Tag Archives: 1940s

Willy Forst of course is famous for looking back on the ‘old Vienna’ in a mixture of nostalgia and gentle irony in his films, but “Wiener Blut” may be the one which most highlights the question of what makes the ‘true’ Viennese style. We get a first answer right at the beginning, when Forst himself masqueraded as a medieval alchemist mixes the ingredients for the brew of this film, which are ‘humour’, ‘frivolity’, ‘heart’, ‘history’ and most of all, ‘music’. And the film gets this mixture right.
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Clara Wieck meets the talented Robert Schumann in her father’s Leipzig music school. And entirely against her father’s wishes, who thinks only of her future artistic career, she falls in love with Robert. The final break comes after a successful tour as a pianist at the side of Franz Liszt.
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Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of hillbilly stereotypes live in a rural backwater where their ancestors were once wealthy planters. Their slapstick existence is threatened by a bank’s plans to take over the land for more profitable farming; subplots involve the affairs and marriages of son Dude and daughter Ellie May.
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Lady, Let’s Dance was a 1944 black and white film directed by Frank Woodruff that was nominated for two Oscars. Produced by Monogram Studios, the film is unique as an ice skating musical. Lady, Let’s Dance starred ice skaters Belita, James Ellison, Werner Groebli and Hans Mauch (more commonly known as ‘Frick & Frack’) and Walter Catlett.
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Suspecting that a safari guide is a wanted killer, undercover policeman Geoffrey Bishop joins a safari led by the suspect for a scientist that hopes to find and prove that a fabled white gorilla is a missing link.
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A father and his son, a son and his father. Horikawa is a widower, a teacher, and a good father to Ryohei, who’s about 10. After a tragedy, Horikawa resigns from teaching and takes Ryohei from Tokyo to the town of Ueno, enrolling him in junior high; to the lad’s sorrow, he will be a boarder. Horikawa returns to work in Tokyo, their separation is complete. Jump ahead more than ten years: with dad’s help, Ryohei has finished college and has a teaching job in Akita. Horikawa considers living with his son, which Ryohei wants, but the elder’s notions of duty and hard work preclude it. Ryohei arranges a ten-day vacation with his father. Heartbreak comes quietly, nearly hidden by dignity.
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Promoter Frankie Christopher, being grilled by police in the murder of model Vicky Lynn, recalls in flashback: First meeting her as a waitress, Frankie decides to parlay her beauty into social acceptance and a lucrative career. He succeeds only too well: she’s on the eve of deserting him for Hollywood…when someone kills her. Now Frankie gets the feeling that Inspector Ed Cornell is determined to pin the killing on him and only him. He’s right. And the only one he can turn to for help is Jill, the victim’s sister, who’s been cool toward him…
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Scot Webster tries to save his sister Susan from the clutches of gangster W.S. Bruhl. When Scot comes to Bruhl’s rented room, one of the gangster’s henchmen collapses into his hands, killed by a gunman. The murderer tosses his gun to Scot and disappears. Since all the evidence points at him, Scot is arrested, tried and sentenced to death. A mad scientist uses his brain to transplant it into a gorilla. After the operation Scot wakes up in the body of a gorilla, eager to get his revenge…
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An all-black Caribbean island resort welcomes flashy dancer Gertie La Rue, forced to perform in this remote spot because she two-timed Al, her Harlem lover and backer, once too often. As Gertie amuses herself by dazzling the local men with her sex appeal, sanctimonious Mr. Christian (shades of ‘Rain’) schemes to either reform her or have her thrown off the island. On opening night, her sensuous performance exceeds Christian’s worst fears…but more serious trouble awaits.
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In the rural south of the United States, a godly young woman is accidently wounded by her unchurched husband. She succumbs to the injuries, whereupon a good angel bids her to journey with him to the Crossroads of Life. Before she can travel far, the devil lures her with the temptations of juke joints and the city. Can she regain the straight and narrow before it’s too late? And what is to become of those she left behind?
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