The Last Romantic Lover (1978)
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In this captivating Depression-era melodrama, impetuous veterinary student Jacob Jankowski joins a celebrated circus as an animal caretaker but faces a wrenching dilemma when he's transfixed by angelic married performer Marlena.
Melodrama about two girls whose fortunes run on very different paths.
Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman and falls in love with the circus owner's daughter. Unaware of Charlie's affection, the girl falls in love with a handsome young performer. Charlie's versatility makes him star of the show when he substitutes for an ailing tightwire walker. He is discharged from the company when he protects the girl from her father's abuse, but he returns and appeals to the handsome performer to marry the girl. After the wedding the father prevails upon them to rejoin the circus. Charlie is hired again, but he stays behind when the caravan moves on.
To ensure a full profitable season, circus manager Brad Braden engages The Great Sebastian, though this moves his girlfriend Holly from her hard-won center trapeze spot. Holly and Sebastian begin a dangerous one-upmanship duel in the ring, while he pursues her on the ground.
The story of the life of an impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik, who becomes a contestant on the Hindi version of "Who Wants to be A Millionaire?", wins, and is then suspected of cheating.
"Duke" Gordon (Robert Armstrong), a circus lion-tamer, tries to tames his wife, Laura (Sally Eilers), just as he does his lions. But she is a one-man woman, married to the wrong man, and refuses to cheat on her cheating husband even though her happiness depends on doing so.
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Melodrama about the professional and romantic problems of an aspiring singer.
Davis and Rains shine in a romantic melodrama set in the world of concert music. Davis is a pianist torn between her wealthy, jealous patron and her cellist husband.
A Russian circus visits the US. A clown wants to defect, but doesn't have the nerve. His saxophone playing friend however comes to the decision to defect in the middle of Bloomingdales. He is befriended by the black security guard and falls in love with the Italian immigrant from behind the perfume counter. We follow his life as he works his way through the American dream and tries to find work as a musician.
Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.
Vénus aveugle (Blind Venus) is a 1941 French film melodrama, directed by Abel Gance, and one of the first films to be undertaken in France during the German occupation. Although the film is not set in any specified period, Gance wanted it to be seen as relevant to the contemporary situation in France. He wrote, "...La Vénus aveugle is at the crossroads of reality and legend... The heroine ... gradually sinks deeper and deeper into despair. Only when she has reached the bottom of the abyss does she encounter the smile of Providence that life reserves for those who have faith in it, and she can then go serenely back up the slope towards happiness. If I have been able to show in this film that elevated feelings are the only force that can triumph over Fate, then my efforts will not have been in vain."
Tommy, un petit garçon qui vit seul avec sa mère, voit un cirque s'installer près de chez lui. Il part à la découverte de ce nouveau monde.
Based on Henry James's novel of the same name. This bittersweet tragicomedy centers on an odd triangle of characters: Basil Ransom, a political conservative from Mississippi; Olive Chancellor, Ransom's cousin and a Boston feminist; and Verena Tarrant, a pretty, young protégée of Olive's in the feminist movement. The storyline concerns the struggle between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the film also includes a wide panorama of political activists, newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.
Raju is a joker, a clown. It is what he is and what he always shall be. As his life story unfolds in three chapters, from his school days to the circus to the streets, he must always make people laugh and be happy, no matter how unhappy he is within. Along the way, Raju loves and loses, but must always keep a smile on his face because, in the words of his circus manager, "The show must go on."
This is a bizarre film, almost completely melodramatic. The screenplay by Howard Koch is based on the 1941 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Ellen Glasgow.Completed in 1942 after the US had joined the war, the film was disapproved in 1943 for foreign release by the wartime Office of Censorship, because it dealt truthfully with racial discrimination as part of its plot. It was Huston's second movie and as he put it: âIt was the first time [in an American film], I believe, that a black character was presented as anything other than a good and faithful servant or comic relief.â.
