cryptexcode/MPST huggingface dataset:
Uninhabited

Plot synopsis:
Marine biology student Beth and Harry are a young couple seeking a distinctive holiday trip, and they spend ten days on a deserted and idyllic coral island on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, recording many of their adventures with a camcorder. The first two days manifest that they are not alone and the island has a disturbing history. Haunted by a presence, they find an abandoned grave next to an old shack, the latter which has an old drawing and seven tally marks inside on the wall. When Beth and Harry sift through their camera, they discover they were filmed sleeping. Alarmed, Beth wants to leave, but Harry intends to stay, believing kids are playing pranks. They sight fishermen on a boat with guns and later realize that the grave has been remodeled, now decorated with red coral, with a wooden cross embedded at the head of the grave that reads "Coral" on it.
The following day, Beth and Harry find severed sea cucumbers (trepang) hanging from a nearby line. By this episode, they realize they are in trouble and their phone, which they plan to use to call for rescue, goes missing. Searching for the phone, they come across Spiro (Billy Milionis) and Elias (Terry Siourounis), the two lunatic Greek fishermen they had seen the day before. This leads to Beth and Harry being tied up after snooping around their space and boat, accusing them of stealing their phone. Beth is sexually molested, but a female ghost appears and injures one man, as the fishermen flee from the island on their boat, and Harry and Beth manage to free themselves.
The next day, Beth reads an old journal left behind in the shack. She learns the ghost is a girl named Coral (Tasia Zalar), a young island girl who worked for a company, harvesting sea cucumbers in the 1920s. Treading on a venomous stone fish, she became an object of ridicule and was raped by seven men from the company. Ever since her death, her soul seeks vengeance against all men who visit the island. Beth is wrapped up in the story that Harry initially believes to be a hoax, and Beth admits she would do the same as Coral if she was the victim. Realizing they're in grave danger, the next day they plan to create a bonfire in the hopes a rescue team finds them. However, a ringing phone brings Harry alone to the shack and he encounters Coral, who kills him with a knife and hangs his naked body in a tree above her grave. As night falls, Beth finds his hanging corpse dripping blood onto the grave and faints.
The next morning, Beth recovers to find all trace of Harry's body gone—but one of the graves near the campsite has been filled in. While lighting the bonfire, she sees Coral standing on the reef. She runs in the water towards her, only to step on a stone fish, sending the painful poison running through her legs, as she manages to return to shore. On the tenth day, Jackson comes back to pick up the couple he dropped off, but no one is seen. He goes to enter the shack finding the journal resting on a chair. A menacing Beth confronts and presumably kills him. One of the final scenes show Beth's grave next to Coral's, appearing as if they joined forces.

Tags: revenge, horror

Review:
The Grimm

Plot synopsis:
A brother and sister, Jacob and Marie, live with their father and mother. The family is in a situation where living becomes difficult for them. One day Jacob and Marie's father abandons the two of them in woods while they go collecting firewood. From that moment on, the two teens must fend for themselves, fighting off rape and taking on any possible situation, reacting to situations as if animals. Their mother put a note in Jacob's jacket telling them to go to their aunt and uncle in Spain, but they arrive to find them both deceased in an accident.
Not sure what to do, Jacob, feeling hungry, goes to buy a roll, and finds a note left by Marie that she has gone off to marry a rich man named Diego. Jacob arrives at the house, ominous in spite of its brightness, and finds much to distrust in Diego.
Diego, a surgeon, then plots to steal Jacob's kidney to help his sick sister Theresa. Diego drugs both Marie and Jacob and separates the brother and sister.
After Marie escapes, she finds Jacob severely injured in a stolen car and both brother and sister (reunited again) drive away. Suddenly they are chased by Diego in a car. In the chase Diego's car crashes off the road. Jacob and Marie take shelter in an abandoned house in an abandoned village. With the help of Marie, ailing Jacob gets healed.
As the days pass one windy day Diego comes in search to take Marie and kill Jacob. In the encounter by hide and seek Jacob kills Diego by shooting an arrow. Jacob and Marie bury Diego's body and on hearing sound they sneak under the house. Police come on routine patrol and search the house and leave.
Jacob and Marie sit relaxed beside a nearby flowing river and the credits scroll on.

Tags: cult, fantasy

Review:
Donald's Better Self

Plot synopsis:
Donald is fast asleep in his bed. As he turns in his sleep, his Conscience takes a form of its own beside him. She looks exactly like Donald, but wears a white robe and a golden halo. She also has a kinder and gentler voice than Donald. The Conscience tries to get Donald up and out of bed so he won't be late for school, but Donald's Anti-Conscience appears to keep Donald in bed. He has a different voice than Donald's and has a devil form with horns. He easily convinces Donald to stay in bed, but the Conscience wins out and walks with Donald to school.
Along the way, Donald is tempted by the Anti-Conscience to skip out on school and go fishing instead. At the fishing hole, the Anti-Conscience pressures him to smoke a pipe, which causes him to get sick. Soon the Conscience arrives looking for Donald. She finds him sick, and she gets angry at the Anti-Conscience for Donald's misfortune. The Anti-Conscience soon realizes he's in trouble when he sees the Conscience behind him. "YOU! This is all your fault!" says the Conscience to the Anti-Conscience, who nervously convinces the Conscience not to hurt him. The Conscience refuses, but after the Anti-Conscience deliberately tricks her, proceeds to fight the Anti-Conscience to teach him a lesson. Donald finally learns to do the right thing and go to school rather than give in to temptation.

