Rhapsody 1954

The film follows the passengers and crew on an airline flight from Hawaii to California that develops engine problems at its mid-way point. While the captain expects a ditching, the first officer convinces him to try to make the airport. The crew eventually nurses the damaged airliner to a safe landing where an inspection reveals that it landed with virtually dry tanks…

Italia anni Cinquanta. L'immagine di grandezza ed opulenza, portata dall'arrivo delle truppe americane nel 1944, è ancora presente in molti giovani italiani. Uno di questi è Ferdinando Mericoni (Alberto Sordi) detto "Nando" (ma autosoprannominatosi Santi Byron), eterno giovanotto e sognatore ad occhi aperti, conoscitore del mondo americano attraverso…

Presents a day in the life of a few inhabitants of Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands: A father and his daughter are having breakfast when the fire-brigade drive by. A woman and her child are looking at the fire and meet a married couple. The couple say hello to a man who is going out with his boat… and so on.

This liturgical-surrealistic parable evokes the model-like events of the second decade of the century as reflected by the inner spiritual transformation of István Zsadányi, inspired by the figure of Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. The young Zsadányi brothers of licentious habits kill the peasant leader András Baksa because he had humiliated their father. The fiercely nationalist István fights through World War I and in the following era of White Terror becomes a racist detachment officer and a Member of Parliament. After a lost battle, ridden by visions, he has his most devoted followers butchered. A mystical and fanatic love of freedom and the land turns him gradually to the common people. He leaves for the Baksa farm to face the son of the murdered old Baksa and the fate that awaits him.

During the Second World War, onboard a small insignificant ship in the U.S. Pacific Fleet, an event occurs unlike any that the United States Navy has ever experianced. A Ship's Captain is removed from his command by his Executive Officer in an apparent outright act of mutiny. As the trial of the mutineers unfold, it is then learned that the Captain of the ship was mentally unstable, perhaps even insane. The Navy must then decide: was the Caine Mutiny a criminal act? Or an act of courage to save a ship from destruction at the hands of her Captain.

Summer of 1943. The Jews of Greater Bulgaria must adhere to the laws of Germany. Moni, (17) a Jewish youngster from Sofia and Giogio the son of the commissar for Jewish affairs' driver, meet Shelly (17) a Jewish girl from Kavala (Greece). The two face the values and limits of friendship, as they both fall in love with her, while outside rages their conflicted world.

Katie Derham introduces the ever-popular John Wilson and his orchestra in a celebration of the music of Hollywood. Bernard Herrmann's Psycho, Erich Korngold's Robin Hood, Max Steiner's Casablanca and Miklos Rozsa's Ben Hur are among the film scores featured, performed by the orchestra Wilson describes as 'a symphony orchestra with an old-fashioned dance band in the middle'. With soloists Venera Gimadieva, Matthew Ford and Jane Monheit.

In 1954, Richard Dimbleby and a BBC film crew visited the Isle of Skye to record an episode of the early British television series About Britain. In this programme he gives viewers across the United Kingdom an insight into life on the island, meeting local characters and gaining an understanding of the lifestyle and culture of islanders, as well as spending some time with the Skye Mountain Rescue team and with Dame Flora Macleod at Dunvegan Castle. Introduced by Alasdair Fraser.