Quote: Some people with a strange cat arrive in a small village. The cat wears glasses, and when someone takes them off, she can colour people, according to their nature and mood. The grown-ups of the village consider the cat to be dangerous, but the kids just love her…
A shepherd falls in love with an English tourist in Greece (imdb)
Language is no barrier to romance in this quite delightful Greek picture about a young English tourist who has a chaste love affair with a Greek shepherd during an idyllic summer holiday. Not a lot happens; it really is just a gentle tale of two innocents getting to know each other with the only question being ‘Will their relationship have a happy ending as the film draws to a close?’, but the simple story is so beautifully photographed by Nicos Gardellis and boasts such an outstanding musical soundtrack by Stavros Xarhakos (letterboxd)
Synopsis: In 1912, the notorious and violent prisoner Robert Franklin Stroud is transferred to the Leavenworth Prison convicted for murdering a man. When a guard cancels the visit of his mother, Elizabeth Stroud, due to a violation of the internal rules, he stabs and kills the guard and goes to trial three times. He is sentenced to be executed by the gallows, but his mother appeals to President Woodrow Wilson who commutes his sentence to life imprisonment. However, the warden, Harvey Shoemaker, decides to keep Stroud in solitary for the rest of his life. One day, Stroud finds a sparrow that has fallen from the nest in the yard and he raises the bird until it is strong enough to fly. Stroud finds a motivation for his life raising and caring for birds and becomes an expert in birds. He marries Stella Johnson and together they run a business, providing medicine developed by Stroud. But a few years after, Stroud is transferred to Alcatraz and has to leave his birds behind.
Quote: Action takes place in Georgia during world war two. Zurikela, orphan boy. Meets Khatia, blind girl, who wants to return eye-sight. Zurikela decides to help her. They know, that if blind sees the sunlight, her sight can be recovered. They both face obstacles and poverty, because of war. At one point Zurikela thinks to leave Khatia and have his own life. However, conscience doesn’t allow him to do it.
1860. Italy is divided in 8 states. But after 60 years of heroic wars, frontiers’ll soon fall, thanks to Giuseppe Garibaldi & the legendary volunteers who fought with him, known as the thousand.
cinepassion wrote: The unification of Italy from Messina to Volturno, the past made flesh by Roberto Rossellini in a commemorative mood. Il Tricolore sways splendidly under the credits and then over a map of fragmented states circa 1860, a orchestral preamble concluding with a skirmish against an electric cobalt sky. Garibaldi (Renzo Ricci) is middle-aged, ginger-bearded, rheumatic, and utterly, serenely determined; before battle, he squats by the meadow to savor some local bread: “Anyone have any salt?” As the Redshirts charge uphill, the camera takes a paradoxically distant and urgent view of the clashing brigades and puffs of gunsmoke dotting the landscape — a study in long shots, a cosmic vantage. A sprawling pan right outlines the Calabrese coast, a reverse zoom reveals the regiment stationed on the opposite beachfront, then a pan left to follow an officer into town and a tilt up to the top of a tower (one take). Clandestine meetings and round-ups introduce a whiff of derring-do, a shepherdess (Giovanna Ralli) sacrifices herself and is eulogized like the Sicilian girl in Paisà, a trampled body beneath the steamroller of history. A burro ride down winding roads by ancient ruins, an euphoric victory in a Palermo plaza accompanied by Tina Louise (“una giornalista francesa”) and Alexandre Dumas (“caro amigo!”). Wellman’s The Story of G.I. Joe, Carlo Bossoli and Francesco Hayez, Vidor’s War and Peace. King Francesco II (Raimondo Croce) ponders the situation and steps down like Renoir’s Louis XVI in La Marseillaise, “let us put on a good face.” The adventure of the Risorgimento, a vision of reconstruction from a director who witnessed the nation’s fall. The climax adduces a note of distinctly Fordian sorrow, with Garibaldi placed on reserve by the Piedmontese army and ruminating from the back of a departing boat like Rossellini himself at the mercy of dull critics. A rousing national epic in Eastman color, a bedrock formation for later portraits of monarchs and apostles and messiahs. With Paolo Stoppa, Franco Interlenghi, Leone Botta, and Giovanni Petti.