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
The Incredible Mr. Limpet

Plot synopsis:
The story begins September 1941 just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Shy bookkeeper Henry Limpet loves fish with a passion. When his friend George Stickle enlists in the United States Navy, Limpet attempts to enlist as well, but is rejected. Feeling downcast, he wanders down to a pier near Coney Island and accidentally falls into the water. Inexplicably, he finds he has turned into a fish. Since he never resurfaces, his wife, Bessie, and George assume he has drowned.
The fish Limpet, complete with his signature pince-nez spectacles, discovers a new-found ability during some of his initial misadventures, a powerful underwater roar, his "thrum". He falls in love with a female fish he names Ladyfish, the concept of names being unknown to her, and makes friends with a misanthropic hermit crab named Crusty.
Still determined to help the Navy, Limpet finds a convoy and requests to see George. With George's help, Limpet gets himself commissioned by the Navy, complete with advancing rank and a salary, which he sends to Bessie. He helps the Navy locate Nazi U-boats by signaling with his "thrum", and plays a large part in the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. In his final mission, he is nearly killed when the Nazis develop a "thrum" seeking torpedo, and is further handicapped by the loss of his spectacles. He manages to survive using Crusty as his "navigator", and sinks a number of U-boats by redirecting the torpedoes. After the battle, he swims to Coney Island to say goodbye to Bessie (who has now fallen in love with George) and gets a replacement set of glasses. He then swims off with Ladyfish.
In the film's coda, set in the modern times of 1964, George (now a high ranking naval officer) and the Admiral are presented with a report that Mr. Limpet is still alive and working with porpoises. The two men travel out to sea to contact Mr. Limpet and offer him a commission in the United States Navy. It is unknown what became of the conversation, for the movie ends with a question mark.

Tags: flashback

Review:
Suburban Secrets

Plot synopsis:
=== Overview ===
Laura, a nude model, returns to her small-town hometown after learning her ex-boyfriend has begun a relationship with her aunt Cynthia.
=== Synopsis ===
During a photo shoot, nude model Laura (Isadora Edison) receives a phone call from her sister Winnifred (Chelsea Mundae). Laura learns that her ex-boyfriend, high-powered attorney Nelson Nyland (John Samuel Jordan), is dating her aunt Cynthia (Tina Tyler); not only that, they are making plans to move in together. While she tells Winnie that's she's pleased, Laura is emotionally hurt.
After hanging up, Laura asks her photographer, Jennine (Andrea Davis), for a few weeks off. Jennine agrees, commenting that she has some good shots for her editor. Intercut with a montage of Laura and Jennine having sex, Jennine comments that she has "an awful schoolgirl crush" on Laura. Laura is initially put off, but then passionately kisses Jennine.
Meanwhile, in Meadow Springs, Nelson visits his law partner, and sister, Judith (Kay Kirtland). Judith invites Nelson out to a romantic dinner, but Nelson explains that he is expected by Cynthia.
At Cynthia's cabin, Nelson arrives to find Cynthia seductively rubbing herself. Making himself comfortable, Nelson approaches her from behind and cups her breasts. After several minutes of foreplay, they retire to the bedroom.
At a cafe, Winnie (Chelsea Mundae) asks her co-worker Louise (A.J. Khan) why she pushed Winnie so hard into telling Laura about Cynthia and Nelson. Louise admits that she is a potential novelist, and that she is writing an expose about the town's sexual goings-on. The scene then intercuts with both Nelson and Cynthia, and Laura and Jennine having sex.

Tags: pornographic

Review:
Scarecrow

Plot synopsis:
The story revolves around the relationship between two vagabonds: Max Millan (Gene Hackman), a short-tempered ex-convict, and Francis Lionel "Lion" Delbuchi (Al Pacino), a childlike ex-sailor. They meet on the road in California and agree to become partners in a car wash business, once they reach Pittsburgh.
Lion is on his way to Detroit to see the child he has never met and make amends with his wife Annie, to whom he has been sending all the money he made while at sea. Max agrees to make a detour on his way to Pittsburgh, where the bank that Max has been sending all his seed money is located.
While visiting Max's sister in Denver, the pair's antics land them in a prison farm for a month. Max blames Lion for their being sent back to jail and shuns him. Lion is befriended by a powerful inmate named Riley (Richard Lynch), who later tries to sexually assault Lion, and while he does not succeed, physically savages and emotionally traumatizes Lion. Max rekindles his friendship with Lion, and becomes his protector, eventually exacting revenge by beating up Riley. After being released from prison the two continue to have a profound effect on each other, although they have both undergone personal transformations and their roles have shifted--with Lion still traumatized and no longer carefree and clowning, nor able even to laugh or even smile, and Max loosening up his high-strung aggression (at one point doing a tongue-in-cheek striptease to defuse a fight at a bar, and to attempt to make Lion laugh again).
When the duo finally make it to Detroit, Lion finds a payphone and calls Annie, now remarried and raising their five-year-old son. Annie is still furious at Lion for having abandoned her, and lies that she miscarried their son (adding spitefully, knowing Lion is Catholic, "He never even got born. Never got baptized. You know what that means; his soul can't go to heaven. That's what you did for your son's soul, you bastard. You sent it into limbo. That soul cannot go to heaven"). Lion is devastated, but when he gets off the phone, he snaps into a manic state, expressing joy to Max at that he has a son. Shortly afterward, Lion has a breakdown while playing in a park with neighborhood children and becomes catatonic. Max promises Lion, now in a psychiatric hospital, that he will do anything to help him, and boards a train to Pittsburgh with a round-trip ticket.

