Sunbeam Bread Magnet

Unable to secure Hollywood-studio backing for his Depression-era agrarian drama Our Daily Bread, director King Vidor financed the picture himself, with the eleventh-hour assistance of Charles Chaplin. Intended as a sequel to Vidor's silent classic The Crowd (1928) the film casts Tom Keene and Karen Morley as John and Mary, the roles originated in the earlier film by James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Unable to make ends meet in the Big City, John and Mary assume control of an abandoned farm, even...

A kissing cousin of Lewis Gilbert's Shirley Valentine, Bread and Tulips is housewife revolt at its most passive, and romantic comedy at its most slight. As Rosalba (Licia Maglietta) becomes gradually unhinged from her existence as a disrespected mother and wife, the viewer senses her liberation without feeling the urge to celebrate it. This agreeable indifference points to an ingrained detachment that the film can't shake, even as it quickens the plodding pace and grows more enjoyably eccentric in...

A hard-working Sicilian heads for Switzerland in search of a better life in this gentle, sweet-sour Italian comedy. Despite the poor fellow's best efforts to fit in with his neighbors, he never quite seems to make it. Of course his tragedy is the audience's delight. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide