“Bump City is a colour film about the symbolic destruction of Los Angeles. It was never a very finished film, but it was about signs and advertising, redundant communications and manufacturing, waste and monotony.” —Pat O’Neill.
Tag: 1960s
Never released in America, Petri’s second feature displays the same evocative mix of realism and symbolism found in THE LADY KILLER OF ROME. The film stars Salvo Randone as Cesare, a lonely Roman plumber in his early fifties. Traveling by tram one day, he witnesses the sudden death, by heart attack, of a man his own age. The event shocks him into the realization that his own days might be numbered, and he becomes determined to make the most of the time he has left. Quitting his job, he sets out with enthusiasm to enjoy the finer things in life, but the effort only leaves him dispirited and disillusioned.
A taut crime thriller about the hunt for a mysterious stranger who is poisoning small children with barbiturates. A tough and compelling film, which offers a gritty reflection of life in 1960s South East London behind the initial whodunnit. Ellen McIntosh gives a bravura performance as a single mother juggling work with raising a family, and Jean Anderson paints a sympathetic portrait of an older mother coming to terms with the extent of her son’s mental health issues. Striking and bold, The Silent Playground explores the fine line between innocence and criminality.
This drama about the Carmelite order of nuns is set during the French Revolution. A young woman seeks refuge with the Carmelites because she is terrified of dying during the upheaval. The longer she associates with the nuns the more she is transformed by their faith and devotion.
A group of children use a cabin as the meeting place where they gather to sing. When the owner of the place has financial difficulties and thinks of selling it, the friends will devise a way to earn money: they will dye the surrounding sheep in different colors and try to sell the wool as if it were a natural product.
Yoshishige Yoshida’s first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a “good-for-nothing” from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend’s father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.
Tab Hunter plays a mentally unbalanced ex-con living in London, who is seen emerging from prison during the opening credits. His wife seems to have struck up a platonic friendship with Hunter’s employer during his incarceration and their son (whom it appears Tab has never met) clearly looks at this “uncle” as a surrogate father. It emerges that Tab’s character murdered someone in a brawl so his mental state has always been questionable, but the combination of dealing with the sudden onset of paternal resposibility, a love rival and the alienation he feels upon release lead to a tragic climax!