Synopsis:
After murdering his mistress and being hunted by the authorities in France, Pierre (Jean Gabin) stows away aboard a ship bound for Genoa, Italy. Though he’s immediately robbed after arriving, things look up for Pierre when he meets Cecchina (Vera Talchi), a kind-hearted young girl who introduces him to her mother, Marta (Isa Miranda). Pierre and Marta fall in love, but the French police are closing in on him and the new couple may not have much time left.Read More »
Quote:
Undeniably one of Hollywood’s greatest actresses, Katharine Hepburn nonetheless only had one voice. She used it to massive effect but anything that really warranted an utterly different accent tended to make her look horribly miscast. Of all the great actors she was the one who seemed to be horribly miscast most often, whether it be as a Chinese peasant girl, a queen of Scotland or a backwoods hillbilly. Here, playing the nineteenth century pianist and composer Clara Schumann, I expected another horrible miscasting, but found that the film’s very human story utterly engaging regardless what accents are brought to bear.Read More »
Recently returned to Rome after a long imprisonment of war, doctor Paolo Marchini learns that his wife Patrizia was arrested for murder.
Three years before, not having money to treat her seriously ill child, she had consented to an appointment with a wealthy unknown gentleman, whom she had not met again ever since.
This man had showed up the night before, trying to draw on her again. Quarrel, gunshot…
Patrizia is acquitted at the trial. For the three, life begins anew.Read More »
The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.Read More »
Director Henri Decoin and actress Danielle Darrieux made many fine films together (Le Domino vert, Abus de confiance, La Vérité sur Bébé Donge), but few are as charming and funny as the romantic comedy Battement de coeur. Thanks to its prestigious cast, witty dialogue and abundance of comic situations, this fifth Decoin-Darrieux offering is a delight. It was also the last film they made together before their divorce the following year, although they remained friends afterwards and worked together on four subsequent films.Read More »
Tyrone Power pursues Betty Grable and becomes A YANK IN THE R.A.F., in this romantic drama set in the early days of WWII. For smooth-talking daredevil pilot Tim Baker (Power), flying is a game and the war is simply an opportunity to make some quick money. When a high-paying job ferrying bombers across the Atlantic lands him in London, he runs into Carol (Grable), an old flame, and joins the R.A.F. just to be near her. But problems arise when Carol is pursued by another pilot (John Sutton), who treats her better and happens to be Baker’s superior officer! When both men start flying bombing missions over Europe, Carol finds that choosing between them is suprisingly hard, and Baker learns that not everyone takes life as lightly as he does.Read More »
Flash Fulton (Bud Abbott) and Weejie McCoy (Lou Costello) take pictures of a bank robbery. Lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers and accompanied by Dr. Bill Elliott (Patric Knowles) and Peggy Osborn (Elyse Knox), they also meet old friend Johnny Long (Johnny Long) and his band and singer Marcia Manning (Ginny Simms). Dr. Elliott and Peggy are being held in a remote cabin by the robbers, but Weejie rescues them by turning himself into a human snowball that becomes an avalanche that engulfs the crooks.Read More »
Plot:
A wealthy woman’s secretary, fearing that she will be blamed if her employer’s jewelry is stolen, hires the Falcon as guardian.
The Falcon is blamed when the jewels are stolen and murders ensue.Read More »
Abbott and Costello’s The Naughty Nineties offers a million laughs and a nickel’s worth of plot. Most of the film takes place aboard a 19th century showboat, owned by kindly Captain Sam (Henry Travers). Bud Abbott plays the showboat’s leading man Dexter Broadhurst, while Lou Costello is handyman Sebastian Dinwiddie. A group of slick gamblers (Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson and Joe Sawyer) cheat Captain Sam out of his boat, turning the place into a floating gambling palace, but Dexter and Sebastian foil the villains and save the day. The film is a virtual encyclopedia of wheezy but still hilarious comedy routines, many of them devised by veteran Laurel & Hardy and Three Stooges gagman Felix Adler. The film’s highlight is a full-length performance of Abbott and Costello’s verbal classic “Who’s on First?”-and if one listens very closely, one can hear the cameramen and crew members laughing!
— Hal Erickson (AllMovie)Read More »