Charles Dickens was one of the most prolific writers of his generation, having written a number of books. Most of his books were on the subject of the society of Great Britain of that time, and he wrote about the horrors, the deprivation, the class challenges, and the poor condition of the poorer classes of that time (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and many others that contain some pretty grim descriptions of the conditions of most of England of that time). A Christmas Carol is different from many of those books - it also depicts the condition of society, especially the different conditions of the different social classes at that times, but it is also a novel that describes how a person can change himself if shown the right way. It is a book that is written for Christmas, a play on how the spirit of Christmas, of giving, can change even the most hard-nosed person and reform them.

A Christmas Carol was an incredibly successful novel, selling many copies right after release, and being popular ever since. When one thinks of the Christmas Spirit and of reform, the story of Ebenezer Scrooge comes to mind. It is a popular tale, and the concept of the redemption of a person when shown his own faults, and the vision of a horrible future that forces the person to confront his own inner self is a popular tale from the beginning of man.
A Christmas tale is the story of a miserable old miser, unwilling to recognize the suffering around him, unwilling to show pity to those around him. On the Eve of Christmas, he starts seeing various things of a paranormal nature, including visions of his former business partner Jacob Marley (dead for 7 years now). Finally, after all the bells of the house start ringing, and the ghost of Marley enters through the door and warns Scrooge that he has one chance of redemption, else his fate will be horrible - he would be doomed to wander the world after death, unable to make any amends for what he has done. He will see 3 spirits over the next 3 days that will allow him to change his fate.
And thus starts the journey:
He first sees the Ghost of Christmas Past, who shows Scrooge visions from previous Christmas Days, including how Scrooge’s sister saved him from boarding school, and Scrooge does not treat her son Fred properly. The spirit reminds him of how others treated him, and takes him down the painful path of how he lost his love, Belle, due to his love for money. Scrooge gets angry and dismisses the spirit.
Next, he sees the Ghost of Christmas Present in the adjoining room, who takes him through how others are enjoying Christmas. His apprentice Bob Cratchit, with his lame son Tiny Tim are enjoying even though their celebrations are meager. Scrooge’s other friends don’t talk too much good about him either, with only his nephew seeing any good. Overall, the Ghost shows Scrooge how people enjoy the spirit of Christmas, no matter their circumstances. He admonishes Scrooge about 2 major causes of suffering in the world, ‘Ignorance’ and ‘Want’. With that, the spirit vanishes.
Finally, in the most horrific experience, Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future, a grim black spectre. The spectre does not speak, only shows Scrooge future suffering, including a death where no one is with him, and even his attendants rob him. Scrooge is shaken by this vision, and promises to turn a new leaf.
With the 3 spirits gone, it is now Christmas morning; and Scrooge changes himself totally, becoming a kind-hearted person who cares for everyone around him. He starts using his wealth to improve the lives of those he touches.

During the early half of the 20th century, in the tension between Germany on the one side, and England on the other side, Africa was an important battle ground. Along with France and Portugal, all of them had empires in the region, and wars ensured that there was intense competition to attack at the territories controlled by the other. This political scenario sits at the background, and catches up with the finale of the movie and the novel on which the movie was based on. The movie was based on a novel of the same name, written by .S. Forester, and published in 1935. The 1935 period was a time when Britain was seemingly in decline, unable to catch up with an economically and politically resurgent Germany under Hitler. The novel, set in 1914 (at the start of the First World War) is also construed as an attempt to show citizens of Britain that the English were on the winning side of the First World War, able to capture the Empire earlier controlled by Germany.

