A blonde actress is murdered across from a bar. An off-duty cop has been getting pleasantly sloshed, but becomes worried about his innocence when he finds out he was seen leaving the establishment with a blonde, but doesn’t remember. As he investigates, he interviews a columnist who was going with the actress, a caricaturist who drew the victim, the caricaturist’s wife who works at the bar, and the caricaturist’s lover, and slowly begins to put the pieces of the deadly puzzle together.
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Tag Archives: 1950s
La sfida / The Challenge (1958) Francesco Rosi, Rosanna Schiaffino, José Suárez, Nino Vingelli
Vito Polara is a young ambitious man from the slums of Naples, who wants to get as much power and money as possible. He decides to quit smuggling cigarettes and tries to take over the local fruit and vegetable distribution, which is considered more profitable. After challenging the rural crime boss of the local Camorra, Vito becomes part of his gang and soon his life changes. He moves to a new luxurious seaside apartment and plans to start a family with the beautiful Assunta. At their wedding party, however, and later on, he’s about to see who the real boss is.
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The Sound of Fury (1950) Cy Endfield, Frank Lovejoy, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson
A family man -desperate for a job- latches onto a friend that encourages him into being a criminal.
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Tous peuvent me tuer / Everybody Wants to Kill Me (1957) Henri Decoin, François Périer, Peter van Eyck, Anouk Aimée
The holdup of the bank is a success. All happened according to plan. Now, Cyril Gad and his four accomplices must secure an alibi. What better place than a prison cell? As a result the five gangsters have themselves arrested on minor charges and start waiting until they are released. Unfortunately three of them die mysteriously, another one is openly murdered. The only man still alive, Tony, is scared.
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Gli innamorati / Wild Love (1955) Mauro Bolognini, Antonella Lualdi, Franco Interlenghi, Sergio Raimondi
The film is about some youths’ love stories: Franco and his hairdresser girlfriend Adriana, Otello another hairdresser who is hopelessly in love with Adriana. The youths usually meet in a restaurant whose owner, Ines, seduces Franco making Adriana very jealous. In turn the girl decides to accept Otello’s courting.
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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 Man with a Cloak (1951) Fletcher Markle, Joseph Cotten, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern
In 1848, a young Frenchwoman, Madeline Minot, goes to New York City to see Thevenet, the grandfather of her fiance. Thevenet had been with Napoleon and may be sympathetic to the political aims of his grandson. She finds the old man in very bad spirits, living in a large house with a housekeeper and a butler who are just waiting for him to die (and perhaps helping him along a bit) so they can inherit his fortune. They see Madeline as a threat to their plans. She is aided in her dealings with these strange people by a mysterious man in a cloak.
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Skola otcu / School for Fathers (1957) Ladislav Helge, Karel Höger, Blazena Holisová, Josef Mixa
A new teacher with high standards and a strong sense of duty replaces an easy grader. Once bad grades begin to pile up, a product of his predecessor’s subservience to the system, the new teacher has to stand up for himself and his students.
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Fair Wind to Java (1953) Joseph Kane, Fred MacMurray, Vera Ralston, Robert Douglas
The Dutch East Indies, at the end of the nineteenth century. An adventurous captain of an American merchant vessel is looking for a sunken Dutch vessel containing 10,000 precious diamonds. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one and then there’s also that volcano on the nearby island of Krakatau, waiting to explode in its historical, disastrous eruption…
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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Robert Wise, Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe
An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach.
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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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The Last of the Fast Guns (1958) George Sherman, Jock Mahoney, Gilbert Roland, Linda Cristal
A rich, dying Easterner hires gunfighter Brad Ellison to find his brother and heir in Mexico. En route, it becomes clear to Ellison that his is a dying profession. At a remote rancho, Ellison enlists ranch foreman Miles Lang to help him search the hills where the missing man is rumored to have lived. They find nothing …except that someone wants to kill them; and Ellison becomes wrapped in a maze of double crosses.
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Three Hours to Kill (1954) Alfred L. Werker, Dana Andrews, Donna Reed, Dianne Foster
After three years on the run, Jim Guthrie returns with the scar of a rope burn on his neck. In flashback we learn how he was framed for murder but then escaped from the lynch mob just as he was about to be hung. Tired of running, he has returned to find the real killer and the Sheriff has given him just three hours to do it.
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Saddle The Wind (1958) Robert Parrish, John Sturges, Robert Taylor, Julie London, John Cassavetes
Steve Sinclair is a world a world-weary former gunslinger, now living as a peaceful farmer. Things go wrong when his wild younger brother Tony arrives on the scene with his new bride Joan Blake.
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Room for One More (1952) Norman Taurog, Cary Grant, Betsy Drake, Lurene Tuttle
Anne and “Poppy” Rose are the average American family, with three quirky kids. Anne has a good heart and gives lost cats and dogs a home – and one day also the orphan Jane, a problem child who already tried to kill herself once. At first Poppy is worried and wants to get rid of her, but with love and patience they finally manage to integrate her into the family. Just then Anne invites another orphan, the aggressive handicapped Jimmy-John, to their summer vacation.
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