d. Byron Haskin
c. USA
y. 1956
description:
"John Payne always felt that he delivered his best screen performance in The Boss. Set in the years following WW1, the story concerns a small-town veteran named Matt Brady (John Payne), whose brother, machine politician Tim Brady (Roy Roberts), arranges for Matt to get a cushy government job. When Tim dies, Matt takes over his operation, eventually assuming control of the entire state (which judiciously remains unnamed in the film). Though a successful power broker, Matt is unable to win the woman he loves (Doe Avedon), so he settles for another (Gloria McGhee) whom he treats atrociously. A falling out with his best friend/severest critic Bob Herrick (William Bishop) sets the stage for the ruthless Brady's inevitable downfall. Though all the names were changed to protect the guilty, audiences in 1956 were quick to perceive that the film was a thinly disguised attack on the Pendergast machine of Kansas City, Missouri. Coproduced and cowritten by John Payne, The Boss falters only in its overreliance upon anachronistic newsreel footage." (AMG)
IMDB... 7.2 (37)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 850MB
qlty: VHS
subs: n/a
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The Boss
Kisses
d. Yasuzo Masumura
c. Japan
y. 1957
description:
"Kinichi and Akiko meet when they visit their fathers in prison. After successfully gambling on a bicycle race, they spend an enjoyable day together at the beach. Akiko, who tries to make money as an artist's model to pay for her mother's medical expenses, now has to find 100,000 yen to pay off the company from which her father embezzled. Kinichi also requires 100,000 yen as bail for his father, who is accused of election fraud. Kinichi tries to borrow 100,000 yen from his mother, whom he has not seen for three years." (IMDB)
IMDB... 7.6 (44)
_AMG... n/a
size: 750MB
qlty: DVD
subs: yes
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A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji
d. Tomu Uchida
c. Japan
y. 1955
description:
"A Bloody Spear on Mt Fuji's plot is basic; a group of travellers (Samurai and two servants, shamisen player and daughter, highway policeman, thief, miner) interact and become closer through stressful and comedic situations (also, some tragedy). Ostensibly a road movie, a lot of the interaction and activity takes place in inns and city streets, very little on roads (though what does is memorable, such as Gonpachi becoming acquainted with an young orphan boy admirer.) Most of the plot revolves around the samurai, whose character reminds one of Yamanaka taking a stand against society and paying the price. I wonder if this inference was an accident (Yamanaka made popular films that questioned the status quo in the 30s, was sent to Manchuria and died at the front shortly after; only three of his films survive today.) There are many great moments in the film, which is as comedic in dialogue as it is in editing and tone. Daisuke Kato plays one of the servants, and his sake drinking and philosophizing scenes are everyman humor at its best. The playful looks, dialogue, and subtle attraction between the shamisen player and Gonpachi (Chiezo Katoaka), lords sitting on a busy highway to Edo shutting down traffic for a tea ceremony, and the lancer's final battle all stick close to my memory. I can't think of any other postwar Samurai film that does this kind of action, comedy, and drama as entertainingly (my favorite postwar jidai-geki films are the Anti-Samurai ones, such as Okamoto's Sword of Doom)." (IMDB Comment)
IMDB... 8.0 (62)
_AMG... n/a
size: 700MB
qlty: DVD
subs: yes
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The Bells Have Gone To Rome
d. Miklos Jancso
c. Hungary
y. 1958
description:
n/a
IMDB... 7.8 (10)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 690MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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King Matthew I
d. Wanda Jakubowska
c. Poland
y. 1958
description:
n/a
IMDB... 5.4 (11)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 705MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Rio, Northern Zone
d. Nelson Pereira dos Santos
c. Brazil
y. 1957
description:
"Rio Zone Norte was one of Brazil's contributions to the 1958 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Grande Otelo heads the cast as a self-trained composer of samba music. Unwise in the ways of the world, Otelo permits himself to be exploited by a charlatan who passes off the composer's music as his own. Things don't end so well for the protagonist, but he remains loyal to his Art to the very end. American critics in 1958 felt obliged to note that, despite the fact that the film's hero was black, the race issue was never mentioned in Rio Zone Norte; at the time, of course, race relations were far more relaxed in Brazil than the U.S." (AMG)
IMDB... 8.6 (55)
_AMG... 3.0 / 5.0
size: 800MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Rio 40 Degrees
d. Nelson Pereira dos Santos
c. Brazil
y. 1955
description:
"In the 1950s, a non-realistic and highly innovative filmmaking movement swept over the country of Brazil, which some might consider an unlikely spot for such invention. However, with a population of well over a hundred and fifty million, that country had (and has) a lively moviemaking business and also has many connoisseurs of films whose emphasis is artistic rather than commercial. This movie was the first part of a projected trilogy which included Rio Zona Norte, and it was made by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, who was considered to be a prime mover in the "Cinema Novo" movement. The third movie in the trilogy was never made. The story offers a varied portrait of the city of Rio de Janeiro at that time, organized around the life and work of five youthful peanut vendors who live in the surrounding slums (favelas). Each works in a different part of town: Quinta da Boa Vista, Copacabana Beach, Sugar Loaf Mountain, the soccer stadium and Corcovado Mountain. Reviewers of this film discerned the influence of Roberto Rossellini and the Italian neorealist school in its style. The most famous of the films to emerge from this filmmaking tradition was Black Orpheus, which is still widely watched and enjoyed today." (AMG)
IMDB... 8.1 (92)
_AMG... n/a
size: 880MB
qlty: VHS
subs: no
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Boys of the Parioli
d. Sergio Corbucci
c. Italy
y. 1959
description:
n/a
IMDB... 0.0 (0)
_AMG... n/a
size: 1370MB
qlty: DVD
subs: no
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True Friends
d. Mikhail Kalatozov
c. USSR
y. 1954
description:
"Like many Russian films of the mid-1950s, True Friends sings the praises of collectivism. V. Merkuryev stars as Nestratov, who while rising to success as an architect becomes an insufferable boor -- and even worse, an individualist. Two of his old friends, one a surgeon and the other a horse trainer for the state, show Nestratov the folly of his ways. In the end, our hero is more than happy to embrace the edicts of working together for the common good. Saving True Friends from wallowing in its own propagandas are the engaging performances of its cast and the sprightly direction by Mikhail Kalatozov." (AMG)
IMDB... 8.3 (53)
_AMG... 3.0 / 5.0
size: 700MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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She Wolf
d. Alberto Lattuada
c. Italy
y. 1952
description:
"La Lupa (The She-Devil) was filmmaker Alberto Lattuada's first film after his classic The Overcoat. Based on a short story by Giovanni Verga, the film stars Kerima as the title character. Aptly named, La Lupa is a predatory female who considers every man she meets a potential conquest. When it seems as though Manni (Ettore Manni) will slip through her clutches, La Lupa arranges for a marriage between Manni and her own daughter Marrichia (May Britt). Eventually she is thrown out of that household, but does this slow her down? Not when there's a whole village full of bachelors, ripe for plucking." (AMG)
IMDB... 6.3 (6)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 1350MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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The Overcoat
d. Alberto Lattuada
c. Italy
y. 1952
description:
"The classic Nicolas Gogal [Gogol?] fable The Overcoat is given a European flavor by Italian filmmaker Alberto Lattuada; some consider the film to be Lattuada's best "psychological study." Comedian Renato Rascel plays a nebbishy nobody who spends his life-savings on a fancy overcoat. Suddenly, the nobody becomes a somebody, proving beyond doubt that clothes make the man. And then one day, the overcoat is stolen...Fleshing out the short-but-bittersweet Gogol original are several colorful new characters, including a publicity-hungry small-town mayor, played by Giulio Stival. The background music was composed by director Lattuada's wife Felice. American prints of Il Cappato are missing a so-called "naughty" telephone exchange between the mayor and his silken mistress." (AMG)
IMDB... 8.2 (45)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 1450MB
qlty: DVD
subs: yes
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La spada di Damocle
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1958
description:
n/a
IMDB... 0.0 (0)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 700MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Revolt of the Gladiators
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1958
description:
"The ancient Roman empire is the setting for this sword-and-sandal costume drama about the villainous Princess Amira (Gianna Maria Canale) who plans to poison the rightful heir to the Armenian throne, her younger brother. She has cast her lot with the Scythians, a foreign tribe who want to expand their territory. But a resistance movement is led by Asclepio (Georges Marchal), and when the Roman tribune Marcus Numidius (Ettore Manni) thunders in to set things right, he has Asclepio's underground force as an ally. Large-scale battles and smaller contests in the gladiatorial arena provide plenty of rousing action." (AMG)
IMDB... 4.9 (29)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 660MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Casa di bambola
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1958
description:
Adaptation of Ibsen's "A Doll's House".
