One disaster after another happens on this trans-Pacific flight. You have the pilot who loses his nerve! The washed-up co-pilot. The milquetoast flight engineer. The young hot shot second officer. And a cabin full of passengers with every range of problems and personalities there could possibly be. Here you have the Duke in a role he didn’t want, and a movie with the title song that became Duke’s theme. What else could any John Wayne fan want? It’s all here, and then some.
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Tag Archives: USA
So Proudly We Hail! (1943) Mark Sandrich, Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Drama, Romance, War
A group of U.S. Army nurses leaves San Francisco for their tour of duty in Hawaii in December 1941. The attack on Pearl Harbor changes their destination, and their lives. Sent to Bataan, in the Philippines, the nurses are led by Lt. Janet Davidson. She is faced with untested nurses who expected an easy time in Honolulu, but who quickly become battle-weary veterans dealing with daily bombardments by the Japanese, overwhelmed by the numbers of wounded, and dwindling supplies. Some of “Davey’s” unit also have to deal with romantic entanglements with men they met onboard ship. When Bataan falls, the American forces flee to the offshore island of Corregidor, where they find the Japanese assault just as intense.
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The Big Shot (1942) Lewis Seiler, Humphrey Bogart, Irene Manning, Richard Travis, Drama, Crime
Three time loser Duke Berne risks life in prison with one more armored car robbery. His attorney’s wife Lorna, Berne’s old sweetheart, keeps him from it but he goes to jail anyway. Duke and Lorna get some time together again after he stages a prison break, but if he stays with her his old friend George will have to take the rap for killing one of the guards.
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Chop Shop (2007) Ramin Bahrani, Alejandro Polanco, Isamar Gonzales, Rob Sowulski, Drama
Alejandro, a resourceful street orphan on the verge of adolescence, lives and works in an auto-body repair shop in a sprawling junkyard on the outskirts of Queens, New York. In this chaotic world of adults, Alejandro struggles to make a better life for himself and his sixteen-year-old sister.
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Side Show (1931) Roy Del Ruth, Winnie Lightner, Charles Butterworth, Evalyn Knapp, Comedy
The delightful Winnie Lightner stars in this comedy-drama as Pat, a traveling carnival troupe member who does everything from high diving to hula dancing, with time left over to romance meek and mild Sidney (Charles Butterworth) and try to save her younger sister, Irene (Evelyn Knapp), from a lecherous carny barker. The slapstick big-top finale is a highlight.
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Streamers (1983) Robert Altman, Matthew Modine, Michael Wright, Mitchell Lichtenstein, Crime, Drama, War
Four young recruits about to be sent to Vietnam confront their prejudicial feelings toward one another when it’s learned one of them is homosexual.
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Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) Paul Schrader, Ken Ogata, Masayuki Shionoya, Hiroshi Mikami, Biography, Drama
A fictionalized account in four segments of the life of Japan’s celebrated twentieth-century author Yukio Mishima. Three of the segments parallel events in Mishima’s life with his novels (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji), Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses), while the fourth depicts 25 November 1970, “The Last Day”…
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Dust Be My Destiny (1939) Lewis Seiler, John Garfield, Priscilla Lane, Alan Hale, Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Embittered after serving time for a burglary he did not commit, Joe Bell is soon back in jail, on a prison farm. His love for the foreman’s daughter leads to a fight between them, leading to the older man’s death due to a weak heart. Joe and Mabel go on the run as he thinks no-one would believe a nobody like him.
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The Land That Time Forgot (1975) Kevin Connor, Doug McClure, John McEnery, Susan Penhaligon, Adventure, Fantasy
During World War I, a German U-boat sinks a British ship and takes the survivors on board. After it takes a wrong turn, the submarine takes them to the unknown land of Caprona, where they find dinosaurs and neanderthals.
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Strangers in the Night (1944) Anthony Mann, William Terry, Virginia Grey, Helene Thimig
A lonely, mentally unbalanced woman invents a fictitious daughter and has the “daughter” write to a Marine stationed in the South Pacific. Read More »