The African Queen was directed by John Huston, and produced by Sam Spiegel (billed as “S.P. Eagle”) and John Woolf. The movie was shot in both Central Africa (at some amount of hardship to the Queen), but since health concerns prevented the lead stars from getting into African river water, the water scenes were shot back in England. The movie revolved around the lead pair of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. Katharine and her brother Samuel Sayer (played by Robert Morley) are British missionaries in a village in German East Africa (now known as Tanzania), who get supplies through a boat (The African Queen) run by the rough Canadian Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart). He warns them that German troops will soon arrive, but they refuse to leave. The Germans dutifully appear, and start forcing the local villagers to serve as soldiers in the war. When Samuel tries to oppose, he is beaten, and dies soon after. Cliff arrives soon after, and helps Rose in burying her brother, and she leaves with him. She wants to go via the lake downriver, and he tells her that the Germans are blocking the entry to the lake with a gunboat, and they will also be in danger.
Cliff is hesitant, but Rose is firm on moving toward the lake, even though it will be a tough journey and there will be 3 rapids on the way, along with all the other dangers about more troops, and wild animals. They have a tough journey with many adventures, but manage to overcome the challenges that they keep on facing. As they approach the lake, Rose proposes to convert the boat into a torpedo boat and sink the gunboat by colliding with it and using explosives to blow up the gunboat. As they attempt this, the African Queen seems to sink, effectively sinking their plan as well. They are caught, and before being executed as spies, Bogart, as a last wish, asks for them to be married. As they are married, in a miracle, the gunboat collided with the sunken African Queen and caused the explosives to blast, sinking the gunboat.

Oscars:
- Best Actor in a Leading Role - Humphrey Bogart (his only Oscar for Best Actor)
- Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role (Katharine Hepburn)
- Nominated: Best Adapted Screenplay (James Agee & John Huston)
- Nominated: Best Director (John Huston)

High Noon is a classic Western movie, counted as among the top 100 movies of all time. The movie was released in 1952, and one of the classic devices used in the film was that it almost seemed real time, with the action depicted in the movie happening from a time period of around 10:40 AM to 12 noon (high noon) over the 84 minute time period of the movie. The movie was made in a time of the vicious (and mostly uncontested) anticommunist witch-hunt carried out by Senator Joesph McCarthy, and there is a lot of speculation about whether the scenario of the movie, the hero being abandoned by everybody else in the town under the threat of the killer coming to town was a play on the fact that the Senator’s witch-hunt was not opposed (and in fact, many people actively collaborated on the same theme) by most people. It is only when several careers had been damaged, people had their reputations damaged, that questions and opposition started emerging.

High Noon is a classic tale of the contest between duty vs. love, the question that puts most men, including honorable men in a tizzy. When you have promised something to your love, and yet your duty is pushing you to take a step in the other direction, how does a good and just person decide what to do. You make the choices that duty forces you to make, knowing that you may be losing out on something that you love the most.
The movie is about this Marshall of the town of Hadleyville, Kansas called Will Kane (Gary Cooper); he has managed to clean the town and keeps it clean. However, his new wife Amy (Grace Kelly) is a Quaker, with pacifist tendencies, and he has promised her that he will become the same way, and give up this life of violence, death and law-enforcement. Accordingly, he is all set to give up his badge and become normal citizen, a storekeeper. And then he learns the news that will cause him to go into a moral dilemma. A convict he had captured, Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), was freed on a technicality; and he has vowed to revenge himself on Will. The good way is for Will to go away from town, this will save the town from violence, and keep the promise he has made to Amy.
At the same time, Will is a honest law-enforcer and knows that Frank will not rest till he has hunted Will down, so he decides to remain and fight. Unfortunately, he finds that he has no support; his new wife is aghast that he has broken his promise and wants to leave on the train, with or without Will; the townspeople want to avoid a confrontation, and in a highly controversial stance, refuse to support Will (this was controversial, that American citizens would refuse to get involved in supporting their Marshall due to cowardice, a stance for which the movie was criticized). In the end, you have the classic scene of Will walking on the empty street, dressed in typical Western Gear, waiting for the train carrying Frank Miller to arrive.
In the fight, Will is against 4 enemies, and in a final situation, his wife helps him by shooting one of the gangsters in the back, and then fighting with Frank when he has held her hostage, till Will manages to kill Frank. In the final epic scene, Will leaves town with his wife, throwing his Marshall’s star in the dirt in sheer contempt of the cowardly attitude of his townspeople.

