Italian filmmaker Carmine Gallone was still in his "operetta" mode when he helmed 1938's Il Sogno di Butterfly (Dream of the Butterfly) Maria Cebotari plays opera diva Rosa Belloni, currently starring in a production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The plot thickens when Rosa's backstage life begins to mirror the travails of the character she is portraying. The climax comes when Harry Peters (Fosco Giachetti), the American father of Rosa's illegitimate child, returns after four years with his new wife in tow, leading inexorably to a doleful ending both on- and offstage. Critics complained about the substandard photography in Il Sogno di Butterfly, but this might have been due to poor laboratory work.
An alcoholic woman was charged and tried for murder and a young defense attorney, unaware that she is his mother, takes the assignment to defend her in court.
Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the gray morning after. In gambling dens and lavish soirees, men of means exert their wills and women turned courtesans exult in pleasure.
In 1912, the Titanic embarks on its inevitable collision course with history. In the wake of the over-spending required to build the largest luxury ship in the world, White Star Line executive Sir Bruce Ismay schemes to reverse the direction of his company's plummeting stock value.
A kind-hearted young man is thrown out of his corrupt home town of West Rome, Oklahoma. He falls asleep and dreams that he is back in the days of olden Rome, where he gets mixed up with court intrigue and a murder plot against the Emperor.
Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota.
Nina Maria Azara is the beautiful and alluring singing spy for Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. Her mission is to seduce French officers, in order for them to reveal Napoleon's intentions toward Spain.
An English peace judge in an Irish district is married to an Irishwoman. She is a caring patriot. He is heavily indebted by a life of luxury, and doesn't shy away from dark deeds to maintain his lifestyle.
A story about a family after the Second World War. The petty bourgeois cashier Karl Weber of Berlin observes from a distance how his son Ernst participates in the building of a new socialist society.
When a hard-working machinist loses a promotion to a Polish-born worker, he is seduced into joining the secretive Black Legion, which intimidates foreigners through violence.
Imprisoned for practicing black magic, writer and adventurer Giacomo Casanova escapes and wanders Europe, using his fluid sexuality to find his place in life amid a variety of eccentric and strange characters.
The MGM crime reporter introduces Norman Kennedy, District Attorney of a large city, he who talks about the general want for money, and the extraordinary lengths some will go to to get it.
The king paces back and forth; a knight rushes in with the news: It's a boy! The knight visits the three wise fairies with the news, inviting them to a ball in celebration.
The feisty boss of a chain of cafes wants to push the youngest of her daughters off on a husband, who would be well-suited to take over the business one day.
Young Dorothy finds herself in a magical world where she makes friends with a lion, a scarecrow and a tin man as they make their way along the yellow brick road to talk with the Wizard and ask for the things they miss most in their lives.
Krajewski, a young bank clerk, is a romantic and dreams of perfect love. One day, he accidentally meets a beautiful girl whom he helps dry her clothes in his apartment after she falls into a puddle while getting off the tram.
Set in a tiny midwestern town, this sentimental drama centers on the rivalry between two life-long acquaintances whose early friendship falls apart when they woo the same woman.
Naomi Tazawa (Hiroko Kawasaki), who works at Isetan Department Store, was told by an executive at a film company (Ken Uehara), that he was going to make a film about her.
Comments
Have you watched The Dream of Butterfly yet? What did you think about it?
