Tag Archives: 1950s

In a small pleasant European village, there is one unhappy person: Ella. She is despised by everyone, and mistreated by her step-mother and step-sisters. Out feeling miserable one day, Ella meets a handsome young man, who falls for her. He is really Prince Charles, the son of the Duke, but he tells her he is the son of the cook, and invites her to a great ball at the Duke’s castle. A strange woman who lives in the mountains by herself befriends Ella, and dresses her up so she can attend the ball. She goes, and is a great success, but must run out at midnight. In her haste, she drops a single glass slipper. The Prince uses the slipper to find her.
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Prince Paris of Troy, shipwrecked on a mission to the king of Sparta, meets and falls for Queen Helen before he knows who she is. Rudely received by the royal Greeks, he must flee…but fate and their mutual passions lead him to take Helen along. This gives the Greeks just the excuse they need for much-desired war.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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