cato's - Favourites List

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The lecherous Chief Justice Frollo (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) gazes on a beautiful, gypsy girl, Esmeralda (Maureen O'Hara), and sends the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral Quasimodo (Charles Laughton) to catch her.

But Quasimodo himself is captured by Phoebus, Captain of the Guards, who frees Esmerelda and sentences Quasimodo to be flogged. Whilst Quasimodo is tied up in the square, only Esmeralda takes pity on him and gives him water. Later, at a party of nobles, Esmeralda again meets both Frollo, who is bewitched by her, and Phoebus; but when Phoebus is found stabbed to death, Esmeralda is accused of his murder, convicted by the court and sentenced to hang. Only Quasimodo, can save her from the gallows...

After a prostitute is brutally murdered in a park near the Tiber river, the police track down people spotted in the park that night in hopes of catching the killer. The story is told in flashbacks as the suspects each give an account of their actions that night.

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One of the earth-shaking feature debuts in the history of cinema, Maurice Pialat's L'Enfance-nue provides a prespective on growing-up that rejects both sentimentally and modish cynicism.

Its unflinchingly, but also warmly accomodating, outlook on childhood attracted Francois Truffaut to take on the role as co-producer of Pialat's film. First-time actor Michel Tarrazon plays the young François, a provincial orphan whose destructive behaviour precipitates his relocation from the home of a long-term foster family to the care of a benevolent elderly couple. In the course of this transition, Pialat’s film presents the turbulence of François’s unmoored existence, and his explosive reactions to the contradictory emotions it engenders.

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Explorer, filmmaker and visual anthropologist Robert J Flaherty's 1934 film Man of Aran stands up to be counted once again.

Three years in the making, Flaherty's epic portrayal of life off the western coast of Ireland where families eked out a living from potatoes and shark oil is a brutal, beautiful and pioneering film that still challenges the boundaries of the documentary form.

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Isadora Duncan was the most iconic free-style dancer of the twentieth century who courted both admiration and scandal in equal measure. Her unique style of dancing made her the guests of King's, Queen's, nobility and Russian revolutionaries, ultimately making her the 'peoples' dancer'.

But her Bohemian lifestyle and unorthodox morality led to a personal life that was marred by misunderstanding, tragedy and ultimately her own untimely death.
Vanessa Redgrave in a stunning portrayal of Isadora Duncan who burns her parents' marriage license as a little girl and pledges her life to 'Beauty and Art". Whirls her genius for dance and free spirit causes a sensation across Europe, her naive, effervescent radiance leads to an almost accidental succession of lovers in Gordon Craig (James Fox), Paris Singer (Jason Robards) and Sergei Essenin (Ivan Tchenko). As she sips champagne and dictates her memoirs at the Negresco Hotel in Nice, Isadora reflects upon a life and art that were anything but conventional...

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A contented ex-villain is forced to do one last spectacular robbery by a psychotic face from his past in this mould-breaking stylish thriller by director Jonathan Glazer. Gary Dove (Ray Winstone) is blissfully retired, living in a Spanish villa paradise with the wife he adores.

His perfect lifestyle is shattered by the arrival of his gangster nemesis Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), intent on persuading him to return to London for a big heist. Desperate not to sacrifice his carefully built idyll, Dove is drawn into a shocking battle of wills with Logan, ending in an explosive psychological showdown, and a sensational underwater bank robbery in which he must risk everything to protect the woman he loves.

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South Africa, 1976. The police ruled Gordan Ngubene's death a suicide. But when Afrikaans schoolteacher Ben du Toit (Donald Sutherland) saw the body he knew his friend of 15 years was the victim of police torture.

Seeking justice, Ben hires barrister Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) to represent the Ngubene family at the inquest, but the judge ignores the evidence and exonerates the police. Refusing to "give it up", Ben risks his family and career as he takes on a system run by racists, thugs and murderers. For if you're not with the Afrikaners, you're against them. And choosing the wrong side could get you killed.

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Set in occupied France, the film opens in the summer of 1944 as Lucien, our troubled teen hero, expresses an interest in assisting the local resistance movement. He is turned down and, after a chance encounter, signs up as a collaborator for the Gestapo.

Easily seduced by the power and apparent glamour of the position, he soon forgets his old life. The Gestapo also allows Lucien to give in to his most nihilistic urges. When he develops a strained relationship with a Jewish tailor - and falls for his beautiful daughter - he becomes increasingly compromised and is forced into examining his real identity.

Tonia (Krystyna Janda), a singer in a sleazy cabaret, is imprisoned without explanation. Days become weeks become months, varied only by the persuasion, intimidation and torture of interrogation.

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Gregory Peck stars as a doting husband and father who gives up his small time job and enters the thrilling world of advertising in Manhattan.

With added tension at work and increasing problems at home with his wife (Jennifer Jones), the rising young executive must decide, as his boss (Frederic March) did, what is the most important thing in life - family or success.

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The cynical political satire about down-and-out corrupted Dan McGinty's. Corruption rise from skid row to the state governor's mansion, manipulated by a crook known as The Boss (Akim Tamiroff), who has his own on-the-make agenda.

It is only when he makes one attempt to be honest, that McGinty's false world crumbles.

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Directed by Anthony Asquith (The Browning Version, The Way to the Stars) 'A Cottage on Dartmoor' is an embroiled melodrama, a tale of love and revenge, set on the bleak landscape of Dartmoor.

Overlooked by critics eager to heap praise upon his contemporary, Hitchcock, and the much lauded Blackmail (released the same year), 'A Cottage on Dartmoor' is a thoughtful distillation of the best of European silent film techniques from a director steeped in the work of the Soviet avant-garde and German expressionism. One of the last silent films to be made in Britain before the talkies revolutionized cinema, Asquith's film is a virtuoso piece of filmmaking, a final passionate cry in defence of an art form soon to be obsolete. The film is presented here with an original piano score composed and performed by Stephen Horne.

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The true story of an FBI undercover agent (Johnny Depp) who becomes Donnie Brasco, 'The Jewel Man', to infiltrate one of the mob families. Donnie manoeuvres his way into the confidence of ageing hit man, Lefty Ruggiero (Al Pacino) who trusts Donnie and vouches for him to the mob.

But Lefty and Donnie become friends when they should be enemies. As Donnie moves deeper and deeper into the Mafia chain of command, he realises he is not only crossing the line between federal agent and criminal but it also leading his friend Lefty to an almost certain death sentence...

After being 'retired' from the army, an ex-Colonel nurtures a bitter resentment at his country's ingratitude. Luckily for him he's not the only one and he assembles a small group of bankrupt or embittered ex-army officers in a bid to stage an ingenious bank robbery.

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Spirited Fanny Price (Frances O'Connor) is sent by her poverty-stricken mother to live with her prosperous aunt and cousins at their grand country estate. Here, she struggles to adjust to aristocratic protocol and the daily reminders of her inferiority to her relatives.

When her sparkle and wit bring the inevitable interest of suitors, Fanny is forced to decide whether to marry for love or status.
A timeless satire on manners, money and passion set against the backdrop of outwardly genteel 19th century English society, Mansfield Park will delight Austen fans everywhere.