Apparently rejected by women all his life, a loner with a high-power rifle starts on a trail of murder. The police are baffled by the apparently random killings until their psychologist comes up with some ideas.
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Tag Archives: 1950s
Il generale della Rovere / General Della Rovere (1959) Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Hannes Messemer, Sandra Milo, Drama, War
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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I’ll See You in My Dreams (1951) Michael Curtiz, Doris Day, Danny Thomas, Frank Lovejoy, Biography, Comedy, Musical
Songwriter Gus Kahn gets the Hollywood treatment. The film chronicles his success and decline, with his wife Grace sticking by him the whole time.
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Kismet (1955) Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray, Adventure, Musical, Fantasy
Like a tale spun by Scheherazade, Kismet follows the remarkable and repeated changes of fortune that engulf a poor poet. It all happens in one incredible day when Kismet (Fate) takes a hand.
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La città si difende / Four Ways Out (1951) Pietro Germi, Gina Lollobrigida, Renato Baldini, Cosetta Greco, Crime, Drama
As a soccer match is in progress, a group of four criminals robs the stadium office. Before they can make their getaway, a chase begins, and they must split up before they can divide the money. The police have little to go on, since it appears that none of the robbers were experienced criminals. Meanwhile, the thieves have to arrange for dividing the money while trying to avoid being captured.
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The Halliday Brand (1957) Joseph H. Lewis, Joseph Cotten, Viveca Lindfors, Betsy Blair, Drama, Western
As a man returns home to see his dying father, the story of the alienation between father and son is told in flashback. Purposely letting his daughter’s lover get lynched, shooting the lynched man’s father when he threatens him with a gun, and the bullying tactics used by him as a Sheriff causes the son to leave. The son now plans to ruin his father and get his Sheriff’s badge removed.
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Marguerite de la nuit / Marguerite of the Night (1955) Claude Autant-Lara, Michèle Morgan, Yves Montand, Jean Debucourt, Drama, Fantasy
An updating of the Faust legend, with a dash of Fritz Lang’s “Der Müde Tod”, to a 1950’s Paris recreated in vividly abstract expressionistic sets.
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War and Peace (1956) King Vidor, Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer, Drama, Romance, War
By 1812, Napoleon’s forces controlled much of Europe. Russia, one of the few countries still unconquered, prepares to face Napoleon’s troops together with Austria. Among the Russian soldiers are Count Nicholas Rostov and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. Count Pierre Bezukhov, a friend of Andrei’s and self-styled intellectual who is not interested in fighting. Pierre’s life changes when his father dies, leaving him a vast inheritance. He is attracted to Natasha Rostov, Nicholas’s sister, but she is too young, so he gives in to baser desires and marries the shallow, manipulative Princess Helene. The marriage ends when Pierre discovers his wife’s true nature. Andrei is captured and later released by the French, and returns home only to watch his wife die in childbirth. Months later, Pierre and Andrei meet again. Andrei sees Natasha and falls in love, but his father will only permit the marriage if they postpone it for one year until Natasha turns 17.
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The Little Hut (1957) Mark Robson, Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger, David Niven, Comedy, Romance
Three people, Susan and Philip Ashlow and Henry Brittingham-Brett are washed ashore on a deserted island after a shipwreck. Henry is Susan’s lover. Since the island is filled with things to eat, they can concentrate on the love triangle between the men and the woman.
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Beginning of the End (1957) Bert I. Gordon, Peter Graves, Peggie Castle, Morris Ankrum, Sci-Fi
An attractive reporter investigating the mysterious destruction of an Illinois town stumbles upon a secret government laboratory conducting radiation experiments on vegetables. The lead scientist is eager to help find out what happened. Together they discover that giant grasshoppers are behind the devastation. Worse yet, thousands of them are headed toward Chicago! Can they be stopped… or is this the BEGINNING OF THE END?
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