1940s

Plot Synopsis (by Hal Erickson)
Unlike most Italian films of the 1940s, Augusto Genina’s Cielo Sulla Palude opened in Venice rather than Rome. The film’s American title was Heaven Over the Marshes, and indeed most of the story is set in the disease-ridden Pontine Marshes on the outskirts of Rome. This was the home of Maria Goretti, a pious young girl who was murdered by her would-be seducer. For reasons elucidated in the course of the film, Maria’s short time on earth made her worthy of Sainthood, which was actually bestowed upon her shortly after the release of this film. Maria Goretti is well-played by Ines Orsini. Cielo Sulla Palude served as the comeback feature for director Augusto Genina, whose previous pro-fascist films had caused him to be blacklisted after WW II.Read More »

boblipton@IMDB wrote:
At a popular resort during the Edo Period, a man is murdered. As everyone gossips about the matter and waits for the samurai in charge of the investigation to do something, honeymooning Hideko Takamine takes time out to solve the crime.Read More »

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Sumako, a country girl, becomes a great actress with the help of Hogetsu, a scholar who brought some of European realism to the Japan’s stage. The relationship leads to the end of his marriage and the breakup of his Arts Society.Read More »

The movie focuses on the plight of ten war orphans hailing from different cities across Japan. With nowhere to go, they scavenge around train stations, scratching out an existence by means of black market work for a one-legged tramp whilst avoiding being picked up by the police for vagrancy. Soon however, they find a more inspiring role model in the figure of a nameless soldier just repatriated after the war. An orphan himself, the soldier also has no home to return to, and so sets out across the country with the kids in tow in search of work before settling on the goal of leading them to the orphanage where he himself grew up.Read More »

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A doctor spins an ever-growing web of lies after a taste of the excitement that he was missing in his conventional life, thanks to a chance meeting with a nightclub singer.Read More »

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Unpublished Story is an extremely well executed British World War II propaganda piece, and what sets it apart from other entries in this subgenre is its clever plot centered around that very topic. The film’s pace is unstoppable; the script by Patrick Kirwan and Lesley Storm based on a story by Anthony Havelock-Allan is intelligent, well-written, and unique in its approach to the subject matter; and the acting is of the usual high caliber that devotees of even the lowest-budgeted British quickies have come to expect in which the smallest roles are perfectly cast.Read More »

Fusako, a drug dealer’s young mistress in postwar Japan, loses her tenuous grasp on life upon learning about her lover’s affair.Read More »

Miss Susan inherits the hotel from her auntie Barbara. At fist she thinks it’s the well known modern hotel Blue Star. Early on she finds out it’s another one with the same name, but much smaller and besides it’s forlorn. Instead of guests and personnel the hotel is freely occupied by three young men. Susan let them stay if they work for her, because she is determined to reopen the hotel. Soon first guest, Vladimir Rychta, arrives to the hotel and wants to arrange wedding feast there. Nevertheless his obstinate fiancée refuses to come to the old hotel and stay in the modern one. As the feast is canceled Mr. Rychta invites Susan to dine together. He becomes so enchanted by her, that he asks her to marry him. In the morning Mr. Rychta sends a telegram to his relatives that the wedding is off. Susan reads the telegram on its way and gets very unhappy. As she isn’t aware of the former fiancée, she understand it that Mr. Rychta has decided to not to marry her.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Sandra Brennan
A journalist for a popular travel magazine goes looking for interesting stories in Latin America and finds love instead in this colorful musical. The love angle comes from her fiance who lives there, and from the dashing photographer who accompanies her. Included are many South American acts including flamenco dancers Rosario and Antonio. Songs include: “Ba-Ba-Lu” (Bob Russell, Marguerita Lecuna), “Stars in Your Eyes”, “La Morine de Mi Copla” (Gabriel Ruiz, Mort Greene), “Rhumba Matumba” (Bobby Collazo, Greene), “Guadalajara” (Pepe Guizar, Greene), “Negra Leona” (A. Fernandez, Greene), and “Baramba” (Margarita Lecuona, Greene).Read More »