Classics

  • Sergei M. Eisenstein & Jay Leyda – Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study (1958)

    Documentary1951-1960ClassicsJay LeydaSergei M. EisensteinUSSR

    Quote:
    In 1954, Upton Sinclair donated 100,000 feet of film shot by Sergei Eisenstein in Mexico to the Museum of Modern Art. From this footage, Jay Leyda, assisted by Manfred Kirchheimer, created an almost four hour long assemblage titled “Eisenstein’s Mexican Film: Episodes for Study.” The film is silent with explanatory titles. The MOMA footage was later re-edited by Grigori Aleksandrov to create the 1979 version of “Que Viva Mexico”.Read More »

  • Sidney J. Furie – The Ipcress File (1965)

    1961-1970ClassicsSidney J. FurieThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    Tasked with investigating the kidnappings and brainwashed reappearances of top scientists, including Dr. Radcliffe (Aubrey Richards), the insubordinate British spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) navigates his way through criminals, secret agents, and his superiors (Nigel Green, Guy Doleman). While attempting to bring in the suspect Bluejay (Frank Gatliff), Palmer discovers a mysterious audiotape labeled “IPCRESS,” an inconspicuous, but ominous, piece of evidence.Read More »

  • Ken Annakin – Battle of the Bulge (1965)

    1961-1970ClassicsKen AnnakinUSAWar

    Synopsis:
    American Lt. Col. Dan Kiley (Henry Fonda), a military intelligence whiz, discovers that the Nazis are planning to attack Allied forces near Belgium. Certain that the exhausted enemy can’t muster much force, Gen. Joe Grey (Robert Ryan) isn’t convinced by Kiley’s findings, and his men pay the price when the German tanks begin their offensive. In the heat of this key World War II battle, Kiley must come up with a plan when it becomes clear that the Nazis are trying to steal fuel from the Allies.Read More »

  • Douglas Sirk – Interlude (1957)

    1951-1960ClassicsDouglas SirkDramaUSA

    Synopsis:
    The story of a young woman, Helen Banning, who travels to Munich in search of life experience and romance. While working for America House, she meets a famous symphony conductor, Tonio Fischer, and begins a relationship with him. She soon finds out there is much more to this man than his music, including a wife Reni Fisher, but there’s definitely more to the story, which she soon discovers. While dealing with the experiences life has thrown in her way, she is also being courted by Morley Dwyer a doctor from back home, who is currently practicing medicine in a Munich hospital. Who will she choose?Read More »

  • Stanley Kramer – Inherit the Wind (1960)

    1951-1960ClassicsDramaStanley KramerUSA

    Synopsis:
    In the 1920s, Tennessee schoolteacher Bertram Cates (Dick York) is put on trial for violating the Butler Act, a state law that prohibits public school teachers from teaching evolution instead of creationism. Drawing intense national attention in the media with writer E. K. Hornbeck (Gene Kelly) reporting, two of the nation’s leading lawyers go head to head: Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) for the prosecution, and Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) for the defense.Read More »

  • Michael Curtiz – The Perfect Specimen (1937)

    1931-1940ClassicsComedyMichael CurtizScrewball ComedyUSA

    Synopsis
    Based on a popular novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, this screwball comedy stars Errol Flynn in the title-role, the heir to an industrial fortune kept hidden from the world by his imperious grandmother (May Robson). Intrigued by the secrecy, peppy Joan Blondell literally crashes the estate to liberate the young man and the two embark on a whirlwind trip through Pennsylvania. Falling in love with the intruder along the way, Flynn learns how life is lived by the other half — or at least by the wacky Warner Bros. stock company — and proves himself to be much more capable than “Grandma” Robson ever imagined. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Various – How the West Was Won (1962)

    1961-1970ClassicsUSAVariousWestern

    Sprawling epic which follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830’s to their settled home in the West a half a century later. On the way they encounter river pirates, and escape with the help of fur trapper Linus Rawlings, who subsequently marries one of their daughters, Eve. The parents are drowned on a foundering raft, and the other daughter Lilith becomes a riverboat singer and catches the eye of a genteel adventurer Cleve Van Valen. Read More »

  • Stephen Roberts – The Story of Temple Drake [+ Extras] (1933)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaStephen RobertsUSA

    Loosely adapted from William Faulkner’s controversial novel Sanctuary, this notorious pre-Code melodrama stars Miriam Hopkins as Temple Drake, the coquettish granddaughter of a respected small-town judge. When a boozehound date strands her at a bootleggers’ hideout, Temple is subjected to an act of nightmarish sexual violence and plunged into a criminal underworld that threatens to swallow her up completely. Steeped in southern-gothic shadows by influential cinematographer Karl Struss and shot through with moral ambiguity, The Story of Temple Drake is a harrowing vision of sin and salvation that boasts an astonishing lead performance from the fiery Hopkins, whose passage through the stations of terror, trauma, and redemption is a true tour de force of screen acting.Read More »

  • Fred M. Wilcox – Forbidden Planet (1956)

    1951-1960ClassicsFred M. WilcoxSci-FiUSA

    Quote:
    A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet’s colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has.Read More »

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