Captain Fracasse

Documentary on the fresco paintings of Candido Portinari, who contributed to the development of a more realistic and modernist style in the art of Brazil.

A young man who loves his wife wants rid of his troublesome mistress. He dresses up as a wealthy Brazilian and seduces her in a jiffy. He hopes to reach a settlement, that she must sign. In this settlement she will promise to break with her lover. He can then show that he is a faithful husband.

Alberto Cavalcanti reviews his own prolific career as a filmmaker.

Old Zé Cristino, riding his donkey, goes to Congonhas do Campo to fulfill a promise to São Bom Jesus do Matozinho. In front of the church, he admires the Sanctuary with its 12 prophets, a monumental work by Antonio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho. Each prophet is shown in detail with the biblical text accompanying the images.

The whimsical Riquet's has kidnapped and married a well-born young girl, Ralda. They travel around Spain performing their act in a circus but Ralda's beauty arouses the director's lust. Furious at being rejected, he opens a lion's cage during Ralda's act, leaving her seriously injured. With Ralda's family on their trail, the young people set off to find a better life elsewhere.

Marina, a beautiful young woman with leprous parents, marries a shipyard owner to escape an institution. She moves to a coastal village, faces gossip, and is assaulted by her husband’s partner. After her husband dies in a boat accident, a handsome sailor arrives, and Marina is blackmailed about her family’s health issues.

An architect, visiting an English country house, realizes the other guests are familiar from his recurring nightmare. When they share their tales of the supernatural, he is filled with a growing dread.

The quiet village of Bramley End is taken over by German troops posing as Royal Engineers. Their task is to disrupt England's radar network in preparation for a full scale German invasion. Once the villagers discover the true identity of the troops, they do whatever they can to thwart the Nazis plans.

This first film adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play about class distinctions was made in 1955 in the Vienna Rosenhügel studios, but it was only premiered five years later. Curt Bois plays the rich capitalist Puntila who only becomes somewhat agreeable when he is drunk (which he is most of the time in this film). In his inebriated state, Puntila not only gets amorously involved with three different ladies but also suggests that his daughter Eva marries his chauffeur Matti. The chauffeur, however, doesn’t really agree…

A woman marries a gambler, thinking she could straighten him up, but he loses all their assets, even their own house, and tries to commit suicide. But one of the winners falls for his stepdaughter, and this could change the situation.

Mathias Pascal, only son of a once-rich family, marries beautiful Romalinda, who has a terrible mother-in-law. She controls her daughter, and soon his home life becomes a nightmare. His only moments of lights are his mother and baby, but both die on the same day. Shocked, he leaves his hometown and goes to Monte Carlo, where he wins a fortune at the casino. Returning home, he reads his own obituary in a paper. They have found a corpse in a creek and connected it with his disappearance. Mathias, noticing that he is now free from all ties to his old life, decides to start a new one.

The administrator of an abandoned coffee farm and inveterate gambler saves money to buy the property, even knowing of the loving connections between his wife and the boss.

A famous singer Claire Lescot, who lives on the outskirts of Paris, is courted by many men, including a maharajah, Djorah de Nopur, and a young Swedish scientist, Einar Norsen. At her lavish parties she enjoys their amorous attentions but she remains emotionally aloof and heartlessly taunts them. When she is told that Norsen has killed himself because of her, she shows no feelings. At her next concert she is booed by an audience outraged at her coldness and she decides to visit the vault in which Norsen's body lies.

In Granada in Spain, Sibilla works as a dancer in a squalid cabaret called El Dorado, struggling to earn enough to care for her sick child. The boy's father Estiria, a prominent citizen, refuses them both help and recognition, fearful of jeopardising the engagement of his adult daughter Iliana to a wealthy nobleman. Iliana however slips away from her engagement party to meet her real lover Hedwick, a Swedish painter. Sibilla, in desperation after a further rejection by Estiria, sees an opportunity to blackmail him by locking the lovers overnight in their meeting-place in the Alhambra.

A fatherless boy tries to make his fortune despite interference from his rich uncle.