Tag Archives: USA

A Man Alone (1955) Ray Milland, Mary Murphy, Ward Bond, Western

A Man Alone (1955)
A gunfighter, stranded in the desert, comes across the aftermath of a stage robbery, in which all the passengers were killed. He takes one of the horses to ride to town to report the massacre, but finds himself accused of it. He also finds himself accused of the murder of the local banker, and winds up hiding in the basement of a house where the local sheriff, who is very sick, lives with his daughter.
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We Were Strangers (1949) John Huston, Jennifer Jones, John Garfield, Pedro Armendáriz, Adventure, Romance, Drama

We Were Strangers (1949)
China Valdes joins the Cuban underground after her brother is killed by the chief of the secret police, Ariete. She meets and falls in love with American expatriate Tony Fenner. Tony develops a plan to tunnel under the city’s cemetery to a plot owned by a high official, assassinate him, and blow up the whole Cuban hierarchy at the ensuing state funeral. Together with a band of dedicated revolutionaries, they begin digging.
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The Inner Circle (1991) Andrey Konchalovskiy, Tom Hulce, Lolita Davidovich, Bob Hoskins, Drama

The Inner Circle (1991)
The true story of Ivan Sanchin, the KGB officer who was Stalin’s private film projectionist from 1939 until the dictator’s death. Told from Sanchin’s view, the sympathetic but tragically flawed hero maintains unwavering faith in his “Master” despite the arrest of his neighbors and his involvement with their daughter, his wife’s affair with the chilling State Security chief Lavrentii Beria and her tragic decline, and the deadly political machinations within the Kremlin he witnesses firsthand.
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The Iron Curtain (1948) William A. Wellman, Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, June Havoc, Biography, Crime, History

The Iron Curtain (1948)
Soviet soldier turned bureaucrat Igor Gouzenko is assigned to his first overseas posting in 1943 to Ottawa, Canada, as a cipher clerk for the military attaché, their offices in a secret wing of the Soviet embassy. Igor is not to tell anyone what he does for a living, he given a cover story which he is to recite even when questioned by his own people. He and his wife Anna Gouzenko are supposed to be cordial to their Canadian neighbors and associates, but not fraternize or befriend them, as they are still considered the enemy, despite both countries being on the same side in the war. Igor follows his instructions to a T, but it is more difficult for Anna, who does not have the distraction of work during the day, and who can see that their neighbors are not their enemies but good people much like themselves. Over the next few years, Igor sees that what is happening around him and the work in which he is involved will not result in a world in which he wants to raise his newborn son, …
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Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952) Douglas Sirk, Piper Laurie, Rock Hudson, Charles Coburn, Comedy

Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952)
Wealthy Samuel Fulton is getting older and has no family of his own. He decides to leave his estate to the family of his first love, who turned down his marriage proposal years ago because he was poor. But he wants to test the family before leaving his money to them. He takes a room in their home and a job in the father’s shop. He anonymously grants them $100,000. Harriet Blaisdell moves the family into a mansion and makes plans to marry her daughter Millicent off to a socialite rather than her soda jerk boyfriend Dan. The money goes to their heads, and they soon find themselves broke, back in their old house, and back to their old lives. Father back in his shop, Millicent engaged to Dan, and everyone seemingly much happier. Hoping they learned their lesson, Fulton takes his leave of the family.
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Freakonomics (2010) Heidi Ewing, Alex Gibney, James Ransone, Tempestt Bledsoe, Bill Gates, Documentary

Freakonomics (2010)
The field of economics can study more than the workings of economies or businesses, it can also help explore human behavior in how it reacts to incentives. Economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner host an anthology of documentaries that examines how people react to opportunities to gain, wittingly or otherwise. The subjects include the possible role a person’s name has for their success in life, why there is so much cheating in an honor bound sport like sumo wrestling, what helped reduce crime in the USA in the 1990s onward and we follow an school experiment to see if cash prizes can encourage struggling students to improve academically.
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Beyond the Time Barrier (1960) Edgar G. Ulmer, Robert Clarke, Darlene Tompkins, Arianne Ulmer, Romance, Sci-Fi

Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)
A pilot testing an experimental new rocket powered craft manages to fly into the future and land at the now deserted airbase he left. He ends up in a city with people who are suspicious he is a spy and who want to keep him to procreate with the rulers daughter because the majority of the inhabitants are sterile. He manages to escape and return to his own time but ages dramatically.
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Afterglow (1997) Alan Rudolph, Nick Nolte, Julie Christie, Lara Flynn Boyle, Comedy, Drama, Romance

Afterglow (1997)
Two families are unhappy with their respective relationships: first of ambitious businessman Jeffrey Byron and sexually frustrated Marianne and second of repair contractor Lucky Mann and former B-movie actress Phyllis. When Lucky arrives to Byron’s apartment to make some minor repair and Marianne becomes obsessed with him, the everyday balance breaks.
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