Tags: violence, depressing

Review:
Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari

Plot synopsis:
The film's story is told in a series of flashbacks. In the opening scenes, Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata), is a prisoner of the police. A huge crowd of journalists and an angry mob greets him as he enters a cell. The police quiz him but he refuses to answer. The story goes back to the initial murders. Enokizu tricks and then kills two men and steals a large sum of money. He puts on a suit and disappears. Enokizu travels to another city. At the train station, he asks a taxi driver to take him to an inn where he can get a prostitute. Enokizu is sexually insatiable. He tells the innkeeper, a woman called Haru (Mayumi Ogawa), that he is a professor at Kyoto University. The police, searching for Enokizu, put out bulletins with his face on television. The prostitute thinks the professor is Enokizu, but she is told not to go to the police because of her job.
Enokizu's background is the son of a Catholic father (Rentaro Mikuni) who lost his fishing boats to the Japanese navy in the 1930s. Enokizu is a rebellious, violent child. As a young man, he is convicted and imprisoned. His mother is ill. His wife (Mitsuko Baisho) is attracted to his father. She divorces Enokizu, but then is persuaded by Enokizu's father to remarry him, due to the father's Catholic beliefs. After the remarriage, she tries to seduce the father, but fails. Enokizu accuses her of sleeping with his father when he was in prison.
Enokizu travels to Tokyo. He tricks the mother of a young defendant into giving him the bail money for her son. Escaping, he befriends a lawyer who lives alone. He kills the lawyer and uses his apartment. He sends some money to Haru, and travels back to her place. Haru's mother is a convicted murderer who has recently been released from prison. Haru had lost her job, and had to run the seedy inn because she could not find other work. Haru and her mother realise that "the Professor" is the wanted man. Enokizu kills both Haru and her mother and pawns their goods. The prostitute (Toshie Negishi) sees the pawnbroker going to the inn and decides to go to the police.
Five years later, Enokizu has been executed. His father and wife go to the top of a mountain to scatter his ashes. They throw the bones into the air but the bones remain hanging in the air.

Tags: violence, murder, flashback

Review:
Love's Labour's Lost

Plot synopsis:
Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his three noble companions, the Lords Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, take an oath not to give in to the company of women. They devote themselves to three years of study and fasting; Berowne agrees somewhat more hesitantly than the others. The King declares that no woman should come within a mile of the court. Don Adriano de Armado, a Spaniard visiting the court, comes to tell the King of a tryst between Costard and Jaquenetta. After the King sentences Costard, Don Armado confesses his own love for Jaquenetta to his page, Moth. Don Armado writes Jaquenetta a letter and asks Costard to deliver it.
The Princess of France and her ladies arrive, wishing to speak to the King regarding the cession of Aquitaine, but must ultimately make their camp outside the court due to the decree. In visiting the Princess and her ladies at their camp, the King falls in love with the Princess, as do the lords with the ladies. Berowne gives Costard a letter to deliver to the lady Rosaline, which Costard switches with Don Armado's letter that was meant for Jaquenetta. Jaquenetta consults two scholars, Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, who conclude that the letter is written by Berowne and instruct her to tell the King.
The King and his lords lie in hiding and watch one another as each subsequently reveals their feelings of love. The King ultimately chastises the lords for breaking the oath, but Berowne reveals that the King is likewise in love with the Princess. Jaquenetta and Costard enter with Berowne's letter and accuse him of treason. Berowne confesses to breaking the oath, explaining that the only study worthy of mankind is that of love, and he and the other men collectively decide to relinquish the vow. Arranging for Holofernes to entertain the ladies later, the men then dress as Muscovites and court the ladies in disguise. Boyet, having overheard their planning, helps the ladies trick the men by disguising themselves as each other. When the lords return as themselves, the ladies taunt them and expose their ruse.
Impressed by the ladies' wit, the men apologize, and when all identities are righted, they watch Holofernes, Sir Nathaniel, Costard, Moth, and Don Armado present the Nine Worthies. The four lords – as well as the ladies' courtier Boyet – heckle the play, and Don Armado and Costard almost come to blows when Costard reveals mid-pageant that Don Armado has got Jaquenetta pregnant. Their spat is interrupted by news that the Princess's father has died. The Princess makes plans to leave at once, and she and her ladies, readying for mourning, declare that the men must wait a year and a day to prove their loves lasting. Don Armado announces he will swear a similar oath to Jaquenetta and then presents the nobles with a song.

