Joan Webster is an ambitious and stubborn middle-class English woman determined to move forward since her childhood. She meets her father in a fancy restaurant to tell him that she will marry the wealthy middle-aged industrial Robert Bellinger in Kiloran island, in the Hebrides Islands, Scotland. She travels from Manchester to the island of Mull, where she stays trapped due to the windy weather. While in the island, she meets Torquil McNeil and as the days go by they fall in love with each other.
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Romance
Thérèse Raquin / The Adultress (1953) Marcel Carné, Simone Signoret, Raf Vallone, Jacques Duby
Therese has a boring life. She married Camille, her cousin, a sickly haberdasher, fully dominated by his mother (who lives with them). She dreams about passion. One day comes a truckdriver, Laurent… and of course they fall in love. But they will be pursued by fate.
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The End of the Affair (1955) Edward Dmytryk, Deborah Kerr, Van Johnson, John Mills
In wartorn London Maurice Bendrix falls in love with neighbor Sarah Miles. They begin an illicit romance behind Sarah’s husband’s back. While war does not last forever, neither does love in this existentialist tale.
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Pote tin Kyriaki / Never on Sunday (1960) Jules Dassin, Melina Mercouri, Jules Dassin, Giorgos Foundas
Illia is Piraeus’s most popular person: an energetic prostitute, full of life and good humor. Every day, she swims at the pier, entertaining the dock hands. Sundays she has an open house with food, drink and song. Homer Thrace, an amateur philosopher from Middletown, Conn., arrives in town to find out why Greece has fallen from ancient greatness. He decides Illia is a symbol of that fall, so he sets out to study and to save her. Unknown to Illia, he gets the money for the books and all else he gives her from Mr. No Face, the local vice boss who wants Illia retired because her independence gives other whores ideas. Whose spirit is stronger: Homer’s classical ideal or Illia’s?
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Le milieu du monde / The Middle of the World (1974) Alain Tanner, Olimpia Carlisi, Philippe Léotard, Juliet Berto
Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul’s party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.
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The House of Mirth (2000) Terence Davies, Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Eleanor Bron
Terence Davies’ The House of Mirth is a tragic love story set against a background of wealth and social hypocrisy in turn of the century New York. Lily Bart is a ravishing socialite at the height of her success who quickly discovers the precariousness of her position when her beauty and charm start attracting unwelcome interest and jealousy. Torn between her heart and her head, Lilly always seems to do the right thing at the wrong time. She seeks a wealthy husband and in trying to conform to social expectations, she misses her chance for real love with Lawrence Selden.
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In Name Only (1939) John Cromwell, Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, Kay Francis
While out riding in the country, wealthy New Yorker Alec Walker meets young widow Julie Eden, and a relationship quickly develops. However, Alec has not told her that he is already locked into a loveless marriage to the avaricious Maida, who has contrived to convince his parents she is the ideal wife. A completely coincidental car crash alerts the two women to each other’s existence, a situation to which they react very differently.
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Next Time We Love (1936) Edward H. Griffith, Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Ray Milland
In New York, the rookie newsman Christopher “Chris” Tyler dreams on becoming a famous journalist. When his girlfriend Cicely spends a couple of days with him, they decide to get married and Cicely leaves college. Chris’s best friend Tommy Abbott is his best man and becomes a family’s friend. Chris has his great chance when his editor Frank Carteret sends him to Rome assigned as a foreign correspondent. Cicely stays in New York with Tommy and does not tell to Chris that she is pregnant. When she delivers the baby Kit, Chris celebrates and loses a big scoop and his boss fires him. Chris falls in disgrace and the couple has economic difficulties; however Tommy lends money to Cicely and offers an opportunity on the stage as an actress. Cicely is hired and becomes successful and Chris is depressed with the situation. Cicely seeks out Frank Carteret and explains the situation, and he offers a job opportunity to Chris in Russia.
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The Girl from Missouri (1934) Jack Conway, Sam Wood, Jean Harlow, Franchot Tone, Lionel Barrymore
With her pal Kitty, Eadie Chapman escapes from the sleazy roadhouse run by her mother and stepfather, only to become a showgirl. But her former milieu gave her a poor opinion of easy morals, and she plans to preserve her ‘virtue’ until marriage…preferably to a rich husband; while Kitty keeps falling for servants. Will playboy Tom Paige break down Eadie’s resistance before his cynical father intervenes?
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Ninfa plebea / The Nymph (1996) Lina Wertmüller, Stefania Sandrelli, Raoul Bova, Lucia Cara
In the World War II, in a small Italian village, Nunziata is an easy woman married with the cuckold tailor Gioacchino. Her teenage daughter Miluzza teases men with her clothes and gets men to lust after her. One day, Nunziata dies while having intercourse with an Italian Corporal at home, and Miluzza finds a job in the factory of the wealthy Don Peppe that rapes her. When Miluzza returns home, she learns that Gioacchino has died in the afternoon. Soon there are rumors that Miluzza had an affair with Don Peppe, but her grandfather protects her. Then Miluzza’s village is bombed, her grandpa dies and she moves to another town to live with a friend. When she finds the Italian soldier Pietro wounded in the leg in her house, Miluzza saves his life and helps him to return to his family. Pietro proposes to marry her, but her mother wants to prove that Miluzza is virgin before blessing the marriage of her son.
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Days of Glory (1944) Jacques Tourneur, Gregory Peck, Tamara Toumanova, Alan Reed
In late 1941, with the Nazi invasion of Russia still advancing, the Red Army leaves bands of guerillas behind in the forests. One such band is joined by beautiful ballet dancer Nina; initially inept, a series of bitter lessons gradually make her a seasoned soldier. The group still form human attachments, despite the shadow of grim death that makes their greatest hope one of selling their lives dearly…
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Le roman de Werther (1938) Max Ophüls, Pierre Richard-Willm, Annie Vernay, Jean Galland
Adaptation of “Werther”, a novel by Goethe. A young poet falls passionately in love a girl and when lost, desperately trying to recover.
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The Tunnel of Love (1958) Gene Kelly, Doris Day, Richard Widmark, Gig Young
The Pooles are unable to have a baby after years of trying. They apply to the Rock-A-Bye Adoption Agency, and are assigned Miss Novick as an investigator. Through a farfetched mis-communication she gets a very bad impression of Augie Poole and indicates her report will be unfavorable. Through even more far-fetched circumstances, Augie is able to change Miss Novick’s mind, and later comes to believe the baby she is carrying is his. Rock-A-Bye does find the Pooles a baby, and Augie is convinced it is Miss Novick’s, and that he is the real father…so much so that his wife comes to believe it, too. She threatens to leave him, but all the misunderstandings are finally cleared up for a happy ending.
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Akitsu onsen / Akitsu Springs (1962) Yoshishige Yoshida, Mariko Okada, Hiroyuki Nagato, Sô Yamamura
The day before Japan announces its defeat in WW2, a very ill Shusaku arrives in Okayama. He meets Shinko, an innkeeper, who inadvertently gives him the will to live as he spies her crying one day. As romance blossoms, the secret death wish he’d brought with him contends with true love for precedence in their relationship. Based on the book by Shinya Fujiwara.
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Plagio (1969) Sergio Capogna, Ray Lovelock, Mita Medici, Alain Noury
It was the story of a very rich young man who falls in love with a couple who are at college with him. He ‘plagiarises’ them in the sense that in the end he manages to go to bed with both of them. But the young man has problems – there’s a suggestion that he killed his parents, who were so much in love that he felt excluded.
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