Synopsis:
Brutus is convinced by a scheming band of Roman senators, led by Caius Cassius, that his dear friend Julius Caesar intends to dissolve the republic and install himself as monarch, and he joins a conspiracy to assassinate him. Brutus stirringly defends his actions, but when Mark Antony responds with a speech that plays upon the crowd’s love for their fallen leader, a battle between the two factions is assured.Read More »
Plot Synopsis:
A late ’50s upgrade of the 1931 film by the same title, this version of trouble on death row by Howard Koch is more violent than its predecessor — a hint of the trend toward shock for its own sake that would one day dominate action films and thrillers. The setting is a cell block of nine inmates scheduled for execution and the first half of the drama focuses on the horror of that last walk. A grim death in the electric chair is in no way glossed over. All nine prisoners are more appealing than any single guard, giving rise to the question of whether or not the men should exchange places. Then “Killer” John Mears (Mickey Rooney) comes along. His vicious attitude infects the environment and his plans to break out of prison are the catalyst for tragedy. by Eleanor MannikkaRead More »
Gambler John Merrick (Frank Lovejoy) is the head of a bookie syndicate and the newspaper is crusading against him and the rackets, primarily because Merrick is in love with Felice Stuart (Joan Weldon), daughter of the newspaper publisher who can not break up the romance through persuasion. A senate committee investigating crime gets involved, the racketeers, other than Merrick who is a “nice guy”, strike back and kill a reporter, and Merrick’s own son, Jerry Merrick (Robert Arthur), commits suicide. Merrick, to his own disadvantage, helps bring down the syndicate. Since it is in black-and-white-, deals with crime and was an American-made film, some will call it “film noir” since that seems to be the current guidelines for putting a film in that, at one time limited-and-defined genre. It ain’t, and neither are most of the others currently so classified.Read More »
Synopsis
The recurring theme of dance once again works its way into a Shirley Clarke project, as this short film features a performance that takes place across a multitude of environments. As a primary couple intimately interacts, Clarke tests herself as a filmmaker by enhancing the performance with camera movements and visual additions. Altering the setting and the atmosphere with the use of back-projection, this intriguing piece illustrates Clarke’s willingness to experiment on many levels.Read More »
Burning Bright is a 1950 novella by John Steinbeck written as an experiment with producing a play in novel format. Rather than providing only the dialogue and brief stage directions as would be expected in a play, Steinbeck fleshes out the scenes with details of both the characters and the environment. The intention was to allow the play to be read by the non-theatrical reader while still allowing the dialogue to be lifted and performed with little adaptation by acting companies. While Steinbeck could see that providing little information in the way of physical description or stage direction allowed the director and actors greater freedom and scope for imaginative interpretation, he weighed this against the benefit of making the players aware of the author’s intent and making the play accessible to the general reader.Read More »
A woman who works as employee in a fashion store has to care for her ill mother. At the same time she falls in love with a bohemian man.Read More »
Quote:
Could an amnesiac refugee named Anna Anderson (Ingrid Bergman) truly be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, purported sole survivor of the execution of Czar Nicholas II and his family during the Bolshevik Revolution of 1918, and therefore the rightful heir to the Czar’s fortune? Backed by a group of White Russian exiles led by General Bounine (Yul Brynner), she faces her possible grandmother, the imperious Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (Helen Hayes), and the fortune-hunting Prince Paul (Ivan Desny).Read More »
Quote:
The heroic struggle of Polish post office workers in Gdansk on the first day of World War II.
Wikipedia wrote:
It was the first Polish film about September 1939. The director presented the drama of a group of civilians – employees of the Polish Post Office in the Free City of Gdańsk – caught up in the gears of great history. Fragments of archival film footage of the attack on the post office add authenticity to the film.Read More »
Plot: David Langham, the youngest son of a hot-rod hating father, Judge Langham, buys an old jalopy but, out of respect for his father, doesn’t convert it. He changes his mind when Jack Blodgett, the local speed demon, impresses David’s girl, Janie Pitts, and David makes his car the fastest in town. Jack steals David’s hot rod, and flees the scene of an accident he causes. The car is traced back to David, but the truth comes out in court, although David’s father is still unhappy about the car… until David and his friend, Swifty Johnson, use it to apprehend some escaping robbers. The Judge decides to back a movement for building a hot-rod race track for the town. Written by Les AdamsRead More »