Oscars won:

- Best Actor in a Leading Role (Gary Cooper)
- Best Film Editing (Elmo Williams and Harry W. Gerstad)
- Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Dimitri Tiomkin)
- Best Music, Song (Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for “Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin”, sung by Tex Ritter).

Nominations:
Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Writing, Screenplay.

By the 1920’s, violence in Mexico had largely subsided (after the Mexican Revolution). However, Mexico has to contend with a large number of bandits around the countryside, and in a manner of using a blunt weapon, the Mexican authorities relied on the Federal Police, also known as the ‘Federales’ to bring peace to remote areas. Both the bandits and the Federales relied on extreme violence. While getting caught by bandits meant death for travelers, bandits caught by the Federal Police faced a similar fate, often having to dig their own grave before being shot. This is the scenario of the remote areas of Mexico where the book and the movie are set.
With most of the shooting being outside the United States (most of it in Mexico), and some of it in sets in Hollywood, the scenes of the movie totally complement the situation, with some harsh yet beautiful locations.
The movie (directed by John Huston) is based on the 1927 book of the same name by German-English bilingual author B. Traven. It stars the famous Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt in the title roles of the 3 main treasure-hunters; who set out together, find the treasure, and are then beset by greed and wanting to claim the treasure for themeselves, in the end, losing it all.

The movie is about these 3 Americans who get together (with the younger ones being Fred C. Hobbs (played by Bogart), and Bob Curtin (played by Tim Holt) being the younger ones; the 3rd parter is an old grizzled prospector Howard (played by Walter Huston, the director’s father)). When Dobbs decides that his current wage-working job is not likely to lead anywhere, he decides to stake all he has on prospecting for gold. He is joined by his 2 partners, and they set out to the remote Sierra Madre mountains.
They meet trouble enroute, running into bandits, but surviving. Eventually, due to the experience of the older Howard, they strike gold, and managed to extract a fair amount. And this is when the movie turns into a fine study of the extent to which greed can turn a human character, with Dobbs getting increasingly paranoid, and desiring to possess the entire gold for himself. They meet more bandits (pretending to be Federales, with the famous line, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges. We don’t need no badges. I don’t have to show you any stinkin’ badges!”). They manage to beat the bandits off, but soon internal struggles turn more problematic. When Howard has to go away to help some others, Dobbs and Curtin have a confrontation, and Dobbs wins and goes away with the gold. However, he soon is killed in another fight with more bandits, who mistake the gold for sand (a bit hard to accept), and who spread it over the desert.

Oscar Awards:

John Huston won the Academy Award for Directing
John Huston won the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
Walter Huston, John Huston’s father, also won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in this film, the first father-son win.
Nominated: Best Picture award, but lost to Laurence Olivier’s film adaptation of Hamlet.

The death penalty has always been controversial, the debate over whether society and laws have the moral and ethical right to take another person’s life. There are a large number of countries where the death penalty no longer exists, with the major nations where the death penalty still holds being Russia, China, India, United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia (and other Islamic countries), Singapore, etc. In the United States, the debate has been a long one, with many people being strong proponents of the death penalty, and others arguing against it (this is getting more heated now that DNA testing is revealing wrongful convictions, link to Innocence Project).
Dead Man Walking is based on a book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun, a passionate advocate of abolition of the death penalty in the US. The title of the book and the movie comes from the traditional saying by guards walking the condemned man to his execution, “Dead man walking, dead man walking here”.

