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Watch Charles, Dead or Alive Online

Charles, Dead or Alive (1969)Charles, Dead or Alive (1969)iMDB Rating: 7.3
Date Released : 15 January 1970
Genre : Drama
Stars : François Simon, Marcel Robert, Marie-Claire Dufour, André Schmidt. On the 100th anniversary of the founding of a watchmaking company in Geneva, Charles Dé the founder's 50-year-old grandson has had it: he speaks eccentrically to a reporter, recognizing his grandfather as a craftsman and his son as a businessman, but is evasive about himself. He gives his family the slip and moves in with a young couple he meets by chance, doing the cooking, reading, drinking, ..." />
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On the 100th anniversary of the founding of a watchmaking company in Geneva, Charles Dé the founder's 50-year-old grandson has had it: he speaks eccentrically to a reporter, recognizing his grandfather as a craftsman and his son as a businessman, but is evasive about himself. He gives his family the slip and moves in with a young couple he meets by chance, doing the cooking, reading, drinking, and engaging in philosophical discussions with them. The young couple comes to love Charles. In secret, he stays in touch with a daughter, and the rest of the family hires a private investigator to find him, setting in motion a business take-over that threatens his Bohemian happiness.

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Review :

"Hope is going away slowly" (Charles Dé)

Although Alan Tanner will celebrate at the end of this year (2009) his 80st birthday, there is not a single one of his films available on DVD. For the New Yorker Film releases of his videos high prices are paid. Does Switzerland care so little about their very few internationally know film makers? First, Alan Tanner is and was practically unknown in German speaking Switzerland, where most of the Swiss movies are made. Second, besides a few recent movies by Fredi Murer, Xavier Koller, Markus Imhoof, also the German language Swiss movies are not available outside of Switzerland.

"Charles mort ou vif" is a typical Tanner-movie insofar as it describes uncompromisingly the inner road someone has to go almost with necessity to the bitter end after he or she had decided to break with society. This central topic in Alain Tanner's work is later treated splendidly in "Messidor" and "La Salamandre". In the present movie, 50 years old Charles Dé does not see any sense anymore in leading his watch factory. Similarly like Marie et Jeanne from "Messidor", he starts his new life-experiment by just vanishing. Like the two girls, he dislocates into a cheap hotel and spends his days by experiencing the emptiness of space and time - like Paul in "The White City". However, like all his Tanner-relatives, also Charles alias Carlo has to make the bitter experience that the emptiness gives birth to monsters. Finally, he meets a couple of dropouts or drifters (there is no real word in English) who live from occasional work that nourishes more or less. Together with his new friends, "Carlo" reads now Bakunin, paints, cooks and learns calender quotations by heart. Sometimes he has break-downs, and these he cures with schnapps in the next inn. When his new friend has a heavy accident, he incites his daughter to break into his company by night and open the safe. Besides regular contact with his daughter who is as Marxist as he is, "Carlo" has no contact with the rest of his family anymore. But Switzerland is a free state, and based on this freedom, his son succeeds in convincing a physician to classify Carlo's newly discovered political maxims and his new way of life as insane. So, one bright day, Carlo has to start his trip into the light, brutally forced by two madhouse-nurses who take him away in an ambulance.

The House That Screamed (1969)The House That Screamed (1969)iMDB Rating: 7.2
Date Released : 20 July 1969
Genre : Horror, Thriller
Stars : Lilli Palmer, Cristina Galbó, John Moulder-Brown, Maribel Martín. Lilli Palmer owns and runs a school for wayward girls in France. Her absolute discipline has fostered a social order among the girls with rampant sex, lesbianism and torture the norm. Palmer also has an adolescent son (Moulder Brown) she tries to keep isolated from the young women lest he be tainted by sexual relations; She explains that he must wait for a girl "just like his mother". Meanwhile, ..." />
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Lilli Palmer owns and runs a school for wayward girls in France. Her absolute discipline has fostered a social order among the girls with rampant sex, lesbianism and torture the norm. Palmer also has an adolescent son (Moulder Brown) she tries to keep isolated from the young women lest he be tainted by sexual relations; She explains that he must wait for a girl "just like his mother". Meanwhile, girls are "running away" (being murdered) one by one, with their corpses and any evidence of their outcome not to be found. Beware cut versions; the film was shown back in the 70's on network TV chopped to only 76 minutes!

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Review :

Spanish Horror at its finest

The Plot = A young girl joins a French boarding school for problem girls and soon feels that something's amiss with a sinister head mistress and nasty students, and girls begin to disappear and the teaching staff keep covering it up.

Despite being over 40 years old, this movie still holds up well in my opinion and is still effective and creepy by today's standards. The directing is both skillful and artistic and the suspense is spot on, with the murder sequences played out like a stylish nightmare and kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Okay there is not a lot of blood and gore and this flick does rely on character development more, but that works because the cast are well acted and keeps you interested the entire way through. The killer's identity was easily figured out, but the motive when it's revealed is highly shocking and effective and will stick with for a long time afterwards.

The formats of this movie is nothing new but given the fact that this movie came out in 1969, it's pretty easy to see where a lot of these slasher movies get their inspiration and this proves that this movie is ahead of its time. The performances like I said before are excellent, Lilli Palmer who plays the head mistress simply steals to show, with a strong performance easily hold a film together single-handedly, and inject menace or compassion into a scene with a subtlety missing from many horror films of the period. Christina Galbo balances emotion and strength perfectly, as the new student.

All in this entire movie works well as a Gothic murder mystery filled with tension, a definite must see for any fans of European horror.

Watch Chirag Online

Chirag (1969)Chirag (1969)iMDB Rating: 6.9
Date Released : 9 June 2013
Genre : Drama, Family, Musical
Stars : Sunil Dutt, Asha Parekh, Om Prakash, Kanhaiyalal Chaturvedi. Ajay Singh meets with pretty Asha Chibber, and is led to believe that she is wealthy. After a few misunderstandings, he does find out that she is from a poor family. Both do fall in love, and Ajay goes to meet with Asha's brother, Dr.O.P. Chibber, and his wife, Shanti. They are pleased with this alliance, and arrangements are made for Ajay's mom, Gayetridevi to visit them and approve of Asha, ..." />
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Ajay Singh meets with pretty Asha Chibber, and is led to believe that she is wealthy. After a few misunderstandings, he does find out that she is from a poor family. Both do fall in love, and Ajay goes to meet with Asha's brother, Dr.O.P. Chibber, and his wife, Shanti. They are pleased with this alliance, and arrangements are made for Ajay's mom, Gayetridevi to visit them and approve of Asha, which is done. Subsequently, Ajay and Asha are married, and settle down. Asha is expected to give birth to a baby boy as a heir to the Singh family. Unfortunately, she is unable to do so, and even worse -loses her eye-sight and becomes dependent on Ajay. Frustrated at this, Gayetridevi decides to ask Asha to leave the house, and arranges a second marriage for Ajay, with results that will change the lives of everyone around them.

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Review :

The lamp of a husband's love

Chiraag (1969) is a family drama directed by Raj Khosla starring Sunil Dutt and Asha Parekh which is remembered more for the immortal song of Mohammed Rafi - Teri Aankhon Ke Siva Duniya Mein Rakkha Kya Hai. It is feelgood cinema of the sixties containing Bollywoodish twists in an apparently ordinary story but in the end, everything is not shown as being set right which separates it from the other family dramas. Besides, by default perhaps, it has an ingredient of a husband's sincere love for his wife which remains intact despite all the negatives taking place in their conjugal life. And that, in my opinion, is the thing which brings Chirag out of the category of regular potboilers and makes it a memorable movie.

Chiraag (lamp) starts with a rich but small family of Gayatri Devi (Lalita Pawar) and her son - Ajay (Sunil Dutt). Gayatri Devi is a widow who has lost her husband and now, resultantly, got over-possessive for her the only son who, just like his late father, is fond of fast driving. He falls in love with a girl from a modest background and Gayatri Devi bows before the wish of her son under a hope that Asha will beget her grandchild and thus the lineage of the family will continue. This girl is Asha (Asha Parekh) who is motherless and has been fostered by her elder brother (Om Prakash) and sister-in-law (Sulochana).

After the marriage, Asha gets overwhelmed by her husband's abundant and unconditional love whose flare never fades. However when she is not able to conceive and bear a child for seven years, the affection of her mother-in-law for her gets incessantly diluted with the passage of every succeeding day. Things move from bad to worse when she accidentally loses her eyesight. Now Ajay, leaving all the worldly things, starts devoting the maximum of his time in her care. This further irritates Gayatri Devi who now starts feeling that her daughter-in-law is a burden on the household. Her confidant employee (Kanhaiyalaal) instigates her to go for Ajay's second marriage and starts making his moves cleverly in such a way that his niece Sandhya (Snehlata) gets married to Ajay.

