
Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, “gypsy shenanigans”) in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life…
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Tag Archives: 1970s
Kunoichi ninpo: hyakka manji-garami / Female Ninja Magic: 100 Trampled Flowers (1974) Chûsei Sone, Junko Miyashita, Hitomi Kozue, Yûko Katagiri, Fantasy, Erotic

Acclaimed Nikkatsu studio pinku eiga filmmaker Chusei Sone directed this action-packed softcore melodrama concerning a group of female ninjas who use sexual magic along with their considerable fighting skills to protect their province from takeover by a ruthless shogun and his band of fighters.
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Umarla klasa / Dead Class (1977) Andrzej Wajda, Tadeusz Kantor, Maria Kantor, Zofia Kalinska, Documentary, Drama

The Dead Class (1975), by Tadeusz Kantor and the Cricot 2 company, is considered one of the most innovative and influential works of twentieth-century theatre. The breakthrough first version of the production – performed to great critical acclaim, but only rarely seen live by audiences outside Poland – was documented on film in 1976 by the Oscar-winning director Andrzej Wajda.
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Blue Sunshine (1977) Jeff Lieberman, Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard, Horror, Thriller

At a party, someone goes insane and murders three women. Falsely accused of the brutal killings Read More »
The End (1978) Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Dom DeLuise

Wendell Lawson has only 6 months to live. Not wanting to live his last few months of life waiting Read More »
Uma Abelha na Chuva / A Bee in the Rain (1972) Fernando Lopes, Laura Soveral, João Guedes, Zita Duarte, Drama

This Portuguese drama examines the daily life minutiae and intrigues of two scions of society in the rural village where they live. One is a wealthy landowner, the other a widowed aristocrat who lives in a world of her own. “Starting off from a fine novel by Carlos de Oliveira, Fernando Lopes doesn’t so mush reconstitute a story, but rather defines an atmosphere parallel to that which exists in the literary work. The erosion of time, the crumbling of an epoch, the decline of a stately home, the disintegration of emotions: the film version of A Bee in the Rain talks about all these things, using a language that is sparse and unpolished, fascinating and at the same time repulsive in its disturbing silence” (Lauro Antonio).
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Midare karakuri / Murder in the Doll House (1979) Susumu Kodama, Shin Kishida, Koichi Kitami, Yûsaku Matsuda, Drama, Sci-Fi, Horror

In the best traditions of Japanese mystery stories which place fiendishly elaborate plots at their centre, Murder at the Doll House more than succeeds as a classic detective story. We’re presented with a set of strange occurrences which our master sleuth will explain to us in a long lecture at the end and even if one or two twists are a little obvious, the satisfaction involved in having figured them out ahead of time outweighs any kind of disappointment. Toshio may say he wants to be like Philip Marlowe but in actuality his detective is a little more in the European mould – almost like a more active Poirot or a slightly less obtuse Sherlock Holmes. Still, donning a trench coat with a turned up collar yet eschewing the classic hat which would have obscured his giant ‘70s perm, Matsuda once again turns in a very “cool” performance as super smart private eye.
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Akenfield (1974) Peter Hall, Stanley Baxter, Ronald Blythe, Ethel Branton, Drama

As the young man, Tom, prepares to leave the Suffolk village of his birth, voices and experiences from his family’s past crowd in on his mind, weaving a poetic tapestry of the love of home and the longing to get away from it.
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The Killing Kind (1973) Curtis Harrington, Ann Sothern, John Savage, Ruth Roman, Crime, Drama, Horror

Young Terry Lambert returns home from serving a prison term for a gang-rape he was forced to participate in. He seeks revenge on his lawyer and the girl who framed him. But his real problem is his overbearing mother, whose boarding house he resides in and who keeps bringing him glasses of chocolate milk. One of her boarders, Lori, becomes attracted to him. However, while he was serving his prison sentence, Terry developed an interest in rough, violent sex, and gory death. Now, one by one, some of the town’s women pop up dead.
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1973) David Winters, Kirk Douglas, Susan George, Susan Hampshire, Horror, Musical, Sci-Fi

Musical version of the story in which Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
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