Band of Outsiders (1964), Eyes Without a Face - Les yeux sans visage (1959), Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Scent of a Woman (1975), A Little Romance (1979), The Ruling Class (1972), A New Leaf (1971) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best 20th Century Literature On Screen movies.
Storyline: Slice of life drama following the lives of various people in London's East End on a wet Sunday. (Is this film why people think it always rains in England ?) Rose was engaged to local wild boy Tommy Swann but he got imprisoned on Dartmoor. After he was locked up she got married to sedate but dull George. Tommy's now broken out of jail and comes to see Rose to get help to flee the country.—Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: london england, train, train station, suicide attempt, jewish family, working class, stepmother ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A Jewish ghetto in central Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he tells him what he heard and announces that he is in possession of a radio - in the ghetto a crime punishable by death. It doesn't take long for word of Jakob's secret to spread - suddenly, there is new hope and something to live for - and so Jakob finds himself in the uncomforting position of having to come up with more and more stories.—c.winter
Plot Keywords: year 1944, name in title, male name in title, cellar, attic, sick child, actor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Middle-aged Antonin and his friends, the major, now retired, and the canon, are in the river, swimming and philosophizing. Then it starts to rain. It just seems to be that sort of summer. Antonin runs the swimming bath with his portly wife Katherine... A man appears with his horse-drawn caravan. He lays a striped pole across the river and walks over. With a handstand and a magic trick, Ernie the Conjuror invites everyone to that evening's performance... Ernie is a tightrope walker of only modest skill, but with a slim and beautiful assistant, Anna. Antonin speaks to her. The two spend the night in the change room by the river, Antonin massaging her feet all night long. Katherine decides to move into the caravan with Ernie. But now the major and even the canon sense Anna's attractiveness...—David Carless
Plot Keywords: middle aged man, older man younger woman relationship, 1920s, young woman, adultery, priest, military officer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Alex Cutter (Heard) came back from war minus an eye, a leg, and an arm and mad as hell. He lacks direction, drinks too much, and abuses his wife (Eichhorn). One night his friend Richard Bone (Bridges) witnesses someone dumping something in an alley; it turns out to be the body of a young girl. When Cutter hears about it, he embarks on a crusade to expose the killer, enlisting the help of the murdered girl's sister. Bone reluctantly joins them. Are they right or are they in search of their white whale?—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: parade, open relationship, motel, loss of friend, heavy drinking, country club, beating ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On a vacation in France from his nondescript job and life, John Barratt encounters a titled but impoverished French nobleman who looks exactly like him. The nobleman gets John drunk, and switches places with him to take a breather from his failing business and too-complicated life. John tries to convince everyone he is not who they think he is, but he begins to get more and more involved with the count's family, including an unhappy wife, domineering mother, lonely but talented young daughter, bitter spinster sister and the expected mistress. As John gets to know them he feels he can help them with their problems, but is also becoming used to his borrowed life, which has given him a purpose for the first time.—Ron Kerrigan <mvg@whidbey.com>
Plot Keywords: man wears pajamas, restaurant, passport, title based on the bible, look alike, identity swap, impostor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Oliver Bramwell, an insurance inspector, arrives at Lewis Manor where he is to investigate a fire that broke out there on Christmas Eve. He rings the bell and to his amazement he finds himself face to face with Sarah, the woman he once loved in Hong Kong and who, one day, disappeared from his life without apparent reason. Love resurfaces and when Tracey, the owner of the manor and Sarah's husband, dies in a second fire, the couple is reunited. Nevertheless, Oliver suspects Sarah of having tricked him and murdered Tracey with a view to attaining her ends. Fortunately his suspicions are allayed and he can marry Sarah. They are first very happy, until a blackmailer starts preying on them...—Guy Bellinger
