1931-1940

Description: Footage of the aftermath of the January 14 1931 Earthquake in Oaxaca, Mexico.Read More »

IMDb:
An anticipation of Blasetti’s style. A great movie about the Siena Palio. Guido Celano (Zarre) is a very good actress and Leda Gloria too. The Tuscany environment is very well depicted. The performing style is influenced by the period, but it is quite good anyway. It is a very uncommon movie and the best representation of Palio, a religious and sporting event in Siena. Blasetti, then, after Il Palio and Terre Sole, start a wonderful career as director and will anticipates the “neorealism” with his 1942’s movie “Quattro passi fra le nuvole”. Very impressive the opening scene with Zarre riding a horse in the Siena countryside.Read More »

Quote:
Aldebaran is in some places erroneously reported as a “lost” film, but here it is! After
a couple of projects had either been postponed or fallen through for Blasetti, it was
suggested that he should make a film about the navy in peacetime. The result is this
strange film, which at the outset plays like a propaganda piece for the might of the Italian
navy, only to veer off into high melodrama, as it zeroes in on Commander Corrado Valeri
(Gino Cervi), and his conflict between duty and the jealousy of his wife. There are comedic
asides, a visit to a North African club, affording Blasetti to contribute the first scenes of
nudity in Italian film, and there are moments of heroics, including a mission to rescue the
doomed crew of a wrecked submarine. As if all of that was not more than enough, the film
features a star studded cast including Evi Maltagliati, Gianfranco Giachetti, Doris Duranti,
Elisa Cegani (in her debut), and even a brief cameo by Blasetti himself.Read More »

Quote:
This haunting, unforgettable film, based on Maxim Gorky’s 1913 autobiography, follows a 12-year-old’s journey in life against the tumultuous backdrop of 19th-century Russia. With vivid imagery, it recounts the touching relationships that develop when Gorky goes to live at his grandparents’ home. Most notable are the powerful portraits of lower-class people whose qualities of integrity and dignity shine through their hopeless circumstances. (Rottentomatoes)Read More »

In late 18th century Italy, a beautiful young woman finds herself married to a rich but cruel older man. However, she is in love with another, younger man. When the husband finds out, he kills the lover in a swordfight, and takes his wife on a long trip throughout Europe. Months later, she dies giving birth to a son. The husband leaves the child at a convent, where he is raised until the age of 10; then he is apprenticed to a local merchant, who gives him the name “Anthony Adverse” because of the adversity in his life. But his adversity has only begun, as fate takes him to Cuba, Africa, and Paris. Written by John Oswalt {[email protected]} (IMDB).Read More »

Plot:

Louis Hayward plays an arrogant Cambridge student who emigrates to America and enrolls at the West Point. Hayward’s cocky attitude earns him the enmity of his fellow students and the derisive nickname “the Duke”. Those viewers familiar with college pictures will know as early as the opening titles that Hayward is down deep a swell guy. He proves this by helping impoverished plebe Richard Carlson pay his college costs and winning a crucial hockey game against a Canadian team. 20-year-old leading lady Joan Fontaine fits right in as the beautiful target of Hayward’s attentions.

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DVDRip from print restored by Mosfilm in 1965 according to the credits, it still looks grey. After having read the descriptions below I found it be easy to follow the film without subtitles, the acting, the mise en scène and the cinematography are excellent. There is very little music though, two or three church choruses and folk songs, bits of post romantic orchestral music here and there. And, as been said below, no obvious propaganda.Read More »

Quote:PYOTR PERVY I AND II 1937-1938

Also known as “Peter I, Parts I and II,” and “The Conquests of Peter the Great, Parts I and II.” Soviet Union, 1937 (Part I) and 1938 (Part II). Black and white; Russian language; Running time: 96 minutes (Part I), 96 minutes (Part II). Directed by Vladimir Petrov. Screenplay by Vladimir Petrov, based on a book by Alexei Tolstoy. Starring Nikolai Simonov as Peter I, Nikolai Cherkasov as Tsesarevich Alexei, Alla Tarasova as Empress Catherine I, and Mikhail Zharov as Alexander Menshikov.Read More »

William Kell, the keeper of a lighthouse a lonely stretch of coastline in New Zealand, marries cabaret dancer Eileen. His young wife, however, goes on to have an affair with Henry Cass, the handsome assistant. Later on she begins to flirt with a stranger from a wreckage. A chain of events is set in motion…

Also filmed by Dupont in German (Menschen im Käfig) and French (Le cap perdu) versions with different casts.Read More »