1940s

from 55th New York Film Festival program
A bit of an anomaly within Minnelli’s often more colorful and ebullient oeuvre, this black-and-white, paranoiac romantic thriller finds the master harnessing his consummate stylishness to spin a haunting, noirish tale. Timid Ann (Katharine Hepburn) marries the highly eligible Alan Garroway (Robert Taylor), whose wealth and good looks conceal an underlying and profound cruelty. Ann grows increasingly obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to Alan’s brother, Michael (Robert Mitchum), who has been missing for some time… This gripping movie casts Hepburn, Taylor, and Mitchum all against type.Read More »

Kinuyo is a daughter of rice cracker shop in downtown. She fell in love with her sister’s boyfriend. It is a story whose theme is warm human relationships in a town of customs and manners.Read More »

Quote:
Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Eadie Allen overnight to such effect that she’s starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy’s eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie’s show troupe, at which she’s sure to learn his true identity…and meet Vivian, his ‘family-arrangement’ fiancée. Mostly song and dance.Read More »

A late entry from Frank Borzage and hs first “prestige” picture in years, after being cut loose from the Majors during his personal heyday of the 1920s and 30s.

This was Republic’s first Technicolor feature (and Borzage’s second). The color palette Republic concocted for the film is bizarre to say the least – dominant are pinks, purples, wedgewood blues, mauve, taupe, lilac, with highlights of orange aqua and apricot. The general tone of hyperreality is enhanced further with set design that extends to underfurnished rooms, and cavernous spaces and headroom, like the concert hall wiith virtually surreal intrusions of doric columns and poritcos as decorative objects.Read More »

A solitary flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a phone off the hook: discordant images a woman sees as she comes home. She naps and, perhaps, dreams. She sees a hooded figure going down the driveway. The knife is on the stair, then in her bed. The hooded figure puts the flower on her bed then disappears. The woman sees it all happen again. Downstairs, she naps, this time in a chair. She awakes to see a man going upstairs with the flower. He puts it on the bed. The knife is handy. Can these dream-like sequences end happily? A mirror breaks, the man enters the house again. Will he find her?Read More »

Synopsis:
Eddie Cantor insists upon being chairman of the Cavalcade of Stars benefit show, in return for the use of his vocalist, Dinah Shore. Cantor disrupts the producers’ plans with his own egocentric ideas. When they discover a talented bus driver named Joe Simpson, who can’t get an acting job because he too closely resembles Eddie Cantor, a scheme is hatched to put the show back on track.Read More »

Judy Garland is at the peak of her charm and appeal as Lily Mars. The 19-year-old aspiring actress has great hopes for the future but can’t catch a break, even when a Broadway producer (Van Heflin) returns to her small Indiana town for a family visit. Undeterred, she follows him to New York. She earns a small part, and a romance is sparked, but when the leading role unexpectedly opens up, will Lily be ready?Read More »

Upon the death of his brother, Larry Talbot returns from America to his ancestral home in Wales. He visits a gypsy camp with village girl Jenny Williams, who is attacked by Bela, a gypsy who has turned into a werewolf. Larry kills the werewolf but is bitten during the fight. Bela’s mother tells him that this will cause him to become a werewolf at each full moon. Larry confesses his plight to his unbelieving father, Sir John, who then joins the villagers in a hunt for the wolf. Transformed by the full moon, Larry heads for the forest and a fateful meeting with both Sir John and Gwen Conliffe.Read More »

An ancient mummy is revived to destroy the invaders of the 3,000 year-old tomb of an Egyptian princess.Read More »