Remake of the Garbo classic, with Leigh as the ill-starred Anna, who leaves her stuffy husband for the eminently more exciting Vronsky. But forbidden love turns sour when Vronsky puts his duty above his mistress, leaving Anna alone to face the cruelty of a disapproving society. Tragic melodrama.
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BROKEN BLOSSOMS / ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1919)
CertificationU Our Rating
Two works from the father of narrative cinema. In "Broken Blossoms" (1919); a Chinaman arrives in London to teach the locals the ideals of Buddhism but finds them most unreceptive and, instead, opens a shop which becomes the refuge for a xenophobic boxer's abused daughter. Lillian Gish is brilliant and Griffith poetic. "Abraham Lincoln", (1930), was Griffith's first talkie and is a straightforward biopic from childhood to his premature assassination.
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Charu lives a lonely and idle life in 1870s India. Although her husband devotes more time to his newspaper than to their marriage, he sees her loneliness and asks his brother-in-law, Umapeda, a would-be writer, to keep her company. At this point Bhupati's cousin, Amal, visits and spends a long vacation and, after several months, Charu and Amal's feelings for each other move beyond friendship and toward tragedy. A classic piece of early drama from the great Satyajit Ray.
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DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
Certification15 Our Rating
David Lean's epic romance set against the turbulant backdrop of the Russian revolution. One man's struggle for moral political and personal survival amidst the complex web of intrigue and tangled loyalties that accompanied the fall of the Tsar.
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EL CID (1961)
CertificationPG Our Rating
One of the very finest epics produced, equally impressive in terms of script and spectacle. Heston is aptly heroic as the 11th Century patriot destined to die in the fight to evict the Moors from Spain, Mann's direction is stately and thrilling and Miklos Rosza's superb score perfectly complements the crisp and simple widescreen images. Sobriety and restraint, in fact, are perhaps the keynotes of the film's success, with the result that a potentially risible finale, in which Cid's corpse is born
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ELVIRA MADIGAN (1967)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Winner of the Best Actress award at Cannes, 1967, and possibly the prettiest film of the sixties. A high-ranking Swedish soldier sacrifices his wife, career and social standing for the love of a young circus girl, but their idyllic liaison is soon tainted by the realities of life. Romantic tragedy.
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FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD (1967)
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Thomas Hardy's classic tale of a rural landowner chased by three men, a swashbuckling army womaniser, a loyal shepherd and a staid middle-aged bachelor, and her making a choice she lives to regret. Nicolas Roeg's beautiful cinematography of the West Country dominates the film.
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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS (1943)
CertificationPG Our Rating
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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FUNNY GIRL (1968)
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The life of comedienne Fannie Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of the Lower East Side, when only her mother believed Fanny could make it in show business, to her hilarious debut as a rollerskating chorus-girl and on to the height of her career as a star with the Ziegfeld Follies. Unfortunately she fell in love, and married, the wrong man; handsome, urbane but inept gambler Nick. Streisand won the best actress Oscar in this classic musical.
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