Anthony Quayle
La leggenda del santo bevitore (literally “The legend of the holy drinker”) is a 1988 Italian film directed by Ermanno Olmi. It tells the story of a drunken homeless man (played by Rutger Hauer) in Paris who is lent 200 francs by a stranger as long as he promises to repay it to a local church when he can afford to; the film depicts the man’s constant frustrations as he attempts to do so. The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is based on the 1939 novella by the Austrian novelist, Joseph Roth.
In the opening years of World War II the Royal Navy was fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open and the British Isles supplied. Of great danger were the numerous surface/commerce raiders that had slipped out of German waters just before war was declared. Supplied by axis cargo ships or tankers, they primarily attacked and sank merchant shipping, and they could and did strike anywhere and everywhere. This is the story of one such ship – the ‘Admiral Graf Spee’ – and how 3 lightly armed Royal Navy cruisers with mere 6 and 8 inch guns boldly took on this powerful ‘pocket battleship’ armed with 11 inch guns.
The gangster Colorado kidnaps Marshal McKenna. He believes that McKenna has seen a map which leads to a rich vein of gold in the mountains and forces him to show him the way. But they’re not the only ones who’re after the gold; soon they meet a group of “honorable” citizens and the cavalry crosses their way too – and that is even before they enter Indian territory.
Masada is an American television miniseries that aired on ABC in April 1981. Advertised by the network as an “ABC Novel for Television,” it was a fictionalized account of the historical siege of the Masada citadel in Israel by legions of the Roman Empire in AD 73. The TV series’ script is based on the novel The Antagonists by Ernest Gann. The siege ended when the Roman armies were able to enter the fortress, only to discover the mass suicide by the Jewish defenders when defeat became imminent.
Masada was one of several historical miniseries produced in the early 1980s following the success of NBC’s Shogun in 1980.
The miniseries starred Peter O’Toole as Roman legion commander Lucius Flavius Silva, Peter Strauss as the Jewish commander Elazar ben Ya’ir, and Barbara Carrera as Silva’s Jewish mistress. David Warner, as Pomponius Falco, won an Emmy Award for his role. O’Toole was nominated for an Emmy for his performance. It was his first appearance in an American miniseries. Jerry Goldsmith and Morton Stevens composed the series’ score. Goldsmith received an Emmy for his contribution.
Masada was filmed on location at the site of the ancient fortress, in the Judean Desert, Israel. Remains of a ramp, created during the filming to simulate the ramp built by the Romans to take the fortress, can still be seen at the site.
Woody Allen’s fourth film, consisting of a series of short sequences loosely inspired by Dr. David Reuben’s book of the same name. The film was an early smash for Allen, grossing over $18 million dollars in the U.S. alone against a $2 million dollar budget.
Henry VIII of England discards one wife, Katharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.
In an attempt to stem the heroin trade from Iran, a group of narcotics agents working for the UN inject a radioactive compound into a seized shipment of opium, in the hopes that it will lead them to the main heroin distributor in Europe. Along the way, they encounter a mysterious woman doing her own investigating of the smuggling operation.
Allied agents infiltrate the Nazi rocket complex at Peenemunde in order to obtain their secrets and sabotage the plant.The film alternates between German developments of the V-1 missile and V-2 rocket (with a German cast speaking their own language) and discovery by British Intelligence of the weapon.
An epic about British officer T.E. Lawrence’s mission to aid the Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Lawrence becomes a flamboyant, messianic figure in the cause of Arab unity but his psychological instability threatens to undermine his achievements.
A group of army personnel and nurses attempt a dangerous and arduous trek across the deserts of North Africa during the second world war. The leader of the team dreams of his ice cold beer when he reaches Alexandria
True story of an innocent man mistaken for a criminal.