Synopsis: Lt. Duvalier (Jack Nicholson), a French soldier, loses contact with his unit and is forced to wander alone near the Baltic Sea. While in search of his regiment, he spies Helene (Sandra Knight), a mysterious beauty, walking by herself. Mesmerized, Duvalier begins tracking her, but she vanishes. He later catches up with her and follows her into a castle, where he encounters the bizarre Baron Von Leppe (Boris Karloff), finds signs of witchcraft and learns the shocking truth about Helene.
Synopsis: Waldo Trumbull (Vincent Price) is an amoral undertaker in 19th-century New England who takes to murdering people to have enough cash to support his drinking habit. Desperate for money after a widow stiffs him for a burial, Trumbull and his assistant, Gillie (Peter Lorre), decide to kill the wealthy Mr. Black (Basil Rathbone), their landlord, to whom they’re indebted. But murdering Black proves to be quite a challenge, as he seems to keep recovering from death every time they do him in.
Synopsis: Dr. John Markway, an anthropologist with an interest in psychic phenomena, takes two specially selected women to Hill House, a reportedly haunted mansion. Eleanor (Julie Harris), a lonely, eccentric woman with a supernatural event in her past, and the bold Theodora (Claire Bloom), who has ESP, join John and the mansion’s heir, cynical Luke (Russ Tamblyn). They are immediately overwhelmed by strange sounds and events, and Eleanor comes to believe the house is alive and speaking directly to her.
Synopsis: Successful OB-GYN Gerald Boyer (James Garner) and his wife, Beverly (Doris Day), are happily married with two children. At a dinner gathering, Beverly discusses her favorite soap, Happy Soap, and how much she enjoys it. When Beverly is introduced to the company’s owner, she is immediately offered a contract as the product’s spokeswoman for TV commercials. However, Gerald has a hard time adjusting to his wife’s newfound fame, and plots to foil Beverly’s career in order to keep her at home.
Synopsis: Private detective Mike Hammer (Mickey Spillane) is found by the police, lying in a back alley in a drunken stupor – the same drunken stupor he’s spent the last few years suffering from since his secretary Velda disappeared. But the police want him sober because they have a fast-fading victim of a shooting in the local hospital and he has requested to speak with Hammer before he dies. Hammer is taken to the home of police captain Pat Chambers (Scott Peters) and roughed up by the testy lawman, then escorted to the hospital where after another drink to steady his nerves Hammer speaks with the dying man, who tells him that the man who shot him is the same killer who is chasing after Velda… a killer known as The Dragon.
Synopsis: In a poor neighborhood of New York, the bitter and lonely Jewish pawnbroker Sol Nazerman is a survivor from Auschwitz that has no emotions or feelings. Sol lost his dearest family and friends in the war and his faith in God and belief in mankind. Now he only cares for money and is haunted by daydreams, actually flashbacks from the period of the concentration camp. Sol’s assistant is the ambitious Latino Jesus Ortiz, who wants to learn with Sol how to run a business of his own. When Sol realizes that the obscure laundry business he has with the powerful gangster Rodriguez comes also from brothels, Sol recalls the fate of his beloved wife in the concentration camp and has a nervous breakdown. His attitude leads Jesus Ortiz to tragedy and Sol finds a way to cry.
Quote: Just three years after earning Academy Awards for Best Picture and Director for 1960’s The Apartment, Billy Wilder re-teamed with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine for another look at love and relationships. But this time the drab New York insurance building was traded for the bawdy streets of Paris, and secretaries replaced with prostitutes. Once again, Wilder poked fun at the taboo subject of sex and again, his instincts paid off: Irma La Douce was Wilder’s biggest commercial success yet, and received three Academy Award nominations, winning one for Andre Previn’s lush score.
Irma La Douce (MacLaine) is the most popular “lady of the night” on the Rue Casanova, the red light district of Paris. With her green tights and French poodle, Irma has a prime hooking spot on the corner outside the Hotel Casanova. Nestor Patou (Lemmon) is the one honest cop patrolling this beat. Naïve in the ways of love, Nestor suspects what everyone else already knows—that sex is being bought and sold at the hotel. He promptly orders a raid. Unfortunately, one of the girl’s customers is Nestor’s boss, and he’s soon back on the street, but without a job. Nestor returns to the Rue Casanova and befriends Irma…
For fans of The Apartment, Irma La Douce is akin to that film’s redheaded stepchild. It cannot match its predecessor in terms of sheer brilliance and wit, pathos, and charm, but we love it nonetheless. For one thing, Irma La Douce gives us a chance to see yet again what Billy Wilder can do with the perfect comic foil, in this case Jack Lemmon. This was the duo’s third film together and their comfort level shows. Lemmon’s physical comedy in Irma La Douce is the best of his career (with the exception of Some Like It Hot) and in my mind ranks him among the best physical comedians. His early fight scene with Irma’s mec is a portrait of ineptitude. Later, his shyness in undressing in front of Irma is hilariously pathetic. When Nestor morphs into Lord X, Lemmon embraces the alter ego with as much energy as he did with Jerry/Daphne. The film also continues the on-screen relationship of Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, though here his love is requited, unlike in The Apartment. Wilder and writing partner I.A.L. Diamond remained at the top of their game with this picture. The story is clever and very risqué for its time, dealing with serious themes of sex, fidelity, and jealousy with trademarked barbs and one-liners. The film looks beautiful too, with art director Alexander Trauner wonderfully recreating the bustling Rue Casanova with glorious sets and vibrant colors.
Despite all of these terrific elements, Irma La Douce has flaws. Though the film was adapted from the stage musical of the same name, all of the songs have been cut. The film still maintains the look, feel, and whimsical illogic that audiences accept from a musical comedy. At times, it feels like the characters should break out into song, but they never have that release. For his part, Wilder felt that the songs got in the way of the story and I think (dare I say it) he was wrong. The pacing is uneven as well. The first hour of the film is the best, with Lemmon inhabiting the role of pathetic schnook that he plays so well. As Nestor gains confidence, the picture loses some momentum. It’s a robust two hours and 23 minutes and could’ve used a little trimming.
It’s interesting to hypothesize about what Irma La Douce might have been. Despite the horrible shooting experiences of The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot Wilder was anxious to give the role of Irma to Marilyn Monroe. Monroe would’ve brought innocence to the role that MacLaine lacks. One complaint about the movie is Irma is so easily duped about Lord X’s true identity. With Monroe, this might’ve been more believable. After Monroe and Wilder had a falling out, Elizabeth Taylor was signed for the part. When the film was pushed back in favor of Wilder’s One, Two, Three, Taylor had to drop out and MacLaine was in. Charles Laughton, Wilder’s star from Witness For The Prosecution, was intended for and interested in the role of Moustache. In his final days, Wilder even read lines with the ailing star, knowing that he’d never survive to make the film. Lou Jacobi is adequate in the role, and often quite funny (he’s the Dunkin Donuts guy from the old “time to make the donuts” ads), but a legend like Laughton would’ve made the film extra special.
The war has ended leaving a deep trace in people. Going trough a different conflicts in the first days of peace – dealing with a former enemy’s collaborators and executing traitors – a former soldier continues with killing even in peace. So, the war goes on, a struggle within himself and with the people around him.
Kerekes believes he is wanted by the police when his friends play a practical joke in this unusual comedy drama. He returns to his hometown where he was accused of turning a Jewish druggist and the druggist’s wife over to the Nazis. With his friends following him, Kerekes tries to find out what became of the couple after they were deported. After being subjected to a mock trial by his friends — and found guilty — Kerekes becomes despondent and attempts to kill himself. Flashbacks and hallucinations are employed to tell this story that occurs during the Eichmann trial.
In turn-of-the-twentieth-century Turin, an accident in a textile factory incites workers to stage a walkout. But it’s not until they receive unexpected aid from a traveling professor (Marcello Mastroianni) that they find their voice, unite, and stand up for themselves. This historical drama by Mario Monicelli, brimming with humor and honesty, is a beautiful and moving ode to the power of the people, and features engaging, naturalistic performances; cinematography by the great Giuseppe Rotunno; and a multilayered, Oscar-nominated screenplay by Monicelli, Agenore Incrocci, and Furio Scarpelli.
