In Mexican Revolution times, a guerrilla general and his troops take the conservative town of Cholula, near by Mexico City. As the revolutionaries mistreat the town’s riches, Armendáriz falls for beautiful and wild Beatriz Peñafiel, the daughter of one of the town’s richest men.Read More »
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A young Englishwoman goes to the Hebrides to marry her older, wealthier fiancé. When the weather keeps them separated on different islands, she begins to have second thoughts.Read More »
Theresienstadt (1944)
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The Führer Gives a City to the Jews is the only film known to be made by the Nazis inside an operating concentration camp. Germany’s Ministry of Propaganda produced this 1944 film about Theresienstadt, the “model” ghetto established by the Nazis in 1941 in Terezin, a town in the former Czechoslovakia.Read More »
I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (1948)
A dancer is pinned for murder after his shoe prints are found at the scene of the crime. His wife follows the trail of clues to the genuine killer.Read More »
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Idle intellectuals Albrecht, Octavia and Äls, are given to quoting and emulating their philosopher hero, Nietzsche. Albrecht later contracts typhus bringing the foster child gravely ill Äls out of an infected area.Read More »
The Battle of Midway
John Ford is widely regarded as one of America’s greatest film directors, a myth-maker who put his distinctive stamp on the Western genre, and whose films memorably portray key moments in American history. Although known primarily as the director of classic Hollywood movies like Stagecoach (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and The Searchers (1956), there’s more to Ford than his impressive feature film career. Many people may not know that Ford served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and worked for the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services) as Chief of the Field and Photographic Branch. During this time, he undertook various missions for the Navy, and was involved in the production of training films and war documentaries, one of which was The Battle of Midway. The battle itself took place in the Central Pacific from June 4 to June 6 1942, and Ford was present as the Japanese attacked the American outpost on Midway Island. How did such a noted Hollywood feature film director, a man who Tag Gallagher calls “… the great poetic chronicler of American history”, approach documentary filmmaking, and more specifically, how did he chronicle the events at Midway?Read More »
Namatjira the Painter (1947)
Australian contemporary art has no more interesting tale to tell than that of Aboriginal watercolour artist, Albert Namatjira. Namatjira was thirty years old before his hand first held a paintbrush. In about 1934 Rex Battarbee, a well-known Australian artist, visited Hermannsberg mission near Alice Springs. He took with him into the field as cook and general assistant the Arunta tribesman, Namatjira. This film tells the story of Namatjira’s preoccupation with Battarbee’s work, how he was determined to learn to paint and how Battarbee, realising the talent of his friend and assistant, taught him the elements of his craft. Today Namatjira’s watercolours sell for high prices. Despite controversy, the power of Namatjira’s rendering of his beloved ancestral land is not denied. Throughout his life and despite his success, he remained in the bush with his people and his paints. In this film, we see Albert Namatjira at work in the glowing country that he knows so well.
This is the 1947 film re-edited by Lee RobinsonRead More »
U.S. Foreign Service officer matches wits with a Chinese warlord to try to save American citizens threatened with execution.Read More »
Aldo Fabrizi plays a widowed school janitor with an infant son. The film depicts the joys and sorrows of father and son, as they journey through life. Maybe we could say that this is something like an Italian Goodbye, Mr. Chips; it is certainly no less affecting. Watch for author/director Mario Soldati in a small, but crucial, part as one of the professors at the school, where father and son live, study and work.Read More »