930s

A musical film made for the inauguration of Shochiku’s Ofuna Studio, with an all-star cast of the era.Read More »

A major silent by Shimizu, Seven Seas was originally released in two parts, the first in 1931 and the second in 1932. The full work is over 2 hours long.Read More »

A major silent by Shimizu, Seven Seas was originally released in two parts, the first in 1931 and the second in 1932. The full work is over 2 hours long.Read More »

Synopsis:
Shades of Othello loom in this engrossing exploration of class, race, and murder set on an ocean liner. Young Dainah encounters an engineer on board who mistakes pleasantries for flirtation. When she disappears the next day, suspicion spreads not only to the engineer but also to Dainah’s husband. Forward-thinking and absorbing.Read More »

The daughter of a Japanese nobleman sells herself as a geisha in order to save her family from poverty and dishonour when her father dies leaving debts. She meets and falls in love with a Russian naval officer, but their romance is threatened by the love of a jealous servant, and by the espionage mission that the officer has been assigned to.Read More »

Two heros are placed face to face in this film; a famous medical professor who has kept his bourgeois lifestyle intact and a young man engaged in the Komsomol, an ardent enforcer of mankind’s new moral code for the construction of communism. But the severe young man falls in love with the professor’s wife.Read More »

PLOT:
Vertov and his Kino group produced this lyrical documentary on the lives of Coal miners in the Donbas who are struggling to meet their production quotas under the five year plan. Enthusiasm is most noteworthy for it’s creative use of the new sound medium. Vertov liberated the recording equipment from the studio and shot sound on location. He also used common everyday sounds and wove them into what can only be described as a symphony. In fact, after seeing the film Charlie Chaplin wrote: “Never had I known that these mechanical sounds could be arranged to sound so beautiful. I regard it as one of the most exhilarating symphonies I have heard. Mr. Dziga Vertov is a musician.”Read More »

STORY.
After his benefactor Shima falls ill, Hibiki (Shin Saburi) sets out to rebuild the hospital that Shima had run. In the complicated relationships that swirl around the hospital, Gin (Mitsuko Mito), a nurse who works as Hibiki’s confidant, gradually develops a romantic interest in him. Meanwhile, Shima’s daughter Keiko (Mieko Takamine) and her fiancé Sasajima (Shin Tokudaiji) rebel against Hibiki’s dogmatic behaviour…Read More »

Convicted tells the story of a diligent detective named Burns (Quigley) who is forced to arrest Chick Wheeler (Edgar Edwards), brother of Burns’ sweetheart Jerry Wheeler (Hayworth), for murder. The more he thinks about it, the more Burns is convinced that Chick is innocent. With Jerry’s help, Burns tracks down the genuine miscreant in the nightclub where the heroine works.Read More »