Jed Potter looks back on a love triangle conducted over the course of years and between musical numbers. Dancer Jed loves showgirl Mary, who loves compulsive nightclub-opener Johnny, who can’t stay committed to anything in life for very long.Read More »
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Brian Donlevy goes from rags to riches in King Vidor’s ambitious Technicolor ode to hard work, family and the American Dream. Arriving penniless in the United States, Czech immigrant Steve Dangos (Donlevy) soon realizes America truly is the land of opportunity. Starting out in the iron mines of Minnesota, Dangos heads to the steel mills of Chicago, a decision that will earn him wealth and power beyond his wildest dreams – and put him at odds with his workers when they try to unionize. Produced over a two-year period at the then-enormous sum of $3 million, An American Romance is a bold and gripping saga in the Vidor tradition. “No other American director ever matched Vidor’s sense of personal struggle, or the muscular poetry he found to express it” (Tony Rayns, Time Out Film Guide). From Warner Brothers!Read More »
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“Landsbykirken” or “The Village Church” takes us back to the Danish old churches built in the Middle Age and their transformations through the years and through the dominant groups of a certain period, like the Christians and the Protestants, and the new things they were modifying in those constructions.Read More »
Filmed in 1948 as Senza Pieta, this Alberto Lattuada-directed effort came to America the following year as Without Pity. The film’s sensitive subject matter caused problems in distribution and approval; Lattuada was never known to shirk from a sociopolitical statement, even when it meant loss of revenue overseas. The plot is based on an actual postwar dilemma: in Northern Italy, dozens of black American GIs chose to go AWOL rather than return to a racially divided United States. John Kitzmiller plays an occupation soldier named Jerry, who decides to remain in Italy when he falls in love with a blonde, Caucasian local girl named Angela (Carla Del Poggio). Read More »
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In a 17th-century Danish village, an old woman is accused of witchcraft. In the shadow of her flight, capture, confession, and burning at the stake, the young wife of the town’s aging pastor falls in love with the pastor’s son. Her confession of this illicit affair to her husband brings on her husband’s death. At the funeral the pastor’s mother denounces the young widow as a witch. Will the widow’s lover come to her defense, or has the day of wrath returned?Read More »
Totò Al Giro D’Italia is about the 1948 edition of the Giro d’Italia, in which Professor Totò sells his soul to the devil in order to win the love of the bella Doriana. She agrees to marry him only if he can win the national bicycle race, calculating that this is an impossibility, but one stage after another he defeats all great cycling champions of that time (Coppi, Bartali, Schotte, Kubler, Bobet, Magni, et al).Read More »
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Mike Lambert, unemployed mining engineer, arrives in a small town with a bang when the brakes fail on the truck he’s driving. After meeting seductive Paula at the La Paloma Cafe, he finds himself in trouble with the law. On the basis of a few burning glances, Paula pays his fine and finds him a room, but her motives are not what they seem. Mike lucks into a job with miner Jeff Cunningham, but against his will he’s drawn ever deeper into Paula’s schemes.Read More »
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Fortune seeker Barry Storm stumbles onto some clues that may lead him to the fabulous Lost Dutchman Mine, but others have tried and been murdered.Read More »
Dr. Hunt Bailey (George Brent) is fascinated by a portrait of breathtaking Allida Bedereaux (Hedy Lamarr) – and with the woman herself. Fragile and frightened, Allida confides to him that she and her young son are in great peril. Her husband (Paul Lukas) insists she is insane. And around them, people mysteriously die. Director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Out of the Past) brings his celebrated mastery of shadowy menace to this absorbing tale of madness and murder in an outwardly genteel world of wealth. Follow Dr. Bailey as he searches for the truth. And, like him, don’t believe everything you are told.Read More »