1940s

Confucius (Chinese: 孔夫子; pinyin: Kǒng Fūzǐ) is a 1940 Chinese film directed by Fei Mu. Produced during the war, the film was released twice in the 1940s before being thought lost. In 2001, the film was rediscovered when an anonymous donor sent a damaged copy of the print to the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA). The HKFA then spent seven years restoring the print which was finally screened to modern audiences at the 33rd Hong Kong International Film Festival in April 2009.
The film depicts Confucius’s later life, as he traveled across a China divided by war and strife in an ultimately futile effort to teach various warlords and kings his particular philosophy.
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Alexander Hammid’s intimate study of a female cat and the birth and maturation of her five kittens.Read More »

Synopsis
Eve Charlier is poisoned by her husband, an unscrupulous state official, so that he can marry her younger sister. At the same moment that she dies, a political agitator, Pierre Dumaine is shot dead by a police informer on the eve of an uprising against the state. Eve and Pierre meet up in the afterlife, where they can observe the world of the living but cannot alter anything. When they appear to fall in love, they are allowed to return to the land of the living for one more day. If they can prove that they love each other sincerely, they will be permitted to live out the rest of their lives together. Otherwise…
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Musical comedy. Herding pigs girl Glasha of the Russian countryside and the shepherd Musaib of Dagestani aul came to Moscow at the agricultural exhibition, meet there and fall in love at first sight. They will leave for a long time, and partial to Glasha fellow villager does not want to so just give the girl a distant opponent.Read More »

Rafael Gil directed a number of films during the ’40s and ’50s. He started out co-directing three films with Gonzalo Memedez Pidal, and in 1941 he made his solo directorial debut with El Hombre Que Se Quiso Matar. ~ Sandra Brennan, RoviRead More »

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One of the most important documentary films made in France, Paris 1900 vividly conveys the mood of a world in transition, from the exuberance of the belle époque to the shattering folly of world war. Although much of material in the film is trivial (tastes in fashion, the pastimes of the wealthy elite, and such like), it contains many historically important images. Most memorable is the rare footage of such figures as artist Claude Monet, writer Edmond Rostand (author of Cyrano de Bergerac), filmmaker Ferdinand Zecca, not to mention a sequence where a young Maurice Chevalier gives his impression of cabaret performer Félix Mayol, in the company of Mistinguet.Read More »

Very weird piece of mystic low-life exotica, with perennial foreigner Valery Inkijinoff as Eastern sage dispensing strange wisdom and Viviane Romance looking stunning in Betty Page fringe as a prostitute and femme fatale. Lots of Third Manic running around in a sort of non-specifically-exotic soukh set, crime, atmosphere and Marcel Dalio. Quite peculiar by Raymond Bernard’s standards, but VERY diverting.Read More »

Citizen Kane is a 1941 mystery/drama film released by RKO Pictures, the first feature film directed by Orson Welles. It tells the fictional story of Charles Foster Kane, a man whose fight for power in the publishing world transformed from sheer thrill-seeking to ruthless war, and how his life affected everyone in his orbit. The storyline follows a reporter seeking to find what Kane meant by his dying word: “Rosebud.”

The film’s main character, Kane, is a composite of several historical individuals: newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst; the reclusive aerospace and movie mogul Howard Hughes; and the Chicago utilities magnate Samuel Insull. Citizen Kane is widely considered to be a masterpiece by critics and viewers alike, and is often cited as being one of the greatest and most innovative works in the history of film.Read More »

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Boomerang, directed by Elia Kazan, is a chilling film noir, the true story about the murder of a priest, the subsequent arrest and trial of a jobless drifter, and the efforts of young state’s attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) to uncover the truth. Closely based on the actual 1924 murder of Fr. Hubert Dahme in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the film was directed by the young Elia Kazan in a highly effective, semi-documentary style. Kazan shot most of the film on location, using high-contrast cinematography and an extremely mobile camera to create a palpable sense of urgency. The screenplay, expertly crafted by Richard Murphy received an Academy Award nomination.Read More »