A bridge to celebrate the 1937 Golden Gate Bridge opening.

“Here I was born, and there I died. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice.”

Nevinost bez zaštite is a treasure trove. Of fantastic people, feats, footage, and genres. We sit down to watch #Serbia's first feature talkie, also named Nevinost bez zaštite (1943), and are joined by the people who created it.

“Dragoljub Son of our native land! Teeth and muscles, Tried and true All our hearts go out to you!”

While they speak, and occasionally burst out into song, about living in Yugoslavia under Nazi, then communist control, we meet Dragoljub!, the movie's lead with the jaws of steel. A man of great works, humanitarian and other, demonstrates his iron will. And while so, we all, starstruck and in love, sing:

“When they hammer your head, The skull is hard, And never cracks, Mother's little babe of steel! Dragoljub Son of our native land!”

At night, a small group of prostitutes frequent a local 面薄 / mee pok #restaurant. One of them, Bunny (Michelle Goh), caught the hawker's eye, but she's not interested in the “mee pok” (the “fish ball”, as they call the vendor) (Joe Ng) and besides she has a boyfriend. Then, a car crash. Bunny is left for dead in front of the eatery. He takes her in, preparing endless meals

On the #SantaMonica pier, sailor Johnny falls in love with one of the attractions of the local #sideshow, Mora the Mermaid. As people warn Johnny about the faith of Mora's previous suitors, captivated, he becomes convinced that she is a real siren, planning his downfall.

– Yes, I love the sea most of all. But I'm afraid of it, too.

– I guess we're all a little afraid of what we love.

Night Tide is a vital key to understanding the odd connection between Hollywood and the workings of #Thelema. Several involved – Marjorie Cameron (as the “Water Witch”), #drag trapeze artist and once-Jean #Cocteau's lover Barbette – moved in Thelemic and related #occult, #esoteric circles. Painter Paul Mathison, Night Tide extra and crew member, created backdrops for the works of the great Lucifer himself, #KennethAnger.

 

This, lost dreamlike L.A. is gone; a treasure like Night Tide serves as a reminder of a more spellbinding Hollywood.

A goodnight #kiss on the lips was all it takes for 14-year old Manuela to fall for her teacher, Fräulein Von Bernburg. Then, while celebrating her rousing performance as the male lead in the play Don Carlos, Manuela gaily blurts out that yes, she indeed is in love with her teacher! This lack of discipline can't go unpunished, with devastating results.

“What you call sin, I call the great spirit of love, which takes a thousand forms.”

– Fräulein Von Bernburg

Mädchen in Uniform with its all-female cast was, no… is!, a daring sapphic romantic drama based on a wildly popular play by Christa Winsloe. After multiple well attended screenings the film got banned in Germany because of its anti-authoritarian undertones, and almost banned in the US because of its lesbianism. Thankfully one of the picture's admirers – Eleanor Roosevelt – stepped in, resulting in a limited release.

In this #supernatural Filipino melodrama, it being a Filipino melodrama, the town's muse tragically drowns, taking her newborn child with her. The orphaned baby floats down the river then is picked up by an older, childless couple who gladly raise her as their own. The child has a strange attachment to the #Pasig river where at night, a mysterious spellbinding voice sings the #kundiman [traditional love song] Mutya ng Pasig.

 

While Mutya ng Pasig is a lovely, somewhat predictable mystery by Richard Abelardo, it's well worth your time on a slowly meandering, hot summer night.

Japanese author Yukio Mishima was, besides an aesthete, a fierce proponent of Japanese nationalism. In 憂國, based on his short 1960 story, Mishima plays palace guard Lt. Shinji Takeyama. Despite being one of the instigators of an ultra-nationalist coup, Takeyama decides he cannot overthrow the government as it would mean having to kill his friends and be disloyal to the Emperor. Returning home, he and his bride Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) perform #切腹 (#seppuku / #HaraKiri), as in line with Takeyama's #samurai heritage.

 

Yūkoku is a #SilentFilm that plays out like #Noh #theatre, with an extreme emphasis on the beauty and love of death and loyalty respectively.

 

After Mishima's own seppuku in 1970, his widow ordered all copies of Yūkoku to be destroyed. In 2005, in Mishima's house, a pristine copy was uncovered in a tea box.

Like in Enrico Novelli's Un matrimonio interplanetario [A Marriage in the Moon] (1910), interplanetary romance blooms in Аэлита.

Through her #telescope, Queen Aelita spots engineer Los, a handsome Earth man, and he promptly travels to #Mars to be with her. There, Los uncovers an uprising by the Elders against his beloved queen that he vows to – in good proletarian fashion – stomp down.

 

Aelita*'s constructivist stage and costume design had an enormous influence on science fiction, as far as the late 20th century.

The global audience of #Mondo-Vision, a live broadcast #TimeTravel experiment, determines through their emotional investment in the lead's screened experience what the man's destination will be. Even so, the spectators' collective energy should serve as a powerhouse, enabling a televised leap into the future. The man whose faith determines it all is Terence Stamp – played by the actor with the same name. He agrees to partake in the hope that enough emotional energy can be harvested for him to travel back in time so he can reunite with his lost love.

 

While definitely taking a cue or two from Alain Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968), Hu-Man has a much grimmer feel to it. The seventies were not a time of or even for optimism, including Stamp's career and personal life. Noun Serra's dizzying editing and the real-world danger both the in-movie actor and real-world actor are exposed to makes Hu-Man a much more self-referential and personal experience for this future's reality-fatigued viewer.

During a #summer #vacation on #FireIsland, two young men come across Sandy, an attractive young woman with an injured #seagull. While nursing the bird back to life, the relationship between the three deepens. A second girl, the much younger Rhoda (the breathtaking Catherine Burns) is taken in by the trio.

“What are you going to do with the rest of your life? Sit on the shore and watch?”

– Sandy

Set almost entirely on a sunny #beach, Frank Perry's Last Summer may be one of the most claustrophobic films you'll ever watch.