Oil billionaire Happer sends Mac to a remote Scotish villiage to secure the property rights for an oil refinery they want to build. Mac teams up with Danny and starts the negotiations, the locals are keen to get their hands on the ‘Silver Dollar’ and can’t believe their luck. However a local hermit and beach scavenger, Ben Knox, lives in a shack on the crucial beach which he also owns. Happer is more interested in the Northern Lights and Danny in a surreal girl with webbed feet, Marina. Mac is used to a Houston office with fax machines but is forced to negotiate on Bens terms.
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Tag Archives: english
The Secret of the Whistler (1946) George Sherman, Richard Dix, Leslie Brooks, Michael Duane, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An artist married to a wealthy but ill woman begins an affair with one of his models, who is after him solely for his money. His wife discovers the affair and threatens to cut him out of her will. In order to be able to keep both the wife’s money and his girlfriend, he begins to secretly poison his wife – but events take a surprising turn after she eventually dies.
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The Great Profile (1940) Walter Lang, John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Gregory Ratoff, Comedy
Barrymore lampoons himself. A famous actor, given to drink, nearly destroys the show, but his leading lady returns to save it. Meanwhile a young girl tries to reform him.
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Night Song (1947) John Cromwell, Dana Andrews, Merle Oberon, Ethel Barrymore, Drama, Romance, Music
Cathy Mallory, beautiful socialite who prefers classical music, is taken by friends to a back-alley dance club. There, she meets blind pianist Dan Evans, who plays in Chick Morgan’s swing band but seems to be a composer of great promise. Attracted but spurned, Cathy feigns blindness herself to get past Dan’s bitter facade, scheming to get him to the doctor who can restore his sight…and to Carnegie Hall. But her actions bring about several twists in their relationship…
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Panic Button (1964) George Sherman, Giuliano Carnimeo, Maurice Chevalier, Eleanor Parker, Jayne Mansfield, Comedy
A businessman plans to solve his tax problems by financing a film version of “Romeo and Juliet”. He hires Maurice Chevalier and Jayne Mansfield to play the title roles, and Akim Tamiroff to direct. The finished film is shown at the Venice Film Festival, where it’s considered a witty parody and awarded a Golden Lion.
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Voice of the Whistler (1945) William Castle, Richard Dix, Lynn Merrick, Rhys Williams, Drama, Film-Noir
The 4th film of the Columbia series based on the CBS radio program, “The Whistler”, finds wealthy John Sinclair, with no health or friends, being advised by his doctor to take a long vacation. Heading for the Great Lakes, he becomes ill in the cab operated by Ernie Sparrow an is taken to a clinic where he meets nurse Joan Martin, who is engaged to intern Fred Graham. Doctors now tell him he has only a few months to live and advise him to go to Maine (where, evidently, it will seem longer.) He asks Joan to marry him, promising to leave her his fortune.
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Bad Men of the Border (1945) Wallace Fox, Kirby Grant, Fuzzy Knight, Armida, Music, Romance, Western
U. S. Marshal Ted Cameron (Kirby Grant), masquerading as a bandit, robs a mail coach. Delores Mendoza (Armida), a passenger, is an agent for the Mexican government, assigned to investigate a counterfeiting and smuggling gang operating below the border. She joins forces with Ted and his sidekick, Rockabye Jones (Fuzzy Knight), and together they expose the gang and bring them to justice.
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Fear Is the Key (1972) Michael Tuchner, Barry Newman, Suzy Kendall, John Vernon, Action, Crime, Drama
Following the death of his family in an aeroplane crash, a man plots an elaborate revenge scheme on those responsible. By setting himself up as a criminal, he plans to get close to a certain tycoon who has been approached by the culprits to help them retrieve the cargo of the lost plane.
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My Teenage Daughter (1956) Herbert Wilcox, Anna Neagle, Sylvia Syms, Norman Wooland, Drama
Anna Neagle, Sylvia Syms. Poor Anna just can’t seem to ‘straighten out’ her delinquent daughter. Her path eventually leads to crime, rebellion, death, and redemption. Her sleazy boryfriend leads her down a path of moral ineptitude. Good performance by Syms.