Tags: romantic

Review:
The Inkwell

Plot synopsis:
Set in the summer of 1976, the film follows the adventures of Drew Tate (Larenz Tate), a shy 16-year-old from upstate New York, when he and his family spend two weeks with affluent relatives on Martha's Vineyard. Drew's parents, Kenny (Joe Morton) and Brenda (Suzzanne Douglass), worry that their son is emotionally disturbed. His favorite companion is a doll, in which he names Iago (after the character in the Shakespeare classic Othello), with which he engages in animated conversations. They also fear that a fire he accidentally set in the family garage foreshadows a future as an arsonist.
On Martha's Vineyard, Drew is thrown into an affluent, party-loving black society that congregates on a beach known as the Inkwell. The visit is also the occasion of some bitter family strife. Drew's Aunt Francis (Vanessa Bell Calloway) and her husband, Spencer (Glynn Turman), are conservatives whose walls are plastered with pictures of Republican dignitaries such as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan (who they keep saying will become President someday). Kenny, a former Black Panther, and Spencer argue furiously about racial issues.
The Inkwell follows Drew's bumbling pursuit of the insufferably snooty Lauren (Jada Pinkett Smith). He also befriends Heather (Adrienne-Joi Johnson), a young woman whose husband, Harold (Morris Chestnut), is a faithless louse. The movie comes to an end on the Fourth of July, when the Bicentennial fireworks end up symbolizing not just America's 200th birthday but Drew finally losing his virginity with Heather.

Tags: prank

Review:
The Long, Hot Summer

Plot synopsis:
Ben Quick is on trial, suspected of barn-burning, but when no solid evidence is found, the judge expels him from town. Ben hitches a ride to Frenchman's Bend, Mississippi, with two young women in a convertible, Clara Varner and her sister-in-law Eula (Lee Remick). Clara's father, Will Varner, is the domineering owner of most of the town.
Ben goes to the Varner plantation. Will is away, but his only son, Jody, agrees to let Ben become a sharecropper on a vacant farm. When Will returns from a stay in the hospital, he is furious at Jody for hiring a notorious "barn burner," but soon begins to see in Ben a younger version of himself and comes to admire his ruthlessness and ambition, qualities that Jody lacks. Will is also disappointed with the man that his 23-year-old daughter, Clara, has been seeing for five or six years: Alan Stewart (Richard Anderson), a genteel Southern "blue blood" and a mama's boy.
Will therefore schemes to push his daughter and Ben together, to try to bring fresh, virile blood into the family. However, she is openly hostile to the crude, if magnetic, upstart. Will is determined to have his bloodline go on, so he offers to make Ben wealthy if he marries Clara. Meanwhile, Minnie Littlejohn (Angela Lansbury), Will's long-time mistress, is dissatisfied with their arrangement and wants to marry him.
Jody becomes increasingly frustrated, seeing his position in the family being undermined. After Ben sells some wild horses for Will, he is rewarded with the position of clerk in the general store, alongside Jody. Will even invites him to live in the family mansion.
This is the final straw for Jody. He pulls a gun on Ben and threatens to kill him. Ben talks his way out by telling Jody about buried Civil War-era treasure he has supposedly found on a property that Will gave him, a down payment to seal their bargain over Clara. Jody starts digging and finds a bag of coins. He is elated, thinking he might finally free himself of his father's domination; he buys the land from Ben. Late that night, Will finds his son, still digging. After examining one of the coins, Will notices that it was minted in 1910. Jody is shattered.
Ben aggressively pursues Clara. She finally asks Alan what his intentions are, and does not like what she hears. A defeated Jody finds his father alone in their barn. Jody bolts the entrance and sets the barn on fire, but he cannot go through with it and releases Will. The incident leads to a reconciliation between father and son. Men from town assume Ben is the culprit and start toward him, but Will claims he accidentally started the fire by dropping his cigar.
The smell of fire brings back bad memories for Ben, who confesses to Clara that his father was a real barn-burner. He tells her how, at age ten, he warned a farmer that his father was about to set another fire. Ben's father got away, never seen again. Ben tells her he is leaving town, but Clara makes it clear she has fallen in love with him. An elated Will confides to Minnie that life is so good, he may have to live forever.

Tags: romantic, melodrama

Review:
Chithram

Plot synopsis:
Kalyani (Ranjini) is the daughter of a wealthy NRI Ramachandra Menon (Poornam Vishwanathan) who resides in the United States. Kalyani, brought up in Chennai by her father's friend Kaimal (Nedumudi Venu), falls in love with another man and decides to marry against the wishes of her father. When her boyfriend finds out that she will be disinherited, he ditches her at the altar.
After a short while her father decides to retract his disapproval and spend a fortnight's vacation with his daughter and son-in-law in his estate near a tribal community where Menon is the chief. Because her father is already ill and because this may be his last vacation, Kalyani and Kaimal want to make it as happy for him as possible. They decide to conceal the fact that her boyfriend dumped her.
Kaimal hires Vishnu (Mohanlal) to play the part of the husband for a fortnight. Meanwhile, Kalyani's cousin Bhaskaran Nambiar (Sreenivasan) who is the caretaker of the estate was expected to inherit Menon's estate and property when Kalyani was disinherited, is determined not to let go without a fight. He knows that Vishnu is not Kalyani's boyfriend and makes various botched attempts to prove this.
Initially Vishnu and Kalyani do not get along and keep bickering. But as time passes, she develops an affection towards Vishnu and hopes to marry him for real. A couple of days after they have a mysterious visitor (Soman) who claims to be a relative of Vishnu.
Finally it is revealed that Vishnu is actually an escaped convict from jail who is sentenced to death and the visitor turns out to be the prison warden. Vishnu's past is shown in flashback and he was a freelance photographer who was married to a woman named Revathy (Lizy Priyadarshan), a mute dancer. They also had a child. Vishnu discovers that a man was visiting his wife when he was not around and begins to suspect her. Coming home one day he finds the man there and tries to attack him. Revathy dies in the scuffle, Vishnu discovers that the man is actually her brother who is a naxalite. He tells Kalyani that he escaped prison to make money for the surgery of his child.
On the last night of Vishnu's stay at the house, he asks Jail Warden, is it possible for him to live, as he started to like life again. The warden replies that it is too late, which further breaks Vishnu down. After a happy fortnight, Kalyani's father returns to the US. The final scene shows the warden taking Vishnu to jail, with Kalyani watching him leave, where his execution awaits him, indicating the film ends with Vishnu's tragic death.

