The cycle dedicated to Billy Wilder continues this March with some of the titles he wrote and directed in the first half of the 1940s. In 1941, signs with Charles Brackett the script of a Howard Hawks comedy, foc ball, with which he got an Oscar nomination for best story. In the following year, Wilder directs his first feature film alone, The oldest and the youngest, a comic farce with a rather murky subtext. with Five tombs in Cairo (1943) ix from the scope of comedy to thriller war and the film is nominated for three Oscars. His next film, nominated for seven Oscars, will establish him as a great filmmaker. It's about Perdition (1944), a timeless classic, fifth essence of film noir. The delivery wilderià of the month is completed with the short documentary film Death Mills, that is going to shoot in Germany in 1946 commissioned by the war department of the United States government, in which he documents the horrors of the Nazi death camps.
21.03.26 SATURDAY / 20.15 h
22.03.26 SUNDAY / 18.00 h
war factories
Die Todesmühlen / Death Mills
BILLY WILDER. USA. 1946. VOS SPANISH. B/N. 22′. DCP.
Wilder returns to Europe at the conclusion of the Second World War, claimed by the Office of War Information to collaborate in the "denazification" of German industry. When he receives the first material filmed by the Allies after his entry into the concentration camps, decide to make a film to show the world, and especially to the Germans, the horrors carried out there.
Five tombs in Cairo
Five Graves to Cairo
BILLY WILDER. USA. 1943. VOS SPANISH. B/N. 96′. DCP.
Int. Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter, Akim Tamiroff, Erich Von Stroheim, Peter Van Eyck, Fortunio Bosanova..
Second World War, border between Libya and Egypt. John Bramble, English head of tanks, he is the only survivor of a battle against Rommel's Afrika Corps. He barely manages to get to a small hotel owned by Farid, an egyptian, who keeps it going with the help of the Frenchwoman*Mouche. At that moment a German column arrives.