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The Bugle Sounds (1942) S. Sylvan Simon, Richard Thorpe, Wallace Beery, Marjorie Main, Lewis Stone, Drama, War
Sergeant “Hap” Doan, heartbroken that the Nineteenth Cavalry, in which he has served for so many years, is to be mechanized and replenished with twenty recent draftees, goes on a drinking spree. He rails about leaving the Army, but is there when the draftees arrive, ready to make good soldiers out of them. When his horse, Cantigny, is killed by the explosion of a tank that had been sabotaged by Nazi-agents, he goes AWOL, and is court-martialed upon his return and given a dishonorable discharge. But he is under secret orders from his Commanding Officer to join the gang of German spies, who have every reason to believe they can trust the disgruntled ex-sergeant..
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Dead Men Are Dangerous (1939) Harold French, Robert Newton, Betty Lynne, Peter Gawthorne, Crime, Drama
A down-and-out writer being hounded by collectors stumbles upon dead man lying under a fallen tree limb. Little did he know the man had been murdered, and he concocts a scheme of exchanging clothes and identifications in hopes of making a clean slate of things. Coincidental happenings lead the police to his new alias. A secret diary and a murder weapon hold the truth to his innocence while Scotland Yard is now the hound on his trail. The true killers are eventually exposed to him and his sweetheart. Then the truth is exposed. A somewhat frustrating story as the viewer watches errors in judgement from all angles. But a good ending for all except the murderers.
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Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) Jim Jarmusch, Bill Murray, Tom Waits, Roberto Benigni, Comedy, Drama, Music
Eleven separate vignettes are presented. In each, celebrities, playing semi-fictionalized versions of themselves (with the exception of the characters of various wait staff, and one actor playing a lookalike cousin of herself), meet in a food service establishment with coffee/tea and cigarettes involved. Beyond the topic of discussion that brought them together, they often talk directly about coffee and cigarettes, more often that coffee and cigarettes, and by association caffeine and nicotine, are not healthy, especially if they are the only things constituting lunch. Other recurring themes include the Lee family, cousinhood, celebrity worship, the connection between the medical and musical careers, and Nikola Tesla’s belief that the Earth is a conductor of acoustic resonance. In all cases, the coming together for coffee/tea and smokes acts as a bridge to overcome disagreements, and/or makes uncomfortable situations less uncomfortable.
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The Breaking Point (1950) Michael Curtiz, John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fishing boat captain Harry Morgan charters his boat. Due to strained finances, he is none too careful as to whom he does business with. Real trouble erupts when Harry hires out his boat to transport four men who turn out to be criminals on the lam from a racetrack heist.
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All Ladies Do It / Così fan tutte (1992) Tinto Brass, Claudia Koll, Paolo Lanza, Franco Branciaroli, Comedy, Drama, Erotic
Diana is happily married to Paolo but due to her wild passion for sex, she regularly winds up in short lived erotic adventures, which she doesn’t keep hidden from Paolo. On the contrary: by telling him, their sexual relationship is fueled with fresh impulses. When Diana experiences a stormy affair with the poet Alphonse, Paolo gets jealous after all and rejects Diana, who then goes head first in to a wild orgy of sexual excess with her sister and some friends.
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The Swan (1956) Charles Vidor, Grace Kelly, Alec Guinness, Louis Jourdan, Comedy, Romance, Drama
Princess Beatrice’s days of enjoying the regal life are numbered unless her only daughter, Princess Alexandra, makes a good impression on a distant cousin when he pays a surprise visit to their palace. Prince Albert has searched all over Europe for a bride and he’s bored by the whole courtship routine. He is more interested in the estate’s dairy than Alexandra’s rose garden. And then he starts playing football with the tutor and Alexandra’s brothers. Invite the tutor to the ball that night and watch how gracefully Alexandra dances with him.
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