In 1926, writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 11 days and it remains a mystery what actually happened during that time. This film imagines a history where she has followed her husband’s lover to a spa in Harrogate. Vanessa Redgrave portrays Christie appealingly, but the film turns out somewhat as a lackluster mystery. This isn’t helped by the inclusion of American reporter Dustin Hoffman who is offered as an uninteresting love interest.
Oscar Nomination: Best Costume Design
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Jewish married film dubbers Maria Belkin and Vladimir Fridman immigrate to Israel and realize they must reinvent themselves in their new country. It’s a sweet little film about an older couple having to refigure out where they fit in the world and with each other. It also has a lovely sense of nostalgia towards film, particularly those of Fellini, and sharing the love with the world at large.
The co-owner of a secretarial school Jean Arthur accidentally accepts a job offer from the editor of a fitness magazine George Brent. There’s not a whole lot to the story other than added friction by way of a friend of Brent’s who needs him to take on his secretary/mistress so as to not arouse his wife’s suspicion, but it’s nice seeing Arthur not only proving how capable she is, but being promoted for it. There are a few annoying bits regarding the fitness aspect (vegetarianism treated with distain, push for sexy females on the magazine cover instead of well-built men) which unfortunate distract during such a short film. 
Possessing an unusually heightened sense of smell, Eva Melander works for Swedish customs, sniffing out smuggled contraband. When she encounters someone else with similar features, it sends her on a voyage of personal discovery to her origins and unexpected revelations about the world at large. This is a very weird film and there were many places it went that were hard to get behind. Melander’s performance is striking. With the makeup for her character, she is completely unrecognizable, but her inner humanity still shines through. 
Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling
Ever since I first learned about the HMS Bounty, I’ve been fascinated by the story and how this group of mutineers changed the history of Pitcairn Island. In this version of one of the most famous mutinies ever, Captain Trevor Howard is so domineering and abusive that eventually even Marlon Brando has had enough and provokes a mutiny. While it does have some beautiful views of the expansive sea, this film is just way too long. It takes over half of its three plus hour runtime to even get to the actual mutiny. I was having a hard time getting into Brando’s portrayal (he has a very strange accent and various affectations), especially when compared to Clark Gable in the 1935 version, but I eventually warmed up as it makes sense that he’s rather sniveling and pompous until Howard’s callousness is even too much for him. For such a stupid long movie, the ending comes rather abruptly and doesn’t seem to have any connection to reality. 
Oscar Nominations: Best Picture; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Film Editing; Best Effects, Special Effects; Best Music, Original Song; Best Music, Score – Substantially Original
Roguish impoverished poet Howard Keel accidentally proves himself to be prophetic to the benefit of corrupt Wazir Sebastian Cabot, while his daughter Ann Blythe falls in love with the disguised caliph Vic Damone in this musical filled with mistaken identities and other mishaps. The plot feels like a retread, the songs are unmemorable, and there is an exceptional amount of glaringly white skin for a desert setting, but Keel and Cabot do well in their over-the-top roles. It’s also filmed in my beloved Cinemascope. While they could have gone further in their design, the costumes and settings are delightful and brightly filmed through that medium. 
FBI agent Dennis Quaid is hot on the trail of the serial killer who kidnapped his son. There’s so much of this story that feels familiar that I can’t be 100% certain I haven’t seen it before, but it could easily be that it’s just that trope filled. Quaid isn’t the most inspiring lead, but luckily there’s plenty of interesting characters, including R. Lee Emery and Ted Levine as small town cops and Danny Glover roadtripping with Jared Leto in a pimped-out Cadillac, that the attention doesn’t have to focus solely on Dennis for long. 
I really like the concept of this short film. Leslie Nielsen narrates the events of the battle of Gettysburg across images of the fields and statuary as they look today, or at least how they looked in 1955 and more or less in 2000 when I visited the town. Unfortunately with no action on screen and only battle sounds added to Nielsen’s voice, the film quickly becomes tedious. I still commend it for its simplicity. It was interestingly filmed in Cinemascope, which might explain why it was included as an extra on the DVD for Kismet. 
Oscar Nominations: Best Short Subject, Two-reel; Best Documentary, Short Subjects
The coming of age tale of nine year old Jude Hill, including an absentee father working in London and an attraction to a Catholic classmate, is disrupted when the Troubles comes to his neighborhood. His entire family must decide which path they will follow from that point on. The whole film feels like a personal memoir for writer-director Kenneth Branagh, very similar to Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma all the way to the black and white cinematography. It’s an oddly short film for the subject manner and I wish there was more time spent on characterization, particularly of grandparents Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench who are both delightful and wise in their roles. The film is often shot from a lowered perspective, giving a great feeling as if it is truly from a child’s perspective.
For his wedding anniversary with his sight impaired wife Faye Dunaway, Daniel J. Travanti hires his secretary Kim Cattrall’s husband John Laughlin to take the four of them on a pleasure cruise in the Caribbean. In actuality, he’s wanting to search for treasure left many years earlier on an island near Cuba. This is the type of story I really wish would be remade. There’s plenty of alliance switching, unknown connections, and hidden information that gradually gets revealed as the movie progresses. Though it remains an entertaining bit of fluff, everything else about the production sadly fails the potential of the compelling plot.