Tags: flashback

Review:
All Mine to Give

Plot synopsis:
Robert and Mamie Eunson (Cameron Mitchell and Glynis Johns) are Scots who have just landed in America (the year is 1856), having been invited there by Mamie's uncle. They arrive in the tiny logging village of Eureka, only to be informed that both uncle and his cabin have been incinerated in a house fire. The Eunsons are assisted by the friendly locals in reconstructing the house and Robert takes to tipping timber.
Mamie is heavily pregnant upon their reaching Eureka; she delivers baby Robbie (Rex Thompson) soon after the cabin is completed. Robert eventually starts a successful boat building business and Mamie gives birth to five more children: Jimmy (Stephen Wootton), Kirk (Butch Bernard), Annabelle (Patty McCormack), Elizabeth (Yolanda White), and Jane (Terry Ann Ross). The Eunsons are prospering and happy until little Kirk is diagnosed with diphtheria. Mamie and Kirk are quarantined while Robert takes the other children away. The boy recovers, but the goodbye kiss Kirk gave his Dadda before his departure proves fatal, and Robert succumbs.
Mamie takes to working as a seamstress and Robbie becomes the man of the house. Things stabilize, but only briefly: tired and work-worn, Mamie contracts typhoid. Knowing she will not survive, she charges Robbie, her eldest, with finding good homes for his siblings. After Mamie's death, Robbie places his brothers and sisters with kindly townsfolk on Christmas day. Stoic and resigned during the process, he does break down when he is alone and sees the tree outside the homestead where his father had carved the names of the children into the bark. Baby Jane is the last to be handed over — Robbie stands at the door of a house and asks the woman who answers, "Please, ma'am, I was wondering if you'd care to have my sister."

Tags: romantic, storytelling, melodrama

Review:
Deadly Prey

Plot synopsis:
Colonel Hogan rents his mercenaries out to anyone with the right price. This time it's businessman Michaelson. A deal is struck, and Hogan recruits new troops. For training, he orders his troops to kidnap innocent people, take them to the forest and hunt them. Unfortunately this time, they picked the wrong guy, Mike Danton. Danton, a Vietnam veteran, is ambushed while taking out the trash. Taken to the forest, he is stripped to his shorts, greased up and told to run. The mercenaries hunt Danton, but are meticulously picked off one by one. The troops report this to Colonel Hogan, who sends a task force with his best man, Lieutenant Thornton. One of this elite combat unit is Jack Cooper. Cooper and Danton realize who each other are while trying to kill each other. Cooper has not seen Danton since he took a bullet for him in 'Nam. With his new-found friend, Danton continues to punish the mercenaries, and get back to his wife Jaimey. Like all good villains, Hogan uses Danton's family against him, but this angers Danton. After storming the military training camp Danton arms himself up, tosses a lock, and destroys all traces of Hogan's mercenaries.

Tags: murder, cult, violence, absurd, action, revenge, entertaining

Review:
The Gay Sisters

Plot synopsis:
Sisters Fiona (Barbara Stanwyck), Evelyn (Geraldine Fitzgerald), and Susanna Gaylord (Nancy Coleman) are orphaned when first their mother goes down with the Lusitania and then their wealthy father, Major Penn Gaylord, is killed in France in World War I. Before Penn left for France, he told Fiona, the eldest, that the Gaylords have never sold the land they have acquired.
However, their half billion dollar inheritance is held up in probate for decades; Fiona complains that they have practically grown up in court. Though they have a New York City Fifth Avenue mansion, the sisters have had to borrow money to live. A French charity claims that Penn made a later will before he died, leaving 10% of the Gaylord estate to it. Though the Gaylords are now willing to give up the 10%, their real antagonist, Charles Barclay (George Brent), wants their mansion (and the choice land on which it sits) too, so he can tear it down as part of his real estate development, Barclay Square. Fiona is determined not to give in to this.
Meanwhile, Evelyn has married an English nobleman, now fighting in the RAF, while Susanna is in love with painter Gig Young, despite being married herself. Susanna only stayed with her husband for a few hours, but he refuses to grant her an annulment unless she pays him a great deal of money, to which of course she does not have access. When Evelyn returns home from England, she becomes attracted to Gig herself and tries to steal him away.
In 1941, Fiona fires the longtime Gaylord lawyer, Hershell Gibbon (Gene Lockhart), when he appears to be too sympathetic to Barclay, and hires Ralph Pedloch (Donald Crisp) as his replacement. It comes out that Fiona and Barclay have a prior history together. Six years before, a relative died and left the sisters $100,000 on condition that Fiona be married. Fiona decided to go through with a sham marriage to a cousin, but ran into Barclay, then a construction crew foreman, and found him much more attractive. Within a few days, she manipulated the lovestruck man into proposing. On their wedding night, she pretended to faint. While he went to purchase some medicine, she packed up, leaving a letter with $25,000, her wedding ring and an explanation. However, he returned before she left and forced her to have sexual intercourse before letting her go. Fiona gave birth to a boy, Austin, and had him raised by a trusted friend. When that friend died, Fiona brought the now six-year-old to live with her. Unexpectedly, she finds herself becoming very fond of the child.
When Susanna tries to commit suicide after it appears that she has lost Gig, Fiona finally realizes the toll her stubborn determination has exacted on her family. She gives up the mansion and grants Barclay sole custody of Austin. In the end, Gig chooses the now-single Susanna, and Barclay tells Fiona he still loves her. Fiona embraces and kisses him.