From Village Voice: In 1962, beloved and controversial poetess Forugh Farrokhzad went to Azerbaijan and made this short film on the grounds of a leper colony, presaging in 22 minutes the entirety of the Iranian new wave and the international quasi-genre of “poetic nonfiction.” It’s a blackjack of a movie, soberly documenting the village of lost ones with an astringently ethical eye, freely orchestrating scenes and simply capturing others, while on the soundtrack Farrokhzad reads her own poetry in a plaintive murmur—this in the same year as Vivre sa Vie and La Jetée. (Chris Marker has long been a passionate fan, as has Abbas Kiarostami, whose The Wind Will Carry Us owes its title and climactic verse to Farrokhzad.) It was the only substantial piece of cinema Farrokhzad ever made. Five years later, having already attained near legendary status in Iran for her writing, she was killed in a car crash at the age of 32, guaranteeing her posthumous fame as a feminist touchstone for generations of angry Persian women.
Also included in the DVD, the short documentary :
Ebrahim Golestan – Yek atash (A Fire / Un Feu) 1961 – Iran – 24 min
“In the spring of 1958, in the region of Khuzestan, at the heart of the Iranian oil industry and of Persian civilization, an oil well explodes during a drilling. The eruption is endless; the fire is powerful, indestructible, and gigantic. It is a dragon. In any case, that is how it is presented in A Fire.” (Stéfani de Loppinot, Cinéma 07)
The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), formed upon nationalization of the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, employed film systematically, producing many films on oil and petrochemical subjects. It also made films depicting Iran’s progress and modernization, highlighting the role of the Shah and NIOC in that direction. Under its auspices, Ebrahim Golestan directed A FIRE (1961), a highly visual treatment of a seventy-day oil well fire in the Khuzestan region of southwestern Iran. This film was edited by the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad and won two awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1961.
Born in 1922 in Shiraz, Golestan has been a pioneer in filmmaking and literature for more than half a century, with far-reaching influence on generations of Iranians in various fields of art. He is the founder of the Golestan Film Studio and directed, among other films, the groundbreaking documentary Wave, Coral and Rock (1965). He now lives in London.
“Au printemps 1958, dans la région pétrolière de Khuzestan, coeur de l’industrie pétrolière iranienne et de la civilisation perse, une nappe de gaz explose lors d’un forage. La source est sans fin, le feu puissant, indestructible et gigantesque. C’est un dragon. En tout cas, c’est ainsi qu’il apparaît dans “Un feu”. Ce documentaire filmé à la Bolex 16mm, dans l’urgence de l’évènement, est en effet beaucoup plus que le simple récit de la catastrophe. La force du film tient à ses rencontres fortement contrastées, pourtant finalement si proches, entre le réel et l’imaginaire, le jour et la nuit, l’infiniment grand et l’infiniment petit, le crissement des ferrailles, le râle sourd du feu et le chant des hommes, le sauvage et le dompté, le sec et le fertile. “Un feu” recompose la communauté humaine, la puissance ancestrale des astres, une terre en devenir” (d’après Stefani de Loppinot, Cinéma 07). le film a obtenu le Mercure d’Or au Festival de Venise en 1961.
Audio…………: English (2-channel AC3) A Fire Farsi (2-channel AC3) The House Is Black Subtitles……..: French, Spanish, French (hard subs, The House Is Black) Video Format…..: PAL Aspect Ratio…..: 1.37:1 OAR DVD Source…….: DVD5 DVD Format…….: Fullscreen DVD Distributor..: French magazine Cinema #7 Program……….: DVD Decrypter,PGCDemux, SubtitleMaestro,Muxman,Vobblanker,SubtitleEdit, IFOEdit Bit Rate………: 8.28 Mb/sec
F I L M I N F O 1. Samuel Beckett made a single work for projected cinema. It’s in essence a chase film; the craziest ever committed to celluloid. It’s a chase between camera and pursued image that finds existential dread embedded in the very apparatus of the movies itself. The link to cinema’s essence is evident in the casting, as the chased object is none other than an aged Buster Keaton, who was understandably befuddled at Beckett and director Alan Schneider’s imperative that he keep his face hidden from the camera’s gaze. The archetypal levels resonate further in the exquisite cinematography of Academy Award-winner Boris Kaufman, whose brothers Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman created the legendary self-reflexive masterpiece Man With a Movie Camera. Commissioned and produced by Grove Press’s Barney Rosset, FILM is at once the product of a stunningly all-star assembly of talent, and a cinematic conundrum that asks more questions than it answers.
