A young, white teacher is assigned to an isolated island off the coast of South Carolina populated mostly by poor black families. He finds that the basically illiterate, neglected children there know so little of the world outside their island that they have virtually developed their own language (“Conrack” is their way of saying his name, Conroy) and, in fact, don’t have much interest in learning about anything outside the island. He has to find a way to get through to these kids and teach them what they need to know and also to keep on the good side of the school superintendent, who doesn’t want him there.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
Albert is an introverted travel agent living a lonely life in New York. When Louie, his best friend from childhood, appears having just escaped from prison, Albert’s quiet existence is permanently disrupted. what ensues is one long, crazy night in New York that will change both their lives forever.
A dramatization of key episodes in the life of Sojourner Truth, a freed slave who was born in 1797 and died in 1883, and became one of the first fighters for the civil rights of the Negro. Actress Pauline Meyers plays Sojourner in this vivid topical profile.
A thoughtful discussion between German film director Marcel Ophuls and CBS News producer Perry Wolff about political and historical documentaries with special emphasis on Ophuls’ masterful four-and-a-half-hour film about the fall of France in World War II, “The Sorrow and the Pity,”. Clips from the award-winning documentary are shown.
Father James Harold Flye is best known as the life-long friend and mentor of writer James Agee. In this touching portrait of James Flye, the man to whom the Letters of James Agee to Father Flye were written, Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Ross Spears gives us a record of several visits with Father Flye spanning a ten-year period and culminating with the occasion of Father Flye’s 100th birthday.
The life and work of writer James Agee provides the substance of this engrossing documentary by Ross Spears. Spears put together a portrait of Agee with excerpts from his prose and interviews with the people who either worked with him or provided material for his books. Among those interviewed are President Jimmy Carter, critic Dwight Macdonald, historian and writer Robert Fitzgerald, and John Huston, who worked with Agee on The African Queen. Agee’s three former wives, his priest (Father James Frye), and other personal friends round out the picture of this hard-drinking, chain-smoking, intense writer who died as a result of a heart attack at the age of 45.
Mel Tormé hosts this retrospective of the most prolific period of Frank Sinatra’s career from the beginning to mid-60s. Told through interviews with colleagues and entertainment experts along with clips from live performances, film and TV.
Rodgers’ friends and colleagues pay tribute to him in this long-unseen television special produced by the Souvaine Corporation and broadcast on NBC. Among the original Broadway cast members reprising the songs they introduced are Vivienne Segal (“Bewitched” from “Pal Joey”) and Alfred Drake (“People Will Say We’re in Love” from “Oklahoma!”). Vera Zorina dances “Rodgers in Three Quarter Time,” a ballet created expressly for the show set to three Rodgers waltzes, and Mary Martin sings “Wonderful Guy” as Rodgers himself accompanies her on piano.