Tag Archives: USA

Back Street (1961) David Miller, Susan Hayward, John Gavin, Vera Miles, Drama

Back Street (1961)
Ambitious but thwarted, Rae Smith meets handsome Marine Paul Saxon, (of the Saxon department store chain), as he passes through Lincoln, Nebraska, on his way home from World War II. There’s a definite spark between them but circumstances intervene and he leaves town without her. Later she learns he’s married. Determined to make it as a fashion designer, Rae moves to New York and becomes a great success. One day she happens to meet Paul again and again there’s that spark but he’s still married so, as a form of escape, Rae moves to Rome to set up shop. Once again she meets Paul and finally they begin an actual affair since Paul’s shrewish, drunken wife, Liz, won’t give him a divorce. Time passes, the affair continues whenever time and place permit, but then, Paul’s young son finds out about Rae and Rae’s back-street world begins to crumble.
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Screaming Mimi (1958) Gerd Oswald, Anita Ekberg, Philip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

Screaming Mimi (1958)
Exotic dancer Virginia Wilson sees a man get shot moments after he tries to knife her in a shower, so she goes to Dr. Greenwood a psychiatrist for therapy. He falls in love with her and takes over her life, although she insists on continuing her career at the El Madhouse nightclub. The club’s tough owner is none other than Gypsy Rose Lee who plays ‘Gypsy’ and sings an incredibly bad song (“Put the Blame on Mame”) when Virginia is late one night. The traumatized Virginia is suspected of a series of murders. Each victim had purchased a contorted sculpture of a woman called the Screaming Mimi, which was created by her step-brother Charlie who was also responsible for shooting her attacker. It’s up to a handsome columnist Bill Sweeny to figure it all out.
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Driftwood (1947) Allan Dwan, Ruth Warrick, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Drama

Driftwood (1947)
Six-year-old Jenny rescues a collie dog, the only survivor of a plane wreck. A tag on the dog’s neck states that it is en route to a medical laboratory where its blood will be used for spotted fever vaccine. Dr. Steven Webster meets both Jenny and the dog and “adopts” them both. His fiancée Susan isn’t too fond of either the girl or the dog. Webster wants to get a hospital for the town but he is suppressed by the town mayor. In the arguments that follow, Webster’s lab is wrecked and ticks infected with spotted fever escape. The town is in a panic and all want to be vaccinated. Jenny is infected and is about to die.
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Night of the Lepus (1972) William F. Claxton, Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Night of the Lepus (1972)
Cole Hillman’s Arizona ranch is plagued with ‘mongrel’ rabbits, and he wants to employ an ecologically sound control method. As a favor to college benefactor Hillman, college president Elgin Clark calls in zoologist Roy Bennett to help. Bennett immediately begins injecting rabbits with hormones and genetically mutated blood in an effort to develop a method of disrupting rabbit reproduction. One of the test subjects escapes, resulting in a race of bloodthirsty, wolf-sized, man-, horse-, and cow-eating bunnies. Eventually the National Guard is called in for a final showdown with the terrorizing rabbits.
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The Man Who Wouldn’t Die (1942) Herbert I. Leeds, Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver, Helene Reynolds, Crime, Mystery

The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1942)
In the shadows of the night Dudley Wolff (Paul Harvey), his secretary Alfred Dunning (Robert Emmett Keane), and his doctor, Haggard (Henry Wilcoxon), bury a body in the estate cemetery. At the house, Wolff’s daughter Catherine (Marjorie Weaver) arrives unexpectedly and tells her step-mother Anne Wolff (Helene Reynolds that she has just been married to Roger Blake (Richard Derr) who will be along in a few days. Cathy retires and is awakened by a mysterious assailant who fires a shot at her, but her parents tell her she was just dreaming. Wolff goes to the cemetery and finds the body missing. The scared Cathy calls in fast-talking private detective Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) and, since her father doesn’t like detectives, she introduces him as her husband. That evening Shayne hears a shot and finds that Haggard has been killed. While the police are questioning the family, the lights go out and a shot is fired from outside.
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Knights of the Round Table (1953) Richard Thorpe, Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Mel Ferrer, Action, Adventure, Drama

Knights of the Round Table (1953)
King Arthur establishes the greatest reign England has ever seen, and along for the ride are his indispensable Knights of the Round Table, particularly Sir Lancelot. Then, Arthur finds himself a bride, the beautiful Guenivere. While she loves Arthur, she also loves Lancelot and though Lancelot repeatedly fights it, he loves her, too. Treachery is brewing as the evil Morgan le Fay and her knight Sir Modred work to trap them. So begins the decline and eventual fall of Arthur and Camelot.
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Bhowani Junction (1956) George Cukor, Ava Gardner, Stewart Granger, Bill Travers, Adventure, Drama, History

Bhowani Junction (1956)
The year is 1947, the British are on the verge of finally leaving India. Amongst the few who are sorry to see the British leave are the Anglo-Indians, half British and half Indian, for they are going to miss the patronage of their white cousins, the job reservations, and the important status and positions they currently hold. The British, quite frankly, do not think well of Anglo-Indians, nor do the Indians. Victoria Jones is one such Anglo-Indian, a WAC in the British Army, her father a railway engine driver, and her mom a housewife. She is close to another Anglo-Indian, Patrick Taylor, but changes her mind about him as he harbors deep hatred for the Indians. She witnesses Col. Rodney Savage instruct his soldiers to pour filthy water and garbage at the hands of untouchables on high-caste men and women who are protesting by laying down on the railway tracks to prevent trains from moving. Repulsed and shocked at this, she turns to Ranjit Singh Kassi, a Sikh, and longs to be Indian.
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Che! (1969) Richard Fleischer, Omar Sharif, Jack Palance, Cesare Danova, Biography, Drama, History

Che! (1969)
Biography of Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who helped Fidel Castro in his struggle against the corrupt Batista regime, eventually resulting in the overthrow of that government and Castro’s taking over of Cuba. The film covers Guevara’s life from when he first landed in Cuba in 1956 to his death in an ambush by government troops in the mountains of Bolivia in 1967.
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