The heroine of this drama played out at the beginning of the Horthy era is a chambermaid who has travelled up from the countryside to work in the capital. Through her vulnerability we clearly see the interdependency of society at that time. Anna moves from paradise to a family lacking in love or compassion, where she loses everything and everyone who once loved her. The director of the film based on the novel of the same name by Dezső Kosztolányi worked out the scenes with absolute precision. Thanks to this and the finest actors of the age, we have one of the most moving films ever made in Hungary.
Tag: 1950s
During the Mexican Revolution, Angustias, a proud and rebellious mixed-race woman, defies gender and racial oppression in her rural village. After killing a man who tries to rape her, she flees to the mountains and joins the Zapatista rebels. Proving her courage and leadership, she rises to become a coronela, fighting for justice and equality. Torn between love and her revolutionary ideals, Angustias ultimately dedicates herself to the struggle for freedom.
Sudo and Mori are two university students who make money by picking up rich girls in dance clubs and conning them into giving them cash. Mori is the brains of the operation, and Sudo is the suave dancer who picks up the girls. Over the course of the film, Sudo becomes involved with three different girls and is drawn into the gangster milieu, which he seems unable to resist even though he is responsible for his mother, grandmother, and sister, Masako. In this world of bad boys and girls, Masako is the pillar of strength and moral virtue who finally enables Mori to straighten out.
Together is set in London’s East End, with its bombsites, narrow streets, riversides, warehouses, markets and pubs. It follows two deaf-mute dockers who are completely cut-off from the outside world and are constantly pursued by groups of jeering children. Its modern depiction of everyday working-class life and its new approach to realism were inspired by Italian neo-realism and by the techniques used by Mazzetti’s Free Cinema friends.
In the only episode of this series filmed in color (but probably broadcast only in black-and-white), legendary crooner Bing Crosby is guest star. Crosby joins Sinatra in performing many classic Christmas songs, among them Sinatra’s version of “Mistetoe and Holly” and Crosby’s famed “White Christmas”. Some of the songs are performed on a set with a backdrop of Victorian England; other songs were performed on a set that resembled a hip late-1950’s bachelor apartment.
A young girl in a bombed-out part of London wants to make something beautiful, so she plants a garden in a ruined church with help from her friend. None of the adults in her life understand why she wants to do this.
The first film dealing with dope addiction made with the prior approval of the industry’s self-governing Production Code, A Hatful of Rain is more than a story of a junkie. It touches knowingly and sensitively on a family relationship. Michael V. Gazzo has converted his Broadway play into a provocative and engrossing film drama.
Brulard, a French civil engineer on assignment in a remote Swedish village, meets Ina, who has been raised in forested isolation by her haggish mother and believes herself to be a witch. He falls in love with her and tries to convert her to civilization; but in the meantime, his female boss, Kristina, has fallen in love with him, while the villagers turn against him for consorting with someone they believe is cursed by the Devil.
