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Intimate Strangers


            The movie is based on the true story of two British athletes competing in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Englishman Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross), who is Jewish, overcomes anti-Semitism and class prejudice in order to compete against the "Flying Scotsman", Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), in the 100 metre race.Opening in 1919 England, Harold Abrahams enters Cambridge University, where he meets with anti-Semitism from the staff, but enjoys participating in the Gilbert and Sullivan theatre club. He becomes the first person to ever complete the Trinity Great Court run: running around the court in the time it takes for the clock to strike 12. Abrahams achieves an undefeated string of victories in various national running competitions. Although focused on his running, he falls in love with a famous Gilbert and Sullivan soprano, Sybil (Alice Krige).Meanwhile in Scotland, Eric Liddell (Ian Charleson), born in China of Scottish missionary parents, is in Scotland. His devout sister Jennie (Cheryl Campbell) disapproves of Liddell's plans to pursue competitive running. But Liddell sees running as a way of glorifying God before returning to China to work as a missionary.Abrahams and Liddell meet for the first time in London in June 1923 when they first race against each other in a British open. Liddell beats Abrahams who takes it extremely badly. But Sam Mussabini (Ian Holm), a professional trainer whom Abrahams had approached earlier, offers to take him on to improve his technique. This attracts criticism from the Cambridge college masters (John Gielgud and Lindsay Anderson). In their meeting with Abrahams, the Cambridge masters allege it is ungentlemanly for an amateur to "play the tradesman" by employing a professional coach. Abrahams realizes this is a cover for their anti-Semitism and class entitlement, and dismisses their concern.Meanwhile, when Liddell accidentally misses a church prayer meeting because of his running, his sister Jennie upbraids him and accuses him of no longer caring about God. But Eric tells her that though he intends to eventually return to the China mission, he feels divinely inspired when running, and that not to run would be to dishonor God: "I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."The two athletes, after over a year of training and racing, are accepted to represent Great Britain in the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. Also accepted are Abrahams' Cambridge buddies, Lord Andrew Lindsay (Nigel Havers), Aubrey Montague (Nicholas Farrell), and Henry Stallard (Daniel Gerroll) whom join the UK team.While boarding the boat to Paris for the Olympics, Liddell learns from the newspapers that the event for his 100 meter race will be on a Sunday. Liddell refuses to run the race despite strong pressure from the Prince of Wales (David Yelland) as well as the head of the British Olympic committee, Lord Cadogan (Patrick Magee) because Liddell's Christian convictions prevent him from running on the Christian Sabbath (Sunday).Hope appears in the form of Liddell's teammate Lord Andrew Lindsay. Having already won a silver medal in the 400 meter hurdles, Lindsay proposes to yield his place in the 400 meter race on the following Tuesday to Liddell. Liddell gratefully agrees. His religious convictions in the face of national athletic pride make headlines around the world.Liddell delivers a sermon at the Paris Church of Scotland that Sunday, and quotes from Isaiah 40, verse 31:"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and be not weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."Meanwhile, Abrahams is badly beaten by the heavily favored and more experienced United States runner Charles Paddock (Dennis Christopher) in the 200 meter race who wins the gold medal, while Abrahams takes a second place silver medal. Abrahams knows that his last chance for a gold medal will be the 100 meter run. He competes in the 100 meter sprint and wins, beating Paddock and the rest of the Americans.On Tuesday, just before Liddell's race, the American coach remarks to his runners that Liddell has little chance of doing well in his now far longer 400 meter race. But one of the American runners, Jackson Scholz (Brad Davis), hands Liddell a note of support for his convictions. Liddell defeats all the American favorites and wins the gold medal.The British team returns home triumphant. Abrahams and Liddell then part ways, with Abrahams returning to Sybil and Liddell goes off to return to China with his missionary family. As the film ends, an onscreen text explains that Abrahams married Sybil, and became the elder statesman of British athletics. He died in January 1978. The elulogy at Abrahams' funeral is delivered by the elderly Lord Andrew Lindsay, the last surviving member of the 1924 UK Olympic Team. Eric Liddell went on to his missionary work back in China where he later died in a prison camp at the hands of Japanese troops in 1945.
    

