1950s

Synopsis:
With interests ranging from banking to commodities and publishing, the Schoudlers are one of France’s wealthiest and most powerful business families. The present head of this formidable dynasty is Noël Schoudler, a driven, plain-speaking magnate who runs his affairs with an unwavering ruthlessness, and this applies as much to his private life as it does to matters of business. Short of breaking the law, Schoudler is ready to resort to any means to protect his family’s wealth and good name, and anyone who dares to oppose him can expect nothing but the roughest of treatment. Noël Schoudler is a patriarch and a tyrant, a capitalist in every atom of his being. and he seems not to have an ounce of compassion in his soul. The pursuit of wealth and power is all that matters to him.Read More »

Quote:
Ten years after World War II, five people set out dig up a stash of morphine buried under a butcher shop in this black comedy by Shohei Imamura.Read More »

Quote:
As the clouds of war spread over Russia during Germany’s surprise invasion in 1941, the fervent young lovers, the sensitive Veronika and the stalwart Boris, are parted when the patriotic lad secretly volunteers for the war effort. During the following hard years, Veronika who serves her country as a wartime-nurse will lose communication with Boris, moreover, when a devastating air raid destroys her house and Boris’ father takes her in to live with the family, unexpectedly, things will take a turn for the worse. Before long, the worried fiancée will find herself dealing not only with the dark thoughts of Boris’ potential loss but also with the burden of an unwelcome decision. Once, the star-crossed lovers swore eternal devotion under a flock of flying cranes, still, a war is always cruel and eternally disastrous.Read More »

Quote:
Nagisa Oshima’s first feature film, A STREET OF LOVE AND HOPE paints a biting portrait of poverty and class difference through the life of a young boy who sells pigeons on the street. The radical and unflinching politics that would become Oshima’s hallmark are here on display in his earliest work.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
The title “Twenty-four Eyes” refers to the 12 pairs of eyes belonging to the young students of a small branch school on Shodo Island in the Japanese Inland Sea. The story unfolds in the spring of 1928, when Hisako Oishi (Hideko Takamine) takes over as the new teacher at the local grammar school. At first, the small village does not accept the young schoolteacher who wears Western clothes and rides a bicycle to school. It doesn’t take long, however, before the pupils, their parents, and the entire village fall under the spell of this special teacher. However, trauma does not lie far. The peaceful lives of Shodo Shima contrast the war occurring just over its horizon.Read More »

Mariko Okada (in her film debut) plays a young ballerina prodigy whose parents seem to be trapped in a loveless marriage. The mother has been seeing a family friend for 20 years, but it’s obvious that they feel more than just friendship for each other, causing suspicion and unease with her son. The father throws himself into work, until one day, it all boils over… naruse-style.Read More »

In post-WWII America,Radar has been developed to such an extent that law enforcement agencies, seated in their headquarters, can twist a few dials and bring in, on a small television screen, a crisp picture of a roving stock-footage truck carrying uranium material, highly coveted by foreign powers in order to make atomic bombs and blow up the U.S.A. This advanced version of Radar can follow the car occupied by the crooks out to hijack the truck, and also the police car pursuing them after they hijack the truck. But, alas, this can only be done when the atomic material is in motion, and has little value when the crooks park the truck. So the lawmen have to send in a female mole posing as a moll.
(from IMDB)Read More »

Plot: Hans Muller is a Jewish refugee from Germany. Relocating to Israel after World War II, he can not overcome the psychological effects of the war. After attacking a policeman, Hans becomes a fugitive, traveling through Israel with a teenage boy.Read More »

Skyhook is a typical example of a trade test film, in that it documents industrial activity, in this case the use of helicopters to transport equipment to build an oil rig in Papua New Guinea. The idea that environmental damage is a small price to pay for economic growth was a common assumption expressed in several films of this period. BP would attempt to redress the balance in 1970 with the groundbreaking documentary film The Shadow of Progress.Read More »