1940s

Quote:
Stray Dog is an intense criminal story that examines the psychology of the characters as in compares the similarities between criminals and detectives. These similarities are balanced on a thin line based on choice, which Kurosawa dissects studiously through the camera lens. Kurosawa’s investigation of the character’s psychology creates a spiraling suspense that is enhanced through subtle surprises and brilliant cinematography. The camera use often displays shots through thin cloths, close ups, and new camera angles, which also makes the film aesthetically appealing. When Kurosawa brings together camera work and cast performance, among other cinematic aspects, he leaves the audience with a brilliantly suspenseful criminal drama, which leaves much room for introspection and retrospection.Read More »

“Wild and Woolfy”
M-G-M 8 Mins. Very Funny
In this Technicolor cartoon the wolf, a desperate bandit who rides a contortionist horse, holds up the Good Rumor man for two popsicles, tries to kidnap a beautiful entertainer in a Western saloon, has the sheriff’s posse running ragged in a merry chase, but is always thwarted in his plans by a midget character who rides a midget horse.Read More »

Synopsis:
‘Sabotage of a Nazi factory is carried out by the husband of the lover of a resistance leader.’
– BFIRead More »

The world’s first trial against German war criminals took place in Kharkov in December 1943.
Trial opened 15th December – 18th December defendants were executed.

The film covers the trial of three Germans and one Russian:
Corporal of German Secret Field Police Reinhard Retzlaw.
Captain of the German Military Counter-Espionage Service Wilhelm Langheld.
SS Obersturmbannführer, Company Commander of the SD Sonderkommando Hans Ritz.
Collaborator, assitant to SD Sonderkommando, driver of the “gas van” Mikhail Bulanov.Read More »

Probably the most notorious of the handful of pro-Soviet films produced by various Hollywood studios in 1943–44, going out of its way to defend the Soviet Union in every imaginable way: justifying the show trials of 1937, claiming that Finland acted as an aggressor in the Winter War of 1939, etc. Worth seeing for its historical importance, but not without some entertainment value, too, mainly thanks to Michael Curtiz’s direction and Walter Huston’s manic performance as the former Soviet ambassador Joseph E. Davies.Read More »

Quote:
When the opening titles credit a film as adapted from a short story in the Woman s Home Journal, you know you re onto a good thing. The Reckless Moment doesn t disappoint. Max Ophuls last American film is a women s picture in the grand tradition of Mildred Pierce (1945) – dark edged and melodramatic, and dripping with moral ambiguities.Read More »

A good natured soldier with a killer right hand, falls in love with a beautiful girl who has a troubled past.Read More »

A documentary record shot on the 24th and 25th July 1944 of the concentration camp in Majdanek. Comparable to Resnais’ Nuit et bruillard, it’s filled with images of such staggering awfulness that they take on an almost abstract quality – one might regard the images of mountains of shoes, spectacles and hairbrushes as beautiful if one was unaware of the horrifying reality behind them.Read More »

Plot: Ole and Chick are making a movie, but the director is not satisfied. So he brings them to a young writer, who outlines them an absurd story. They have to support Jeff and Kitty in setting up a musical revue in their garden and want to bring it up on Broadway. If Jeff is successful he can marry Kitty. But there is his rich friend Woody, who also loves Kitty, Chick’s sister Betty, who’s in love with a false Russian count, and detective Quimby. They all make the thing very complicated for Ole and Chick. After some mistakes they think that Kitty isn’t the right girl for Jeff and they start sabotaging the show, but the Broadway producer is impressed and signs the contract. That’s the story the writer tells them. For this he’s sued by the director.Read More »