An industrialist is urged to run for President, but this requires uncomfortable compromises on both political and marital levels.
Young Mary Rainey takes the reins of her deceased father's failing circus. With the help of the Inimitable Smiley Johnson, she hopes to bring fortune back to her ragtag band of ragged shoeleather performers.
Set in 1870's New York, a spinster heiress is courted by a much younger, penniless man, much to the chagrin of her over-protective father, and must decide whether to spend the rest of her life alone, or marry a man who is interested in her only because of her inheritence.
Deemed "the D.W. Griffith of Turkish Cinema," Omer Lutfi Akad directs this 1952 film based upon real events that took place in Ä°stanbul, in the following years of World war II. It is about a love triangle that led to homicide. It was a stylistic departure of what otherwise had been typical of Turkish melodramas of the time.
In California, a group of women struggle with personal problems as their paths intertwine in unexpected ways. Dr. Elaine Keener, the sole caretaker for her aging mother, turns to tarot card reader Christine for spiritual aid. Christine grapples with her own angst due to her lover's debilitating illness. Meanwhile, a bank manager deals with an unwanted pregnancy, two sisters pursue romantic interests and a housewife gets back into the dating game.
Lana Turner stars as an American news correspondent working in England during WWII. Her affair with a married British correspondent (Sean Connery) ends tragically when he is killed in action. Fearing a nervous breakdown as a result of his death, she travels to Cornwall to mourn with his family without any intention of revealing her relationship with him.
Greta Garbo runs away from an unbearable life at home--and a pre-arranged marriage to a man she despises--and seeks happiness with handsome engineer Clark Gable. Director Robert Z. Leonard's 1931 melodrama also features Jean Hersholt, Alan Hale, John Miljan, Cecil Cunningham, Hale Hamilton and Russell Simpson.
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer James Lee Bartlow, a star Georgia Lorrison and a director Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone - including the writer, star and director - on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
Lon Chaney is carnival knife thrower Alonzo the Armless and Joan Crawford is the scantily clad carnival girl he hopes to marry.
Everybody seems to have had a good time making the overripe melodrama The Hidden Hand, especially cadaverous Milton Parsons as insane-asylum escapee John Channing. In her efforts to protect her brother from the authorities, John's sister Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham) opens the door for a series of grisly murders. Hero Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens) and heroine Mary Winfield (Elizabeth Fraser) try to stop John before he overracts-er, kills-again. Absolutely impossible to take seriously, The Hidden Hand is nonetheless worth a glance, if for no other reason than to see perennial bit player Parsons in a juicy leading role. The film was based on Invitation to a Murder, a play by Rufus King.
Broken Blossoms is an American silent film from director D. W. Griffith. This melodrama tells the love story of an abused English woman and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.
Members of a circus troupe "adopt" Lili Daurier when she finds herself stranded in a strange town. The magician who first comes to her rescue already has romantic entanglements and thinks of her as a little girl. Who can she turn to but the puppets, singing to them her troubles, forgetting that there are puppeteers. A crowd gathers around Lili as she sings. The circus has a new act. She now has a job. Will she get her heart's desire?
Director Karl Brown's 1938 circus drama stars Marjorie Main as a tough, fur-coat-wearing circus boss who raises her orphaned niece to be a trapeze star.
Original in its sincere, lyrical realism, The River is a naturalistic melodrama otherwise characteristic of the period. Shot in sunbathed pastoral locations by Jan Stallich (Ecstasy), the story of first love between a sturdy village boy and a country girl is filmed with a movingly genuine charm.
The Magic Flame (1927) is a feature film directed by Henry King, produced by Samuel Goldwyn, and based on the play Konig Harlekin by Rudolph Lothar. George Barnes was nominated at the 1st Academy Awards for Best Cinematography. The film promoted itself as the Romeo and Juliet of the circus upon its release. This is now considered to be a lost film.The first five reels are rumored to exist at the George Eastman House.