IMDB... 0.0 (0)
_AMG... n/a
size: 1370MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Sette piccole croci
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1957
description:
n/a
IMDB... 0.0 (0)
_AMG... n/a
size: 460MB
qlty: TV
subs: no
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A Free Woman
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1954
description:
n/a
IMDB... 7.1 (9)
_AMG... 2.5 / 5.0
size: 860MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Milady and the Musketeers
d. Vittorio Cottafavi
c. Italy
y. 1952
description:
"This movie has the advantage to start from the viewpoint of a woman, the later Mylady, comtesse de Fer (Yvette Lebon) who is imprisoned in a convent. The director Vittorio Cottafavi knows how to point the camera in her face. That face shows all the possible expressions a woman can have: fear, anger, love, despair and love? Does this woman really love somebody? I doubt it and that is the crucial theme of the story: women are dangerous. Yvette Lebon is so beautiful in this movie that everybody must fall in love with her. So she is invited by the comte de Fer (Rossano Brazzi). She has the skill to push all her lovers into marriage. The hangman (Jean-Roger Caussimon) is a special person in the movie because he only intervenes at the end of the beginning and he is the brother of her first lover. She will never go with him back to the lieutenant, who made her escape from the convent, by her free will. The story is not in a straight line and you never are sure what will happen next, what makes it better than the other musketeer-films." (IMDB Comment)
IMDB... 5.7 (13)
_AMG... n/a
size: 1410MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Irene, Inside!
d. Jan Fethke
c. Poland
y. 1955
description:
n/a
IMDB... 3.9 (6)
_AMG... n/a
size: 640MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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Change of Guard
d. Halina Bielinska
c. Poland
y. 1959
description:
n/a
IMDB... 0.0 (0)
_AMG... n/a
size: 30MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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The Happy Couple
d. Luis Garcia Berlanga & Juan Antonio Bardem
c. Spain
y. 1953
description:
"After the success of the political satire Bienvenido Mister Marshall (co-written by Juan Antonio Bardem, uncle of actor Javier Bardem, and Luis García Berlanga), That Happy Couple -- written and directed by Bardem and Berlanga in 1951, and starring the legendary Spanish actor/director Fernando Fernán Gómez -- was released in Spain in 1953. Gómez stars as Juan, who struggles to make a living working as a technician at the local film studio and is always on the lookout for some moneymaking scheme. He has a bunch of correspondence school diplomas on his wall, but he still can't fix his radio. His wife, Carmen (Elvira Quintillá), meanwhile, is obsessed with contests and sweepstakes, for example buying more soap than the pair will ever need in hopes of winning some prize. A shady character working in the local theater convinces Juan to "borrow" some film from the studio and invest his money and equipment in a photography business. Juan loses his job, and then learns that his business partner has run off. The tension that has been simmering between him and Carmen, rooted in their financial woes, reaches a boil. Just then, a gentleman enters their apartment with important news. Carmen has won a contest sponsored by a soap company, and she and Juan have been selected as "That Happy Couple," and are expected to spend the day visiting fancy shops and restaurants in Madrid, and promoting Florit Soap. Juan impulsively decides to use the Florit car to track down his shady partner, but when he joins Carmen later, they find that the high life is not all it's cracked up to be. That Happy Couple was shown at the Walter Reade Theater as part of a tribute to Gómez during the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 2004 edition of Spanish Cinema Now." (AMG)
IMDB... 6.9 (69)
_AMG... 4.0 / 5.0
size: 730MB
qlty: ?
subs: no
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