Tags: romantic, flashback

Review:
Borsalino and Co.

Plot synopsis:
Siffredi, a prominent gangster in 1930s Marseille, learns that the murder of his associate and closest friend Capella was ordered by a new arrival in the city, Volpone. In revenge, he kills Volpone's brother by throwing him from a moving train. A gang war ensues which Volpone's men win, capturing Siffredi and putting his mistress Lola in a brothel. Siffredi they humiliate by turning him into an alcoholic wreck who is shut up in a psychiatric hospital. Rescued by the only other survivor of the gang, he escapes by boat to Italy. Left supreme in Marseille, Volpone is backed by the Nazi government in Germany and has the police in his pocket.
Three years later, Siffredi has recovered his health, made some money and assembled a new gang. Returning to Marseille, they free Lola from the brothel and in a new war eliminate most of Volpone's men. Capturing his right-hand man together with the police commissioner who kowtows to him, Siffredi makes the two roaring drunk and calls in journalists to publicise the shameful spectacle. A new police commissioner decides to let Siffredi finish the job. When Volpone tries to flee to Germany, Siffredi captures him on the train and stuffs him into the firebox of the locomotive. Not wanting to start again in Marseille, with Lola and his gang he then takes a ship for the United States.

Tags: violence, revenge, murder, sadist

Review:
Highway 61

Plot synopsis:
The film stars Don McKellar as Pokey Jones, an orphaned barber in a small town near Thunder Bay, who dreams of becoming a jazz musician. One morning, Jones discovers a frozen corpse (Steve Fall) in his backyard, and soon meets Jackie Bangs (Valerie Buhagiar), a tough and mysterious roadie who claims the dead man is her brother.
Jackie's real intention is to use the body, a vagrant unknown to anyone in town, to smuggle stolen drugs into the United States. She convinces Pokey to use his parents' car, which hasn't been driven in decades, to drive her to New Orleans to bury her brother. So Jackie and Pokey set out along Highway 61, coffin strapped to the top of the car, and follow Bob Dylan's famous U.S. Highway 61 south through the heart of the United States. They're pursued by Mr. Skin (Earl Pastko), who believes he's Satan and wants to claim the body because the dead man sold Mr. Skin his soul.
Peter Breck is fourth-billed as Mr. Watson, the "stage-mom" father of three girls: Mississippi (Missy), Minnesota (Minnie), and Louisiana (Louise). The film also includes cameo appearances by Tav Falco, Jello Biafra, and Art Bergmann.
The film's soundtrack album includes songs by Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Rita Chiarelli, Nash the Slash, Acid Test, Jellyfishbabies, and Tom Jones. Nash the Slash also composed the film's instrumental score.
In 2001, Playback named Highway 61 the 15th best Canadian film since 1986. McDonald won "Best Director" honours at both San Sebastián International Film Festival and Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film, two of the top festivals in the world.

Tags: cult

Review:
Treasure Island

Plot synopsis:
Young Jim Hawkins Jackie Cooper) and his mother (Dorothy Peterson) run the Admiral Benbow, a tavern near Bristol, England. One dark and stormy night, during a birthday celebration, the mysterious Billy Bones (Lionel Barrymore) arrives and drunkenly talks about treasure. Soon after, Bones is visited by Black Dog (Charles McNaughton) then Pew (William V. Mong), and drops dead, leaving a chest, which he bragged contained gold and jewels. Instead of money, Jim finds a map that his friend Dr. Livesey (Otto Kruger) realizes will lead them to the famous Flint treasure. Squire Trelawney (Nigel Bruce) raises money for a voyage to the treasure island and they set sail on Captain Alexander Smollett's (Lewis Stone) ship Hispaniola. Also on board is the one-legged Long John Silver (Wallace Beery) and his cronies. Even though Bones had warned Jim about a sailor with one leg, they become friends.
During the voyage, several fatal "accidents" happen to sailors who disapprove of Silver and his cohorts. Then, the night before landing on the island, Jim overhears Silver plotting to take the treasure and kill Smollett's men. Jim goes ashore with the men, and encounters an old hermit named Ben Gunn (Chic Sale), who tells him that he has found Flint's treasure. Meanwhile, Smollett (Lewis Stone) and his loyal men flee to Flint's stockade on the island for safety. Silver's men then attack the stockade when Smollett refuses to give them the treasure map. While the situation looks hopeless, Jim secretly goes back to the Hispaniola at night, sails it to a safe location and shoots one of the pirates in self-defense. When he returns to the stockade, Silver's men are there and Silver tells them that a treaty has been signed. The pirates want to kill Jim, but Silver protects him. Dr. Livesey comes for Jim, but the boy refuses to break his word to Silver not to run away. The next day the pirates search for the treasure hold and when they find it, it is empty. When some of the pirates mutiny against Silver, Livesey (Otto Kruger) and Gunn (Charles "Chic" Sale) join him in the fight. Smollett then sails home with the treasure, which Gunn had hidden in his cave, and with Silver as his prisoner. Unable to stand by and let his friend be hanged, Jim frees Silver. As he sails away, Silver promises to hunt treasure with Jim again some day, as Honest John Silver.

