1950s

Wheeler, a tourist-hunter in the California High Sierras, is not believed by the patrons of Webb’s Cafe when he claims to have run across a live tiger with tusks. Among the scoffers is game-warden Oakes – until he is driving home later that night and the critter hops on the hood of his car. Oakes convinces a skeptical Dr. Harkness, state university zoologist, to come to the small town to investigate. At Webbs’, Harkness meets Ruth, fiancée of Prof. Groves who maintains his home and lab outside the town, and thru her meets Groves’ daughter, Jan. Groves himself is down in the city, angrily trying to convince the Naturalists’ Society of the truth of his theory that the size of skull and brain equate with intelligence, and therefore Neanderthal man was equal, if not superior, to Homo sapiens. He is rejected, and by the time he returns home, seems completely unhinged, rejecting his fiancée and secluding himself in his lab. There, he has developed a serum with which he is experimenting. After Harkness and Oakes kill the tiger – indeed, a sabre-toothed tiger, which vanishes when they go to Groves’ for help retrieving the body – they begin hearing of a grotesque humanoid in torn clothing, which has killed a couple of local men and assaulted Nola, Webbs’ waitress; and join the Sheriff in attempting to solve this new mystery, which is clearly connected to Groves’ experiments.Read More »

Based loosely on fact, La Presidentress stars Silvana Pampanini as a sexy nightclub singer with loftier aspirations. Posing as the wife of a judge, the singer manages to bed a high-ranking government official (Carlo Dapporto). As a result, the nonplused judge (Luigi Pavese) is given all sorts of promotions and special perks. When he finds out about the girl’s subterfuge, his first reaction is stark, raw terror: Wait till his real wife (Ave Ninchi) discovers what’s going on! When the judge’s former mistress (Marilyn Buferd) joins the fray, the fur really begins to fly.Read More »

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Daigo Fukuryū Maru (第五福龍丸?, Lucky Dragon 5) was a Japanese tuna fishing boat, which was exposed to and contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States’ Castle Bravo thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll, on March 1, 1954. Kuboyama Aikichi, the boat’s chief radioman, died half a year later, on September 23, 1954, suffering from acute radiation syndrome. He is considered the first victim of the hydrogen bomb of Operation Castle Bravo.Read More »

Synopsis
Peck is a New York sportswriter who’s on the West Coast on assignment, doing a story about a horse race. He wakes up from a drinking binge during which he had met New York fashion designer Bacall, though he doesn’t recall it. While he struggles to recover from his hangover, she relates the events of the previous evening which included filling his latest story. He notices how beautiful she is, and they begin a brief torrid affair which leads to a hasty marriage. Of course, each is a “fish out of water” in the other’s world, which they begin to discover when they return to New York.Read More »

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Archiméde is an old tramp who likes to think he is a cut above the rest. Not for him the penury of sleeping under bridges and scrounging for scraps in dustbins. He has a taste for the finer things in life – good food, fine wine and a comfortable place to make his bed. His present abode – a room in a block of flats that is being developed – has served him well all through the summer, but as winter beckons it will be too cold for him. He can either get himself arrested, in the hope of eaming himself a nice warm prison cell, or else he can sleep rough in the south of France. After much deliberation, he decides prison is the better option, if only because the food is more to his liking. To that end, Archimede smashes up a bar and gets duly taken into custody. He is appalled when he only manages to get himself put away for one week. It seems he will have to resort to more drastic measures if he is to find a comfortable haven for the entire winter…Read More »

Synopsis:
Manny Ballestero is an honest hardworking musician at New York’s Stork Club. When his wife needs money for dental treatment, Manny goes to the local insurance office to borrow on her policy. Employees at the office mistake him for a hold-up man who robbed them the year before and the police are called. The film tells the true story of what happened to Manny and his family.Read More »

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Claire (Virginie Vitry) is a chic young Parisian woman married to a somewhat older husband, Jean (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). As this 28-minute trifle opens, she leaves her husband playing baroque music at the piano, telling him she is off to see her sister, Solange. In reality she meets her lover, Claude (Jean-Claude Brialy) at his apartment; after some idle chatter and love-making he tells her a story of the shriveled heads that the Jivaro indians used to give their lovers as tokens of affection but as she shivers in disgust, he gives her a mink instead. How will they hide it from her husband though?Read More »

Red (Tab Hunter) meets and falls in love with Kay (Sophia Loren) even though he understands she’s a “kept woman”. It was intended to be Loren’s breakthrough American movie, but failed at the box office. “That Kind of Woman” stands up well thanks to a script by the then blacklisted Walter Bernstein, a strong supporting cast and good performances by Hunter and Loren in the prime of their youth.Read More »

Plot: Johnny runs away from Father O’Hara’s orphanage and becomes a roller skating star with the help of Mary Reeves. He becomes involved with women, including Polly, who only love him because he is a champion, not, as with Mary, out of love for him. Then he gets polio. Written by Ed StephanRead More »