Chariots of Fire


            When Mara Cecova, the arrogant and ill-tempered star of an avant-garde production of the Verdi opera of Macbeth, is injured after getting hit by a car outside the theater after arguing and insulting the director and theater people, Cecova's young understudy, Betty, is informed of the incident and is given the coveted role of Lady Macbeth. In spite of her initial sense of foreboding, Betty is an instant success with her performance.However, an anonymous opera buff finds his way into the opera house on the opening night, watching Betty's performance from an empty box. When a meddlesome stagehand finds him watching and orders him to leave, the unseen fan murders the stagehand by impaling him to a coat-hook. After the show, Betty's boyfriend, Stefan, shows up in her dressing room to congratulate her and invites her back to his apartment for some intimate time. Afterwards, while Stefan gets up out of bed to make some tea for Betty and himself, the unseen killer breaks into the apartment where he attacks and overpowers Betty, ties her to a pillar, and forces her to watch him kill Stefan when he returns to the bedroom by stabbing him to death. The killer tapes a row of needles beneath each of her eyes so she won't shut them while he makes her watch. Afterwards, the hooded, masked killer unties Betty and then flees.Disturbed by a half-hidden childhood recollection of the same hooded killer murdering her own mother several years earlier, Betty chooses not to go to the police and instead confides in Marco, the director of Macbeth, about the incident and that the killer may know her. The next day, Inspector Alan Santini arrives at the opera house where he questions the staff about Stefan's murder as well as probes an apparent connected attack on the troubled production's pet ravens when three of them were found dead after the show. Betty arrives at the opera house for rehearsals, but choosing to avoid Inspector Santini, hides out in her dressing room where she calls her agent, the motherly Mira, for advice on what to do about this.Later that day, Betty meets with the wardrobe seamstress Giulia when her costume is found slashed to pieces. While Giulia fixes the dress, she finds a gold bracelet sewn onto it. While Betty and Giulia try to find what the faded words on the bracelet say, the killer arrives and again ties up Betty, taping needles under her eyes while he attacks Giulia to retrieve the bracelet. But Giulia puts up a fight, knocking the killer down to the floor with an iron. But Giulia makes the mistake of removing the killer's mask, which results in the unseen killer stabbing her to death. When Giulia, with her dying breath, inadvertently swallows the bracelet, the killer has to cut into her throat with scissors to retrieve it. He puts his mask back on and again unties Betty before fleeing.When Betty flees to her apartment, she is met in the lobby by Inspector Santini and tells him about the latest murder and that the killer may be after her. Santini promises to send Betty a detective to keep guard over her. A little later, while Betty struggles with her vision after applying eye drops, a man identifying himself as Inspector Soavie arrives to look after her. Some time later, Mira arrives and tells Betty that she talked with a man in the lobby claiming to be Inspector Soavie. Unsure of which one is the imposter, Betty and Mira hide while the figure claiming to be Soavie receives a phone call and leaves the apartment. While Betty tries to call the police, Mira hears a knock on the front door.Mira demands the visitor identify himself, and is not convinced when he shows police ID and a gun. As she looks the peep hole, she gets shot through the peep hole by the killer trying to gain access into the apartment. Betty is forced to hide as the killer breaks in, and she comes across the real Inspector Soavie who stumbles into the apartment after being fatally stabbed. After a game of cat-and-mouse in the apartment with the half-blind Betty trading gunshots at the hooded killer with Soavie's gun, she escapes through a ventilation shaft when a little neighbor girl helps her escape into her apartment down the hallway. The little girl's abusive single mother arrives home where she yells at the little girl for having company over and tells Betty to leave.Betty returns to the opera house and meets with Marco. He tells her that he has a plan to entrap the killer, while Betty begins to think about a further connection to the killer and her long-dead mother whom was also abusive towards her. The following night, Betty once again takes the stage as Lady Macbeth, but her performance is interrupted when Marco unleashes a flock of vengeful ravens into the audience. Recognizing the face of their attacker from the previous night, the birds swoop down on him sitting in the audience, gouging out one of his eyes. The murderer, whom is revealed to be Inspector Santini, attempts to shoot at Betty on stage, but she evades the bullets, while Santini evades capture, and subsequently pounces on Betty as she is recovering in her dressing room. Dragging her to a far-flung corner of the building, he reveals to her the motive behind his persecution of her: Santini was once her mother's young teenage lover, cruelly murdering young women at Betty's mother's behest, by tying them up and staging the killings in front of her. But when Betty's psycho mother became increasingly greedy for sado-sexual thrills of the murders, Santini murdered her too, while Betty witnessed the event from behind a partly open door. Now, many years later, Santini's desire to kill has been rekindled by Betty's appearance, which he sees as her mother's reincarnation. Blindfolding Betty and tying her to a chair, Santini stages his own death by setting fire to the room and apparently himself. Betty manages to break free and escapes from the blaze to be comforted by Marco.Betty and Marco leave Rome, traveling to the Swiss Alps to a house that Marco owns so she can recuperate. However, when he hears a radio broadcast that the man though to have been burned alive was Santini was in fact a clothed mannequin, Marco yells for Betty to run away. Santini shows up at the house to finish what he started and urders the housekeeper. Betty flees into the nearby woods with Santini in pursuit. Marco takes on the murderous policeman only to get stabbed to death. Betty then distracts Santini by coming onto him long enough to bash him on the head with a rock, and he is then set upon and dragged away by the police. With her nightmare experience finally over, Betty wanders though an empty meadow to find solace in nature. There, Betty finds an ugly lizard trapped in the grass and releases it, telling it to "go free".
    

Ian Charleson

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