The movie (directed by Tim Robbins) won great critical acclaim, and was nominated for a number of Academy Awards. It deals with the story of Matthew Poncele (played by Sean Penn - and based on 2 different characters whom Sister Helen Prejean counselled, both of whom were on death row. In the movie, Matthew has been in prison for 6 years now, awaiting his execution for the crime of having killed a teenage couple (after having raped the girl); his accomplice Vitello was sentenced to a lighter prison sentence due to a better lawyer.
Matthew appeals to the Sister to help him in his final appeal; and he is not the image of a repentant person - instead he comes across as both arrogant and sexist, and with not the slightest tinge of remorse. Instead he claims to be innocent. While visiting him over a period of time, she gets to know his mother, as well as the family members of his victims (who cannot understand her motives for trying to save a convicted murderer). Poncele does not get remission, his appeal for denial of execution is denied, and his date for death is set. Sister Prejean will finally hope to save his soul, for him to confess his deeds. In the end, Matthew does indeed do so, confessing his crimes and pleading for forgiveness from the family members of his victims (just before his execution).

Oscars:
Susan Sarandon won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role.
Sean Penn was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Tim Robbins was nominated for Best Director
Main track, “Dead Man Walkin” by Bruce Springsteen nominated for Best Song

The Marx Brothers were very famous for their films during the earlier part of the 20th century, and ‘Duck Soup’ was the last movie with Paramount where the Marx Brothers starred (there were a total of 5 such movies with Paramount). During the making of Duck Soup, contract disputes became paramount in the relationship, and both the Marx Brothers and Paramount decided to part ways after the making of the movie. In addition, this was the last movie where Zeppo had starred, and hence can be considered worth seeing just for that particular reason.
The movie did not do so well at the box office, almost being considered a failure, yet, as always happens, the movie was re-evaluated over a period of time, and was seen as a classic, a great comedy and designated for preservation in the National Film Registry (wikipedia) of the United States.

The Marx Brothers specialized in comedy, and this movie was no different, with several comic scenes that would have you enjoying the movie. One of the iconic scenes from this movie is the mirror scene - where Harpo Marx copies the action of Groucho Marx to the last detail to avoid detection and to make the character of Groucho Marx believe that he is seeing himself in a mirror. Although this was not the first time that this type of scene has been depicted, the sequence in ‘Duck Soup’ is probably the best known instance of this scene in a movie.
The movie is a comedy depicting activies on a national level, where a country, Freedonia, wants assistance from a wealthy lady Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont). She in turn insists that Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) be made the leader of the country. At the same time, since Freedonia is in such a bad state, the neighboring country Sylvania wants to take advantage and take over Freedonia. To that purpose, Sylvania’s ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern) stirs up trouble, trying to create a revolution in Freedonia; he also woos Mrs. Teasdale, and sends in Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx) to spy on Firefly.
Firefly spots Chicolini as a vendor on the street and appoints him Secretary of the War, and tries to insult Trentino so that Trentino can attack Firefly and thus be forced to leave the country. However, the plan reverses and Firefly instead slaps Trentino and this brings the 2 countries to the brink of war. There are further comic scenes, and eventually the 2 countries go to war, with lots of song and dance involved. In the final battle scenes, in order to provide another great comic effect, Firefly keeps on changing his costume almost in every scene, wearing uniforms belonging to different armies, and even the Boy Scout Scoutmaster uniform.

One of the most brutal revolutions in Europe in recent times has been the French Revolution; it had many phases and can be taken to mean the period between 1789 and 1799, when the army finally took over in the form of its leader, Napoleon Bonaparte. In the interim period, there were many struggles, many twists and turns. A new instrument of murder, the guillotine, was the main execution tool. People condemned to death for anti-revolution fervor, for their thoughts, and because getting them condemned to death removed them from the scene, all would be brought to the public squares where they would be executed with the guillotine.
‘A tale of 2 cities’ was published in 1859, and is set during the time period of the French Revolution. It shows the sheer terror of those times, where you could be condemned to death for even sympathizing with the fate of an earlier executed ‘enemy’ of the revolution, where a person could be condemned based on the written statement of a person (even if the person wants to take the statement back). The terror of the French Revolution evolved during a complex stage in which the excesses of the nobility and the church had crushed the poorer part of the population (Wikipedia), and this was almost pay-back time.

