1949 watchlist

His director's only film, Vida en Sombras tells the story of a man who from his childhood falls in love with cinema and grows to be a director and cameraman. While struggling to make pictures he gets married and is seriously struck by the Spanish Civil War. Life events with lights and shadows mix with a deep love for movies which will prevail in the end.

Aurelio Rodríguez is released from jail, and tries to start a new life marrying Paloma and working his land. But the local landowners, the brothers González, interfere with his plans.

A naive young woman falls for a handsome young man her emotionally abusive father suspects is only a fortune hunter.

Renato and Miro are black brothers raised by the family of the Caucasian Marta in an old mansion in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. Renato is graduated and has always looked for dignity, winning in life due to his honesty and search for social recognition.His brother, on the contrary, is a rebel small time crook and he says that his behavior is the fruit of the treatment he received while living in the Caucasian family's house. Their step sister Marta has a crush on Renato. When she meets the crook Walter Mendes, Marta falls in love for him. Renato argues with Walter, they fight, Walter tries to shoot Renato, but Renato accidentally kills him. However, Moleque Miro is blamed and wrongly sent to prison. Renato assumes his guilty, and the young boy Hélio, who witnessed the crime, convinces Marta to testify that Renato killed Walter in self -defense.

Hopes and love and ambitions and friendship in a group of young jazz-loving Parisians.

Outlaw Wes McQueen escapes jail to pull a railroad robbery but, upon meeting pretty settler Julie Ann, he wonders about going straight.

A woman's struggle for equality in Japan in the 1880s. Eiko Hirayama leaves Okayama for Tokyo, where she helps the fledgling Liberal Party and falls in love with its leader Kentaro Omoi, just as the party is being disbanded by the government. Eiko and Omoi are jailed because of a fire at a factory instigated by Chiyo, a servant girl from Eiko's home in Okayama, who was sold to slavery. A few years later the 1889 constitution is proclaimed, Eiko, Omoi, and Chiyo are pardoned, and the Liberal Party is reinaugurated. However Omoi does not campaign for women's rights.

An eccentric man (Paul Bernard) endangers himself when he makes advances toward the girlfriend (Suzy Delair) of a saloon keeper (Fernand Ledoux).

One of the few (if any at the time this film was made) films shot in England with New York City's 'Little Italy" as the locale. This was Edward Dmytryk's first film after he had refused to tell a Congressional Committee whether or not he was, or had ever been, a member of the Communist Party. This is a 'runaway production' shot in England for political reasons and not for the usual USA tax-break reasons. Geremio, a young Italian immigrant to New York City, works as a bricklayer and is courting an Italian girl, Annunziata, by mail. He lies to her that he owns his own home and, after they are married, has to rent one for their three-day honeymoon. The years pass and they are unable to save enough money to get out of their slum tenement, and the 1929 depression brings even harder times to the family that now includes three children. Geremio, in order to make enough money to care for his family, exploits his "comrades" in dangerous construction work. This practice leads to the accidental death of his best friend, and, in grief, Geremio also becomes unfaithful to his wife. The messages of the film -- life is aimless and no man can judge the true worth of another man -- are pounded on for most of the two-hour running time.

Inspired to the real story of the Carabiniere Salvo D'Acquisto. We see how, to save 22 hostages from dead sentence by Nazi, he decided to sacrifice himself.

In a small town, a brewing romantic rivalry with a local tough and a school-teacher culminates in a terrifying ride in the night.

A young man and a woman about to commit suicide by jumping into a river, recount to each other their experiences of the Second World War and the struggles of the immediate post-war situation.

In this classic musical, poor old Hamam, a modest arabic teacher, falls in love with the young and beautiful Laila, his aristocratic pupil. Soon, he must decide between his unrealistic feelings or sacrificing his love for her own good.

A young lawyer is involved with a ghostly woman in his new house, where the builder and his fiancée died shortly after it was built.

Through a fluke circumstance, a ruthless woman stumbles across a suitcase filled with $60,000, and is determined to hold onto it even if it means murder.

Robespierrre, a powerful figure in the French revolution, is desperately looking for his black book, a death list of those marked for the guillotine.

A Jewish professor returns to Germany following World War II. He hopes to help rebuild a new, free Germany, but he must confront the antisemitism of his colleagues and students.

First in a series of Matarazzo melodramas: A happily married Naples woman, with two children, is threatened by the reappearance of a man from her past. Her husband takes a drastic action which results in the family members being separated.

A provincial doctor's wife's romantic illusions about life and social status lead her to betray her naive husband, take on lovers, and run up ruinous debts.

A married musical team splits up so the wife can become a serious actress.

An unscrupulous agent for the Borgias suffers a change of heart when asked to betray a noble count and his much younger, very beautiful wife.

Resentful of her small-town life, a married woman schemes to run off with a rich businessman.