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Approximately ten minutes of 35mm footage survives at the Svenska Filmminstitutet from a documentary (probably not completed or even edited) shot in the convent of the Swedish sisters of Saint Brigid, Rome, at the request of the Swedish Red Cross, for victims of the Polesine flood of November 1951.Read More »
On a post-war peaceful day in Japan, Toyomatsu Shimizu, a barber as well as a good father and husband, is suddenly arrested by the Prefectural Police as a war criminal and sued for murder. According to the accusation by GHQ, Toyomatsu “attemped to kill a US prisoner”, which was nothing but an order by his superior and failed after all with hurting the prisoner by weak Toyomatsu. Also, Toyomatsu was driven to corner at the trial by the fact that he fed the US prisoner some burdock roots to nourish him. Toyomatsu believes nothing but being not guilty, but he is sentenced to death by hanging. Prior to the execution, Toyomatsu writes a long farewell letter to his family, the wife and the only son: “If I ever incarnate, I hate to be a human being any more…. Oh yes, I would like to be…a shellfish living on the rock-bottom of the sea.”Read More »
Yusaku, whose nickname is “Tonkatsu Taisho” (General Pork Cutlet), is a popular young children’s doctor. Mayumi, a female doctor of another hospital, plans to expand her clinic with the advice of a lawyer named Oguro by destroying small houses. Oguro, however, plans to take advantage of Mayumi’s plan and build a cabaret instead.Read More »
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French director Jean Delannoy has made 40 feature films in his long as well as illustrious career. He is best known for his film “La Symphonie Pastorale” based on the book by famous French writer André Gide. However,”The little rebels” is one of his important films which deserves a wider audience.
This film is about some juvenile delinquents whose boring lives change for good when they come into contact with a kind yet practical judge. Superstar of French cinema, Jean Gabin plays the judge’s role with firm conviction.Read More »
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Scripted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, It’s Always Fair Weather (1955) revisits On the Town (1949), but with a satirical, revisionist bite. In this send-up of musical and post-war optimism, the dreams of Army buddies Kelly, Dan Dailey, and Michael Kidd all fall apart, and their ten-year reunion is a “frost”; Dailey’s bitter song “Situation-wise” takes aim at the stultifying effect of the quintessentially 1950s life of an advertising executive. Even though the trio finally bonds over a disastrous TV appearance, Fair Weather takes further aim at television’s plastic insincerity and technical poverty. Read More »
A washed up reporter teams up with an immigrant from Hungary to start a fake journalism by correspondence school.Read More »
Poland, during the World War. Lotna is a magnificent specimen of Arabian horse, the
pride of her owner, too old to actually ride her but to whom she remains faithful
nevertheless. The Polish cavalry army is also proud of their land, and loyal to rules, and
custom. The German army is leading an overwhelming speed attack with tanks, an
almost unheard of weapon, and bringing a way of life to an end. It’s the last battle
between Lotna (speed horse) and Blitzkriega (speed war).Read More »
A circus clown turns out to be a quite a ladies’ man in this charming short story from the master of stag films, Cecil B. De Mézig. This is most likely the first stag film made in color, or more precisely in pornocolor as it is introduced at its very start. This was long before color became the norm in stag films in the late 60s.
This film is not yet listed at IMDB. Neither the actor nor the actresses are credited.Read More »
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Impressions of the rue Mouffetard, Paris 5, through the eyes of a pregnant woman.
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A pregnant filmmaker takes us to rue Mouffetard, “la Mouffe,” in the Latin Quarter of Paris for a mix of documentary footage and imagined scenes. Vignettes or chapters unfold – on the feeling of nature, on pregnancy, on anxiety, on desire, and so forth. Women shop at a vegetable market, their faces marked by care and poverty. We see young lovers, playful and innocent. Derelicts drink and sleep on sidewalks. A weary pregnant woman carries her shopping bags; later, she eats flowers. There are counterpoints of gritty realism and playful, near-surrealistic images. Political and artistic consciousnesses create a montage.Read More »