One day, Ajay is deliberately sent outstation by Gayatri Devi and in his absence, Gayatri Devi sends Asha to her brother's home. However there too, she approaches her and tells her that her getting out of Ajay's life only will makes Ajay's life better and he'll be able to become a father by marrying another girl. Asha decides to commit suicide and jumps into the nearby river. However Gayatri Devi's desire of getting Ajay married again does not come true because he loves Asha so much that he's not able to imagine some other woman in her place. His coming to know of her mother's activities regarding Asha creates a distance between the mother and the son. However Gayatri Devi who is no less obstinate than her son puts pressure on him to remarry by her hunger-strike.

On the other hand, Asha is saved by a fisherman (Nazir Hussain) and his wife (Dulaari). Now Asha comes to know that she is pregnant and bearing the lamp (Chiraag) of her husband's dynasty in her womb. By the time, the preparations of Ajay's second marriage are complete at his home, Asha's confinement has taken place in the fisherman's hut and she has given birth to a son. The fisherman and his wife arranges Asha's reaching her brother. In order to handover to Ajay the lamp of his dynasty, i.e., his son; Asha reaches him when the ceremony of his second marriage is taking place. The movie ends on a happy note when Ajay is less happy to see his son and more happy to see his blind wife alive who is dearer to him more than anything else.

Chiraag's screenplay has been written in a pretty ordinary manner but partially due to the good direction of Raj Khosla and partially by default, this plain family drama has become quite impressive. The wafer-thin story line has been supplemented by songs, dances, comedy and romance. The movie moves with a very slow pace in the first half and for some duration in the second half also but the final outcome is satisfactory.

With this story, the movie would have been barely of two hours duration. However songs and dances have been inserted to add to the length. Madan Mohan has composed good music. Other than the timeless - Teri Aankhon Ke Siva, the other songs of the album viz. Jab Dekh Liya To Chhupenge Kahaan, Chhai Barkha Bahaar, Bhor Hote Kaaga Pukaare Kaahe Raam, Chiraag Dil Ka Jalaao, More Bichhade Saathi etc. are also quite good to listen (and to watch as well). Lata and Rafi have sung the songs.

Performances are praiseworthy, especially Sunil Dutt has done exceedingly well in the lead role of a loving husband. Asha Parekh as the loving wife and daughter-in-law first and a blind woman thereafter is satisfactory in her performance. Lalita Pawar and others are also perfect in their respective places. Mukri has done good comedy as the hero's friend.

Summing up, Chiraag is a good family drama which can be seen for entertainment and also for a message that the love between a husband and a wife should be such that it remains unaffected by all kinds of contingencies emerging in their marital life.

Watch Meri Bhabhi Online

Meri Bhabhi (1969)Meri Bhabhi (1969)iMDB Rating: 5.4
Date Released : 7 September 2009
Genre : Drama, Family
Stars : Sunil Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Kamini Kaushal, Mehmood. A simple-minded, yet loving young couple, Rajoo (Sunil Dutt), and his wife Maya, who allow their child to be adopted by Rajoo's sister-in-law/Bhabhi, Shanti (Kamini Kaushal). Shanti's child was still-born after an accident. But Shanti does not know this, and believes the child to be her own. She is misled and misguided by Gangajali (Lalita Pawar), and as a result Rajoo and Maya are humiliated, ..." />
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A simple-minded, yet loving young couple, Rajoo (Sunil Dutt), and his wife Maya, who allow their child to be adopted by Rajoo's sister-in-law/Bhabhi, Shanti (Kamini Kaushal). Shanti's child was still-born after an accident. But Shanti does not know this, and believes the child to be her own. She is misled and misguided by Gangajali (Lalita Pawar), and as a result Rajoo and Maya are humiliated, not allowed to come near the child, asked to leave the house, and ultimately are charged with kidnapping the child. Rafi's joyful song "Aaj mera haal na poocho..."; and Lata's lullaby "Sohya mera pyar aanchal me pehli bar...", are still popular on radio.