Plot Keywords: british noir, based on novel, cousin, mother son relationship, christmas eve, secretary, literature on screen ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In London, American heiress Kit Preston (Doris Day) has been married for three months to a British executive, Anthony 'Tony' Preston (Sir Rex Harrison). During a foggy evening while walking across Hyde Park, Kit is threatened by a voice that tells she will be murdered soon. The next day, Kit receives a phone call from the stalker threatening to kill her in the next month. She and her husband go to Scotland Yard, but Inspector Byrnes (John Williams) believes that Kit may be making up the story to get more attention from her husband. Kit's Aunt Bea (Myrna Loy) arrives, but only Kit receives the phone call raising the question: is she losing her mind?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: telephone terror, london england, embezzlement, police detective, psychiatrist, psychological torment, scaffold ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1942 in the Bronx, Evelyn Kurnitz has just passed away following a lengthy illness. Her husband, Eddie Kurnitz, needs to take a job as a traveling salesman to pay off the medical bills incurred, and decides to ask his stern and straight talking mother, from who he is slightly estranged, if his two early-teen sons, Jay and Arty (who their Grandma call by their full given names, Yakob and Arthur), can live with her and their Aunt Bella Kurnitz in Yonkers. She reluctantly agrees after a threat by Bella. Despite their Grandma owning and operating a candy store, Jay and Arty don't like their new living situation as they're afraid of their Grandma, and find it difficult to relate to their crazy Aunt Bella, whose slow mental state is manifested by perpetual excitability and a short attention span, which outwardly comes across as a childlike demeanor. Into their collective lives returns one of Eddie and Bella's other siblings, Louie Kurnitz, a henchman for some gangsters. He is hiding out from Hollywood Harry, who wants what Louie stole and is hiding in his small black bag. Jay and Arty's mission becomes how to make money fast so that they can help their father and move back in together, that money which may entail stealing the $15,000 their Grandma has hidden somewhere. Bella's mission is to find a way to tell the family that she wants to get married to Johnny, her equally slow movie theater usher boyfriend, the two who could also use $5,000 of her mother's money to open their dream restaurant. And Louie's mission is to survive the next couple of days.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: based on play, place name in title, grandmother, aunt, reference to world war two, columbia tristar, title directed by female ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He lives with his parents, his aunt, two cousins, and his brother, Stanley, whom he looks up to and admires. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.—Jason Ihle <jrihl@conncoll.edu>
Plot Keywords: year 1937, russian, jew, immigrant, brother brother relationship, part of trilogy, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Vietnam veteran Ray Hicks gets conned into helping his buddy John Converse smuggle some heroin, only to wind up on the lam with John's wife when the deal goes sour.—Alan Sepinwall <sepinwal@mail.sas.upenn.edu>
Plot Keywords: song in title, tank top, vietnam war, ship, sailor, bare chested male, san francisco california ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A couple uses extremely black comedy to survive taking care of a daughter who is nearly completely brain dead. They take turns doing the daughter's voice and stare into the eyes of death and emotional trauma with a humor that hides their pain.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: independent film, fantasy sequence, policeman, christmas, prank, prankster, practical joke ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: 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 of the film is about the situation in Israel as independence is declared and most of their neighbors attack them.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
Plot Keywords: israel, based on novel, based on true story, 1940s, jewish, flag, englishman abroad ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: John Lewis is bored by his librarian's job and henpecked at home. Then Liz, wife of a local counciller, sets her sights on him. But this is risky stuff in a Welsh valleys town - if he and Liz ever manage to consummate their affair, that is.—J-26
Plot Keywords: librarian, bow tie, alarm clock, wales, playwright, library, husband wife relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of Mel and Edna (Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft), a middle-class, middle-aged, middle-happy couple living in a Manhattan high rise apartment building. Mel loses his job, the apartment is robbed, Edna gets a job, Mel loses his mind, Edna loses her job . . . to say nothing of the more minor tribulations of nosy neighbors, helpful relatives, and exact bus fares. The couple suffers indignity after indignity (some self-inflicted), and when they seem on the verge of surrender, they thumb their noses defiantly and dig the trenches for battle.—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: nervous breakdown, manhattan new york city, fired from the job, loss of job, swimming pool, stress, noisy neighbor ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The frozen body of Paul Fournier is discovered in Greenland where he had disappeared during a scientific expedition in 1905. Perfectly conserved he is brought back to life in the 1960s. His descendants take care of him: to spare him the cultural shock they behave so to make believe it's 1905 and they are his cousins, uncle...—vik-18 <viktor_p@mail.com>
Plot Keywords: 1960s, alternate reality, time travel, time travel comedy, france, grandfather granddaughter relationship, 1900s ...
Movie Details Click Here!