El buen amor (1963)

 English title: The Good Love

A young couple who's been dating for a year decide to secretly travel to another town to have a day away from everyone they know. The trip entails a series of quarrels between them, and also provides an opportunity for them to know each other (and themselves) better, and to plan for their future together.

This is a satisfactory drama about youth. It is quite realistic and the writer/director also displays a good mastery of mise-en-scène. The location shooting in Toledo makes for great visuals in black-and-white.

Rating: 62

Our Town (1940)

It centers on two families living next door in a small town, one headed by an editor and the other by a physician. Their two respective elder children fall in love and marry each other.

I guess I'm the only one in the world who didn't like this, and found its text just a collection of pseudo-philosophical platitudes, and its narrative a collection of conformist banalities. Well, anyway, I must admit that as a cinematic production, it is very well done in all its aspects of image and sound, and so I can't say it's a completely bad movie.

Rating: 42

No Mundo da Lua (1958)

Zé da Foice travels from his native State in Northeastern Brazil to Rio de Janeiro to meet the widow with whom he had been exchanging love letters. He is accompanied by Mário, a younger man. Upon arrival, the pair is noticed by Nancy, a criminal in a gang. Said gang is planning to rob a rich industrialist who happens to be Zé da Foice's exact lookalike.

Comedy with a formulaic plot and few mildly funny moments. Some musical numbers are inserted, as usual in this kind of production, the most curious of which is a rendering of The Banana Boat Song by one George Green.

Rating: 19

Incomplete Cast:
Walter d'Ávila as Zé da Foice and Matias the industrialist
Violeta Ferraz as Dora (the widow)
Consuelo Leandro as Carolina (woman who claims to be Zé da Foice's wife)
Nancy Wanderley as Nancy (Northeast-born gang member)
Tiririca (Ubyrajara Vianna) as Matias's chauffeur
Hélio Colonna as Gang Leader's Son
Reginaldo Faria as Mário (Zé da Foice's young friend)
Aracy Rosas as Magali (the widow's niece)
Mozael Silveira as Thirty-Three (escaped lunatic)
Zélia Hoffman as Márcia (woman who seduces Matias)
Saluquia Rentini as Matias's wife
Frederico Schlee as Gang Leader
Leila Miranda as Matias's secretary
Renée Brown as Nurse in Psychiatric Hospital
Francisco Martorelli as Doctor in Psychiatric Hospital

The Troublemaker (1964)

 A country man moves to New York to open a café, and has to deal with the pervading corruption which plagues the city. He is helped by a cynical lawyer friend and starts a relationship with a free-spirited visual artist.

A comic view of several aspects of New York City life in the mid-1960s, which prefigures in a way some films which tackled in a more serious manner the problem of urban corruption, such as Serpico. Although made with some verve, its sense of humor is really far from sophisticated, and gets, at its worst, annoying.

(Admittedly, I couldn't understand some of the dialogue.)

Rating: 35