The skipper of a tatty coastal ‘puffer’ boat cons an American into letting “The Maggie” carry a cargo to a Scottish island. The American soon realises he’s been conned but can he stop them?
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Anklaget / Accused (2005) Jacob Thuesen
On the surface Henrik and Nina Christofferson are an ordinary family living happily. But they have a problem. Their daughter, Stine, a difficult 14 year old, has a habit of telling lies in class. When Stine accuses her father of sexual abuse, and is believed by seemingly eager social workers, their family is thrust into crisis. Could Henrik have done it? And when Stine prepares to return home, the ugly side of family life is exposed.
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Hachi no su no kodomotachi / Children of the Beehive (1948) Hiroshi Shimizu
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.
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The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) W.S. Van Dyke, Howard Hawks
Steve is just a heavy duty bartender when Edwin J. Bennett, known as the Professor, starts training him for the ring. While doing road work, he is almost killed by a speeding car which crashes into a ditch. In the car is Belle Mercer and her driver. Steve takes Belle to a farmhouse and is smitten by her, but she is Willie Ryan’s Girl. The fight is a breeze and later, Steve again meets Belle with Willie. That night, Steve and Belle disappear and return married, much to the disappointment of Ryan. Then Steve starts training in ernest and is 19 for 19 in the ring. However, he has an eye for the women and an expanding ego to match.
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Rue des Prairies / Rue de Paris (1959) Denys de La Patellière
Life in a one-parent family with a focus on the parent, Henri Neveu (Jean Gabin), is the topic of this standard drama with a dash of comedy. While Henri was a POW during the war, his wife passed away and he returned to face the challenges of bringing up three children alone. Henri may get drunk and angry at times but he also has a better side that will not stay buried. Since handling three children alone is no easy task, the single father has the choice of growing in the process or not.
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Paranoia (1967) Adriaan Ditvoorst
A man is under the illusion he is a wanted war criminal. After killing two people he commits suicide.
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Thomas l’imposteur / Thomas the Impostor (1965) Georges Franju
In the First World War, when Paris is expected to fall to the Germans, the attractive widow, Princesse de Bormes, organises a convoy of cars to evacuate the wounded from the front, and bring them back to her villa in Paris to recuperate. The authorities will not give them passes until an innocent 16-year-old boy, Guillaume Thomas de Fontenoy, joins them and is mistaken as the nephew of the popular General de Fontenoy. The Princess is enraptured by Thomas and her daughter, Henriette, falls in love with him. However Thomas feels impelled to see more of the action of the war.
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La doublure / The Valet (2006) Francis Veber
A Parisian valet loves a woman who rejects him: she’s in debt to open a bookshop, and he’s not her ideal man. A billionaire two-times his wealthy wife with his beautiful mistress, a young supermodel. To draw the paparazzi and his wife off the trail of adultery, and to give his lawyer time to arrange a divorce that won’t cost him a fortune, the billionaire pays the supermodel and the valet to pretend for a month to be a couple. Within days, the bookshop owner and the billionaire are jealous, the supermodel experiences life with a nice guy, and the valet has status and self-confidence. What will each do with newfound wisdom?
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Four Friends (1981) Arthur Penn
This story of four working-class kids in a small industrial town–who go their separate ways after high school in the innocence of 1961 and come together again at the end of the turbulent Sixties–is as much about the coming of age of America as it is about the changes the characters go through. The four friends of the title are thoughtful Danilo, a Yugoslavian immigrant with dreams of being a writer and a scholar; Tom, good-looking and athletic, who is bound for the army; cautious David who has mixed feelings about staying in town and joining the family mortuary business; and lovely, ditzy, exasperating Georgia, who tries to inspire all of them with her longings for a life of Bohemian adventure. It is told through the eyes of Danilo, whose story is loosely based on the writer Tesich’s own life growing up in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Hoffman (1970) Alvin Rakoff
A businessman blackmails his attractive young secretary into spending a weekend with him. Though he’s a creep throughout, he gradually emerges as a sympathetic character.
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Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942) Harry Lachman
A young man visits his fiancée in a remote French villa where her scientist father resides. There he meets Noel, Dr. Renault’s mysterious assistant, who has a strange attraction to Renault’s daughter. Soon he learns Noel’s true identity: he is an ape that was turned into a man by Renault’s bizarre experiments!
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Verboten! (1959) Samuel Fuller
A young American serviceman, stationed in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich, jeopardises his position with the Marshall Plan relief effort by breaking the non-fraternisatiom rule and falling in love with a young German woman. He uses his position to obtain food and luxuries for her that are in short supply, and all seems to be going well for the couple. What he doesn’t realise is that the Werewolves, the Nazi guerrilla movement, have plans in which he features heavily.
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Dopo divorzieremo (1940) Nunzio Malasomma
Grace Peterson works in department stores “Tutto per Tutti”, along with many other young people. His employment contract entitling them to live in a boarding house built specifically for them by the company but on the other hand, forbid them not fall in love or marry under threat of dismissal. Still, Grace falls for Phil Golder, a violinist penniless. The director of the residence will notice and the best friend of the girl impersonate violinist girlfriend to try to save Grace dismissal.
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Izbavitelj / The Rat Savior (1976) Krsto Papic
A poor writer discovers that a species of rats has banded together to impersonate humans and supplant them unnoticed, in a manner reminiscent of the transformations in Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, or the covert conspiracy of pod-people in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This film’s story is based on a book by the Soviet writer Alexander Greene.
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The Great Ziegfeld (1936) Robert Z. Leonard
At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, sideshow barker Flo Ziegfeld turns the tables on his more successful neighbor Billings, and steals his girlfriend to boot. This pattern is repeated throughout their lives, as Ziegfeld makes and loses many fortunes putting on ever bigger, more spectacular shows (sections of which appear in the film). French revue star Anna Held becomes his first wife, but it’s not easy being married to the man who “glorified the American girl.”
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