1960s

Director Pierre Schoendoerffer grippingly brings the close of the French war in Indochina to the screen in his portrayal of two officers and a group of Laotian soldiers serving under them in 1954. The inexperienced Lt Torrens, in overall command, has just arrived in Vietnam, and is reliant on his adjutant Willsdorf, an Alsatian who fought with the German Army during World War II. When the platoon is ordered to abandon a highland outpost and rejoin larger French forces, they soon find themselves behind enemy lines, outgunned, and in the path of a crushing Viet Minh offensive…Read More »

Three short stories of life in Tel Aviv; A girl meets a boy in a library and has to decide what to do next; A young husband comes home to meet his wife’s boyfriend; A young clerk opens a letter and finds the photograph of an unknown young girl who he then tries to locate.Read More »

“Lancelot and Guinevere” (known as “Sword of Lancelot” in the U.S.) is a British 1963 film starring Cornel Wilde and his real-life wife at the time, Jean Wallace. This lesser-known version of the Camelot legend, is a work almost solely made by Cornel Wilde, who co-produced, directed, co-wrote, and played Lancelot.

Lancelot is King Arthur’s most valued Knight of the Round Table and a paragon of courage and virtue. Things change, however, when he falls for Guinevere (Wallace), bride of Arthur (Brian Aherne, who had essayed this character more than once, e.g. in 1954’s “Prince Valiant”), and she for him.Read More »

This historical film by Hynek Bočan touches upon the indecisiveness of the Czech nation, ready to bend the backbone in face of foreign rule. Situating the story at the close of the Thirty Year War enabled the depiction of the misery of the people that affects even an impoverished aristocratic milieu. Rudolf Hrušínský appears here in the role of an indecisive knight, persuaded for a long time and in vain to join the anti-Habsburg movement. The story does not only captivate through the depiction of manifold human characters, intrigues and sycophancy, but also through the circumstances ruling over the devastated farmstead, sunk in mud and crudeness. One of the best films with an updating tendency has come into being here, rightly being named along the such greats as Kladivo na čarodějnice (Witches’ Hammer).Read More »

Synopsis:
In this thrilling mystery of mistaken identity, Jacques (Pierre Vaneck) is a piano player in a nightclub who is approached by a man he never met before. The stranger offers him a job posing as the husband of a mentally challenged woman. He will be rewarded for taking care of the woman. Since his contract has expired at the club, he readily accepts the proposition. The stranger turns out to be the valet of the woman, who other than playing with decapitated dolls, seems quite normal. Jacques and the woman end up falling in love. He looks just like her husband who disappeared during an African safari. It turns out the missing man is a former Nazi hiding out from the international police. Soon agents converge on the house along with the man who had supposedly vanished, leading to an inevitable showdown.Read More »

Synopsis:
British doctor Richard Johnson arrives in the city of Bath, where a smallpox epidemic has broken out. If he has any hope of stemming the disease, he must locate and isolate its source. As if he hasn’t got enough trouble on his hands, Johnson must contend with his failing marriage to Claire Bloom. Director Val Guest lifts 80,000 Suspects out of the ordinary with his inventive utilization of darkness and shadows.
— Hal Erickson.Read More »

By Roger Ebert / March 20, 1972
The young man looks at the empty lives of the people living on his block, and writes an angry book about the way they’ve been treated. A publisher invites him to Stockholm to discuss the manuscript, but finally patronizes him: “There is a cry of rage here, but it is still inarticulate.” Sobbing with frustration, the young man tells a sympathetic neighbor girl: “Sometimes a cry is so loud it cannot be heard.” They make love that night, the girl becomes pregnant, and before long the young man believes that he has been trapped just as his parents were.Read More »

from the imdb comments:

The second in a series of historical films begun by Roberto Rossellini in the late 1960’s was this sublime movie for Italian television which traces the spread of Christianity in the thirty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, according to the accounts of Luke. Most of the first part deals with the successes and failures of Peter in spreading the good news of Jesus and presents an almost documentary view of the first Christian community, the trials before the Sanhedrin, the martyrdom of Philip and Stephen. Most of the second half of this five-hour+ film follows Paul from his conversion en route to Damascus, his work with Barnabas in Antioch of Syria, his debates on the old law versus the new, his arrest. The film ends with his imprisonment in Rome. Read More »

A young lady explores a dungeon of a castle.

Some information from Lasse Braun: The Official Website:

In February 1977, while LB was shooting some movies in London, his archive cellar was flooded, but since no one knew about that secret locations and the use of it, LB discovered the disaster when it was too late. […] Water and mud had flooded into the archive areas from an adjacent cellar belonging to other people through a breach in the dividing brick wall. Unknown thieves had obviously entered the LB cellar and stole all the paintings and valuables, which were placed above the crates with the film material. Read More »