History
After defeating France and imprisoning Napoleon on Elba, ending two decades of war, Europe is shocked to find Napoleon has escaped and has caused the French Army to defect from the King back to him. The best of the British generals, the Duke of Wellington, beat Napolean’s best generals in Spain and Portugal, but now must beat Napoleon himself with an Anglo Allied army.
Disgusted with the policies of King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell plans to take his family to the New World. But on the eve of their departure, Cromwell is drawn into the tangled web of religion and politics that will result in the English Civil War.
Udo Kier is a witch hunter apprentice to Herbert Lom. He believes strongly in his mentor and the ways of the church but loses faith when he catches Lom strangling Reggie Nalder to death for calling him impotent. Kier begins to see for himself that the witch trials are nothing but a scam of the church to rob people of their land, money, and other personal belongings of value and seduce beautiful big breasted women. In the end, the towns people revolt, Herbert Lom escapes and poor Udo is tortured to death by the towns people with the his own torture devices. This film contains very strong graphic torture including a women’s tongue being ripped out of her head, nuns being raped(in the opening credits), and lots of beatings.
In the summer of 1941, the United States and Japan seem on the brink of war after constant embargos and failed diplomacy come to no end. “Tora! Tora! Tora!”, named after the code words use by the lead Japanese pilot to indicate they had surprised the Americans, covers the days leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which plunged America into the Second World War.
An intimate look at the Woodstock Music & Art Festival held in Bethel, NY in 1969, from preparation through cleanup, with historic access to insiders, blistering concert footage, and portraits of the concertgoers; negative and positive aspects are shown, from drug use by performers to naked fans sliding in the mud, from the collapse of the fences by the unexpected hordes to the surreal arrival of National Guard helicopters with food and medical assistance for the impromptu city of 500,000.
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.
A chronicle of events that led to the British involvement in the Crimean War against Russia and which led to the siege of Sevastopol and the fierce Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854 which climaxed with the heroic, but near-disastrous calvary charge made by the British Light Brigade against a Russian artillery battery in a small valley which resulted in the near-destruction of the brigade due to error of judgement and rash planning on part by the inept British commanders.
A 1967 film based on Truman Capote’s book of the same name. After a botched robbery results in the brutal murder of a rural family, two drifters elude police, in the end coming to terms with their own mortality and the repercussions of their vile atrocity.
Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city’s boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran’s rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.
Bathsheba Everdine, a willful, flirtatious, young woman, unexpectedly inherits a large farm and becomes romantically involved with three widely divergent men.
A Man for All Seasons is the filmed version of the life of Thomas More. An English man comes to Sir Thomas More to ask if he can divorce his wife since King Henry VIII has made it illegal. Sir Thomas More stands up in opposition to the King even though he knows he’s risking his own life. An award winning film from 1966.
English General Charles George Gordon, a devout Christian, is appointed military governor of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan by Prime Minister Gladstone. Ordered to evacuate Egyptians from the Sudan, General Gordon stays on to protect the people of Khartoum, who are under threat of being conquered by a Muslim army.
The title is Adolf Hitler’s question to his chief of staff Alfred Jodl on the eve of the liberation of Paris (August 25): the military governor of Paris, General Dietrich von Choltitz, had been ordered to destroy Paris rather than let it fall undamaged into the hands of the Allies, but von Choltitz disobeyed.The film follows historical events as U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, head of the Allied invasion, refuses to divert troops to liberate Paris. His hand is forced by the French military leader, Philippe Leclerc, and by a Resistance uprising in the city. Von Choltitz keeps details of the uprising from the German high command in an effort to save the city being destroyed in retaliation. The film follows his turmoil as a soldier and as the man who doesn’t wish to be seen by history as the cause of a beautiful city’s destruction.
All-star epic retelling of Christ’s life.
Charlton Heston stars as Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), who begrudgingly paints the Sistine Chapel for imperious Pope Julius II in this epic adaptation of Irvine Stone’s novel directed by Carol Reed. While the novel covers Michelangelo’s life from birth to death, the film focuses on the battle of wills between the perfectionist artist and the impatient Pope who commissions (and eventually commands) him to paint the famed chapel.
A knight in the service of a duke goes to a coastal villiage where an earlier attempt to build a defensive castle has failed. He begins to rebuild the duke’s authority in the face of the barbarians at the border and is making progress until he falls in love with one of the local women.
In the winter of 1944, the Allied Armies stand ready to invade Germany at the coming of a New Year. To prevent this occurrence, Hitler orders an all out offensive to re-take French territory and capture the major port city of Antwerp. “The Battle of the Bulge” shows this conflict from the perspective of an American intelligence officer as well as from a German Panzer Commander
In this elaborately mounted seafaring adventure, Rolfe (Richard Widmark) is a Viking leader with the cunning and devious mind of a pirate. Rolfe tells others sailors of “The Mother of Voices,” a mammoth bell made of gold and as tall as three men, but he adds enough incorrect details to throw them off the proper trail. However, Aly Mansuh (Sidney Poitier), the leader of a group of ambitious Moors, sees through Rolfe’s story, and soon the two are in a breakneck race to be the first to capture the precious bell. The Long Ships also features Russ Tamblyn and Oscar Homolka.
A reluctant cavalry Captain must track a defiant tribe of migrating Cheyennes.
