Tag Archives: english

Houdini (1953) George Marshall, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh, Torin Thatcher, Biography, Drama

Houdini (1953)
The amazing career of master magician Harry Houdini is presented from his beginnings with a carnival “wild man” act to his emergence as an internationally-acclaimed illusionist, From his dramatic escape from a locked safe under the frozen Detroit River to an even more improbable one from a locked cell in Scotland Yard, he never failed to please and astound his audiences. Although Houdini’s tricks are achieved through his marvelous physical dexterity and innate sleight-of-hand, he courted death with the hazardous illusions he performed and his compulsive quest to make contact with the spirit world.
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A Month by the Lake (1995) John Irvin, Vanessa Redgrave, Edward Fox, Uma Thurman, Comedy, Drama, Romance

A Month by the Lake (1995)
For 16 years Miss Bentley has been spending April at an elegant hillside villa on Lake Como. This year, 1937, her London society artist father has recently died and the only other English-speaking guests are brash Americans. Then Major Wilshaw arrives. He suggests they meet for cocktails and Miss Bentley stands him up – not even thinking about it – as she helps the new nanny of an Italian family settle in. Miss Beaumont, a tall, young American who has dropped out of finishing school in Switzerland, is bored and finds some amusement in flirting with the major, whose libido is awakened for the first time since before the great war. And Miss Bentley now finds more about the major to admire than his ears.
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Pickup on South Street (1953) Samuel Fuller, Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Pickup on South Street (1953)
On a crowded subway, Skip McCoy picks the purse of Candy. Among his take, although he does not know it at the time, is a piece of top-secret microfilm that was being passed by Candy’s consort, a Communist agent. Candy discovers the whereabouts of the film through Moe Williams, a police informer. She attempts to seduce McCoy to recover the film. She fails to get back the film and falls in love with him. The desperate agent exterminates Moe and savagely beats Candy. McCoy, now goaded into action, confronts the agent in a particularly brutal fight in a subway.
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The Whistler (1944) William Castle, Richard Dix, Gloria Stuart, J. Carrol Naish, Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

The Whistler (1944)
A man, despondent over the death of his wife, wants to commit suicide but can’t bring himself to do it. He hires a man to hire a professional killer to do the job. However, he soon finds out that his wife isn’t really dead – but the man he paid to hire the hitman is, and he has no idea who the man hired or how to get him to call off the hit.
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Embrace the Darkness (1999) Kelley Cauthen, Madison Clark, Angelia High, Kevin Spirtas, Horror, Erotic

embrace.the_.darkness_cover
Vampires Galen [Kevin Spirtas] and Miranda [Angelina High] have just moved to Los Angeles. Galen wants to lay low and get his blood from a nearby bloodbank while Miranda likes hers fresh, young, and virile. When Galen notices dancer Jennifer [Madison Clark] masturbating on her studio floor, he falls in love and sets out to pursue her. Miranda becomes jealous and seduces Jennifer, too, while Jennifer’s cop boyfriend Ryan [Brad Bartram] senses that she is becoming too friendly with Galen and Miranda. Meanwhile, Ryan and Detective Turner [Cliff Potts] have their hands full trying to figure out why bloodless bodies keep turning up with two puncture wounds on the neck. Then Jennifer is hit by a car, and Galen “saves” her by making her a vampire. When Ryan sees a wanted poster bearing a drawing of Galen, he grabs a stake and rushes over to Galen’s apartment, only to find Jennifer squating in a corner and crying. Does Ryan use that stake on Jennifer? You’ll have to wait for Embrace the Darkness 2 to find out.
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Greenhide (1926) Charles Chauvel, Elsa Chauvel, Gerald Barlow, Irma Dearden, Drama, Thriller

Greenhide (1926)
Charles Chauvel came to the forefront of Australian cinema after The Moth of Moonbi (1926), and followed up with Greenhide, his final silent film. It was on the set of Greenhide that Chauvel met his wife Elsie, who had the starring role. The story follows a girl who moves from a life of leisure in the city to rural Queensland, where she romanticises her way into the arms of the rough farm manager, ‘Greenhide Gavin’. A cattle-thieving plot also unfolds.
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The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947) Felix E. Feist, Lawrence Tierney, Ted North, Nan Leslie, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947)
Not by any means a great film, The Devil Thumbs a Ride nonetheless has an indefinable audience allure that sucks the viewer into its labyrinthine storyline and doesn’t let go until the fade-out. Lawrence Tierney plays Steve Morgan, a charming but utterly sociopathic criminal who has just robbed and killed a movie theater cashier. Morgan hitches a ride with inebriated conventioneer Jimmy Furguson (Ted North). Later on, Furguson picks up two more hitchhikers: virginal Beulah Zorn (Nan Leslie) and good-time girl Agnes Smith (Betty Lawford). When circumstances lead Jimmy to believe that Steve is the fugitive whom the cops are looking for, Morgan sweet-talks his way into everyone’s confidence. Before he knows what’s happening, Jimmy is holed up in a beach house while Steve parties with Beulah and Agnes. Not even the most fervent of film noir fans will be able to predict the outcome of this one. Long ignored by movie buffs, The Devil Thumbs a Ride gained a large following through repeated TV showings in the 1960s and ’70s. It is now considered so representative of its genre that one film historian used the film’s title for a collection of his essays on B-melodramas.
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