Tag Archives: english

The Martian Chronicles (1980) Michael Anderson

The Martian Chronicles
Earth sends its first manned probe to Mars in 1999, and a jealous Martian murders the two astronauts when his wife has erotic dreams of meeting them. Members of a subsequent expedition are hypnotized into believing that they have landed in the childhood community of their leader and have been reunited with deceased family and friends, and they are poisoned by the Martians. Col. John Wilder leads a third expedition and learns that a chicken pox virus brought to Mars by the first two expeditions has almost eradicated the Martian population. A member of Wilder’s team becomes obsessed with protecting Mars from Earthman and murders some of the others in Wilder’s party, before Wilder kills him. Colonists arrive on Mars to settle, among them priests seeking God, and a lone Martian masquerades as the most desired persons of various settlers. Global war on Earth reduces man’s natal planet to radioactive waste, and most of the settlers returned there prior to the holocaust.
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Sergeant York (1941) Howard Hawks

Sergeant York (1941)
A hillbilly sharpshooter becomes one of the most celebrated American heroes of WWI when he single-handedly attacks and captures a German position using the same strategy as in turkey shoot.
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Sylvia Scarlett (1935) George Cukor

Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
Escaping to England from a French embezzlement charge, widower Henry Scarlett is accompanied by daughter Sylvia who, to avoid detection, “disguises” herself as a boy, “Sylvester.” They are joined by amiable con man Jimmy Monkley, then, after a brief career in crime, meet Maudie Tilt, a giddy, sexy Cockney housemaid who joins them in the new venture of entertaining at resort towns from a caravan. Through all this, amazingly no one recognizes that Sylvia is not a boy…until she meets handsome artist Michael Fane, and drama intrudes on the comedy.
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L’espion / The Defector (1966) Raoul Lévy

L'espion (1966)
Montgomery Cliff (in his last role) plays James Bower, an American physicist visiting West Germany who’s recruited by a shady CIA agent, named Adam, to help them with the defection of a Russian scientist. But an East German secret agent, named Peter Heinzeman, learns of Bower’s meeting with Adam and threatens Bower to mind his own business, while Bower learns of a back story to all this involving stolen microfilm that each side wants.
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Holy Matrimony (1943) John M. Stahl

Holy Matrimony (1943)
Famed English painter Priam Farll has spent the last 25 years living in various remote locations with only his trusted manservant, Henry Leek, for company. While Farll is summoned to London to receive a knighthood, Leek falls ill and dies. Wishing to avoid the ostentation knighthood ceremony, the reclusive painter assumes his valet’s identity. Farll, posing as Leek, soon receives a letter from Alice Chalice, a widow who has been corresponding with Leek through a marriage bureau and is expecting to finally meet her beloved in person…
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Tiger Bay (1959) J. Lee Thompson

Tiger Bay (1959)
Gille Jenkins, a 12 year old tomboy and compulsive liar living in a sordid tenement with her single parent mother, witnesses the murder of an immigrant Polish woman living in an nearby apartment by her former boyfriend, Bronislaus Korchinski. The young merchant marine becomes distraught when he discovers that she has become the mistress of a married British sports announcer and shoots her with her own gun. Gillie lies about the circumstances in order to keep the gun which she discovers where Korchinsky hid it. She ultimately bonds with him and misleads the police in their investigation.
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The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) W.S. Van Dyke, Howard Hawks

The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)
Steve is just a heavy duty bartender when Edwin J. Bennett, known as the Professor, starts training him for the ring. While doing road work, he is almost killed by a speeding car which crashes into a ditch. In the car is Belle Mercer and her driver. Steve takes Belle to a farmhouse and is smitten by her, but she is Willie Ryan’s Girl. The fight is a breeze and later, Steve again meets Belle with Willie. That night, Steve and Belle disappear and return married, much to the disappointment of Ryan. Then Steve starts training in ernest and is 19 for 19 in the ring. However, he has an eye for the women and an expanding ego to match.
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Four Friends (1981) Arthur Penn

Four Friends (1981)
This story of four working-class kids in a small industrial town–who go their separate ways after high school in the innocence of 1961 and come together again at the end of the turbulent Sixties–is as much about the coming of age of America as it is about the changes the characters go through. The four friends of the title are thoughtful Danilo, a Yugoslavian immigrant with dreams of being a writer and a scholar; Tom, good-looking and athletic, who is bound for the army; cautious David who has mixed feelings about staying in town and joining the family mortuary business; and lovely, ditzy, exasperating Georgia, who tries to inspire all of them with her longings for a life of Bohemian adventure. It is told through the eyes of Danilo, whose story is loosely based on the writer Tesich’s own life growing up in Bloomington, Indiana.
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Hoffman (1970) Alvin Rakoff

Hoffman (1970)
A businessman blackmails his attractive young secretary into spending a weekend with him. Though he’s a creep throughout, he gradually emerges as a sympathetic character.
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