1954 CHECKLIST FOR 2024

Two detectives are investigating a robbery in which $300,000 was taken. Their investigation leads them to the main player and they find the cash, but one of them has meanwhile fallen hard for a woman with expensive tastes, and though he desperately wants to keep her, he knows that a cop's salary isn't going to be enough for her.

When peasant girl Nives is deserted by smuggler Gino Lodi, she betrays him to the police. Police officer Enzo Cinti, who loves Nives, traces her to the Po River cane-fields, where she is working as a cutter to support herself and an infant son, and warns her that Gino has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge. She rejects his offer to protect her. Gino finds Nives, mourning the drowning death of their son. He surrenders himself to the police and then walks at Nives' side in the funeral procession.

An Inn at Osaka, rarely seen outside Japan, follows the story of an insurance company executive from Tokyo, Mr. Mito, who is demoted to the Osaka office. He takes a room at a small inn and tries to rebuild his life. Notable for its exquisite framing and cinematography, An Inn at Osaka allows its complicated plotlines to disappear behind the minutiae of penury and humiliation that Mito and others suffer during the post-war economic and social reconstruction.

A student at a woman's university takes a controversial action against the school's old-fashioned doctrines.

A drunken stork delivers the baby of a giant to a normal-sized couple instead, and they try to raise him as well as they can.

A kabuki actress is murdered. Her pet cat laps its mistress's blood and becomes a demon possessed by the vengeful murder victim.

The Lord of Okazaki is killed by his brother-in-law. Although the Lord's widow bears a child, she is also killed. Then, a ghost cat begins stalking in the castle.

A short documentary about the behaviour of Japanese primary school students.

At New Mexico's Empire Zinc mine, Mexican-American workers protest the unsafe work conditions and unequal wages compared to their Anglo counterparts. Ramon Quintero helps organize the strike, but he is shown to be a hypocrite by treating his pregnant wife, Esperanza, with a similar unfairness. When an injunction stops the men from protesting, however, the gender roles are reversed, and women find themselves on the picket lines while the men stay at home.

In a mountain village, Heita, a translator's son, is a gifted boy but is shunned by the villagers. He can imitate birds' cry and befriends another boy who works in a brewery. Heita also finds solace in the village pastor Yasugi and his teacher Michiko, but they too have problems of their own.

Postwar Tokyo. Pin and Toku live in the squatter area of Kappanuma. Pin and Toku are avid gamblers. They take in Tsuru, a slightly demented woman who has run away from a geisha house.

A landowner in colonial Africa leads a safari through Nukumbi territory in order to capture an escaped criminal.

A useless and bloody vendetta has been going on for ages between two families in this Mexican village. Men, sons, have killed each other for generations, for a so-called conception of honor in a revenge that never ends since it is also triggered by people of the village. Now, today, there are only two sons left, one in each family. One has become a doctor in the big city and his culture is modern. The other last one - of the other family - hasn't left the village and is waiting for the doctor to come "home" as he plans to kill him, to settle this war on this matter of honor once and for all. And the people of the village want blood.

A squadron of Japanese fighter pilots realise that they are never going to win the war when they understand that Japanese military tactics have little regard for life. Seeking the companionship of any woman who will have them, they spend their days indulging in every fantasy in order to escape the overwhelming fear of death looming just over the horizon.

The direction of The Sleeping Tiger was credited to Victor Hanbury, but this was actually a pseudonym for the blacklisted Joseph Losey, whose first British film this was. Alexander Knox stars as psychiatrist Clive Esmond, who believes that he can stem the criminal tendencies of young fugitive from justice Frank Clements (Dirk Bogarde). To this end, Esmond hides Clements in his own home. At first hostile towards the handsome crook, Esmond's wife Glenda (Alexis Smith) gradually warms up to her house guest, and before long she and Clements are casting lustful glances at one another. She intends to run off with Clements and make a new life for herself, when suddenly he decides that he actually wants to reform. If nothing else, The Sleeping Tiger is a fascinating precursor to the sexual tensions prevalent in Losey's later Harold Pinter adaptations. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Set in the countryside of Provence, the film is based on three tales from Alphonse Daudet's 1869 short story collection Letters from My Windmill: "The Three Low Masses", "The Elixir of Father Gaucher" and "The Secret of Master Cornille".

On a lazy Athenian Sunday, a young and fresh saleswoman loses her soon-to-be winning lottery ticket, only to meet its handsome new owner. Of course, she wants it back; however, what if fortune and ardent Cupid are already on her doorstep?

A young Viking prince strives to become a knight in King Arthur's Court and restore his exiled father to his rightful throne.

From the Louis Hemon novel "M. Ripois and His Nemesis" about Andre Ripois, a philanderer in pursuit of love and riches from Paris to London. Andre is breaking up with his wife, Catherine, over his attentions to her best friend Patricia. While Catherine is out arranging the divorce, Andre, just to keep in practice, hits on the girl upstairs, Diana and then turns his attention back to Patricia, who he tricks into having dinner at his flat on the pretext that Catherine will be there. When he cannot make any progress with her via his usual tactics, he tries to arouse her pity be telling her of his past. In his early, impoverished days in London, he made love to his boss Anne but her dreadful cooking drove him away. Next came Norah who he picked up on a bus and took to his flat and told her about his make-believe inheritance, but she insisted on marriage first, which was not in his plans. Marcelle, a French woman living in Soho, put him on his feet with money, and he repaid her by stealing fifty pounds and running off. He met the wealthy Catherine at his flat where she came to be tutored in French lessons, and ended up marrying him. But, even at his wedding, he had eyes only for Patricia and, he tells her she is his one true love.

Telemachus, an unhappy old man, still lives with his sister, whom he expects to restore so that he marries the woman he loves. In the end, he is persuaded by a friend to put an ad in the newspaper to find her bridegroom, without mentioning her real age and highlighting her dowry. Finally, two bridal candidates appear: A retired and a Greek-Argentine landowner...