A mother abandons her family only to become a crispy critter with her lover, the husband finds out about it AND that his son isn't really his, becomes an alcoholic, is being held prisoner in a speak-easy, is rescued by 'Beef', is sobered up, gets a good job, negotiates a great contract for lots 'o money, realizes he's in love, asks the girl to marry him, son returns from boarding school and freaks out when told this, runs off and joins the circus that now happens to catch fire.....
This Mexican crime melodrama was released in English-speaking communities as Another Dawn. Latin film favorite Pedro Armendariz stars as smooth-talking Octavio, chief henchman to a slain labor leader. On behalf of his fallen boss, Octavio protects a cache of valuable documents from the assassins. Along the way, he renews his relationship with ex-flame Julieta (Andrea Palma), now engaged to another man.
The bold Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent need of money, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into a lion's muzzle! With this attraction the circus makes it to New York and Tira can persue her dearest occupation: flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.
Victorian melodrama gets a big send-up in this spoof production of the old play "The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved." The play within the movie is the old one where evil villain Cribbs schemes to get his lusty clutches on the heroine by driving her naive husband to alcoholic ruin. Luckily, a temperance lecturer is on hand to set things straight, as is the great Buster Keaton as the drunkard's brother.
The film features a change of pace for comic actor Petchtai, who offers a sombre, dramatic portrayal of a taxicab driver who develops a relationship with a young woman (Woranut, in her debut feature film role) who is working in a massage parlor. The film has dream sequences that place the characters in scenes that might have come from a classic Thai melodrama film of the 1960s or 70s, with a dubbed soundtrack, which was a common method of filmmaking in the era.
The daughter of a circus owner fights to save her father from a takeover spearheaded by the man she loves.
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
Now that Frollo is gone, Quasimodo rings the bell with the help of his new friend and Esmeralda's and Phoebus' little son, Zephyr. But when Quasi stops by a traveling circus owned by evil magician Sarousch, he falls for Madellaine, Sarouch's assistant.
Set in a world where the concept of lying doesn't exist, a loser changes his lot when he invents lying and uses it to get ahead.
Chorus girl Eadie is determined to marry a millionaire without sacrificing her virtue.
Actor Yoo Ji-Taeâs directorial debut feature film is one part melodrama, one part comingof-age story about Soo-young, a miserable thirtysomething man and Mai-Ratima, a 22-year-old Thai girl who accepts a mail order marriage in order to realize her Korean Dream. Into their relationship comes Young-jin, a hostess, slowly turning it into a love triangle.
Christy Sloane is sent to Los Angeles on a business trip to inform Peter Ulysses Lockwood that he has inherited $2 million from his deceased uncle. Constantly broke because of her family, Christy is in financial straits. Her friend at work advises her to not tell Peter the news until she snags him. Christy dismisses the idea and leaves for her trip. Peter is a famous radio personality. Taking one look at him, Christy swoons, interrupting him on the way to his wedding. The zany hijinks include Christy being mistaken for Peter's old flame; Peter and Christy being stuck somewhere between Los Angeles and La Jolla when Peter accidentally drives into the ocean; and their rescuers mistaking them for newlyweds. Peter asks his best man, Roland Cook to help him with the situation, but Roland only causes more trouble because he is in love with Peter's bride-to-be.
When her father dies, Epifania Parerga, an Italian in London, becomes the world's richest woman. She feels incomplete without a husband and falls in love with a humble, Indian physician, Ahmed el Kabir, much loved by his indigent English patients.
Dedicated environmental lawyer Lucy Kelson goes to work for billionaire George Wade as part of a deal to preserve a community center. Indecisive and weak-willed George grows dependent on Lucy's guidance on everything from legal matters to clothing. Exasperated, Lucy gives notice and picks Harvard graduate June Carter as her replacement. As Lucy's time at the firm nears an end, she grows jealous of June and has second thoughts about leaving George.
