Robert Jordan is an idealist and with his skills as a demolition expert he finds himself with the opportunity to marry both by helping the anti-fascists during the Spanish Civil War. Amongst the band of freedom fighters Robert joins is Maria, an innocent but impassioned and beautiful young woman. As the group draw towards their ultimate mission so Robert and Maria's friendship develops into something far deeper, intensified by their uncertain fate. For The Whom the Bell Tolls was showered with O
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GIANT (1956)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Texan rancher Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie, they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations. James Dean earned his second Oscar nomination in this tale of frustration and revenge, wealth and racial oppression in Texas.
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GOODBYE MR CHIPS (1939)
CertificationU Our Rating
Donat is perfectly cast as the lovable teacher, in this classic British drama, reminiscing about his career and personal life over the decades, his rise from lowly Latin master to headmaster of a public school and the joys and tragedies which moulded his transformation. The film won a staggering seven Academy Awards. Hugely enjoyable.
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RED ANGEL (1966)
Certification15 Our Rating
Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con
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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Based on David Low's cartoon character, Major General Clive Wynne-Candy, VC, we back-track over his life, drawing us into sympathy with the prime virtues of honour and chivalry which have transformed him from dashing young spark of the 1890s into crusty old buffer of World War II. Roger Livesey gives us not just a great performance, but a man's whole life, losing his only love (Deborah Kerr) to the German officer (Walbrook) with whom he fought a duel in pre-WWI Berlin, then becoming the latter's
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THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946)
CertificationPG Our Rating
One of the all-time classic film noirs. Sultry Lana Turner is hypnotic as the bored, beautiful wife whose dreary life takes a dramatic turn when enigmatic drifter Frank walks into the diner she runs. Only her good-natured husband stands in the way of the pair's deadly passion. Superb stuff.
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THE SOUTHERNER (1945)
CertificationU Our Rating
The master of cinematic naturalism goes to America! Jean Renoir's tale of a family hitting hard times in the dustbowl of the US is beautifully realised. Zachary Scott plays a sharecropper who decides that, if his family is to survive the depression, he needs to go it alone. Buying his own land and tools he sets to work, but is soon faced with the obstinate fact that nature is at best indifferent, at worst devastatingly cruel. Crisis follows catastrophe as, with a proud ethic that is constantly u
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