SYNOPSIS: The third volume of indispensable cinema classics from Janus Films and the Criterion Collection. For the devoted cinephile, these are the must-own fundamentals; for the novice film lover, this is precisely where to begin. For Volume III, we present six films from directors Andrzej Wajda, René Clément, Akira Kurosawa, Henry Cass, Laurence Olivier, and Federico Fellini.
1958
On the last day of World War II, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland. In this incendiary environment, we find Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki, who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar.
1952
A timeless evocation of childhood innocence corrupted, René Clément’s mythical and heartbreakingly real Forbidden Games tells the story of a young girl orphaned by war and the farm boy she joins in a fantastical world of macabre play.
1958
A general and a princess must dodge enemy clans while smuggling the royal treasure out of hostile territory with two bumbling, conniving peasants at their sides; it’s a spirited adventure that only Akira Kurosawa could create.
1950
Told by his doctor he has no more than a few months to live, drab British workingman George Bird (Alec Guinness) decides to spend his savings on lodging at a seaside resort. Once there, however, he finds his identity caught between upstairs and downstairs, the guests and the “help.”
1955
As director, producer, and star, Laurence Olivier transfigures Shakespeare’s great historical drama Richard III into a mesmerizing vision of Machiavellian villainy.
1950
A beautiful ingenue joins a tawdry music hall troupe and quickly becomes its feature attraction in Federico Fellini’s stunning debut film (directed in collaboration with neorealist filmmaker Alberto Lattuada).