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Review :

A simple lovable movie

Meri Bhabhi is a simple loving movie. There are also a few other Bollywood movies on the same topic. However this is one is good in a way that it is well directed, well acted and seems natural. All the main cast worked well with Sunil Dutt winning the crowd. Waheeda Rehman was subtle and classic as ever. Kamini Kaushal in the role of "Bhabhi" worked fine. Lalita Pawar and Kanhaiyalal also did well in negative roles. Aruna Irani has a short but cute role. And last, but not the least, Mehmood, really made me laugh. The film is rural based that also I like a lot. A green Himalayan Village. It might have been in Uttar Anchal near Dehradun. Locations were excellent and the sky almost every time was full blue. Music was as per story and some songs were enjoyable. The story revolves around Rajoo and his Bhabhi. His Bhabhi, even after fourteen years of her marriage, is without a child and loves Rajoo as her child. When Rajoo marries Maya, she gets pregnant very soon. And coincidently Shanti, Rajoo's Bhabhi, also gets pregnant. Unfortunately during her last days, Shanti falls from stairs and gets injured. Her child gets wasted. On the same day, Maya is in hospital to deliver her child. She gets a baby boy. Rajoo decides to give the boy to his Bhabhi while she is still unconscious in order to save her life. Maya first disagrees but then she also gets convinced. So, when Shanti awakens, she finds a child near her bed and Rajoo tells her that this is her child. And that Maya gave birth to a dead child. After that their lives get complicated with the advent of Gangajali, Shanti's mother and eventually Rajoo and Maya are to leave that house. What happens next, u can watch the movie...

Streaming The Passion of Anna Online

The Passion of Anna (1969)The Passion of Anna (1969)iMDB Rating: 7.8
Date Released : 28 May 1970
Genre : Drama
Stars : Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson. Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, ..." />
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Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected. Meanwhile, the island community is victimized by an unknown person committing acts of animal cruelty.

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Review :

Landscapes of the Soul

I think, En passion is indeed not a perfect film, but who likes perfection? In fact, I think, up to now, it belongs in Bergman's top 10 and is a great addition to the issues argued in Vargtimmen, Skammen and Rite. All these characters here are not really authentic, but one: Verner, the old man suspected by the villagers on that island to be the animal abuser, and therefore excruciated. Everyone else, including Andreas, Anna and the couple they are friends with, are people who call for problems, get entrapped by them and catapult themselves into an almost-catastrophe. It's interesting that Verner, writes to Andreas, who seems to be the worst of all, i.e. most un-authentic, a suicide note, saying: "I can't look into anyone's eyes anymore", is, to my understanding, the key to the film - self-made problems contrasted with problems created externally. Given Verner's suicide, driven by slander and torture, Andreas' and Anna's issues in their relationship fade, normally, but then an axe gets involved, a stable burns down and a horse runs off, ablazed, kindled by the real animal tormentor who still is on the loose. An inferno.

What I like most about this film, though, is its situational context: the island. I can't think of another Bergman film where the environment plays a bigger role than here. All figures are moving in a lost, iced vastness, in defoliated, sparse woods, get stuck in morass and dirt. Animals get brutally tortured and killed, wood gets chopped, wagons bog down in mud. The forlornness and menace of the people in nature is wonderfully captured by Nykvist, mostly in long, high-angle or panoramic shots and is an intriguing contrast to the interior (of the cottages, where the talking, cheating and fighting takes place) - inside there lurks the psychic, outside there's the physical death. That is a great imagery. However, I'm not satisfied with these interview snippets which I think is a nice idea (such as Bergman's verbal directions in the off in Vargtimmen), but it's executed quite poorly.

Streaming Justine (1969) Online

Justine (1969)Justine (1969)iMDB Rating: 5.8
Date Released : 6 August 1969
Genre : Drama
Stars : Anouk Aimée, Dirk Bogarde, Robert Forster, Anna Karina. In Alexandria, in 1938, Darley, a young British schoolmaster and poet, makes friends through Pursewarden, the British consular officer, with Justine, the beautiful and mysterious wife of a Coptic banker. He observes the affairs of her heart and incidentally discovers that she is involved in a plot against the British, meant to arm the Jewish underground in Palestine. The plot finally fails, ..." />
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In Alexandria, in 1938, Darley, a young British schoolmaster and poet, makes friends through Pursewarden, the British consular officer, with Justine, the beautiful and mysterious wife of a Coptic banker. He observes the affairs of her heart and incidentally discovers that she is involved in a plot against the British, meant to arm the Jewish underground in Palestine. The plot finally fails, Justine is sent to jail and Darley decides to return to England.