Culloden is a 1964 docudrama written and directed by Peter Watkins for BBC TV. It portrays the 1746 Battle of Culloden that resulted in the British Army’s destruction of the Scottish Jacobite uprising and, in the words of the narrator, “tore apart forever the clan system of the Scottish Highlands”. Described in its opening credits as “an account of one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain”, Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its cinematography as well as its use of non-professional actors and its presentation of an historical event in the style of modern TV war reporting. The film was based on John Prebble’s study of the battle.
King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.
In 1879, during the Zulu wars, man of the people Lt. John Chard (Stanley Baker) and snooty Lt Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine) are in charge of defending the isolated Natal outpost of Rorke’s Drift from tribal hordes, holding out during an Alamo-like seige until they are overwhelmed, losing the battle, but going down in history as heroes. 150 soldiers defended a supply station against some 4000 Zulus, aided by the Martini-Henry rifle ‘with some guts behind it. “At Rorke’s Drift, eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded. Seven to the 2nd Battalion, 24th (2nd Warwickshire) Regiment of Foot, one to the Army Medical Department, one to the Royal Engineers, one to the Commissariat and Transport Department and one to the Natal Native Contingent.
Tom loves Sophie and Sophie loves Tom. But Tom and Sophie are of differering classes. Can they find a way through the mayhem to be true to love?
Historical epic. The triumphs and tragedy of the Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.The winner of four Oscars, this epic saga of love, greed and betrayal stars Elizabeth Taylor as the passionate and ambitious Egyptian queen who’s determined to hold on to the throne and seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar (Rex Harrison). When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony (Richard Burton), who vows to take power — but Caesar’s successor (Roddy McDowall) has other plans.
Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion. The disparate interests unite for survival despite competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of China and her generals.
In order to flee from powerful enemies, young Mayan king Balam leads his people north across the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of what will become the United States. They build a home in the new land but come into conflict with a tribe of Native Americans led by their chief, Black Eagle, while both Balam and Black Eagle fall in love the beautiful Mayan princess Ixchel.
The Nazis, exasperated at the number of escapes from their prison camps by a relatively small number of Allied prisoners, relocates them to a high-security ‘escape-proof’ camp to sit out the remainder of the war. Undaunted, the prisoners plan one of the most ambitious escape attempts of World War II. Based on a true story.
The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.
The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich’s Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. “For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day”
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.
The Cossacks of Eastern Europe join the Poles to rid the Turks from the Steps of Europe. In return for their aid, the Poles agree to give control of the Steps to the Cossacks. After the battle, however, the Poles back out of their agreement and force the Cossacks into the hills. Taras Bulba, a Cossack Colonel, raises his son, Andrei Bulba to learn the ways of the Poles so he can one day defeat them in battle. In his learning process, however, Andrei falls in love with the daughter of a Polish Nobleman. This twist causes Andrei Bulba to choose between the love of the Cossacks, and the love of a woman, and causes Taras Bulba to choose between the love of his son, and the love of the Cossacks.
The theme is the founding of the state of Israel. The action begins on a ship filled with Jewish immigrants bound for Israel who are being off loaded on Cyprus. An Intelligence officer succeeds in getting them back on board their ship only to have the harbor blocked by the British with whom they must negotiate. The second part deals with declaring independence and the resulting warring.
This gripping adaptation of the Jerome Lawrence-Robert E. Lee play examines an issue that still causes great controversy: the role religion should play in the schools.
Spartacus is a 1960 American historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast about the historical life of Spartacus and the Third Servile War. The film stars Kirk Douglas as the rebellious slave Spartacus who leads a violent revolt against the decadent Roman empire. The film was awarded four Oscars and stands today as one of the greatest classics of the Sword and Sandal genre.
A young field administrator for the TVA comes to rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River. He encounters opposition from the local people, in particular a farmer who objects to his employment (with pay) of local black laborers. Much of the plot revolves around the eviction of an elderly woman from her home on an island in the River, and the young man’s love affair with that woman’s widowed granddaughter.
Under the rule of King David, Israel is united and prosperous although surrounded by enemies including Egypt and its allies. The aging King David favors his younger son, Solomon, as his successor, but David’s elder son Prince Adonijah, a warrior, declares himself King. When David learns of this, he publicly announces Solomon to be his successor. Adonijah and Joab, his general, withdraw in rage. Israel prospers under King Solomon’s wise and benevolent rule and is seen as a threat to more tyrannical monarchs in the region. The Pharaoh of Egypt agrees to cede a Red Sea port to the Queen of Sheba in a plot to undermine Solomon’s rule. Sheba is to seduce Solomon and introduce Sheban pagan worship into Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Prince Adonijah, now banished, also conspires with Pharaoh and is given an army to defeat Solomon. The film is a highly fictionalized dramatization of events depicted in The Bible — First Kings chapter 10 and Second Chronicles chapter 9.
Ben-Hur is a 1959 epic film directed by William Wyler, the third film version of Civil War vet Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. It premiered at Loew’s State Theatre in New York City on November 18, 1959. The movie’s reputation as a classic is primarily based on two spectacular action sequences: the great chariot race and a Roman naval battle, along with lavish production values and strong performances. The plot of Ben Hur revolves around a Jewish prince who is betrayed and sent into slavery by a Roman friend and how he regains his freedom and comes back for revenge. However, instead he finds redemption in Christ, the theme is ultimately about being saved in the Christian sense. The film went on to win a record of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Charlton Heston as Ben Hur). This record-setting Oscars sweep has since been equaled by Titanic in 1998 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2004, but never broken.
