Author Archives: rarefilm

Opening Night (1977) John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Ben Gazzara, Drama

opening-night-1977
Actress Myrtle Gordon (Gena Rowlands) is a functioning alcoholic actress who is a few days from the opening night of her latest play, concerning a woman distraught about aging. One night a car kills one of Myrtle’s fans who is chasing her limousine in an attempt to get the star’s attention. Myrtle internalizes the accident and goes on a spiritual quest, but fails to finds the answers she is after. As opening night inches closer and closer, fragile Myrtle must find a way to make the show go on.
Read More »

Zabitá nedele / Squandered Sunday (1969) Drahomíra Vihanová, Irena Boleslavská, Vladislav Drazdák, Alexandra Haskovcová, Drama

squandered-sunday-1969
It’s Sunday morning. The church bells call people to the Mass, but the army officer Arnost is still sleeping in his austere and shabby room in the barracks. He wakes slowly, and attunes himself step by step to the world and what to do this arid Sunday. He loads his pistol and puts it to his head and in his mouth, without firing it off. While he turns around, he is now and then interrupted by short flashbacks in his memory of situations with frivolous women and much drinking, as well as some daydreams about enforced weddings. He has a relationship with three blond women. Two of them are adult. One is willowy and a bit aloof, the other voluptuous and possessive. The third is a little girl, who he likes to talk with. He goes to the gatekeeper of the barracks, and starts a chat. Through a spyglass he suddenly sees two young women sunbathing topless. As it is within the military area, he orders the gatekeeper to arrest them. The women don’t take him seriously, but he writes a report.
Read More »

When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965) Alvin Ganzer, Connie Francis, Harve Presnell, Peter Noone, Musical

when-the-boys-meet-the-girls-1965
Danny Churchill is a young heir who tries to help Ginger, an attractive postal worker in rural Nevada, save her father’s ranch from closing due to being heavily in debt with some Reno gangster types for her father’s compulsive gambling. Danny, with his college friends help, turn Ginger and her father’s ranch into a motel for impending divorcees in order to get out of debit, while Danny courts Ginger, but tries to keep his past reputation a secret when his former girlfriend Tess, a spitefull gold-digger, relentlessly pursues him and his wealth.
Read More »

Vecchia guardia / Old Guard (1934) Alessandro Blasetti, Gianfranco Giachetti, Mino Doro, Franco Brambilla, Drama

vecchia-guardia-1934
There were very few commercial feature films made during the Italian fascist era that were as openly propagandistic as this famous (notorious?) dramatic paean to the Blackshirts. The story takes place in a small village in Italy in October of 1922, on the eve of the fascist “March on Rome”, in which King Victor Emanuel III was persuaded to consign power to Benito Mussolini. Gianfranco Giachetti is Dr. Cardini, a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital, where a strike has been called by the local socialists. Cardini turns to the fascists to help avert the strike. His son Roberto (Mino Doro) rounds up fascist friends to fight those aligned with the strikers and the town’s socialists.
Read More »

Supermarkt (1974) Roland Klick, Charly Wierczejewski, Eva Mattes, Michael Degen, Action, Crime, Drama

supermarkt-1974
18-year old Willi is living on the street – there are no goals in his life. There, he meets several people, helping but also cheating him. When he finally meets Monica, he realizes that there are people out there whose lives are even more desperate than his. So he’s trying to help her (and him) by planning a great robbery on a supermarket’s money transporter.
Read More »

La pattuglia sperduta (1954) Piero Nelli, Annibale Biglione, Óscar Navarro, Filippo Posca, Drama, War

la-pattuglia-sperduta-1954
Nel marzo 1849, Carlo Alberto è in procinto di riprendere la guerra contro gli Austriaci. Da tutta Italia arrivano in Piemonte volontari decisi a combattere per l’indipendenza dall’Austria. La mattina del 20 marzo una pattuglia rimane tagliata fuori in territorio nemico, mentre sta per avere inizio la battaglia di Novara: una pericolosa avventura che dura tre giorni.
Read More »

Death of a Gunfighter (1969) Don Siegel, Richard Widmark, Lena Horne, Carroll O’Connor, Western

death-of-a-gunfighter-1969
In the turn-of-the century Texas town of Cottownwood Springs, marshal Frank Patch is an old-style lawman in a town determined to become modern. When he kills drunken Luke Mills in self-defense, the town leaders decide it’s time for a change. They ask for Patch’s resignation, but he refuses on the basis that the town on hiring him had promised him the job for as long as he wanted it. Afraid for the town’s future and even more afraid of the fact that Marshal Patch knows all the town’s dark secrets, the city fathers decide that old-style violence is the only way to rid themselves of the unwanted lawman.
Read More »

Un condamné à mort s’est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut / A Man Escaped (1956) Robert Bresson, François Leterrier, Charles Le Clainche, Maurice Beerblock, Drama, Thriller, War

a-man-escaped-1956
A Man Escaped opens with the indelible image of a pair of restless hands belonging to a French resistance officer named Lieutenant Fontaine (Francois Leterrier). His face is inscrutable and impassive, concealing his calculated attempt to flee from the escorted prison transport vehicle. He reaches for the door handle, retreats, then reaches again. At a momentary distraction of a crossing railcar, he seizes the opportunity, but is immediately recaptured, and is severely beaten by the German guards for the attempt. Imprisoned and condemned to die, Fontaine finds the courage and determination to escape his certain fate.
Read More »