Posts Tagged ‘1940s’

Papillon (1973)

Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Biography | Drama
Countries: USA
Actors: McQueen, Steve | Hoffman, Dustin | Jory, Victor | Gordon, Don | Zerbe, Anthony | Deman, Robert | Parfrey, Woodrow | Mumy, Bill | Coulouris, George | Assan, Ratna | Smithers, William | Avery, Val | Sierra, Gregory | Tayback, Vic | Watson, Mills
Directors: Schaffner, Franklin J.
Download: DivX iPod 

Based on the true story of Henri Charriere, also known as Papillon, which is French for ‘butterfly’ (the character even sports a large tattoo of a butterfly. A petty criminal, Papillon is wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to life in a French penal colony in ‘Guiane’ (French Guiana, South America). Papillon is determined to escape but attempt after attempt meets with difficulty, resulting in eventual recapture. He continues his attempts to escape despite incarcerations in solitary confinement as punishment.

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Genres: Drama | Thriller | Western
Countries: USA
Actors: Tracy, Spencer | Ryan, Robert | Francis, Anne | Jagger, Dean | Brennan, Walter | Ericson, John | Borgnine, Ernest | Marvin, Lee | Collins, Russell | Sande, Walter | Harvey, Harry | McDonald, Francis
Directors: Sturges, John
Download: DivX iPod 

John J. Macreedy doesn’t know it, but when he steps off the train at the jerkwater town of Black Rock, he will soon find himself the object of fear, hatred, and even a murder plot! The altruistic Macreedy came to Black Rock to hand over a posthumous military award to a local man whose son had died gallantly in the Second World War. What Macreedy couldn’t know when he stepped off of that train was that the town had a shameful secret, one that must be kept at all costs.

Atonement (2007)

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Genres: Drama | Romance | War
Countries: France | UK
Actors: Ronan, Saoirse | Blethyn, Brenda | West, Julia | McAvoy, James | Walter, Harriet | Knightley, Keira | Temple, Juno | von Simson, Felix | von Simson, Charlie | Allen, Alfie | Kennedy, Patrick | Cumberbatch, Benedict | Wight, Peter | O'Connor, Peter | Daniel Mays
Directors: Wright, Joe
Download: DivX iPod 

In the summer of 1935, 13-year-old Briony Tallis observes a flirtation between a servant’s son, Robbie, and her older sister, Cecilia, that she childishly misconstrues. Briony’s misunderstanding leads to a terrible crime whose consequences follow them through World War II.

Evita (1996)

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Genres: Biography | Drama | Musical
Countries: USA
Actors: Madonna | Banderas, Antonio | Pryce, Jonathan | Nail, Jimmy | Sus, Victoria | Littman, Julian | Merediz, Olga | Pallas, Laura | Worsley, Julia | Luján Hidalgo, María | Villamil, Servando | Corr, Andrea | Polycarpou, Peter | Brooker, Gary | Yerro, Maite
Directors: Parker, Alan
Download: DivX iPod 

Based on the incredible true story, Eva (Evita) Peron, starts out life as a poor girl who goes on to become an actress and then become the wife of the president of Argentina, Juan Peron. The musical is a story of love and politics, showing all the battles and triumphs Evita has in her short, but amazing life.

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Genres: Action | War
Countries: UK
Actors: Shaw, Robert | Ford, Harrison | Bach, Barbara | Fox, Edward | Nero, Franco | Weathers, Carl | Kiel, Richard | Alan Badel | Byrne, Michael | Latham, Philip | MacInnes, Angus | Sheard, Michael | Buntic, Petar | Schofield, Leslie | Langdon, Anthony
Directors: Hamilton, Guy
Download: DivX iPod 

In the darkest days of World War II, Hitler’s armies are storming through Europe, annihilating all opposition in their path. But U.S. Colonel Barnsby (Ford) plots to strike a crippling blow to the brutal Nazi forces. To succeed, he’ll need the help of the most skilled and lethal soldiers in the world: the Force 10 squad, fresh from its triumphant mission at Navarone. But when the team’s plan goes awry in a firestorm of blistering battles, Barnsby and the squad’s hard-driving Major Mallory (Shaw) are forced to devise a new and even more dangerous scheme to attack the Nazi war machine . . . or risk losing the rest of Europe to its awesome, destructive power.

Bridge on the River Kwai, The (1957)

Monday, February 18th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Drama | War
Countries: UK | USA
Actors: Holden, William | Hawkins, Jack | Guinness, Alec | Hayakawa, Sessue | Donald, James | Horne, Geoffrey | Morell, André | Williams, Peter | Boxer, John | Herbert, Percy | Goodwin, Harold | Sears, Ann | Okawa, Heihachiro | Katsumoto, Keiichiro | Chakrabandhu, M.R.B.
Directors: Lean, David
Download: DivX iPod 

The film deals with the situation of British prisoners of war during World War II who are ordered to build a bridge to accommodate the Burma-Siam railway. Their instinct is to sabotage the bridge but, under the leadership of Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), they are persuaded that the bridge should be constructed as a symbol of British morale, spirit and dignity in adverse circumstances. At first, the prisoners admire Nicholson when he bravely endures torture rather than compromise his principles for the benefit of the Japanese commandant Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). He is an honorable but arrogant man, who is slowly revealed to be a deluded obsessive. He convinces himself that the bridge is a monument to British character, but actually is a monument to himself, and his insistence on its construction becomes a subtle form of collaboration with the enemy. Unknown to him, the Allies have sent a mission into the jungle, led by Warden (Jack Hawkins) and an American, Shears (William Holden), to blow up the bridge.