The book led to a very remembered opening statement, starting with these incredible words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness”. The book covers the conflicting story of many people, including arrogant aristocrats who were condemned, humble and good aristocrats who were also condemned, people taking revenge using the medium of the revolution, and how the revolution eventually also condemns those who were its proponents earlier. The book has been used as the base for a number of movies over the years, and was itself based on the book ‘The French Revolution: A History’ by Thomas Carlyle.
The novel covers the story of the following main characters:
- Dr Alexandre Manette: A prisoner in the Bastille for 18 years, and the father of the lady who is one of the main characters
- Lucie Manette: Young lady loved by both Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, and also the daughter of Dr. Manette
- Charles Darnay: A young, and good-natured French nobel. He never liked the cruelty of his family towards the peasantry and abandons the family name (Evrémonde), and fled to England after assuming his mother’s maiden name
- Sydney Carton: A complex, but depressed English barrister. Loves Lucie, and promises her that he will do whatever he can for her and her family. Eventually does so in the end with a supreme act of self-sacrifice.
- Monsieur Ernest Defarge: Took care of Dr. Manette, also a closet revolutionary
- Madame Therese Defarge: A dark-natured closet revolutionary and wife of Ernest. She is also bent of taking revenge for the extermination of her family at the hands of Darnay’s uncle

This is another great movie by Frank Capra; one that is not so famous right now, but very famous and controversial in its time. Because it was about corruption in Washington, in the seat of Government and in the legislature, the Washington Press and Congress members labeled the movie as a movie pandering to Communist interests and against American interest. This was not only a US politician reaction, with the other dictatorships (Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and Spain under Franco) all banning the movie as well. Other countries took liberties in the dubbing of the movie to alter the tone of the script and the dialog.
The movie was well-received (it got 11 Academy nominations after all - not a small number by any standard, although it did not win any of the major ones, and in fact won only one Academy award, for Best Screenplay).

The movie was released in 1939, and starred James Stewart in the lead role (the movie also had the effect of giving a major filip to his career); it had some well know stars of that era such as Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Charles Lane, and Thomas Mitchell. The movie was based on a novel called ‘The Gentleman from Montana’ (by author Lewis R. Foster), with the script of the movie written by Sidney Buchman.
The movie is about a guy called Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), who is the head of the Boy Rangers and seen as a non-corrupt guy. When a senator for a US state (the state is not specified in the movie) dies, the Governor, Hubert “Happy” Hopper (Guy Kibbee), has to balance between the public demand for a honest person to be the next Senator vs. the demand from the political chain to have another corrupt and connected politician. Eventually, the Governor decides to select Smith to be the next Senator; soon, he is condemned by the Washington Press as not being like a Senator, more of a bumpkin.
Goaded into making a name for himself, Smith decides to float legislation for getting Government money to buy land for a boy’s camp, with the money coming in from donations by kids all over America. Unknown to him, politics and corruption is already involved in this bill. Soon, things are manipulated such that Smith is soon shown to be owning the land, and Smith decides to run away. However, he is beseeched by his formerly cynical aide / secretary to try and do a legislative tactic called a ‘filibuster’ (wikipedia) to stall the vote to expel him. He tries to stay the course, and starts drawing support while he is talking non-stop (and the political opposition clamps down on the media to prevent his statements from being displayed). His tactic is to continue speaking, and he does so to the point of exhaustion; when he faints, the Senator who had manipulated him, Senator Paine, has remorse and confesses all.

The world outside our planet has always fascinated us, even when we could not see what is out there. In addition to a quest with trying to finding out more of the mysteries of the Universe, there was always a few of the unknown. Suppose there is an alien race on other worlds, there is no reason to believe that they would be friendly towards humanity (in fact, given the ferocity with which humanity fights each other, it is very easy to assume that another race would find it easy to be hostile to us). And of course, if it is a race older than us, they would have a more advanced technology, more advanced weapons, and may be easily able to overcome us (and destroy humanity).
There has been a lot of movie and books coverage of the prospects of an alien invasion of earth, with movies such as Independence Day, Mars Attacks being the most recent. However, this book (by the futuristic science fiction writer HG Wells) is probable the earliest book that deals with this subject (leaving aside the tales of the pyramids and other such structures having been built by aliens), and also details a believable reason for why the attacks by a more technologically superior race would have stopped. In addition, Mars had already been believed to be the center of an advanced race when the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910), described some of the natural phenomenon existing on Mars, and these were wrongly translated into English as ‘there are canals on Mars’.

