"Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)

"Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

Michael Anderson Company

A Victorian Englishman bets that with the new steamships and railways he can circumnavigate the globe in eighty days.

In 1872, an English gentleman Phileas Fogg (David Niven) claims he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days. He makes a £20,000 wager with four sceptical fellow members of the Reform Club (each contributing £5,000 to the bet) that he can arrive back eighty days from exactly 8:45 pm that evening."

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)

"You Can't Take It with You" (1938)

"You Can't Take It with You" (1938)

"You Can't Take It with You" (1938)

A man from a family of rich snobs becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family. - You Can't Take It with You is a 1938 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Capra, and starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart and Edward Arnold.

The film was dapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It received two Academy Awards out of seven nominations: Best Picture and Best Director for Frank Capra. This was Capra's third Oscar for Best Director in just five years."

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)

"Forbidden Planet" (1956)

"Forbidden Planet" (1956)

"Forbidden Planet" (1956)

A starship crew goes to investigate the silence of a planet's colony only to find two survivors and a deadly secret that one of them has. A dutiful robot named Robby speaks 188 languages. An underground lair provides astonishing evidence of a populace a million years more advanced than Earthlings. There are many wonders on Altair-4, but none is greater or more deadly than the human mind. "Forbidden Planet" is the granddaddy of tomorrow, a pioneering work whose ideas and style would be reverse-engineered into many cinematic space voyages to come. Leslie Nielsen portrays the commander who brings his spacecruiser crew to the green-skied Altair-4 world that's home to Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon), his daughter (Anne Francis), the remarkable Robby... and to a mysterious terror.

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)
John Boorman | Director

John Boorman: On "The General"

Watching "The General", I could think of several reasons why Martin Cahill would be a good figure for a John Boorman movie. He's a nonconformist. He sets himself impossible tasks, which you've certainly done in some of the circumstances you've filmed under. But there's a real ambivalence about him as well.

quote-leftLiving in Ireland as I do, and have done for the last 30 years, I was very conscious of him. In fact, we have a curiously intimate personal connection. He robbed my house in 1981. At that time, he was really just a cat burglar -- he wasn't doing any of these big things, but he was very audacious then, and provocative. The police recognized his modus vivendi, but also he always wanted to be known when he pulled off these things. He wanted the credit for them. It was also a challenge, you know: "Well, OK now try and prove it. I did that, now prove it." But amongst the things he took was this gold record I had for the music for "Deliverance". So I put that in the movie; that was my revenge.

The Director's Chair
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"Marty" (1955)

"Marty" (1955)

"Marty" (1955)

A middle-aged butcher and a school teacher who have given up on the idea of love meet at a dance and fall for each other.

"Marty" is a 1955 American romantic drama film directed by Delbert Mann. The screenplay was written by Paddy Chayefsky, expanding upon his 1953 teleplay of the same name. The film stars Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair. In addition to gaining an Academy Award for Best Picture, the film enjoyed international success, becoming the fourth American film to win the Cannes Film Festival, and to be awarded the Palme d'Or. Marty and The Lost Weekend (1945) are the only two films to win both organizations' grand prizes."

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)

"On the Waterfront" (1954)

"On the Waterfront" (1954)

"On the Waterfront" (1954)

An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses. - On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film was suggested by "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November–December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, but the screenplay by Budd Schulberg is directly based on his own original story. The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey."

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)
Roberto Benigni | Director, Actor

Roberto Benigni Interview

Adrian Wootton Before we talk about Life is Beautiful, I want to go back to your early career and how you became a comedian. You grew up in Tuscany, and am I right in thinking that you started out by working in a circus? Can you tell us about your experience?

Roberto Benigni: Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here! Thank you Adrian. So, how are you?

AW: I'm very well.

RB: I like to be here because this is my first question and answer session in London and my heart is in turmoil. I'm flabbergasted. It's a gift to me, and I have to thank everybody.

The Director's Chair
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"The Life of Emile Zola" (1937)

"The Life of Emile Zola" (1937)

"The Life of Emile Zola" (1937)

The biopic of the famous French muckraking writer and his involvement in fighting the injustice of the Dreyfuss Affair. - "The Life of Emile Zola" is an American biographical film about French author Émile Zola, played by Paul Muni and directed by William Dieterle. It has the distinction of being the second biographical film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. It premiered at the Los Angeles Carthay Circle Theatre to great success both critically and financially. Contemporary reviews cited it the best biographical film made up to that time. In 2000, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Classic (Released Prior to yr 2000)
Danny Boyle | Director

Danny Boyle - On Trainspotting

The "Trainspotting" machine, which started rolling as a cult novel in Scotland's slums (passed hand-to-hand at outlawed raves) and gathered steam as a controversial West End play, is now in full locomotion, a wildly successful movie in Europe with raging fires of hype being stoked for its arrival on our shores. But will a movie about a bunch of toilet-diving Scottish heroin addicts play in Peoria?

A few months ago, director Danny Boyle didn't think so. "I doubt it'll do any business in America," he said. Was he prepared to alter that prediction now, after a staggering pre-release campaign and stories in every major magazine?

The Director's Chair
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