Tags: absurd, psychedelic, storytelling

Review:
The Last Page

Plot synopsis:
Bookstore manager John Harman (Brent) reprimands his attractive young clerk Ruby Bruce (Dors) for being late to work. Later the same day Ruby catches small-time crook Jeff Hart (Reynolds) trying to steal a rare book. Instead of turning him in she accepts a date with him. When Harman later tries to kiss Ruby she tells Hart who forces Ruby to blackmail Harman. When he refuses to pay off, Jeff tells Ruby to write a letter to Harman's sick wife, which causes her death from a heart attack. Dazed by the tragedy, Harman gives Ruby 300 pounds when she renews her demands. Jeff catches Ruby hiding part of the money, kills her and hides her body in a packing case. Harman discovers Ruby's body and, thinking he will be accused, flees in panic. He enlists the help of his secretary Stella (Chapman) who helps him hunt for clues. When Stella stumbles on Hart alone she is nearly killed by him but Harman arrives in time to save her. The police arrest Hart.

Tags: murder

Review:
Private's Progress

Plot synopsis:
During World War II, the young undergraduate Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael), is conscripted into the British Army. Unlike his friend Egan (Peter Jones), Windrush is a most reluctant soldier and struggles through basic training at Gravestone Barracks. Failing his officer selection board, he is posted to a holding unit, under the command of Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas). Most of the soldiers there are malingerers and drop-outs.
Windrush is finally posted to train as a Japanese interpreter, where he becomes the prize pupil; he's then contacted by his uncle, Brigadier Tracepurcel (Dennis Price), now a senior officer in the War Office, to join a secret operation known only as "Hatrack". He is quickly commissioned and the operation is launched, Windrush becoming an unwitting participant in a scheme ostensibly to recover looted artworks from the Germans, but really to steal them and sell them to two crooked art dealers.
Windrush survives the operation, despite being briefly arrested by British forces whilst in German uniform, and is discharged from the army. Tracepurcel and his associate Private Cox (Richard Attenborough) fake their own deaths. Windrush returns to university after the war, and is surprised to receive a visit from Cox, who brings him an attache case. However, Cox is arrested as he leaves, he and Tracepurcel having been tracked as source of a counterfeit copy of one of the artworks. Windrush innocently reveals to the military police the contents of the case—a large sum of money—and is also arrested, assumed to be complicit in the fraud.

Tags: satire

Review:
Hallelujah

Plot synopsis:
Sharecroppers Zeke and Spunk Johnson sell their part of the cotton crop for $100. Cheated out of the money by Zeke's girlfriend Chick (16-year-old Nina Mae McKinney), in collusion with her gambling-hustler friends, Spunk is murdered in the ensuing brawl. Zeke runs away and reforms his life, becoming a minister.
Sometime later, he returns and preaches a rousing revival. Now engaged to a virtuous maiden named Missy (Victoria Spivey), he finds that Chick is still interested in him. She asks for baptism but is clearly not truly repentant. Tragically, Zeke throws away his new life for her. The film then cuts to Zeke's new life; he is working at a log mill and is married to Chick, who is secretly cheating on him with her old flame, Hot Shot (William Fountaine).
When Chick and Hot Shot decide to cut and run just as Zeke finds out about the affair, Zeke follows after them. The carriage carrying both Hot Shot and Chick overturns, and Zeke catches up to them. Holding her in his arms, he watches Chick die as she apologizes to him for being unable to change her ways. Zeke then chases Hot Shot on foot. He stalks slowly through the woods and swamp while Hot Shot tries to run but continues to stumble until Zeke finally kills him. The film ends with Zeke returning to his family at the cotton crop after serving time in prison. His family is more than happy to welcome him back into the flock.

Tags: murder, melodrama

Review:
The Postman Always Rings Twice

Plot synopsis:
Frank Chambers (John Garfield) is a hobo who stops at a rural diner for a meal and ends up working there. The diner is operated by a beautiful young woman, Cora Smith (Lana Turner), and her much older husband, Nick (Cecil Kellaway).
Frank and Cora start to have an affair soon after they meet. Cora is tired of her situation, married to a man she does not love and working at a diner that she wishes to own. She and Frank scheme to murder Nick in order to start a new life together without her losing the diner. Their first attempt at the murder is a failure, but they eventually succeed.
The local prosecutor, Kyle Sackett (Leon Ames), has deduced what really occurred but does not have enough evidence to prove it. As a tactic intended to get Cora and Frank to turn on each other, he files murder charges against only Cora. Although they turn against each other, a clever ploy from Cora's lawyer (Hume Cronyn) prevents Cora's full confession from coming into the hands of the prosecutor. With the tactic having failed to generate any new evidence for the prosecution, Cora benefits from a plea bargain in which she pleads guilty to manslaughter and receives probation.
Frank and Cora eventually patch together their relationship and plan for a future together, but as they seem to be prepared to live "happily ever after", Cora dies in a car crash while Frank is driving. Although it was truly an accident, the circumstances seem suspicious enough that Frank is accused of having staged the crash. He is convicted of murdering Cora and is sentenced to death.
When informed that his last chance at a reprieve from his death sentence has been denied and thus his execution is now at hand, Frank is at first incredulous that he will be put to death for a crime of which he is innocent. However, when informed that authorities have recently discovered irrefutable evidence of his guilt in the murder of Nick, Frank decides that his impending death is actually his overdue punishment for that crime. Frank contemplates that when a person is expecting to receive a letter, it is of no concern if at first he does not hear the postman ring the doorbell because the postman will always ring a second time, and the second ring will invariably be heard. After they escaped legal punishment for Nick's murder but with Cora now dead and Frank on his way to the death chamber, he notes that the postman has indeed rung a second time for each of them.

