This heartwarming British drama is based on Beth the Sheepdog, a novel by Ernest Lewis. Beth is played, quite well indeed, by a magnificent animal named Fleet. The story concerns the efforts of various interested human parties to enter Beth in the All-England Dog Championship. When a farmer is unsuccessful in his efforts to purchase Beth for his own, he spitefully accuses the dog’s owner of sheep stealing. After this mess is straightened out, the plot segues into the Championship, and it is at this point that the film finally comes to life.
Year: 2022
A thoughtful and emotionally challenging look at the lives of two children living in modern day Afghanistan, STRAY DOGS lifts the lid on what it is like living in the country, post-Taliban. The film focuses on a young brother and sister who are forced to share their incarcerated mother’s prison cell by night, but roam the streets during the day. For they are homeless; only allowed to stay within the prison’s confines after dark, the children are not permitted there during the day. Fed up with having to fend for themselves, and in a desperate bid to get locked up on a more permanent basis, the siblings concoct a cunning plan; using American cinema as a guide, they begin to perform robberies on the streets of Kabul.
The first of Kawashima’s Daiei Studio collaborations with Wakao centers on the life of a Tokyo geisha named Koen and her relationships with various men. Starting out with no singing or dancing talents, the young, free-spirited Koen is initially eager to please and happy to do what she is told. With time and experience, however, she gradually begins to notice a change in herself and questions what she wants out of life. Played with subtle shifts in emotion, Wakao’s delicate performance earned her the Kinema Junpo Award and Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actress.
Pier 13 is a remake of the delightful Spencer Tracy-Joan Bennett vehicle Me and My Gal, which itself was a reworking of a 1922 silent picture. Wisecracking cop Danny Dolan (Lloyd Nolan) takes a liking to self-reliant waterfront waitress Sally Kelly (Lynn Bari), and the feeling is definitely mutual. But when Sally begins behaving strangely, Dolan suspects that she’s mixed up with notorious criminal Johnnie Hale.
A man who has worked his whole life to become wealthy is determined to bring his son up with everything he has never had as a youngster. Needless to say the young lad grows up to be a spoiled brat by the time he reaches college age and wreaks havoc on anyone who stands in his way. In the meantime, his father has fallen in love with a beautiful artist who has his best interest at heart. The problem is that the son also develops feelings for her. This film was adapted form the popular Howard Spring novel.
Bank robbery in small town ends with one of the robbers being wounded. The loot from the robbery is just an asset for the even more spectacular heist. Simon, gang leader and Paris night club owner, must also deal with police comissaire Edouard Colemane, who happens to be his good friend.
Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore reunite in their first acting performance together since “The Dick Van Dyke Show” (1961-66), the classic comedy series for which both stars earned multiple Emmy Awards. This powerfully bittersweet comedy follows the relationship that develops between nursing home residents Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin during a series of gin games in which their ailments, misfortunes and losses are exposed in funny, honest and increasingly heated moments.
Abandoned by their parents, the young children of the Clawson family are put in the care of local authorities. However, rather than being kept together, the siblings are sent to live at different homes. Tenacious Patty Clawson is determined to keep her brothers and sisters together, but the bureaucracy in place makes her quest almost impossible. Aided by social worker Bud Griggs, Patty tries to reunite her family, facing many obstacles along the way.