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Review :

Forty-karat kitsch baroque

George Cukor's adaptation of Lawrence Durrell's ALEXANDRIA QUARTET forms the shape of a dial made of character traits from medieval mystery plays--Fanatic Patriotism, Sexual Cunning, Heartless Bargaining, Furtive Retreat. If Durrell sought to catalogue every human impulse, Cukor had another, lower agenda that serves the material beautifully: shifting these allegorical characters into ripe, lustrous kitsch icons who seem to have time-travelled from a Sternberg movie circa 1931.

The whole picture seems to have undergone a time-machine move from THE SHANGHAI GESTURE to swinging '69. It's Cukor's most vibrant movie visually, and each gorgeously staged and color-patterned shot finds a new way to layer an Islamic tapestry atop psychedelic poster art.

Cukor, brought in as a replacement, brings a vigor to the material you don't associate with him, and at 70, he still knew how to shape the beats of a scene like a Broadway pro. It is reported that he and the star, Anouk Aimee, loathed one another, and in honesty it's easy to see Cukor's frustration: she gives a dismally coy, incommunicative performance as the black widow whose web forms the story. She seems aberrantly at odds with the coolly dignified, taciturn style of the other performances: Dirk Bogarde, as the Graham Greene-ish diplomat with a lurid secret may never have been more creepily sympathetic than he is here. And John Vernon, an actor best known for playing pompous authoritarians in B movies, has such noble composure as Justine's long-suffering husband that he seems to turn into a folk-art engraving of a noble and besieged human soul.

Watch Al-mummia (1969) Online

Al-mummia (1969)Al-mummia (1969)iMDB Rating: 7.8
Date Released : 20 July 1970
Genre : Drama
Stars : Ahmed Marei, Ahmad Hegazi, Zouzou Hamdy El-Hakim, Nadia Lutfi. Universally recognized as one of the greatest Egyptian films ever made, The Night of Counting the Years is based on a true story: in 1881, when precious artifacts began showing up at market, it was discovered that members of the ancient Horbat tribe were secretly raiding Deir al-Bahari, the site of a legendary cache of royal mummies. The tribe had little livelihood other than selling antiquities,..." />
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Universally recognized as one of the greatest Egyptian films ever made, The Night of Counting the Years is based on a true story: in 1881, when precious artifacts began showing up at market, it was discovered that members of the ancient Horbat tribe were secretly raiding Deir al-Bahari, the site of a legendary cache of royal mummies. The tribe had little livelihood other than selling antiquities, putting them in conflict with the Egyptian government's Antiquities Organization. After reading the script, Roberto Rossellini agreed to lend his name to the project, and Shadi Abdel Salam's film was completed in 1969. This cinematic treat was extremely difficult to see from the 1970s onward until last year's beautiful restoration by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation. Using original 35mm camera and sound negatives preserved at the Egyptian Film Center in Giza, the restoration preserves the film's poetic beauty, its evocative sense of history, and its themes of desecration and ...

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Review :

Interesting, but far too slow and confusing

This film should be more important than it is, but the director (and editor) makes the fatal error of assuming that if a film is slow it is automatically artistic. No, sometimes a film that is slow is nothing but, and all the great things in your picture quickly fade from memory when you leave the theater or rewind the tape.

This is the conflict of the film: the chief of the Horabbat tribe has just died and his sons are in line to take order, but they object to the tribe's way of making a living: tomb robbing and selling ancient relics to foreigners. This has been their way of doing things for a couple of millennia, and the tribe elders try to get rid of the two brothers. At the same time, archeologists from Cairo have come down to excavate and save the relics from being sold to foreigners, while at the same time stealing the relics to take back to Cairo. To tell you the truth, I can't remember too much after that, though I just stopped watching it two hours ago. It is very ambiguous about who is in the right, and the ending is, if I understood it, lacking any sort of climax.

The best things about this film are its cinematography and its score, both of which are exemplary. It's too bad the narrative is so confusing and, well, frankly, boring. It's worth seeing, but, since it's not on video, it's certainly not worth going to great lengths to see it. 7/10.