Author Archives: rarefilm

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1952) Harold French, Claude Rains, Märta Torén, Marius Goring, Crime, Drama

The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (1952)
Meek head clerk Kees Popinga realises at the same time as the police that owner De Koster has stripped his Dutch company clean because of his infatuation with a Parisian girl, Michelle. After a confrontation between the two men, De Koster ends up dead and Popinga makes off to Paris with the remaining money. There he contacts Michelle, with the police in close pursuit.
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Toutes les nuits / Every Night (2001) Eugène Green, Alexis Loret, Adrien Michaux, Christelle Prot, Drama

Toutes les nuits AKA Every Night (2001)
Re-adapting the themes of first love, the intoxication of desire, and failed ideological revolution (that culminated in the Revolution of 1848) to the May 68 generation through a chronicle of the parallel lives of a pair of childhood friends, the pragmatic Henri (Alexis Loret) and idealistic Jules (Adrien Michaux) as they leave their bucolic, rural hometown to separately pursue their baccalaureate – and real world – educations.
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Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. / The Thirteen Trunks of Mr. O.F. (1931) Alexis Granowsky, Alfred Abel, Peter Lorre, Harald Paulsen, Comedy

Die Koffer des Herrn O.F. (1931)
In the very oldfashioned town of Ostend suddenly 13 suitcases are delivered to the hotel, with a note, that O.F. will be here soon and needs 6 rooms (the hotel just has five). This event, probably the biggest in 300 years, starts a small wave of modernisation, yet everybody is wondering who O.F. is. Journalist Stix and architect Stark have an idea how to use this event. They proclaim, that O.F. is a former citizen of the town, who became a millionaire abroad. They tell their fellow citizens that the town still needs modernisation, like better hotels, nightclubs, shops, etc. And soon, Ostend is a boomtown, then a capital. The architect, responsible for the new buildings is finaly allowed to marry the mayor’s daughter, while Stix marries the cabaret star and the widowed mayor his new secretary. The only problem is, O.F. hasn’t shown up, while finance experts from all over the world are trying to solve the depression problem, that is non-existant in Ostend, this soon lets the people …
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Knock (1951) Guy Lefranc, Louis Jouvet, Jean Brochard, Pierre Renoir, Comedy

Knock (1951)
Saint-Maurice, an ordinary peaceful village, lived healthily so much so that the local doctor’s practice was scant. But that was before Dr. Parpalaid retired and was replaced by a charlatan by the name of Knock. A real genius this one, for he soon managed to persuade everyone that they were ill. And not only didn’t they resent him but they even loved their physician, who made a fortune and brought prosperity to the village by turning it into a big hospital.
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Il generale della Rovere / General Della Rovere (1959) Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Hannes Messemer, Sandra Milo, Drama, War

Il generale della Rovere (Roberto Rossellini, 1959)
Genoa, 1943. Grimaldi is a swindler, pretending to be a colonel in the Italian army to get money from the family of people put into jail by the Nazis. Once caught, the Gestapo makes a deal with him : he will stay alive if he impersonates the General Della Rovere, a leader of the Resistance who has just been shot by the Nazis, to be put into a political jail where he is supposed to identify another Resistance leader.
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