Hal Erickson writes:
Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its “guts”, this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer’s bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter words). Aldo Ray heads the cast as sadistic sergeant Croft, who’d as soon kill one of his own men as he would the Japanese. Sensitive, moralistic Lieutenant Hearn (Cliff Robertson) tries to put a leash on Croft, but he’s ordered to keep out of the situation by psychotic General Cummings (Raymond Massey), who is convinced that soldiers will fight harder the more they hate their superiors. The film wavers uncomfortably between excessive violence and excessive moralizing, with time out for a few ill-conceived slapstick setpieces (including an outsized barroom brawl) and romantic interludes with such zaftig beauties as stripteaser Lili (Lili St. Cyr) and good-time girl Mildred (Barbara Nichols). In one of his first film appearances, comedian Joey Bishop plays Pvt. Roth, whose reaction to Sgt. Croft’s relentless anti-semitism culminates in a spectacular death scene. Distribution of The Naked and the Dead was taken over from the failing RKO Radio operation by Warner Bros., who also changed the name of the film’s widescreen process from SuperScope to WarnerScope.

The.Naked.and.the.Dead.1958.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	2 h 10 min
Size: 	1.95 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	716x354 ~> 849x354
Aspect ratio:  	2.40:1
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	1 940 kb/s
BPP: 	0.319
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch AC-3 @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/B6D1E9F6A32D5B8/The.Naked.and.the.Dead.1958.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Raoul Walsh – The Naked and the Dead (1958) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot:
Among the most masterful matchups of actor and role in screen history is this stirring film of Robert E. Sherwood’s beloved play taking a thoroughly human look at the early years of our 16th President, with all his frailties and strength of character. Best Actor Oscar nominee* Raymond Massey (who originated the role on stage) wonderfully plays the future Great Emancipator in a chronicle of his backwoods childhood through his first romance with Ann Rutledge (Mary Howard) to his phenomenal rise to President Elect, besting the great orator Stephen Douglas (Gene Lockhart). Ruth Gordon also does memorable work as driven, ambitious Mary Todd Lincoln, whose vision of Abe’s leadership destiny will not be denied by anyone – including her often reticent husband. There’s also no denying the enduring emotional power of this simple, magnificent movie. From Warner Brothers!

1.90GB | 1h 49mn | 706×529 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/40394598C56FB33/Abe.Lincoln.in.Illinois.1940.DVDRip.x264.mkv

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Subtitles:None

The post John Cromwell – Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
Former World War II flying ace Matt Brennan (Humphrey Bogart) takes a position as a test pilot for a commercial aircraft corporation and bumps into his old girlfriend, Jo Holloway (Eleanor Parker), who now works as a receptionist for the company. As daredevil Matt tries to rekindle his once passionate romance with Jo, he courageously takes the most dangerous assignment of his career when he consents to use an unorthodox, unproven ejector seat while flying at death-defying speeds.

2.64GB | 1h 34mn | 790×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/1C48D433596DDCE/Chain.Lightning.1950.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mkv
or
https://tezfiles.com/file/1e6224582e5f7/Chain.Lightning.1950.576p.BluRay.AAC.x264.mkv

Language(s):English
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The post Stuart Heisler – Chain Lightning (1950) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window (1944) is a riveting melodrama that’s only improved with age. Edward G. Robinson delivers a memorable performance as an everyday Joe who suddenly finds himself entangled in a murder, but Lang’s sense of adventure is the real draw. One shot in particular – a single-take transitional moment near the end of the film – simply has to be seen to be believed. Look for Robinson leaning forward in a leather chair during what appears to be the picture’s tragic climax, then watch what happens next….and good luck determining how Lang did it.

SYNOPSIS: Edward G. Robinson is Richard Wanley, a middle-aged college professor who goes out for a few drinks when his wife and child are away on vacation. Afterwards, Wanley is admiring a painting in a store window when he notices that the beautiful model who posed for the portrait (Joan Bennett) is standing next to him. Wanley accepts an apparently innocent invitation to the woman’s apartment, but unexpectedly winds up killing her abusive boyfriend. Horrified by his actions, Wanley then makes the mistake of disposing of the body, and is drawn into an increasingly nightmarish world of lies, deceit, and, possibly, another murder.

Robinson, who would work again with Lang on Scarlet Street the next year, was more concerned with politics on the set than the actual filming of The Woman in the Window if we are to believe this entry in his autobiography, All My Yesterdays: “For R.K.O. I made a picture called Woman in the Window with Joan Bennett and Raymond Massey, directed by Fritz Lang, one of the greats in his declining period. Among the cast – guess their names – there was violent and accusatory anti-Communist talk. At first I defended my Russian War Relief friends, the believers in Uncle Joe, the defenders of Stalingrad, the strength and will of the Russian people. Then, having failed to convince anybody of anything, except that I was a Communist manque, I retreated to my dressing room and kept my mouth shut. I do not like keeping my mouth shut.”

Fritz Lang, however, was much more talkative about the pre- and post-production on The Woman in the Window in his interview with Charles Higham and Joel Greenberg for The Celluloid Muse: Hollywood Directors Speak: “The script for my next film, The Woman in the Window, was written by Nunnally Johnson and based on a story by J.H. Wallis called Once off Guard. They changed the title because they thought the word “guard” sounded too much like “God”….I liked the script for The Woman in the Window very much. There was only one thing wrong with it: all the male parts in it were written for old men, not only Edward G. Robinson’s and the man who kept Joan Bennett, but also the part ultimately played by Dan Duryea. I’d liked Duryea’s handling of the scene with the scissors in The Ministry of Fear so much that I was able to persuade the studio to let me bring him in; that was the only way I could introduce someone relatively youthful into the male cast. Various things appealed to me in the story, but I took the liberty of changing the ending with such a corny old trick that it seemed almost new…Thus I was able to end the film with a laugh.”

