1950s

Synopsis:
It’s the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life at the Beauregard is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock is not what he appears to be. The news is particularly shocking for her frail daughter, Sibyl, who is secretly in love with the Major.Read More »

Synopsis:
In New York, a bank robbery of $300,000 goes unsolved for a year, until some of the marked bills are found in a Los Angeles drugstore theft. Police detectives Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran) and Jack Farnham (Howard Duff) investigate and are led from the drugstore to a nightclub, where singer Lili (Ida Lupino) is another recipient of a stolen bill. With Lili’s help, the partners track down the remaining money, but both Lili and Frank are dismayed when Cal decides he wants to keep part of it.Read More »

After aging criminal Roy Earle is released from prison he decides to pull one last heist before retiring – by robbing a resort hotel.Read More »

Quote:
A deranged writer murders a maid after she resists his advances. The writer engages his brother’s help in hiding the body, causing unexpected problems for both of them.Read More »

Quote:
A trapper and his two partners work as scouts for a remote army fort where they witness an incompetent colonel’s decision to throw his small unprepared garrison against Red Cloud’s sizable Sioux force.Read More »

A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Blood fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience.Read More »

Quote:
Inert petit-burgeoisie place in pre-war Yugoslavia. Two politicians are fighting for voters, while their children fall in love…Read More »

The setting is Paris under the reign of Louis XIV, the Roi Soleil. Cardillac, a goldsmith, is rightly regarded as a master of his craft. His pieces of jewellery are first-class works of art and so he has great difficulty parting from them, especially because he knows that one precious piece is only the price the beaux and gallants at the royal court have to pay for one amorous night with an aristocratic Lady. Whenever the goldsmith fails to talk a customer out of buying a piece, he waylays him in the dark of night… Cardillac is a merciless killer. The hopes of the lovers dashing off to their rendezvous are thoroughly disappointed: Instead of finding their way into their sweetheart’s arms, they end up stabbed to death by a goldsmith pathologically hankering after his own jewellery. Read More »

An American gangster sent back to his home country falls in love with a widowed countess.

Letterboxd review
★★★½ Watched by Reza Said 04 Sep 2021

Deported (Robert Siodmak, 1950) 7/10

Atmospheric B-movie is very loosely based on events in the life of Lucky Luciano. An Italian-American gangster (Jeff Chandler) is deported to Italy after spending five years in jail for a robbery in New York. The tough, cynical man finds that the local people in his village look up to him, the street urchins love him and the local Countess (Märta Torén), a widow, is enamoured of him and likes his company. A local cop (Claude Dauphin) is suspicious and lies await for the crook to get the stolen loot across from America. Siodmak, back in Europe after many years in Hollywood, creates an interesting little film which also turns out to be an Italian travelogue with scenes shot by the great William Daniels in Naples, Siena and Tuscany. There is great chemistry between Chandler and Märta Torén while lovely Marina Berti adds to the local colour.Read More »