Tag Archives: 1950s

Thunder on the Hill / Tempête sur la Colline (1951) Douglas Sirk, Claudette Colbert, Ann Blyth, Robert Douglas, Drama, Mystery

thunder-on-the-hill
Sister Mary Bonaventure is in charge of the hospital ward of a convent in the county of Norfolk, England. She is troubled by her own sister’s suicide, which she confides to her Mother Superior. A torrential rain closes nearby roads, causing Sergeant Melling of the police to bring condemned murderer Valerie Carns there. She is being taken to prison. Valerie was convicted of poisoning her brother Jason, a pianist. Jason’s physician, Dr. Jeffreys, is head of the hospital where Sister Mary now works. Valerie still proclaims her innocence, but Jeffreys insists that she gave Jason a fatal overdose of his medicine…
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Count the Hours (1953) Don Siegel, Teresa Wright, Macdonald Carey, Dolores Moran, Drama, Crime

Count the Hours (1953)
The midnight murder of a rancher and his wife leaves circumstantial evidence pointing the finger of guilt toward a married couple, George Braden and his wife Ellen, who live and work on the ranch. George confesses to the killings in order to free his wife from hours of grilling by the police. Despite the best efforts of his defense attorney, Doug Madison , George gets the death penalty. Sunsequent events and his sympathy for Ellen convince Doug that George is innocent but he must find the real murderer to prove it. His man-hunt leads to a former hired hand, Max Verne. With the help of the latter’s greedy girl friend, Gracie Sanger, Max is found and admits to the killings. But when a hearing is held, a psychiatrist pronounces him unsound of mind but harmless and the judge sets him free.
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The Happy Road (1957) Gene Kelly, Barbara Laage, Michael Redgrave, Comedy

the-happy-road-1957
While setting up a business in Paris, American widower Michael Andrews has placed his adolescent son, Danny Andrews, in a Swiss boarding school as Mike has no time during this phase of the business set-up to look after Danny on his own. Mike receives distressing news that Danny has run away from the school with another student, Parisienne Janine Duval. This news does not sit well with either Mike or Janine’s divorcée mother, Suzanne Duval. Suzanne believes Danny is a delinquent influence on her daughter, while Mike believes Janine is an enabler as non-French speaking Danny could not manage outside the school without some language assistance. They learn from another student that Danny is heading to Paris to show Mike that he is independent enough to live in Paris with Mike, while Janine tagged along because she sees herself as Danny’s girl and as she has not seen her mother in some time. As the children have not been gone long and as there is only one road between the school and Paris,…
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