Lang, like so many other talented filmmakers who migrated to America from Europe in the 1930s, often chafed under the dictates of the Hollywood system. Bennett had seen the frustrations Lang experienced while working with the domineering producer, Darryl F. Zanuck, and thought it was an outright shame. “(Zanuck) treated him like just anything,” she later said, “and he was much more than that.” So Bennett, her semi-independent producer husband, Walter Wanger, and Lang joined forces to create the Diana company, which gave Lang the artistic freedom he so richly deserved, and eventually lead to the production of The Woman in the Window.

Wanger, it should be noted, was just as happy as Lang was with this new venture. He had grown tired of being a unit producer at Universal, and badly wanted to get back to creating the sort of first rate pictures he made earlier in his career. With a director like Lang behind the camera, and with his talented wife starring, he was finally able to do so…at least until Diana folded several years later.

Lang, as you might expect, was passionate about filmmaking, so it’s not surprising that he would make a bold move to become more independent. “Motion pictures are and have been the content of my life, everything,” he once said while discussing The Woman in the Window. “You conceive a picture, you write it yourself or help to write it; that is the initial creative process. Then comes the actual direction, in which my crew and I work for months, very seriously, doing the best we can; that is the second stage of creation. Finally comes the cutting process, in which I always have the main say; that’s the third time you create something.”

From there, however, Lang deftly segued to his utter contempt for critics, many of whom were unhappy with The Woman in the Window’s surprise ending. “At last you give the finished picture to the audience,” he continued, “and along comes a reviewer who has to meet a morning edition dead-line. In addition, perhaps his wife is betraying him or maybe he has hemorrhoids or something. In any case, he cannot write an honest review, and, good or bad, favorable or unfavorable, I cannot accept it. That’s why I don’t give a damn about reviews.”

Lang, when all was said and done, only gave a damn about the images and stories in his own mind. Neither critics nor controlling producers could sway him from his vision, and movie history is all the richer for it. Watch The Woman in the Window for an example of post-war filmmaking at its finest.

1.91GB | 1 h 39 min | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/BF111C5BC727232/Fritz_Lang_-_(1944)_The_Woman_in_the_Window.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Fritz Lang – The Woman in the Window (1944) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Joan Crawford won an Academy award in 1945 for Mildred Pierce, and, two years later, she was trying her utmost to win another. Her gripping, melodramatic star turn helped make Possessed a hit and a prime example of post-war film noir. Crawford can’t find happiness with either Van Heflin or Raymond Massey, and her fiery emotions drive her into a lethal frenzy. Based on Rita Weiman’s book One Man’s Secret, Possessed is told almost entirely in flashbacks, the goal being to figure out what drove Crawford’s character crazy. As a dark psychological study, this is Hollywood at its moodiest; love has rarely seemed so perilous and fraught with anxiety. German director Curtis Bernhardt was known for making emotional films that appealed to women. Crawford got her Oscar nomination, but Loretta Young won the statuette that year for The Farmer’s Daughter.

2.03GB | 1 h 48 min | 792×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/33598F36350B03A/Curtis_Bernhardt_-_(1947)_Possessed.mkv

Language:English
Subtitles:English

The post Curtis Bernhardt – Possessed (1947) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The hero of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead is Howard Roark (Gary Cooper), a fiercely independent architect obviously patterned after Frank Lloyd Wright. Rather than compromise his ideals, Roark takes menial work as a quarryman to finance his projects. He falls in love with heiress Dominique (Patricia Neal), but ends the relationship when he has the opportunity to construct buildings according to his own wishes. Dominique marries a newspaper tycoon (Raymond Massey) who at first conducts a vitriolic campaign against the “radical” Roark, but eventually becomes his strongest supporter. Upon being given a public-housing contract on the proviso that his plans not be changed in any way, Roark is aghast to learn that his designs will be radically altered. Roark sneaks into the unfinished structure at night, makes certain no one else is around, and dynamites the project into oblivion. At his trial, Roark acts as his own defense, delivering an eloquent paean to individuality. He is acquitted, while the newspaper tycoon, upset that he could offer Roark no help during the trial, kills himself. This clears the way for a final clinch between Roark and Dominique on the skeleton of his latest building project. Ayn Rand’s celebration of Objectivism didn’t translate very well to film, with Gary Cooper coming off more selfish and petulant than anything else. The Fountainhead’s saving graces are the solid direction by King Vidor, the rhapsodic musical score by Max Steiner, and the symbolism inherent in Cooper’s manipulation of his power drill when he first lays eyes on Patricia Neal! –AMG

1.42GB | 01:42:34 | 640×480 | avi

http://nitroflare.com/view/DA2242E2352269C/The_Fountainhead_%281949%29.part1.rar
http://nitroflare.com/view/85E46AD42703F49/The_Fountainhead_%281949%29.part2.rar

Language:English
Subtitles:English, French and Spanish .idx/.sub

The post King Vidor – The Fountainhead (1949) first appeared on Cinema of the World.