This merry farce depicts a satirical view of the French society: Ten-year-old Zazie has to stay two days with her relatives in Paris, so that her mother can spend some time with her lover. However Zazie escapes her uncle’s custody and sets out to explore Paris on her own.
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Tag Archives: 1960s
Onna no Za / A Woman’s Place (1962) Mikio Naruse, Hideko Takamine, Yôko Tsukasa, Yuriko Hoshi, Drama
The widow of the eldest son of a large family is financially dependent on her husband’s relatives.
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Juhyô no yoromeki / Affair in the Snow (1968) Yoshishige Yoshida, Mariko Okada, Isao Kimura, Yukio Ninagawa, Drama, Romance
In an isolated mountain resort, a woman gets involved in a love triangle between herself, her volatile lover and her ex-boyfriend, for whom she had platonic feelings.
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Che! (1969) Richard Fleischer, Omar Sharif, Jack Palance, Cesare Danova, Biography, Drama, History
Biography of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro in his struggle against the corrupt Batista regime, eventually resulting in the overthrow of that government and Castro’s taking over of Cuba. The film covers Guevara’s life from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in an ambush by government troops in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967.
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Will Penny (1967) Tom Gries, Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Romance, Western
Will Penny, an aging cowpoke, takes a job on a ranch which requires him to ride the line of the property looking for trespassers or, worse, squatters. He finds that his cabin in the high mountains has been appropriated by a woman whose guide to Oregon has deserted her and her son. Too ashamed to kick mother and child out just as the bitter winter of the mountains sets in, he agrees to share the cabin until the spring thaw. But it isn’t just the snow that slowly thaws; the lonely man and woman soon forget their mutual hostility and start developing a deep love for one another.
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The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965) Jon Hall, Sue Casey, Walker Edmiston, Horror
A young girl is killed at the beach in Malibu. Professor Otto Lindsay suspects that it is some form of mutated fish. However, his son Richard, who was a good friend of the girl, thinks that it is a madman who has a grudge against Richard and his friends. Soon the list of victims grows to include one of Rich’s surfing buddies, Rich’s bitchy stepmother Vicky and his friend Mark who was crippled in an auto accident.
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Texas Across the River (1966) Michael Gordon, Dean Martin, Alain Delon, Rosemary Forsyth, Comedy, Western
The Louisiana wedding of debutante Phoebe Ann Naylor to Don Andrea de Baldasar, El Duce de la Casala is stopped by the Cavalry over a matter of honor. Don Andrea flees across the river to Texas, where he meets up with Sam Hollis and his Indian sidekick, Kronk, who are carrying rifles to the town of Moccasin Flats. Don Andrea rescues an Indian maiden, Lonetta, tames some longhorns, competes with Sam for Phoebe’s affections, eludes a Comanche war party and the cavalry (who have come to Moccasin Flats to celebrate Texas’ statehood) and ultimately saves the town and gets his girl.
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Un amore a Roma / Love in Rome (1960) Dino Risi, Mylène Demongeot, Elsa Martinelli, Peter Baldwin, Drama, Romance
Stormy love between young writer of a noble decayed family and a lazy amoral starlet. Between arguments and reconciliations, jealousies and acts of infidelity, the relation between Marcello and the femme fatale-ish heroine, Anna (played by luscious French starlet Mylene Demongeot), seems not to have future. Marcello says he wants to remain free but – deep inside – wants a traditional fiancée and wife while Anna, as an aspirant actress, is of a free and rebellious nature, not very tilted with sentimental attachments. He gradually understands that he could never have her and be her only man.
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West End Jungle (1961) Arnold L. Miller, David Gell, Heather Russell, Tom Bowman, Documentary
Seamy or at least black and white expose of 1950’s London’s sex trade in all its guises. Using actors and clearly of the period, this reveals and condemns all the tricks of the trade, from call girls to clip joints and high massage parlours to low class walk ups. It’s hard to know which are less appealing: the deluded and self-deluded and desperate punters or the calculating and equally desperate working girls. The film condemns them equally, while revealing in details the titillation and barely legal disrobing designed to arouse man’s baser desires. With a voice-over straight from the Department of Public Morals, and fascinating glimpses of a period long ago, this has something for everyone. Huge potential for unintentional humour and entirely convincing as to the facts of the case.
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Szyfry / The Codes (1966) Wojciech Has, Jan Kreczmar, Zbigniew Cybulski, Ignacy Gogolewski, Drama
A father searches for his son, who has been missing since WW II, in post-war Poland. In his quest for the truth about his son, the father is forced to contemplate the elusive and coded nature of truth itself.
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Boulevard (1960) Julien Duvivier, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Monique Brienne, Pierre Mondy, Comedy, Drama
Jojo has been living for a while in a room under the roof of a block of flats in Pigalle. He has chosen to leave home since he realized his stepmother has hated him from day one. Among his many neighbors in the house is the gorgeous Jenny Dorr, a nightclub dancer,whose lover he dreams of becoming. But as the boy is only sixteen Jenny proves kind and motherly but that’s that. Worse, she becomes the lover of Dicky, a mediocre boxer farting around in the Pigalle cafés. On the other hand, Jojo, who has no income, must absolutely find work, all the more as he woos Marietta, one of his other neighbors, a young lady more suited to his age. Selling magazines works for a while but posing as Narcissus for two gay artists proves a disaster.
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Blast of Silence (1961) Allen Baron, Molly McCarthy, Allen Baron, Larry Tucker, Crime, Thriller, Drama
Having been ‘away’ for some time, professional killer Frankie Bono returns to New York to do another job: assassinate some mid-level mobster. Although intending to avoid unnecessary ‘contact’ while carefully stalking his victim, Bono is recognized by an old fellow from the orphanage, whose calm and unambitious citizen’s life and happy marriage contrast heavily with Bono’s solitary and haunted existence. Exhausted and distracted, Bono makes another mistake, but his contract is not one to back out of.
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Le soleil des voyous / Action Man (1967) Jean Delannoy, Jean Gabin, Robert Stack, Margaret Lee, Crime, Drama
A retired gangster enlists the help of an ex-US serviceman for one last job, the robbing of a bank. Things become complicated when other interested parties get wind of their plans.
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Maigret voit rouge / Maigret Sees Red (1963) Gilles Grangier, Jean Gabin, Françoise Fabian, Roland Armontel, Crime, Drama
Gangsters from the United States try to kill a key government witness whose testimony could help land an influential mobster in jail. It’s up to detective Maigret to deal with the FBI and a series of underworld figures to save the life of the witness…
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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) Vincente Minnelli, Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin, Charles Boyer, Drama, War
In Argentina, the family man Julio Madariaga is the patriarch of his family and considers his farm the paradise on Earth. One of his daughters, Luisa Desnoyers, has married the Frenchman immigrant Marcelo Desnoyers and they have one son, the playboy Julio, and one daughter, the gorgeous student of Sorbonne Chi Chi. His other daughter, Elena von Hartrott, has married the German Karl von Hartrott, and they have three sons: Heinrich, Gustav and Franz. In 1938, Heinrich returns from Germany for a family reunion and when he tells that he has joined the SS, the displeased Julio Madariaga has a heart attack and dies. When France is occupied by the Germans, the family reunites in Paris and Franz is the Nazi administrator in France. The alienated Julio has a studio where he paints, and has a love affair with Marguerite Laurier, the wife of the owner of a newspaper Etienne Laurier that is fighting in Belgium. Meanwhile Chi Chi joins the French resistance and is arrested.
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