An adaptation of Bedřich Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride. Set in 19th century Bohemia, the matchmaker Kezal wants to bring the mayor’s daughter Marie and the rich landowner’s son Wenzel together. Both of them, however, have already fallen in love with someone else. The endearing characters, a whimsical storyline and quiet humor combine with catchy tunes, a pastoral setting and fluid camera work. A last hurrah in the wanning days of Weimar cinema.
Tag: 1930s
A retired businessman in Scotland, who is also a golf fanatic, will not let his daughter marry an Irish-American boy, Terry O’Reilly. Then one day O’Reilly’s father shows up for a “visit”–which, as it turns out, is because he’s on the run from the police in New York.
Take a Chance was based on the hit Broadway musical of the same name, though only one of the original songs, Eadie Was a Lady, has been retained. The thinnish plot involves the misadventures of a pair of pickpockets, played on Broadway by Jack Haley and Sid Silvers and on film by James Dunn and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards. Tired of fleecing the suckers in a travelling carnival, our heroes head to Broadway, where they get mixed up with gangsters.
A small-town druggist is henpecked by his social-climbing wife to sell his pharmacy to a national chain. In addition, she tries to set up her pretty young daughter with the nitwit son of the chain’s owner, even though the girl is in love with the handsome son of the town doctor. Finally the druggist decides he’s had enough and takes matters into his own hands.
Jeannette Vaubernier, an impulsive shopgirl en route to deliver a hat, dreams of luxury and position as she saunters through the woods, and attracted by a pool of water, she disrobes and plunges in. Cosse de Brissac, a handsome private in the King’s Guards, comes to her rescue and they become sweethearts. Meanwhile, Jean Du Barry, a shrewd roué, takes note of her at the millinery shop and tricks her into staying at La Gourda’s, where she soon becomes a favorite among the men.
Based on a novel by Maurice Dekobra, the film is set in the Yoshiwara, the red-light district of Tokyo, in the nineteenth century. It depicts a love triangle between a high-class prostitute, a Russian naval officer, and a rickshaw man.
British farmer Mark Warrow and his hot-tempered wife, Martha, have a loveless marriage that reaches its breaking point when Martha shoots Mark’s beloved dog. In a rage, Mark murders Martha. On the run following his crime, Mark meets Jo Trent, a seemingly naïve woman who offers him a lift; in fact, she recognizes Mark as the man the police are chasing and is gathering material for a book called “I Met A Murderer” about their time together.