Tag Archives: english

The Man Who Would Be King (1975) John Huston, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Adventure

The Man Who Would Be King (John Huston, 1975)
This adaptation of the famous short story by Rudyard Kipling tells the story of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, two ex-soldiers in India when it was under British rule. They decide that the country is too small for them, so they head off to Kafiristan in order to become Kings in their own right. Kipling is seen as a character that was there at the beginning, and at the end of this glorious tale.
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The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981) Karel Reisz, Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Hilton McRae, Drama, Romance

The French Lieutenant's Woman (Karel Reisz, 1981)
A film is being made of a story, set in 19th century England, about Charles, a biologist who’s engaged to be married, but who falls in love with outcast Sarah, whose melancholy makes her leave him after a short, but passionate affair. Anna and Mike, who play the characters of Sarah and Charles, go, during the shooting of the film, through a relationship that runs parallel to that of their characters.
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Bank Holiday (1938) Carol Reed, John Lodge, Margaret Lockwood, Hugh Williams, Drama

Bank Holiday (Carol Reed, 1938)
A 1930s British summer Bank Holiday starts at midday on Saturday with a rush for the trains to the sea-side. Doreen Richards under the name Miss Fulham is off with friend Milly to a beauty contest. Geoffrey and nurse Catherine Lawrence have decided to spend an illicit week-end in the Grand Hotel, although Catherine’s mind keeps turning back to the hospital case she was working on. Arthur, May and the children are set on a more straight-forward excursion of sea, sand, and pub. Meanwhile, the manager and performers of the “Follies” on the pier pray for rain.
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The North Star (1943) Lewis Milestone, Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Drama, Romance, War

The North Star (Lewis Milestone, 1943)
In a peaceful Ukrainian village, the school year is just ending in June 1941. Five young friends set out for a walking trip to Kiev, but their travels are brutally interrupted when they are suddenly attacked by German planes, in the first wave of the Nazi assault on the Soviet Union. When the village itself is attacked and occupied, most of the men flee to the hills to form a guerrilla unit. The others resist the Nazis as well as possible, but soon the village is placed under the command of a Nazi doctor who begins using the town’s children as a source of constant blood transfusions for wounded German soldiers. Meanwhile, the small group of young persons tries desperately to take a supply of firearms to the guerrillas.
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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, Timothy Carey, Seymour Cassel, Crime, Drama, Thriller

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (John Cassavetes, 1976)
Cosmo Vitelli owns the Crazy Horse West, a strip joint in California. He’s laconic, a Korean War vet, and a gambler. When we meet him, he’s making his last payment on a gambling debt. Then, he promptly loses $23,000 playing poker at an illegal local casino. The guys he owes this time aren’t so friendly, pressuring him for immediate payment. Then they suggest that he kill a Chinese bookie to wipe off the debt. Vitelli and the film move back and forth between the double-crossing, murderous insincerity of the gamblers and the friendships, sweetness, and even love among Vitelli, the dancers, a dancer’s mother, and the club’s singer, Mr. Sophistication.
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Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) Curtis Bernhardt, Rita Hayworth, José Ferrer, Aldo Ray, Drama, Musical, Romance

Miss Sadie Thompson (Curtis Bernhardt, 1953)
At a lonely military outpost on American Samoa, sticky heat alternates with torrential rain. A ship quarantine strands here Sadie Thompson, a “breezy dame” who sets the Marines afire… and self-righteous Mr. Davidson, powerful head of the Mission Board, who suspects Sadie is a fugitive from the notorious Emerald Club of Honolulu. Meanwhile, Sadie is courted by crude but good-hearted Marine Sgt. Phil O’Hara.
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The Apartment (1960) Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Comedy, Drama, Romance

The Apartment (1960)
As of November 1, 1959, mild mannered C.C. Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving up the corporate ladder, he often works late, but only because he can’t get into his apartment, located off of Central Park West, since he has provided it to a handful of company executives – Mssrs. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger – on a rotating basis for their extramarital liaisons in return for a good word to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake. When Baxter is called into Sheldrake’s office for the first time, he learns that it isn’t just to be promoted as he expects, but also to add married Sheldrake to the list to who he will lend his apartment.
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Gypsy Wildcat (1944) Roy William Neill, Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Peter Coe, Adventure

Gypsy Wildcat (Roy William Neill, 1944)
In an unspecified Renaissance kingdom, no sooner has Anube’s gypsy tribe encamped near Baron Tovar’s village when Count Orso is found murdered. The wicked baron blames the gypsies and imprisons them all in his castle. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger on a white horse has hidden the murder arrow and won the heart of gypsy belle Carla, to the discomfiture of her erstwhile fiancée Tonio. Baron Tovar is also fascinated by Carla…especially when he notices her heraldic pendant.
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Robin and Marian (1976) Richard Lester, Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Shaw, Adventure, Drama, Romance

Robin and Marian (Richard Lester, 1976)
A sort of tragicomedy/adventure film, “Robin and Marian” picks up the Robin Hood legend some twenty years after most versions of the story, with Robin and his sidekick Little John returning to their old Sherwood haunts world-weary from the Crusades and their sickening brutality. They’re informed by former cohorts Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett that Maid Marian now lives at the nearby priory, where she has become an abbess. Marian greets Robin’s return with mixed feelings, but after he rescues her from his longtime enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham, who tries to arrest her on religious grounds, the two become lovers once again.
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They Live (1988) John Carpenter, Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, Action, Horror, Sci-Fi

They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)
Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like “Stay Asleep”, “No Imagination”, “Submit to Authority”. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.
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Hoffmann und Sohne (1976) Alan Vydra, Candy Dallas, Robert Le Ray, Susan Rosebush, Adult

Hoffmann und Sohne (1976)
Mr Hoffman sells books and provides his female customers with nice moments in a room at the back of the shop. The number of female customers grows very rapidly and when Mr Hoffman isn’t up th the demand, he calls in his two oldest sons who keep the shop going. Unfortunately his youngest son is only interested in reading. One day, as he delivers books to one of the customers, the lady teaches him about the pleasures of sex. In order to celebrate this, the father organises a party and all is well that ends well
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