Daily Archives: February 1, 2016

Beginning of the End (1957) Bert I. Gordon, Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum, Sci-Fi

Beginning of the End (Bert I. Gordon, 1957)
An attractive reporter investigating the mysterious destruction of an Illinois town stumbles upon a secret government laboratory conducting radiation experiments on vegetables. The lead scientist is eager to help find out what happened. Together they discover that giant grasshoppers are behind the devastation. Worse yet, thousands of them are headed toward Chicago! Can they be stopped… or is this the BEGINNING OF THE END?
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Cien / Shadow (1956) Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Zygmunt Kestowicz, Adolf Chronicki, Emil Karewicz, Action, Drama

Cien (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1956)
The plot consists of a Rashomon-like investigation into the life of a man found dead after having been hurled from a train. As security agents, policemen and a medical examiner begin to piece together his identity, three accounts emerge: one set during World War II, one in the immediate aftermath of the war and one in contemporary Poland. In each, the victim seems to have been a mysterious, ambiguous presence, of shifting loyalties and suspicious connections, who invariably set himself against the ruling powers of the time. Critics of the day attacked the film for its depiction of a world rife with secret agents and hidden enemies – a favorite Stalinist theme – yet the film seems rather to insist on how heroism or villainy are so often matters of point of view and timing.
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