An Irishman sets out to become famous as a singer on the radio. Due to a mix up he is instead entered as a contestant on a quiz show. He causes mayhem in the studio and the publicity attracts the attention of an agent who thinks he can help.
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La Main du Diable / Carnival of Sinners (1943) Maurice Tourneur, Pierre Fresnay, Josseline Gaël, Noël Roquevert, Fantasy, Horror
A man arrives at an isolated mountain inn clutching a small box. The man is panic-struck when, during a sudden blackout, the box disappears. To the assembled guests at the inn he tells his tragic story. The man, Roland Brissot, was once a penniless artist who, one day, bought a talisman from the owner of a restaurant for one franc.
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Kagerô-za / Heat-Haze Theatre (1981) Seijun Suzuki, Yûsaku Matsuda, Michiyo Ohkusu, Mariko Kaga, Fantasy, Romance, Thriller
Playwright Matsuzaki (Yusaku Matsuda) crosses paths with a beautiful woman on her way to the hospital who tells him a friend is dying. Frightened of a mysterious older woman who sells the fruit of the Chinese Lantern Plant – rumored to be distaff souls – she implores Matsuzaki to accompany her.
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Zigeunerweisen / Tsigoineruwaizen (1980) Seijun Suzuki, Yoshio Harada, Naoko Ôtani, Toshiya Fujita, Horror, Mystery
A surreal period film following an university professor and his eerie nomad friend as they go through loose romantic triangles and face death in peculiar ways.
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The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) Preston Sturges, Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, Comedy, Romance, War
Trudy Kockenlocker, a small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers, wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can’t remember–and she’s pregnant. Norval Jones, the 4-F local boy who’s been in love with Trudy for years, tries to help her find a way out of her predicament. Trudy complicates matters further by falling for Norval, and events snowball from there.
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Shanghai Express / Foo gwai lit che (1986) Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Biao Yuen, Olivia Cheng, Action, Comedy, Western
What happens when a glamorous express, with high government officials, wealthy merchants, concubines and a gang of brigands on board, speeds towards the small town of Hanshui, where escaping bank robbers, corrupt officials, and gamblers await? Well, let’s just say the Titanic had a smoother maiden voyage.
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Graveyard of Honor / Jingi no hakaba (1975) Kinji Fukasaku, Tetsuya Watari, Tatsuo Umemiya, Yumi Takigawa, Action, Crime
A look at the life of renegade yakuza, Rikio Ishikawa, particularly the years from 1946 to 1950 when his violent antics get him in trouble with his own clan, Kawada, and then with the clan of his protector, Kozaburo Imai. In these years, he can rely on Chieko, a young Tokyo courtesan who gives him shelter.
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Seven Men from Now (1956) Budd Boetticher, Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, Lee Marvin, Action, Western
Ex-sheriff Ben Stride tracks the seven men who held up a Wells Fargo office and killed his wife. Stride is tormented by the fact that his own failure to keep his job was the cause of his wife’s working in the express office and thus he is partly responsible for her death.
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Kikansha sensei (2004) Ryuichi Hiroki, Kenji Sakaguchi, Masaaki Sakai, Mitsuko Baishô, Drama
Seigo Yoshioka (Kenji Sakaguchi) is a teacher that became mute after a kendo accident. He feels lost after the accident and eventually decides to teach again on a small island where his mother was born. The children there on the island quickly name him “Kikansha Sensei” (Teacher Locomotive) after learning he is mute.
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Bright Lights / Adventures In Africa (1930) Michael Curtiz, Dorothy Mackaill, Frank Fay, Noah Beery, Musical, Drama
The lovely young star of a Broadway show is giving an interview to several newspaper writers and tells them about her wild life, parts of which involved “hula dancing” in Africa and an involvement with a dangerous Portuguese smuggler. Unbeknownst to her, the smuggler has showed up at the theater on that very night.
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