Robert Siodmak

It starts straight away with our young hero trying to shoot a bullet into his head. No explanation whatsoever is given as to his motives – moviegoers in the Germany of 1931 obviously did not need any. He is disturbed by a burglar and puts a contract on himself, so to speak. The burglar tells him that he will hit him in the near future and dutifully makes a cross on his back with a piece of chalk – not unlike the ‚M’ in Fritz Lang’s movie of the same year. With the cross on his back the young hero goes to a nightclub – and falls in love with a young girl. Of course he tries to rescind from the contract and desperately looks for the burglar, only to learn that he had passed on the job to a subcontractor! Not just any subcontractor, but the very same Jim, the man with the scar, as he solemnly declares.Read More »

IMDB:
Two journalists from different papers are looking for the same story. They want to know, who a group of gangsters getting young women from Europe to South America, where they are forced to work in brothels. But the gangsters have their own battels against each over, so the journalists can escape the danger, in which they’ve brought themselves.Read More »

An American gangster sent back to his home country falls in love with a widowed countess.

Letterboxd review
★★★½ Watched by Reza Said 04 Sep 2021

Deported (Robert Siodmak, 1950) 7/10

Atmospheric B-movie is very loosely based on events in the life of Lucky Luciano. An Italian-American gangster (Jeff Chandler) is deported to Italy after spending five years in jail for a robbery in New York. The tough, cynical man finds that the local people in his village look up to him, the street urchins love him and the local Countess (Märta Torén), a widow, is enamoured of him and likes his company. A local cop (Claude Dauphin) is suspicious and lies await for the crook to get the stolen loot across from America. Siodmak, back in Europe after many years in Hollywood, creates an interesting little film which also turns out to be an Italian travelogue with scenes shot by the great William Daniels in Naples, Siena and Tuscany. There is great chemistry between Chandler and Märta Torén while lovely Marina Berti adds to the local colour.Read More »

The Tsar Alexandre II meets a young student, Katia. He understands that he loves her and try to send her away but they end up seeing each other again and becomes his mistress. With the help of Katia, Alexandre prepares a liberal constitution, but these reforms make him hostile to the more privileged subjects without satirising the revolutionaries against the regime.Read More »

from Noir City 17
Quote:
Boozy assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) reels from a stifling marriage into an affair with the mysterious Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck). He’s so smitten, and besotted, he misses the warning signs: Thelma has a sickly aunt loaded with dough and spends lots of time in the arms of shadowy and sinister Tony Laredo (Richard Rober). Something bad is bound to happen … and when it does Cleve winds up working both sides of the law. Noir master Siodmak does a spellbinding job with a terrific script, and Stanwyck—Queen of Noir—offers a terrific, two-faced turn in one of her most rarely screened films.Read More »

Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) returns home after a few years of knocking around the country following his divorce from good-time girl Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). Getting his old job back driving an armored car, and not even convincing himself that he’s making a new start, he also wants his old wife back.Read More »

Criterion wrote:
Years before they became major players in Hollywood, a group of young German filmmakers—including eventual noir masters Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer and future Oscar winners Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann—worked together on the once-in-a-lifetime collaboration People on Sunday (Menschen am Sonntag). This effervescent, sunlit silent, about a handful of city dwellers (a charming cast of nonprofessionals) enjoying a weekend outing, offers a rare glimpse of Weimar-era Berlin. A unique hybrid of documentary and fictional storytelling, People on Sunday was both an experiment and a mainstream hit that would influence generations of film artists around the world.Read More »

Synopsis:
In 1902 London, unhappily married Philip Marshall meets young Mary Gray, who is unemployed and depressed. Their deepening friendship, though physically innocent, is discovered by Philip’s wife who threatens him with exposure and scandal, driving him to kill her. Thereafter, fortune seems to smile on Philip Marshall; but does fate have a surprise in store?Read More »

Quote:
Not really epic material, this is a fated romantic drama (a typically French quality) set against the exotic background of the Foreign Legion and, actually, a remake of Jacques Feyder’s 1934 film LE GRAND JEU.

The plot involves a successful young lawyer (Jean-Claude Pascal) who, due to a shady deal, finds himself penniless and separated from his wife (Gina Lollobrigida). Stranded in Algeria, he’s persuaded to join the Foreign Legion where he befriends a couple of similar losers (played by Raymond Pellegrin and Peter van Eyck). Read More »