1940s

Also known as Mad Wednesday, this collaboration between silent comedy star Harold Lloyd and screwball comedy genius Preston Sturges was meant to be a splashy comeback for both. Unfortunately, it sank at the box office.

The film starts with original footage from Lloyd’s 1925 classic The Freshman. Because of his success on the football field, Harold Diddlebock (Lloyd, who seems to have hardly changed in 22 years, – still sporting a straw hat, and horn rimmed glasses) is offered a job. Full of hope and promise, the former gridiron champ finds himself in a minor bookkeeping position, where he remains forgotten for the next 22 years, until he’s abruptly fired.Read More »

Grab a box of hankies and curl up for a night of jerked tears and warm fuzzies with Enchanted Cottage, the romantic and melodramatic tale of a horribly disfigured WW II vet who finds love and renewal at the terribly plain, wallflowery hands of a young spinster. Knowing that society is incapable of appreciating the mutually regarded beauty within each of the lovers, they retire to the romantic seclusion of a lonely cottage in New England. The plot is taken from a romantic play by Arthur Pineroi and was filmed before in the mid ’20s.Read More »

Plot summary:
Two friends from the city with contrasting beliefs about love take their annual holiday in the country. One is a “love ’em and leave ’em” philanderer, the other is waiting for Miss Right. Whilst Gopal (Premnath) callously uses and then discards Neela (Nimmi), the sensitive Pran (Raj Kapoor) finds the love of his life when he meets Reshma (Nargis). But for neither man will the the consequences of these meetings be without anguish.Read More »

Quote:
In Raj Kapoor’s own words, Aag is “the story of youth consumed by the desire for a brighter and more intense life.” Kewal and Nimmi are childhood sweethearts who share a passion for theatre. They promise each other that when they grow up, they will together start their own theatre company, an unfulfilled dream as Nimmi and her parents move to another town. Years later, two young men Rajan (Prem Nath) and Kewal (Raj Kapoor) revive an old theatre that closed down. One day, a young destitute girl (Nargis) comes to the theatre and begins to act in Kewal’s plays. Fascinated by her, Kewal names her Nimmi. But when he discovers that Rajan is also in love with her, he steps aside only to realize that Nimmi loves him….Aag was the debut of Raj Kapoor’s astounding career as one of Indian cinema’s most illustrious directors and was the first time Nargis and Raj Kapoor came together as a romantic on-screen couple.Read More »

A high-rigger loses his nerve after a fall takes the life of a coworker.Read More »

Synopsis
The composer Roland Samblaca returns to his home town Carcassonne in the South of France with his family. Whilst visiting an ancient castle, he meets and is enchanted by a young woman, Sylvie, who lives in the castle with her adoptive guardian, Monsieur Toulzac. A retired schoolmaster, Toulzac now occupies his time with his research into the ancient cult of a Christian sect of the Middle Ages who glorified death over life. Syvlie believes that she is cursed, having seen her first two lovers die in tragic circumstances. When Toulzac discovers a secret cathedral beneath the castle, Syvlie is compelled to go there. Roland follows, oblivious to the danger that awaits…Read More »

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail, the fourth film from Akira Kurosawa, is based on
a legendary twelfth-century incident in which the lord Yoshitsune, with the help of a group of samurai, crosses enemy territory disguised as a monk. The story was dramatized for centuries in Noh and Kabuki theater, and here it becomes one of the director’s lightest, most farcical films.Read More »

Plot:Jane Budden, a country girl goes to the big city, determined to find and marry a wealthy man. Instead, she meets and marries Herman Maxim, a struggling inventor. After their marriage, his inventions become successful. Their happiness is complete when they have two children, and Maxim’s portrait is given a place in the National Hall of Science. Written by Les AdamsRead More »

Synopsis:
Dr. Carruthers feels bitter at being betrayed by his employers, Heath and Morton, when they became rich as a result of a product he devised. He gains revenge by electrically enlarging bats and sending them out to kill his employers’ family members by instilling in the bats a hatred for a particular perfume he has discovered, which he gets his victims to apply before going outdoors. Johnny Layton, a reporter, finally figures out Carruthers is the killer and, after putting the perfume on himself, douses it on Carruthers in the hopes it will get him to give himself away. One of the two is attacked as the giant bat makes one of its screaming, swooping power dives.Read More »