Synopsis:
Two young women from England’s northern counties; the plain Brenda and the flamboyant Yvonne, arrive in London to find fame and fortune. Misdirected and separated, they strike out on their own with Yvonne becoming a model and Brenda a waitress. After Brenda sabotages Yvonne’s date whom takes advantage of her, they lose their jobs and soon the roles are reversed with Brenda succeeding as a model and Yvonne becoming a waitress. With both of them competing with the other, they soon learn that they have to team up to take on their adversaries in order to succeed. Read More »

Synopsis
Ostensibly Imamura’s first work in documentary features, A Man Vanishes is much more, heralding the future work of Kazuo Hara and Werner Herzog, amongst others, in the genre-defying mix of style and loose adherence to filmic “reality.” Imamura follows one case of a growing phenomenon of working Japanese men who, sent to other cities while their families are left behind, disappear completely. The film concerns Yoshie Hayakawa, whose fiancée vanishes from sight, leaving behind only shadowy evidence of his past, casting darkness over Hayakawa’s relationship with her sister, her fiancée’s family, and even the investigator, who himself may not be what he seems to be. Read More »

Synopsis:
The story follows the decadent heir Henri de Marsay, who becomes enamored of the eponymous beauty, Paquita Valdes, and plots to seduce her. He succeeds but becomes disillusioned when he discovers she is also involved with another lover and so plots to murder her. When he arrives to kill her, he discovers that she is already dead by the hand of her lover, his half-sister. She declares that Paquita came from a land where women are no more than chattels, able to be bought and used in any way. In the last lines of the story, de Marsay tells a friend that the girl has died of “something to do with the heart.” Read More »

Quote:
The film’s full title of Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon is a tad misleading as it is only inspired by Verne’s writing in general, rather than by anything specific that he wrote. Once that point is cleared up, one can sit back and enjoy an amusing romp of a movie. The typically contrived plot concerns a suddenly bankrupt Phineas T. Barnum (Burl Ives) making an escape from his creditors to England, where he becomes the prime mover in a plan to launch a rocket to the moon. On the side of the angels are a German explosives expert (Gert Fröbe), an idealistic young American (Troy Donahue) with a revolutionary rocket design and the well intentioned Duke of Barset (Dennis Price). Read More »

A short film between fiction and documentary by long-time director Cecilia Mangini (still alive today) and written by Pier Paolo Pasolini. An unknown masterpiece.

Par une chaude journée d’été, une bande de garçons de la banlieue de Rome jouent et rient dans une des nombreuses rivières qui entourent la ville. La caméra les scrute, les approche, révèle les gestes et les regards, et les enveloppe d’une sorte de danse visuelle, tandis que les mots du commentaire – confié à la sensibilité poétique de Pier Paolo Pasolini – racontent les histoires, les désirs, les rêves, l’avenir Read More »

Quote:
In this atmospheric tale of revenge from beyond the watery grave, a pirate-ransacked freighter’s violent past comes back to haunt a young woman living in a seaside town. Mixing elements of kaidan (ghost stories), doppelganger thrillers, and mad- scientist movies, Hiroshi Matsuno’s The Living Skeleton is a wild and eerie work, with beautiful widescreen, black-and-white cinematography. Read More »

Synopsis:
During World War II, an Italian villager (Gina Lollobrigida) befriends three American soldiers. Later, when unsure which of them fathered the daughter she has, she invents a dead captain named Campbell, declares herself his widow and accepts support checks from all three soldiers. Twenty years later, a reunion unexpectedly brings the three veterans — and their wives and children — back to Italy. Mrs. Campbell panics as she endeavors to keep her lively past from her daughter. Read More »