Sgt. Mike Kincaid of the French Foreign Legion learns, from a Riff prisoner, that an attack will soon be made by the villainous Hussin on the Legion’s outpost of Tarfa. Kincaid volunteers to lead nine other Legionnaires on a mission to delay Hussin’s attack till reinforcements arrive. When he discovers that Hussin plans to marry Mahla, a girl from a rival tribe, in order to build a coalition against the French, Kincaid kidnaps Mahla. Hussin forcefully takes her back, but by now his planned attack on Tarfa is crumbling and Mahla has begun to fall in love with Kincaid.
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Tag Archives: 1950s
Giovani mariti / Young Husbands (1958) Mauro Bolognini, Isabelle Corey, Antonio Cifariello, Franco Interlenghi, Comedy
The husbands in question rather casually enter into marriage, never intending true fidelity to their spouses. When they realize that they’re committed for life, our immature heroes return to their home town for one last fling. In the course of their final hours of bachelorhood, they come to the sobering conclusion that their carefree youth is not only past, it’s already long past. Somewhat reminiscent of Fellini’s I Vitelloni, Giovani Mariti boasts excellent performances from all concerned.
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The Rose Tattoo (1955) Daniel Mann, Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Marisa Pavan, Comedy, Drama, Romance
An Italian-American neighborhood in Louisiana is disturbed when truck driver Rosario Delle Rose is killed by police while smuggling. His buxom widow Serafina miscarries, then over a period of years draws more and more into herself, trying to force her lovely teenaged daughter Rosa to do likewise. On one eventful day, Rose finally breaks away; Serafina learns of Rosario’s affair with another woman; and a new carefree, handsome Italian truck driver enters her life…
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Ginza keshô / Ginza cosmetics (1951) Mikio Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka, Ranko Hanai, Yûji Hori, Drama
A few days in the life of a quiet geisha, single mother of a young, smart boy, in the lively Tokyo quarter of Ginza. A woman devoted to other people’s needs, she will end by taking part herself in one of the many disguises of Ginza.
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La legge / The Law (1959) Jules Dassin, Gina Lollobrigida, Pierre Brasseur, Marcello Mastroianni, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Marietta, servant of aristocrat Don Cesare, is the bellezza of an Italian town where men gather nightly in the tavern for the ‘game of the Law,’ selecting one by lot to boss and humiliate the others. Illicit passions abound: the judge’s wife pursues Francesco, son of crime boss Matteo, who is after Marietta (so is her brother-in-law); Marietta wants engineer Enrico for a husband, but he claims he’s too poor to marry. So she decides to steal herself a dowry!
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Toward the Unknown (1956) Mervyn LeRoy, William Holden, Lloyd Nolan, Virginia Leith, Drama, History, Romance
The story of a US Air Force major who was captured during the Korean War, and cracked signing a confession. After his release he ultimately arrives at Edwards Air Force base and works for his old buddy, now base commander. And runs into an old love forming the romantic triangle sub plot. But the main story line is the testing of high speed aircraft and the two main characters restoring their trust in each other. The aviation story line centers on the testing of the testing of the Gilbert XF-120 fighter, which suffers structural problems. And who will test the rocket powered X-2, designed to fly to the edge of space.
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Early Spring / Sôshun (1956) Yasujirô Ozu, Chikage Awashima, Ryô Ikebe, Teiji Takahashi, Drama
A young man and his wife struggle within the confines of their passionless relationship while he has an extramarital romance.
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Sterne / Stars (1959) Konrad Wolf
Bulgaria, 1943. A train carrying Greek Jews is bound for the Auschwitz extermination camp and stops over in a small town in southwest Bulgaria. The school is converted into camp. Passing by the barbed-wire fence, the the Nazi army sergeant Walter meets a young Jewess called Ruth and falls in love with her. His buddy, Lieutenant Kurt, who is in charge of the camp, has her brought to a party in the pub. There Walter has a chance to talk with her. Having grown indifferent to people suffering, he is now awakened to unsuspected emotions and experiences a change of heart. When he next meets the girl, Walter convinces her that Nazism and war. Her fate and love make anew man of him. He gives a package of medicine for the inmates of the camp to Petk, a Bulgarian antifascist worker, but the German find them and destroy them. Walter is making arrangements for Ruth’s escape. He asks Petko to hide her but it is too late. The train has left.
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The Tattered Dress (1957) Jack Arnold
After a wild night, wealthy Michael Reston’s adulterous wife Charleen comes home with her ripe young body barely concealed by a dress in rags; murder results. Top defense lawyer J.G. Blane, whose own marriage exists in name only, arrives in Desert View, Nevada to find the townsfolk and politically powerful Sheriff Hoak distinctly hostile to the Restons. In due course, Blane discovers he’s been “taken for a ride,” and that quiet desert communities can be deadly…
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Crime et châtiment / Crime and Punishment (1956) Georges Lampin
Convinced of his own intelligence and talent, René Brunel (Robert Hossein) decide to try that is above the bourgeois and kills an old pawnbroker in cold blood morality. Gallet commissioner (Jean Gabin), case manager, we will pursue relentlessly and subtle, convinced it has something to do with it. Suffocating pressure that added to the ideas raised in his talks with Lili Marcelini (Marina Vlady), a prostitute he has met recently, make awareness of René fall on him without mercy.
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Tiger Bay (1959) J. Lee Thompson
Gille Jenkins, a 12 year old tomboy and compulsive liar living in a sordid tenement with her single parent mother, witnesses the murder of an immigrant Polish woman living in an nearby apartment by her former boyfriend, Bronislaus Korchinski. The young merchant marine becomes distraught when he discovers that she has become the mistress of a married British sports announcer and shoots her with her own gun. Gillie lies about the circumstances in order to keep the gun which she discovers where Korchinsky hid it. She ultimately bonds with him and misleads the police in their investigation.
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The ‘Maggie’ (1954) Alexander Mackendrick
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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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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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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First Man Into Space (1959) Robert Day
Navy test pilot Lieut. Dan Prescott, in experimental rocket plane Y-13, disobeys orders and becomes the first man to fly outside the ionosphere. Unable to turn, he ejects…and is plastered with metallic meteor dust. The pilot compartment lands with no trace of the pilot… but first cattle, then people, are found with their throats cut as if with an axe, by something that seems to have a craving for blood…
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