Elia Kazan's 1953 film stars Fredric March as the owner of an impoverished circus in Communist-ruled Czechoslovokia who plots to flee across the border to freedom, taking his entire troupe of performers and wild animals with him. The cast also includes Gloria Grahame, Terry Moore, Cameron Mitchell, Richard Boone and Adolphe Menjou.
A young circus director ends up going into television after her father, a trapeze performer, dies in a circus accident.
Actor Lee Tracy plays the title role in director Lew Landers' 1939 drama, about the quick-thinking boss of a traveling circus playing small towns in Missouri and Kansas. The cast also includes Virginia Weidler, Peggy Shannon, Rita La Roy, William Edmunds, Edythe Elliott, Edward Gargan and Irene Franklin.
A jealous trapeze star decides he must eliminate his romantic rival.
A carnival operator (Humphrey Bogart) tries to end his sister's fling with a rookie lion tamer (Eddie Albert).
The journey of Javier, the obese Sad Clown, starts during his childhood in the midst of the Spanish civil war in 1937. His father, one of Spainâs most prominent jesters, is detained and tortured by the fascist regime.
Story of an inventor who, suffering betrayal in life, makes a career of it by becoming a clown whose act consists of getting slapped by all the other clowns. He falls in love with another circus performer, and those who betrayed him enter his life yet again.
The action begins in 1913, where our hero Carl (Charles Emmett Mack) is released from prison, where he served a sentence for stealing. Spurned by his circumstance, Carl rejects God and resumes his fast life of crime. Before long, however, his fate intersects with that of Mary, a devout orphan (played by Norma Shearer, with her future screen persona already intact), prompting a romance and a reevaluation.
Circus owner Matt Masters is beset by disasters as he attempts a European tour of his circus. At the same time, he is caught in an emotional bind between his adopted daughter and her mother.
A young lion cub named Simba can't wait to be king. But his uncle craves the title for himself and will stop at nothing to get it.
The fourth of seven films that Raffaello Matarazzo made with Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson in the starring roles during the fifties. These films were the epitome of operatic melodrama, and were hugely successful with the Italian public.
The amorous adventures of Andrea Rossi-Colombotti, an army officer who finds pleasure with beautiful women in life-threatening situations.
Melodrama about a woman who marries a bigamist, then a drunk, and falls in love with another man, all while working at a carnival.
Based on the 1932 play of the same name by Phillip Dunning and George Abbott. Lilly Turner is a very precode character in a very precode film. She starts out with all the best intentions and does nothing wrong, only to find herself in a highly unfortunate situation that society of the time couldn't approve of: an unmarried mother to be. She then gets out of it through the kindness of another, becoming half of an open marriage, very progressive for the times. Lilly Turner would have needed to be completely rewritten to have been made during the code years.
With tough and savvy boss Victor Mature in charge, the Whirling Circus just keeps chugging along, but an unknown saboteur--who'll stop at nothing, including murder--is determined that the show must not go on. Director Joseph M. Newman's perils-under-the Big-Top drama, released in 1959, also stars Gilbert Roland, Rhonda Fleming, Red Buttons, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, David Nelson, Kathryn Grant, Adele Mara, Howard McNear and Steve Allen.
Drama based loosely on the final years of Kenya game warden and lion-raiser George Adamson's life. An unofficial sequel to 'Born Free' (1966) and 'Living Free' (1972), which also dramatised the life of Adamson, this film picks up the life of George (Richard Harris) on the African wildlife preserve he runs with the help of his brother Terrence (Ian Bannen). When drifter Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) arrives to work for the old men he initially takes poorly to the task, almost savaged by a lion on his first day and on the verge of leaving when he hears that his predecessor was killed in a similar incident. The arrival of a lion cub that Fitzjohn must care for and raise changes everything. Soon he finds himself helping the brothers in their fight to save lions - and, ultimately, the park itself - from the poachers, soldiers and corrupt government officials that threaten them.
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