1950s

Led by British officers, partisans on Crete plan to kidnap the island’s German commander and smuggle him to Cairo to embarrass the occupiers.Read More »

In a rural district of Tokyo, the owner of a farm is abandoned by his two daughters who are attracted to the life of the big city.Read More »

Quote:
A magnificent spectacle. A truly filmic version of a classic opera. Often mentioned as a favourite movie and constant inspiration for young Martin Scorsese.

With the audacity that Powell & Pressburger were famous for we are presented with a wonderful performance of a truly “composed” film. All the soundtrack was recorded by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and then the filming was all done on the open stage (it didn’t need a sound stage) at Shepperton.Read More »

PLOT: Vicious gangster Vincent Canelli pulls off a daring prison escape just moments before going to the electric chair, taking with him Peter Manning – a bank robber and cop killer who was to die right after him. Taking several hostages along, they try to get their hands on the loot from Manning’s robbery to finance their escape from the country.Read More »

quote from Amazon user: A complement I say, as this not being complete (well, I’d better say severely truncated) it cannot be your sole Boris in a collection; necessary I add, because it preserved a sizable portion of the title part, as portrayed by one of its foremost exponents ever, the great russian bass Alexander Pirogov. This incompleteness is only implied but not clearly stated in the disc’s box, which should advise would-be purchasers. So what you get is some kind of “extended highlights” of this, arguably the greatest of russian operas and certainly the most popular. It is a film by Vera Stroieva, made in 1954 as part of a project dear to soviet authorities of putting into film both the lives of Russia’s greatest artists and adaptations of their works, to “educate the masses” and of course not being entirely without some ideological hints (or rather more than mere hints).Read More »

On the Russian front in 1944 German Private Ernst Graeber receives a leave and visits his family in Germany but Germany isn’t the same country he left behind.Read More »

The movie, which was made at Norsk Film’s studios at Jar outside Oslo, premiered in December 1955. The collaboration with Torbjørn Egner, the author of the book on which it was based, was very productive and the film went on to be a great success, internationally too.

During the screening at the Cannes Film Festival, the puppets on display caused quite a media sensation when they were stolen. However, next day they were returned, and the famous American comedian, Danny Kaye, added to their fame by using them in one of his shows in Cannes.Read More »

In many of his most successful films, Naruse depicted common people, living their lives. With Repast the director set his characters to the task of navigating their way amidst a pungent atmosphere of fading love. Set shortly after World War II, Repast is about a struggling marriage between salaryman Hatsunosuke (Ken Uehara) and his wife Michiyo (Setsuko Hara). It focuses on the emotional crisis of the bored housewife. The tedium of her domestic life – consumed by repetitive tasks such as cooking and cleaning – is brought into focus by a visit from Hatsunosuke’s niece, Satoko (Yukiko Shimazaki). Satoko’s arrival, and the amount of attention Hatsunosuke devotes to her charms, leads to further unhappiness for Michiyo, who is forced to confront her future. In the hands of master director Naruse, this adaptation of an unfinished novel by Fumiko Hayashi offers a fascinating exploration of married life, from the habitual routine of everyday existence to the hope for a better tomorrow that may or may not keep such relationships alive. Eureka VideoRead More »

Yôkihi is a panoramic period romance about the legendarily beautiful and graceful common-born woman loved by the last T’ang Emperor Xuan Zong. The pure love shared by the royal couple is offset by the political turmoil and corruption of the 8th century, as a dynasty breathes its last dying gasps.Read More »