Guns of Navarone, The (1961)

Monday, February 18th, 2008
Genres: Action | Adventure | Drama | War
Countries: UK | USA
Actors: Peck, Gregory | Niven, David | Quinn, Anthony | Baker, Stanley | Quayle, Anthony | Darren, James | Papas, Irene | Scala, Gia | Justice, James Robertson | Harris, Richard | Forbes, Bryan | Cuthbertson, Allan | Trubshawe, Michael | Herbert, Percy | Mikell, George
Directors: Lee Thompson, J.
Download: DivX iPod 

1943. With the battle of Stalingrad turning the war against them, the Germans are attempting to bully neutral Turkey into joining the Axis; to this end they have trapped 2,000 British soldiers on Kiros, an island in the Aegean, with only one sea route for evacuation, a sea route commanded by two gigantic German antiship batteries deployed in a massive cliffside bunker on the island of Navarone. Immune to air attack and too much for Allied battleships to suppress, the British muster Keith Mallory, a commando officer who has been working on occupied Crete for nearly two years and who is an expert mountaineer, to ferry a team of British commandos to the only area of Navarone that is not monitored by the Germans, a 400-foot cliff. Greek resistance is to meet the team inland and guide them around German patrols to the area of the German guns. However, the commanding officer of the British team suffers grave injury in the climb and Mallory must take control of the mission, despite clashes with explosives expert John Anthony Miller, who upon the arrival of the night of the raid finds his equipment has been sabotaged, thus exposing a traitor in the team’s ranks.

Good German, The (2006)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Countries: USA
Actors: Thompson, Jack | Roeder, John | Clooney, George | Maguire, Tobey | Blanchett, Cate | Comperatore, Dominic | Power, Dave | Curran, Tony | Isyanov, Ravil | Boehmer, J. Paul | Korosec, Igor | Kievsky, Boris | Kulikov, Vladimir | Narovlyanskiy, Yevgeniy | Sountsov, Aleksandr
Directors: Soderbergh, Steven
Download: DivX iPod 

Berlin, July, 1945. Journalist Jake Geismer arrives to cover the Potsdam conference, issued a captain’s uniform for easier passage. He also wants to find Lena, an old flame who’s now a prostitute desperate to get out of Berlin. He discovers that the driver he’s assigned, a cheerful down-home sadist named Corporal Tully, is Lena’s keeper. When the body of a murdered man washes up in Potsdam (within the Russian sector), Jake may be the only person who wants to solve the crime: U.S. personnel are busy finding Nazis to bring to trial, the Russians and the Americans are looking for German rocket scientists, and Lena has her own secrets.

Return to Never Land (2002)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Adventure | Animation | Family | Fantasy | Musical
Countries: Australia | Canada | USA
Actors: Owen, Harriet | Weaver, Blayne | Burton, Corey | Bennett, Jeff | Soucie, Kath | McDonough, Andrew | Rees, Roger | Breslin, Spencer | Pierce, Bradley | Beswick, Quinn | Spann, Aaron | Castellaneta, Dan | Cummings, Jim | Paulsen, Rob | Revill, Clive
Directors: Budd, Robin
Download: DVD DivX iPod PDA 

The classic tale of ‘Peter Pan’ continues in Disney’s sequel ‘Return to Never Land’. In a world besieged by World War II, Wendy, now grown up, tries to give her own children hope by telling them of her magical experiences with Peter Pan in Never Land. However, Jane, Wendy’s 12-year-old daughter, sees it all as make believe and refuses to believe in the tales. That is, until the villainous Captain Hook mistakes her for Wendy and abducts her to Never Land in an attempt to lure and capture Peter Pan. Peter Pan’s quest to return Jane safely home is jeopardized until she can begin to believe in the magic of imagination.

Young Adam (2003)

Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Genres: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Countries: France | UK
Actors: McGregor, Ewan | Swinton, Tilda | Mullan, Peter | Mortimer, Emily | McElhone, Jack | Bradley, Therese | Stewart, Ewan | McQuarrie, Stuart | Turner, Pauline | Cooke, Alan | McCann, Rory | Hanmore, Ian | Neil, Andrew | Brown, Arnold | Fraser, Meg
Directors: Mackenzie, David
Download: DVD DivX iPod PDA 

Joe, a rootless young drifter, finds work on a barge travelling between Glasgow and Edinburgh, owned by Les and his wife Ella. One afternoon they discover the corpse of a young woman floating in the water. Accident? Suicide? Murder? As the police investigate and suspect is arrested, we discover that Joe knows more than he is letting on. Gradually we learn of Joe’s past relationship with the dead woman. Meanwhile an unspoken attraction develops between Joe and Ella, heightening the claustrophobic tensions in the confined space of the barge.