This novel had remained popular, but what made this novel extraordinarily popular, and at the same scared a large section of the population, was a radio broadcast on Halloween (October 30, 1938) by Orson Wells, where he made listeners panic, believing that the news stories of an actual invasion were true.
The book is about the proposed landing of a Martian ship (cylinder) in the town of Woking, England near the end of the 19th century. This is preceded by the observations of a series of explosions on Mars and the launching of a meteor towards Earth. This meteor lands on Earth, and strange looking Martians start emerging from the cylinder and start building up machinery. Approaching humans are killed by a death ray (a heat ray). The machine that the Martians have been building is a 3-legged fighting machine that uses the heat ray and also uses poison gas in the form of a black smoke.
Attacks on these army of attacking Martians are easily repelled, and they are soon taking control of vast sections of South England, with the populations of those areas evacuating. The narrator, the one who is explaining what is happening (and having been separated from his wife in one of the confusing moments during the attack) is able to watch the Martians from close quarters, including their use of human blood as food. And then suddenly the Martians vanish - they have been felled by the pathogens (bacteria / virus) found on Earth, and to which they are not immune.

‘War and Peace’ has been called as the best novel ever written, and while there would be other favorite novels and people might consider other novels as the greatest, there is no getting around the fact that this is a great novel. War and Peace is taught in many English literature courses as an alltime great book by a great author (his other work, ‘Anna Karenina’ was also very famous).
The story is set around the 1812 French-Russian war where the French emperor, Napolean had invaded Russia. This was eventually a great disaster for the French, since they first managed to take Moscow (which had been abandoned by the Russians as a part of this war), but this did not do them too much good. The Russian winter had already set in, the army had to eventually return back, and they were harassed by the Cossack attacks. They lost a majority of their force in this return, and at the same time, left most of the wooden structures of Moscow burning.

The novel was published through a period from 1865 to 1869 in the ‘Russkii Vestnik’, and went through 2 complete different forms. Tolstoy was not happy with the first published draft, and totally rewrote the novel to get another version, that was the final published version. This original version was also published again in the last 2 decades and is now available in many languages after translation. The writing of the book in its original also reflects some of the cultural norms of the society of that time - while most of the book was in Russian, there are many dialogues that were written in French since this was the language of the French aristocracy. There is apparently a small patriotic subtext in the book as well as regards language - French is used more to denote insincerity while Russian is increasingly used to show the more honest and better part.
The book takes characters from 3 main Russian families (The Rostovs, the Bolkonskys, and the Bezukovs, along with some more associated characters), including those who are part of the nobility and those on the edge of financial ruin, and takes the movements in their life, centered around the oncoming conflict with France, and moving onto the changes that happen due to this conflict, and the aftermath. An imposing historical figure such as Napoleon is a side part of this story, it is the impressive flesh and blood tale of these Russian characters, intersection with a description of the Russian society at that time that makes this a very impressive work of fiction.
The story presents some major characters such as Pierre Bezukhov (the main character, very honest, but not worldly wise - supposed to be a reflection of Tolstoy himeself), Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky (brave, a soldier looking forward to the war), Natasha Rostova (starting out as a young girl, she goes through many trials and tribulations, and eventually gets married to Pierre), Nikolai Rostov (another soldier, also responsible for trying to keep his family from financial ruin), Sonya Rostova (a poor cousin, she was engaged to Nikolai, but eventually releases him so that he can marry the rich Princess Maria), and many other such characters.