2. Nobel Prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett’s lone work for projected cinema was entitled archetypally, Film, and grew from Berkeley’s pronouncement, essi et percipi: “To be is to be perceived.”
Yet Beckett’s ontological concerns have less to do with the plastic medium than the nature of recorded and projected images. Film is in essence a chase film; arguably the craziest committed to celluloid.
It’s a chase between camera and pursued image that finds existential dread embedded in the very apparatus of the movies. The link to cinema’s essence is evident in the casting, as the chased object is none other than an aged Buster Keaton, who was understandably befuddled at Beckett and director Alan Schneider’s imperative that he keep his face hidden from the camera’s gaze. The archetypal levels resonate further in the exquisite cinematography of Academy Award-winner Boris Kaufman, whose brothers Dziga Vertov and Mikhail Kaufman created the legendary self-reflective masterpiece Man With a Movie Camera (with the latter in the titular role). Commissioned and produced by Grove Press’s Barney Rosset, Film is at once the product of a stunningly all-star assembly of talent and a cinematic conundrum that asks more questions than it answers. — Ross Lipman, UCLA
Preserved in cooperation with the British Film Institute from a variety of 35mm and 16mm prints. Laboratory services by Cinetech, Ascent Media, NT Picture and Sound, Dolby Laboratories, and Audio Mechanics. Special thanks to: the Academy Film Archive, Edward Beckett, Nicole Brenez, Les Éditions de Minuit, Evergreen Review, David Gray, Shawn Jones, Jonathan Lee, Irène Lindon, Bruce Mazen, the Pacific Film Archive, Barney and Astrid Rosset.
An Englishman with a grudge against an insurance company for a disallowed claim fakes his own death in order but an insurance investigator starts snooping around.
Quote: Sorely underrated and dismissed at the time of its release, THE RUNNING MAN can now be seen for what it it: a highly effective thriller. Director Carol Reed was said to be shaken after being dismissed from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, but it really doesn’t show. He conducts us deftly through a nicely conceived intrigue, with no time wasted. If a viewer can forgive a small handful of plot contrivances, this movie delivers in suspense, interesting characters, acting, and pleasing use of locations. The cast is superb: Laurence Harvey might look underfed, but his character is richly drawn he seems to have a great time. Lee Remick has never been better: a woman who sees her husband for what he really is when he assumes a new identity. And Alan Bates, an actor who radiated charm, brings a lot of substance to his part. Watch for Fernando Rey and Fortunio Bonanova (the singing teacher from CITIZEN KANE–“Impossible! Impossible!”) as a bank manager. The script has a good helping of humor along with the suspense. And William Alwyn’s music score enhances the film as well. It may not be THE THIRD MAN, but THE RUNNING MAN is likely to satisfy most fans of thrillers, the director and the estimable cast.
Here’s Jissoji Akio’s impressive theatrical debut. Distributed by ATG and with a script by Oshima Nagisa, it’s a fascinating dissection of 1960s Japanese youth angst. Oshima wrote the screenplay for television in 1964, but due to the subversiveness of the story it never got made there. Which doesn’t come as a surprise, considering that the film consists of four students in a room, who decide to leave the gas on and bet money on who will stay there the longest…
Quote: In 1969 Jissoji left TBS, founded his own production company and made the 43-minute long When Twilight Draws Near (Yoiyami Semareba), based on a script by Nagisa Oshima that was originally written for a TV feature for TV Tokyo. The film was released by ATG together with Oshima’s Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (Shinjuku Dorobo Nikki, 1969). ATG subsequently produced Jissoji’s following films, starting with This Transient Life. Together with Kazuo Kuroki and Shuji Terayama he became ATG’s most important director of the 1970s. — Roland Domenig at Midnight Eye
This is a good movie in the Hitchcock vein, in which small details form the key to intense pathos. Will the husband notice the thing she mentioned in passing? Will her child inadvertently play with the wrong toy? Will the best friend keep the story straight? It takes a tangled web of lies and omissions to keep silent an impulsive affair–and a possible murder–when everything is so interconnected. No real villains here, but faulted humans trying to be happy, and not upset the house of cards that comprise their private lives. Good performances by Honor Blackman and Jean Seberg. You will be on the edge of your seat, and clutching a hankie at the same time.
