1931-1940

Quote:
Ruan Lingyu, one of the most famous stars of early Chinese cinema, gives a devastating performance as an unnamed goddess an ironic euphemism for a prostitute in this profoundly moving but rarely seen classic of world cinema. A tragic tale of shame and maternal sacrifice, Ruan stars as a mother desperate to provide for her young son and forced to take brutal vengeance on her pimp. It is a profoundly moving drama, all the poignant by the fact that its star committed suicide at the age of 24, a year after the film’s release.Read More »

Based on the Pulitzer prize winning Broadway play, Street Scene is a study in the daily lives of people who communicate in a street and reside in the surrounding apartment complexes. Mrs. Murrant is dealing with issues of infidelity, Rose, her daughter is conflicted with her advancement in life and leaving the neighborhood, Rose’s father, a hard-working man who is never around, Sam Kaplan as a caring and concerned neighbor; and the rest of the idlers and gossipers that make up the rest of the street and the focus of their daily existence.Read More »

Synopsis:
Thirteen women who were schoolmates send to a swami for their horoscopes. Little do they realize that Ursula, a half-breed Asian, is using her hypnotic powers over the swami and them to lead them or their families to their deaths. It seems that she too went to their school, but was forced to leave by their bigotry, and is exacting revenge. Will she be stopped in time to save Laura’s son, Bobby? Read More »

Synopsis:
Adapted from The Paul Street Boys, an autobiographical novel by Ferenc Molnar, GLORY is an unusually sensitive evocation of the pain of youth and the senselessness of war. Frail Nemecsek, a lonely boy who yearns to belong, worships Boka, the self-sufficent, charismatic leader of a well-organized gang, decked out in uniforms and sporting their own flag. The perennial outsider sees his chance to win a respected place in Butler’s army when their flag is stolen and war breaks out with another gang.Read More »

Summary from wikipedia:
Quote:
Amok is a 1934 French film, directed by Fyodor Otsep. The director was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1934 Venice International Film Festival. The movie centers on a physician, Dr. Holk, in a small Dutch colony in the tropics. A strange illness, known as Amok, is turning innocent people into madmen. When a young woman, Hèlène, comes to him asking for an abortion so that her returning husband will not know she has been unfaithful, he refuses. Hélène seeks help elsewhere, leading Dr. Holk to try to find and save her before it’s too late.Read More »

In the Name of Lenin is a 14 minute single subject ‘short’ (rather than a newsreel) produced by Soyuzkinozhurnal in 1932. It was directed by Mikhail Slutskii, a member of the new ‘Stalinist’ generation of film-makers, who had only recently graduated from film school in Moscow.Read More »

Synopsis:
Song of the Scarlet Flower was Teuvo Tulio’s first independently produced film, and the earliest of his surviving films. The plot was about Olavi, a farmer’s son who leaves his home after a dispute with his father and leads a life of a womanizing logger.Read More »

Synopsis
A penniless artist, Michel, is pursued by creditors when he discovers he has won the million florin lottery. He realises that he left the winning lottery ticket in his jacket, which he gave to his girlfriend, Béatrice, to repair. However, Béatrice, upset when she saw Michel with another woman, gave the jacket away. What ensues then is a madcap chase by Michel and his friends to recover the missing jacket – and the million florin prize.
Films de France.comRead More »

This rural melodrama, based on the play “Hälsingar” by Swedish playwright Henning Ohlson, tells a story of two brothers, one a honest, hard-working man and the other a womanizing gambler who threatens to ruin their house. The latter hires a poor village girl as a maid, sparking the jealousy of a lustful senior maid. After the philandering brother has made the new maid pregnant and flees to America to avoid the consequences of his financial misdeeds, his elder brother is left to clean up the mess.Read More »