Tags: neo noir, depressing, murder

Review:
Love Liza

Plot synopsis:
Wilson Joel's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) wife Liza (Annie Morgan) has, for an unexplained reason, committed suicide. Wilson one night discovers a sealed letter from his wife, which he believes to be her suicide note. In his grief-stricken state and with the added stress of finding the letter, which he cannot bring himself to open and read, he forms an addiction to inhaling gasoline fumes (“huffing”).
In order to hide his addiction from a work colleague, he informs her that the petrol smell in his house is from his hobby of flying remote controlled planes. To try to engage an ever-distant Wilson, she asks her brother-in-law, Denny (Jack Kehler), a radio control (RC) hobbyist, to visit Wilson. With the knowledge of an impending visit from Denny, Wilson heads down to the local RC hobbyist shop to buy himself a plane. He also stocks up on some RC fuel to fill his plane and feed his addiction. Out of this lie, a very unusual friendship forms between Wilson and an energetic Denny.
His mother-in-law (Kathy Bates) tries her best to help Wilson and deal with her own loss at the same time. She becomes increasingly anxious to know the contents of the letter.

Tags: melodrama, romantic, flashback

Review:
The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid

Plot synopsis:
In the mid-1870s, outlaws Jesse James, Cole Younger and their brothers are granted amnesty by the Missouri legislature, sympathetic to the troubles created for all citizens by the American Civil War. The bankers victimized by the James and Younger gangs are vehemently opposed to this action and hire a Pinkerton agent to follow the outlaws' every move.
Younger has put aside plans to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, said to be the largest west of the Mississippi River. The job appeals, however, to Jesse and Frank James, who have no intention of changing the way they make a living.
Cole is ambushed by the Pinkerton's agent men, who use a prostitute as bait. And when the bankers succeed in overturning the amnesty by bribing the politicians, Cole travels by train to Minnesota to check out the bank.
Once there, Cole discovers that townspeople are unwilling to risk placing their money in the bank due to concerns over its safety from thieves. Jesse, Frank, and their men arrive on horseback and, together with Cole, persuade the locals that a gold shipment is on its way, being delivered to the bank because it is supposed to be the safest possible place for it.
Once the citizens begin banking their money, the robbery commences. Many things go wrong though, including one outlaw being locked inside a vault. Younger and his men flee to a nearby farm, but a posse tracks and apprehends them. The James brothers get away. But, when Jesse mentions to Frank his intention to permit Bob Ford to join the gang back in Missouri, his fate is sealed.

Tags: historical, murder, flashback

Review:
Aah

Plot synopsis:
Raj Raibahadur (Raj Kapoor) lives a wealthy lifestyle with his father, a widowed businessman. One day Raj is sent to work at the countryside Saraswati Dam. His father one day visits him and tells him how his deceased mother wished that he be married to Chandra (played by Vijayalaxmi), the daughter of his rich family friend. Raj decides to write a letter to Chandra which she completely ignores. But Chandra's younger sister Neelu (Nargis) acknowledges the letter and responds to it in Chandra's name. After few letters Raj and Neelu fall in love, but Raj is still unaware that it is Neelu who writes to him. Just then Raj is diagnosed with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his mother. Raj decides to pretend that he never loved Neelu and also insists that she should marry his physician friend, Dr. Kailash (Pran). He also flirts with Chandra to make Neelu believe that he does not love her. Chandra decides to end the suffering of her sister, who is sobbing for her love-loss. Upon learning the truth, Neelu accepts Raj as he is. Miraculously, Raj also turns well and both lead for a happy life.
=== Theme and plot change ===
The theme of the tragic hero and the sufferings of the heroine was inspired from Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's famous novel Devdas, which has also been inspiration to various other films.
The end of the film originally showed Neelu marrying Dr. Kailash at Raj's insistence; Raj dies while Neelu's wedding procession is passing by. But at the premiere, Kapoor realised that this film would not work. Kapoor said,
The atmosphere in an auditorium is like a living, palpitating thing. It told me again and again: "Your picture is a flop."
The end of the film was then changed from a tragic one to the happy one, but the change destroyed the thematic unity of the text. Bunny Reuben, who wrote Kapoor's biography Raj Kapoor, The Fabulous Showman, gives his rationale for the change: "The film had some of Shankar-Jaikishan's loveliest music, and a 'Devdas'-ian tragic ending which was changed to the conventional happy ending because the film didn't do well in its first release."

Tags: romantic

Review: