O Santo Milagroso (1966)

In a small town, the Catholic priest is worried about the competition from the Protestant pastor. The most notable of the recent defections to Protestantism is the local political leader, who converted after a quarrel with the Catholic bishop. To complicate matters further, the Church's sexton falls in love with the pastor's sister. One night the priest and the pastor are in the sacristy, where they, for the first time, are sitting together and playing chess. Someone knocks on the door: it's the sexton with the pastor's sister. The pastor, not wishing to be seen there, disguises himself as a covered saint (Lent is nearing its end, and it is the Catholic tradition to veil the saints' images). The priest lets them in, and tells them it is the image of Saint Francis under the cloth. The pastor sees an opportunity and speaks to the two youngsters as Saint Francis. He tells them that they should not pursue their romance because of their different faiths. The news of the "miracle" spreads through town.

Very naive comedy which shares some themes and one of the main actors with O Pagador de Promessas from a few years earlier. Curiously, both plays' authors went on to become telenovela (name given to Brazilian-made soap operas) writers. However, whereas that former movie was a Marxist drama, this is a comedy with no detectable leftist ideology.

Rating: 40

The Yellow Tomahawk (1954)

A scout serves as a messenger between the Cheyenne and the officer in charge of an Army outpost. Said officer, nicknamed by the Cheyenne as 'The Butcher', intends to build a fort in Cheyenne land, and the Cheyenne send him a warning that, should he carry on with his plan, all the people in his encampment will be massacred. He doesn't heed the advice, with predictable results.

Run-of-the-mill B-Western. The crux, so to speak, of the script is the thesis that a fierce animosity against a different race is an attempt to erase one's own connections with that race. I suppose the appearances of several known (and agreeable) faces in its supporting cast is the movie's major selling point. It was originally made in color, but for reasons unknown to me it was broadcast in black and white.

Rating: 31

Down Argentine Way (1940)

An American woman meets the son of a horse rancher from Argentina during a horse show. She makes him an offer on one of his horses, but he refuses it. The whole matter has to do with a past rift between their respective fathers. The IMDB summary is wrong. The girl actually falls for the guy in America and goes to South America after him. Anyway, then another subplot takes over which has to do with the rancher's past vow to quit entering his horses in flat races after an accident killed one of them. The girl encourages the rancher's son to start training a horse for flat racing. This is hidden from the guy's father. Then they sign the horse in to a big race, and the rancher finds out about it.

Strictly scriptwise, this is atrocious. But, as critics have remarked, the Technicolor is gorgeous, and there are some interesting musical numbers (the best one is an anthological tap dancing sketch). How this came to be regarded as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" is anyone's guess but mine.

Rating: 33

The Brass Legend (1956)

*detailed plot with possible spoilers*
A small town marshal plans to quit his job once his current term expires. His fiancée's kid brother spots a wanted criminal and tells the marshal about it, which then leads to the criminal's arrest. The kid's role in it is omitted by the marshal, for the sake of the kid's safety. The kid's father resents the omission and tells the local newspaper about the kid's role in the arrest. The kid becomes famous and there is an attempt on his life. The criminal escapes from prison before he goes to trial and sends word to the marshal that he wants a showdown between the two in a secluded place.
*end of possible spoilers*

B-Western without much to recommend it. The plot is reasonably coherent, although some have questioned the plausibility of some of the characters' behavior.

Rating: 32

Murder by Death (1976)

Second viewing; previously viewed between 1983 and 1986.

A millionaire invites several renowned detectives to a dinner in his mansion. He announces there is going to be a murder inside the house.

Mostly unfunny parody, with an uninspired script. There is a noticeable effort to capture the clichés of the whodunit genre (with a hardboiled detective thrown in for contrast), but it is all done in a rather mechanical manner.

Rating: 36 (down from 51)

The Broken Star (1956)

I could not write a better summary than IMDB has: "When a deputy marshal murders a henchman, steals the racketeer money he is holding, and claims self defense, the head marshal orders an investigation to find the truth." (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049031/)

Run-of-the-mill Western whose main attraction for me was to watch some actors whose face I didn't recognize. The good guys in this one keep doing stupid things so as to allow the film to achieve a commercially acceptable length.

Rating: 31

Na Corda Bamba (1957)

A piano tuner gets entangled in an intrigue between two rival exiles from a distant country concerning the possession of a jewel. He is led to steal the jewel by one of the parties in that dispute. The tuner's nephew, who lives with him, finds the jewel and makes a gift of it to a woman he likes. Troubles follow.

Musical comedy with a banal plot and unsophisticated comicity. The musical numbers are nice, displaying elaborate conception and coreographies.

Rating: 33

Sagarana - O Duelo (1973)

Based on the short story Duelo, by João Guimarães Rosa, submitted to a literary contest in 1938 and published, possibly after a rewrite, in 1946 in the collection Sagarana.

Turíbio, a killer for hire, returns home from a job one day to find his wife in bed with another man, an ex-military named Cassiano. Turíbio walks away without making himself noticed, and begins to plan for revenge. When he decides to act, however, he kills Cassiano's brother by mistake. It's Cassiano then who vows to take revenge on Turíbio, who flees. Their mutual chase goes on for several years.

This filmic transposition is mediocre, only making itself watchable through the intrinsic literary qualities of the original literary work, and  the competent performances of most of the actors. The plot bears similarities with Joseph Conrad's homonymous story.

Rating: 33

The Running Man (1987)

Second viewing; previously viewed on January 26,1991.

In 2017, the U.S. will be a totalitarian state. 'The Running Man' is a very popular TV game show which features prisoners who must fight killers for their lives. A former army pilot who had disobeyed orders, was imprisoned for it, and then escaped is recaptured and sent to fight in the titular game show.

Somewhat repetitive futuristic actioner which nevertheless is not completely without merit as a (to all accounts unheeded) political warning, nor completely without entertaining value.

Rating: 37 (unchanged)

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

The biography of a famous pop singer and composer. His ethnic origins, first woman, rise to stardom, conflicts with his band, gradual abandonment of heterosexuality, solo career, drug abuse, sickness, death (implied).

Biopic which seems to put all its efforts into making a not exactly noteworthy life into a definitely dull one through watering down and downright falsification. All of the acting here is sufficiently good, but I can't refrain from saying that the real Mercury had a toughness about him that is not captured by the lead performance.

Rating: 40

La menace (1977)

Uncertain whether I have seen this before; if so, it was between 1983 and 1986.

English title: The Threat.

*spoilers below*
A manager in a trucking company who was in a relationship with his boss has a new girlfriend and intends to quit the company to start his own business. His ex will not accept their breakup. There is an incident between the two women which finishes with the ex committing suicide. The circumstances make it appear as though she was murdered. The male protagonist tries to conceal his girlfriend's involvement in the incident, but she has left traces of it which are easily found out by the police. She is arrested. He devises a complicated scheme to lead the police to believe that he was the real culprit -- in order to collect the dead woman's inheritance -- and has framed his girlfriend. The police falls for it. The woman is released. The man flees to Canada where he stages his own death and calls up his girlfriend, setting up to meet her in Melbourne. Things then go horribly wrong.
*end of spoilers*

The final section with the trucks is quite harrowing and well done. The film as a whole however is predominantly an exercise in sadism of a cerebral -- though not exactly plausible -- kind. I guess the whole enterprise is not wholly despicable as a lot of mental -- and supposedly physical -- effort went into it. Perhaps the hidden moral of it is that life's difficult situations arouse extraordinary powers in a person's brain which are normally dormant when they could be used to prevent those difficulties.

Rating: 40