My Hundred Films

Movie Lists

The following film list is my personal choice. There are quite a few others which I could have included but then I had to stick to the number. b.

1.
La Grande Illusion-1937
The Seventh Seal-1956
The Best Years Of Our Lives-1946
Five Easy Pieces-1970
Midnight Cowboy-1969
La Strada-1954
The Passion of Joan of Arc-1928
Greed-1924
Goodbye Mr.Chips-1939
Double Indemnity-1944

2.
The Servant-1963
Stagecoach-1939
The African Queen-1951
Viridiana-1961
Rashomon-1950
The Bicycle Thief-1947
A Streetcar Named Desire-1951
The Grapes Of Wrath-1940
Wild Strawberries-1957
Singin’ In The Rain-1952

3.
The Third Man-1949
The Treasure Of Sierra Madre-1948
All About Eve-1950
Lawrence Of Arabia-1962
On The Waterfront-1954
Sunset Boulevard-1950
Napoleon-1927
À Nous La Liberté-1931
Two Films By Jean Vigo: 1933-34
L’Atlante-
Zéro de Conduite
The  Graduate-1967

4.
Vertigo-1958
Some Like It Hot-1959
Bonnie And Clyde-1967
The Philadelphia Story-1940
Mutiny On The Bounty-1935
It’s A Wonderful Life-1946
Battleship Of Potemkin-1925
Seven Samurai-1954
The Informer-1935
La Dolce Vita-1960
5.

The Wizard Of Oz-1939
The Bridge On The River Kwai-1957
M-1931
Godfather-1972
Pather Panchali-1955
Casablanca-1942
Les Enfants du Paradis-1945
Citizen Kane-1941
Touch of Evil-1958
How Green Was My Valley-1941

6.
Nosferatu-1922
Gone With The Wind-1939
Knife In The Water-1962
The Maltese Falcon-1941
La Symphonie Pastorale-1946
City Lights-1931
Amadeus-1984
Wages Of Fear-1952
My Fair Lady-1964
Great Expectations-1946

7.
Room At The Top-1959
Closely Watched Trains-1966
The Shop On The Main Street-1965
Intimate Lighting, 1965
Los Olvidados-1950
Drifting Clouds- 1996
Metropolis-1927
The Bank Dick-1940
Anne Hall-1977
Jules et Jim-1962

8.
Crime of Monsieur Lange-1936
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest-1975
Kind Hearts And Coronets-1949
Late Spring-1949
Forbidden Games-1952
La Bête Humaine-1938
Poetic Realism
-Le Jour Se Lève-1939
-Le Quai des Brumes-1938
Intolerance-1916
The General-1927
Strike-1925
9.

Dekalog-1988
Aguirre, The Wrath of God-1972
Ballad of a Soldier-1959
Raging Bull-1980
L’Age d’Or-1930
Les Diaboliques-1954
Cries And Whispers-1972
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant-1972
Joyless Street-1925
Pandora’s Box-1929
10.

The Blue Angel -1930
2001: A Space Odyssey- 1968
8½ – 1963
La Règle Du Jeu- 1939
Sunrise- 1927
Il Conformista-1970
L’avventura-1960
The Apartment-1960
Tokyo Story-1953
The Burmese Harp-1956

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Ballad of a Soldier-1959

Ballad of a Soldier is a feel-good film, which dwells at length into the nobility of Mother Russia: she had so many children she could spare for the Great Patriotic War. Of course there were gulags too. The film is however concerned for soldiers barely out of their teens. Our hero is Alyosha Skvortsov (Vladimir Ivashov) is one such. His is the story of sacrifice. Ballad of a Soldier is all about giving an identifiable face and context to one who ends up as an unknown soldier.
Filmed in 1958 and released the following year, is a product of the post-Stalin Soviet era. It stands as dynamic proof that an apolitical film could be made despite of an oppressive regime had its grip thoroughly on the minds and bodies of the people.
The story of the film is an odyssey. An elderly, melancholy woman walks along a bleak landscape and stops. She is the mother of a Russian hero whose remains are buried in a distant land, identified only as an unknown Russian soldier. It has been two years since she has seen him  and she knows everything about him till he was sent to the front. The flashback follows.

Our hero is Alyosha Skvortsov (Vladimir Ivashov), assigned an humdrum job of a field observer, manning a radio device from a solitary foxhole. But with such intrepid advance of the Germans he is frantically reporting to his unit two tanks bearing directly down upon him. He holds his position until it becomes clear that the lead tank intends to run over his position. So what does he do? He turns and fires on the lead tank with his rifle. One good turn deserves another. Is it not? So he knocks out both tanks and becomes a hero!

His unit commander would like to recommend him for military decoration. But Alyosha wishes to return home to see his mother and help her fix a leaky roof. The commanding officer allows him six days leave – two days travel each way and two days to complete the repair.
Such a journey is a journey in hope as with the soviet style of hope, to co-mingle with those of several others of various ethnic hues and scars of service for the motherland. Then of course he Alyosha has to bribe a soldier in order to hitch a ride on a freight train. He meets another stowaway- a beautiful dark-haired young woman.

She is Shura (Zhanna Prokhorenko), who claims to be traveling to meet her boyfriend. Soon enough they recognize they are cut of the same cloth in hope and goodness. Despite several disruptions they catch up with one another and they know they are made for each other.
But duty demands their ultimate sacrifice. He has barely reached home hugged his mother before he is back to the front again.
The story is well-paced, rolling along inexorably like the rhythm of the wheels of the trains.

Directed by     Grigori Chukhrai
Produced by     M. Chernova
Written by     Valentin Yezhov
Grigori Chukhrai
Starring     Vladimir Ivashov
Zhanna Prokhorenko
Music by     Mikhail Ziv
Cinematography     Vladimir Nikolayev
Era Savelyeva
Editing by     Mariya Timofeyeva
Running time     88 min.

Language     Russian

check out cinebuff.wordpress.com for more on Russian films.

compiler:benny

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