Africa 50 is the first French anti-colonialist film. It started out as an assignment requested by the French League of Schooling to show their students the educational mission carried out in the French colonies of West Africa. Once there, the director, who was only 21 years old, decided to film the truth: Lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples… The film was forbidden during 40 years and René Vautier was incarcerated for several months.
Tag: 1950s
Juju, a drunken oaf who feels the need of being important to someone—anyone—and his friend The Artist are forced at gunpoint to house a fugitive, Pierre Barbier, in Juju’s broken-down home. The urge for being needed is such in Juju that he gives up drinking and takes care of Pierre. But one day Juju finds out that Pierre has been making love to his girl Maria…
A submarine commander is determined to use guided missiles on his sub in this war drama. To do so, he defies the edict of the navel bureaucracy and begins testing the prototypes. This results in personal injury and the death of a crewman. So guilty does the commander feel, that he begins to suffer a mental breakdown and becomes hysterically paralyzed.
Early in his naval career, Ken White is suddenly given command of his submarine, the USS Tiger Shark. To keep from being sunk, he orders a dive while the captain and another crewman are outside, and both are killed. White is promoted, but the events on the Tiger Shark continue to haunt him and also disrupt his marriage. Eventually, White takes a desk job. But when the Korean War flares up, White is called back to active duty and asked to lead the Tiger Shark once more.
Told in flashback, the film recounts the events leading up to the killing of good-for-nothing Curt Jurgens. Warned by her friends and relatives that Jurgens is a bad job, impulsive Ina Kahr marries him anyway. His ceaseless philandering and abuse wears away at Ina to the point that she contemplates poisoning her husband…
In Paris, scoundrel mates Paolo and Antoine Venturen hope to get rich quick by asking ransom fro rich Mr. Jumelin’s preteen son Eric. Masquerading as Indians, the scamp’s favorite game, does the trick. They soon learn such bratty rascal is more trouble then he’s worth. The boy’s a P.I. instead of paying, and it gets worse.
Korean War veteran returns home to rural Salinas, California with his new Japanese wife, whom he met at a war hospital. The couple are forced to deal with the sometimes subtle, sometimes overt racism of his family and the townspeople, especially after the birth of their son.
On the same day that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary valor in the European campaign during World War II, Sergeant Joe Dusak is charged with desertion during combat by a military court. Also summoned to testify are Corporal Crocker, Corporal Quinn and Private Pope, the only surviving members of a patrol led by Dusak. The charges stem from a patrol into the Black Forest of Germany in which Dusak claims the patrol got lost. Sergeant William Hutchins testifies that he ran into Dusak’s patrol, and the men were laughing and not lost.