Summary: In his book about Hollywood screenwriters, Talking Pictures (1975), the critic Richard Corliss suggested you could summarise the plot of this film in a single headline couched in the style of its reporter-hero: ‘Star Reporter Trails and Nails Heiress – for Life’. On the run from her wealthy father (Walter Connolly) who disapproves of…
Tag: American Movies
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956): Summary & Analysis
Summary: A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates. Analysis: As both a tale concerning invading alien pods and a stark critique of small-town America, Invasion of the Body Snatchers stands as a significant US film; whether it is considered merely a low-budget science fiction B…
His Girl Friday – Summary and Analysis
Summary: Ace reporter Hildy Johnson returns to The Morning Post to notify Walter Burns – the Post’s Managing Editor and Hildy’s ex-husband – that she plans to quit the paper, move to Albany, and marry insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin. Burns exhibits few scruples as he attempts to disrupt this plan. While breaking up Hildy’s engagement…
The Godfather 1 (1972): Story Summary and Analysis
Story Summary: At the height of his power, the Godfather, Don Corleone, grants wishes to people he protects during his daughter’s wedding ceremony. Thus, he sends Tom Hagen to Hollywood to intimidate a studio head so that he gives his godson a movie role. But when Don Corleone is sceptical about participating in the emerging…
Freaks (1932 Movie): Story Synopsis and Analysis
Synopsis: Circus dwarves Hans and Frieda (Harry and Daisy Earles) are engaged to be married. They work in a tight-knit community of ‘freaks’ that includes a ‘human torso’, a pair of conjoined twins, a ‘half boy’ and assorted other characters. The conniving trapeze artist Cleopatra (Baclanova), a ‘normal’, learns that Hans has an inheritance, and…
Double Indemnity (1944) – Summary, Analysis
Summary: Framed as an episodic flashback narrated by insurance agent Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), the story begins with an encounter between Neff and housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) during a sales call. She incites him to dream up a plot to murder her husband in order to collect a ‘double indemnity’ insurance policy. Initially, the…
Citizen Kane – Story Summary and Analysis
Summary: The rich, powerful media tycoon Charles Foster Kane meets a lonely demise in the vast empty rooms of his palatial home, Xanadu. A reporter sets out to uncover the meaning of his final words, interviewing people who knew him well, including his second wife and his closest business associates. Through their eyes we see…
Chinatown (1974 Movie) – Story and Analysis
Story: Los Angeles, 1937: Private Detective Jake Gittes specialises in marital work. Hired to discover whether Horace Mulwray – Chief Engineer at the City’s Department of Water and Power – is having an affair, Gittes finds himself enmeshed in a struggle over the future of Los Angeles. Mulwray opposes to the construction of a new…
Casablanca (Movie) – Summary and Analysis
Summary: Against the backdrop of refugees fleeing the German advance in Europe during the early years of the Second World War we follow three characters involved in a love triangle. Victor Laszlo (Henreid) is a Resistance leader who has escaped from a German concentration camp. Accompanied by his wife, Ilsa (Bergman), he has reached Casablanca,…
Brief Encounter: Synopsis and Analysis
Synopsis: Laura (Celia Johnson), a housewife, and Alec (Trevor Howard), a doctor, both happily married to other people, happen to fall in love with each other, quite by chance and apparently without calculation, after he removes a piece of grit from her eye. Friendship develops into romance, and the couple meet in town once a…