Dublin in Brass

The Pogues playing on St. Patrick's Day in London's Town and Country serves to remind fans why we loved the band and possibly why their breakup was inevitable. A thoroughly sloshed Shane MacGowan mumbles and screams his way through most of their hits to that point in time. Of course, real fans like the mumbling and the screaming. Lots of energy, great guests - The Specials, the late Kirstie MacColl and especially the late great Joe Strummer - who not only gets up on stage for a stirring rendition of London Calling, but serves as a kind of host for the evening as he discusses what made the Pogues so great. The video times in at a paltry 60 minutes which leaves you begging for more, but between the singalong Wild Rover and the silly string silliness of Fiesta, it is a jam-packed entertaining piece of music history.

A party, musical love stories: head North, on a Northern Soul rhythm.

This is one of the rare gems in early Chinese musical films that still exists today. Nancy Chan plays a naïve young woman who can sing and dance. Under the arrangement of her stepfather, she becomes a star and indulges in the glitz and glamour of the entertainment world before getting married to a wealthy heir in Nanyang. Yet her husband is cruel and unfaithful, leading her to divorce and return to her parents in Shanghai. She is set for a comeback to the stage. Her young daughter suffers from a serious illness. A remake of the Bu Wanchang’s silent film The Light of Maternal Instinct (1933), this film takes cues from Hollywood musicals, resulting in an elegant and lively fusion of camera movement and musical numbers. The film also reflects the harsh reality of China in the 1930s and the pathos of popular literature by combining morals, entertainment and social commentary to show that changes in the idea of femininity is a symbol of progress.

Fresh out of prison, Git rescues a former best friend (now living with Git's girlfriend) from a beating at the hands of loan sharks. He's now in trouble with the mob boss, Tom French, who sends Git to Cork with another debtor, Bunny Kelly, to find a guy named Frank Grogan, and take him to a man with a friendly face at a shack across a bog. It's a tougher assignment than it seems: Git's a novice, Bunny's prone to rash acts, Frank doesn't want to be found (and once he's found, he has no money), and maybe Tom's planning to murder Frank, which puts Git in a moral dilemma. Then, there's the long-ago disappearance of Sonny Mulligan. What's a decent and stand-up lad to do?

Sharon Curley is a 20-year-old living with her parents and many brothers and sisters in Dublin. When she gets pregnant and refuses to name the father, she becomes the talk of the town.

On a set resembling a yacht, Roger Wolfe Kahn leads his orchestra in several popular tunes of the day. Billed and un-billed guest acts also perform. At the end, Kahn thrills his guests by piloting a biplane.

Ray and Ken, two hit men, are in Bruges, Belgium, waiting for their next mission. While they are there they have time to think and discuss their previous assignment. When the mission is revealed to Ken, it is not what he expected.

A young man pursues a relationship with an independent street vendor. Despite their differences, he tries various ways to convince her to marry him.

A freed slave, who is descended from a murdered witch, plots revenge with her grandmother on a sugar plantation's inhabitants. Complications ensue due to her love for the master of the estate.

Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.

An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.