Marie Antoinette (1938) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch

  Marie Antoinette (1938) Review: The Good, The Bad & How to Watch  American Film, Drama, History Venice Film Festival, 1938- Winner: Best Actress Academy Awards, 1939- 4 nominations including: Best Actress in a Leading Role When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer poured an astronomical budget into bringing the doomed French queen to the silver screen in nineteen thirty-eight, Hollywood was not merely making a movie; it was constructing an entire vanished world. Directed primarily by W. S. Van Dyke, Marie Antoinette stands today as one of the ultimate monuments to the golden age of American cinema, a sprawling historical epic that blends lavish romance with the looming terror of the French Revolution.  More on Wikipedia or Mubi  Cinematic Splendor and Tragedy in Hollywood's 1938 Marie Antoinette  At the heart of the production is Norma Shearer, reigning royalty of the studio lot and widow of legendary producer Irving Thalberg, who had passionately championed the pr...

Watch Parsifal (1952)

Parsifal (1952)
Spanish Film, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
English title: The Evil Forest

Official Selection

The Evil Forest (Spanish: Parsifal) is a 1951 Spanish drama film directed by Daniel MangranĂ©. It was entered into the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. Today's world is losing the illusion of living. Everything that seemed to rest on unshakable foundations, appears today uncertain due to the lack of confidence in the future and the fearful anguish of a definitive catastrophe.

To escape enemy bombing, two soldiers take refuge in a deserted church where they discover a manuscript dating back to the fifth century when barbarian hordes ravaged the Spanish countryside. It tells of two warriors, Roderico, who opposes war and useless bloodshed, who is slain by Klingsor, who takes over as the tribal chief. The dead man's widow flees to seek the Holy Mountain where the Knights of the Grail guard the Sacred Spear and the Holy Grail, but she fails to find it. She dies but her young son, Parsifal, survives and reaches maturity free from worldly temptations, evil and cruelty. He visits the Holy Mountain and meets Kundry, daughter of Klingsor, and they seemingly fall in love. She is ordered by her father to trap Parsifal, but she fails. Klingsor has the Holy Spear which discourages the Knight of the Grail. Parsifal pledges to get it back and Klingsor tries again to use his daughter to discourage him, but to no avail. He also tries to trap Parsival in the Evil Forest of the Seven Deadly Sins, but Parsival wins out and retrieves the Sacred Spear. He is permitted into the cave where the Holy Grail is kept. Kundry, too, is present, having cleansed herself of evil. More on Wikipedia or Mubi 

Cannes Film Festival, 1952- Official Selection 

Full Film (No English subtitles) 

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