Sylvia Sidney

PLOT: A dedicated American reporter in 1930s Japan is determined to expose that government’s plan for world domination.Read More »

The last installment of Lang’s “social trilogy,” You and Me (preceded by Fury and You Only Live Once) was an ambitious experiment but ultimately a box-office failure. A studied attempt to craft a socially conscious satire in the tradition of Brecht’s didactic plays, the film—produced by Lang himself for Paramount—presents the story of a progressive department-store owner who employs ex-convicts, some of whom have not quite reformed. Although Lang’s directorial sleight of hand is visible everywhere, the film slips between the registers of drama and comedy in ways that may have perplexed contemporary audiences.Read More »

A man who is the pillar of his community has a secret – he has a compulsion to make obscene telephone calls.Read More »

Quote:
An altruistic department-store owner hires ex-convicts in order to give them a second chance at life. Unfortunately, one of the convicts he hires recruits two of his fellow ex-convicts in a plan to rob the store.Read More »

Margaret Wyndham Chase wants to run for governor and approaches Eddie Ace, local political kingmaker/fringe gangster, to get his support. Ace’s belief is that “beautiful women and politics do not mix” and he declines to help. She decides to play the game rough-and-tough without him, but he shows he is even rougher-and-tougher, and she gives up and withdraws from the race. But Ace has fallen in love with her at about the 45-minute mark and, with his new-found ardor for clean politics, he makes some (unclean) manipulations behind the scenes, and she is picked to run on an independent good-government ticket.Read More »

Synopsis:
Mr. Verloc is part of a gang of foreign saboteurs operating out of London. He manages a small cinema with his wife and her teenage brother as a cover, but they know nothing of his secret. Scotland Yard assign an undercover detective to work at the shop next to the cinema in order to observe the gang.Read More »

Synopsis:
Having just reached adulthood, Clyde Griffiths has always lamented his lot in life, he the only son of poor missionaries. He has gotten a peripheral view of society life, to which he aspires, in his work as a bellhop at an upscale hotel. If being truthful to himself, he would admit that he lacks moral strength, he often taking the easiest but perhaps not the most ethical path to protect himself. Forced to move from place to place out of circumstance, he ends up in Lycurgus, New York working at the Samuel Griffiths Collar and Shirt factory, Samuel Griffiths his paternal uncle. Not knowing his uncle or his family, Clyde only wants a chance to get ahead, not expecting anything else from his wealthy relations. After an apprenticeship, Clyde ends up as the foreman in the stamping department.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Michael Betzold
American GI Harry Walden (Martin Balsam) emerged from a harrowing experience in WWII to find himself living an outwardly-happy but inwardly-empty and tedious existence in the post-war U.S. He is an eye doctor, successful in his work, but unfulfilled spiritually and emotionally. He and his wife Rita (Joanne Woodward) have a boring existence, with their biggest issue being what kind of wallpaper to choose when they redecorate their apartment. They are dysfunctional, materialistic, and utterly lost. Rita is neurotic and unhappy, especially after her mother (Sylvia Sidney) dies. They decide to visit France and go to the battlefield where Harry once spent a night in the company of three dead German soldiers. The trip is intended to reawaken their deadened humanity. Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams is a challenging, slow and thoughtful depiction of the corroding effects of a materialistic lifestyle.Read More »