Crime drama on Kanopy – A watch list inspired by Cambridge University Library’s upcoming exhibition ‘Murder by the Book: A celebration of 20th century British Crime Fiction’

Inspired by Cambridge University Library’s upcoming exhibition ‘Murder by the Book: celebrating 20^th century British crime fiction‘ we invite you to take a look at some of the murder mystery films and shows available online to members of the University of Cambridge on the Kanopy platform.

Access is available via the Databases A-Z and University of Cambridge credentials are needed to create an account on the platform before you can view.

Murder mysteries from the big screen:
Cast a Dark Shadow – A British fortune-hunter playboy is killing his rich wives in order to inherit their wealth. Based on the 1952 play Murder Mistaken by Janet Green. (1955)
Cowboys – A compilation of six three minute short animated films which comment on contemporary values through a reinterpretation of the myths of the old Wild West. Film three is Murder! – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The silent majority get their way. (1992)
Deadly Sweet – A French actor finds his business contact lying murdered on the floor. Rather than call the police, he decides to protect the young woman at the scene and nail down the true killers, putting him on a collision course with the London underworld. Loosely based on the novel Il sepolcro di carta written by Sergio Donati. (1967)
Jet Storm – Passengers on a trans-Atlantic flight from London to New York discover that one of them believes a fellow passenger is the hit-and-run driver who killed his child and has smuggled a bomb on board and intends to use it. (1959)
Jigsaw – A woman is found murdered in a house along the coast from Brighton. Local detectives Fellows and Wilks lead an investigation, methodically following up leads and clues. Based on Sleep Long, My Love by Hillary Waugh (1962)
Loving Memory – A brother and sister living in an isolated farmhouse in Yorkshire accidentally run down and kill a cyclist. (1970)
Sherlock Holmes – Terror by Night – The film’s plot is a mostly original story not directly based on any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes tales, but it uses minor plot elements of “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” “The Adventure of the Empty House,” “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax,” and The Sign of Four. (Wikipedia) (1946)
Sherlock Holmes – The Woman in Green – The film follows an original premise with material taken from “The Final Problem” (1893) and “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box . (Wikipedia) (1945)
The Hawk – A Hitchcockian style thriller of a housewife who thinks her husband is a serial killer. (1993)
Wanted for Murder – As the son of a Victorian hangman is driven insane by thoughts of his father’s profession, the young man emulates his father by strangling young women.  Based on a play of the same name by Terence de Marney and Percy Robinson. (1946)

The Hitch-hiker – From the USA. The only film noir film to be directed by a woman (Ida Lupino). (1953)
Les Vampires – From France. An intrepid reporter and his loyal friend battle a bizarre secret society of criminals known as The Vampires. (1915)
Salvatore Giuliano – From Italy. Filming in the exact locations and enlisting a cast of native Sicilians once impacted by the real Giuliano, director Francesco Rosi harnessed the facts and myths surrounding the true story of the bandit’s death to create a startling exposé of Sicily and the tangled relations between its citizens, the Mafia, and government officials. (1961)
The Flying Ace – From the USA. A rural crime drama revolving around a pair of rival aviators,THE FLYING ACE illuminates the fact that many films made for African-American audiences were less concerned with race than with making popular entertainment in the traditional Hollywood style. (1926)
Judex – From France. This effortlessly cool crime caper, directed by Georges Franju, is a marvel of dexterous plotting and visual invention. (1963)

Murder on the small screen:
Cruel Train – Based on Emile Zola’s ‘La Bete Humaine’, this stylish film noir is set in Britain during the Blitz.
Dalziel & Pascoe: S2, S3, S4 – Andy Dalziel does not suffer fools gladly. So when the inexperienced, soft-spoken, whiz-kid graduate Peter Pascoe joins his team at Mid-Yorkshire CID, there could be problems. Based on a book series by Reginald Hill. (1996-2007)
Maisie Raine: S1 – Detective Inspector Maisie Raine is a no-nonsense policewoman with years of experience and an instinct for people in trouble. (1998)

Father Brown – In the idyllic English countryside of the 1950s, murder and foul play are afoot. Based on the book series by G.K. Chesterton. (2013-)
Luther – Idris Elba stars as maverick detective John Luther in this gripping, smart and entertaining thriller. (2010-2019)
Quirke – A consultant pathologist in the Dublin city morgue in the 1950s, Quirke is a powerful character more at ease among the cold silent slabs than the company of his fellow men. Based on a book series by John Banville.(2014)
Scott & Bailey – Moving and exciting drama series follows the lives of Janet Scott and Rachel Bailey – Detective Constables in a Manchester Major Incident Team led by the formidable DCI Gill Murray. (2011-2016)
Death in Paradise – DI Richard Poole is sent to the paradise island of Saint-Marie in the Caribbean to solve an impossible murder.  A book series was created by Robert Thorogood based on the TV series. (2011-)

The following text is taken from our day 11 of our 2023 Advent Calendar, authored by Melendra Sutliff Sanders, Research Support Librarian / German / Film Studies, Modern & Medieval Languages and Linguistics Library.

Looking for some thought-provoking entertainment?

Have a look at Kanopy’s collection of award-winning films and documentaries.

Follow the University of Cambridge Kanopy Link to create account. All you need is your University of Cambridge credentials.

Once you’ve logged in, you can stream 100s of award-winning films and television shows. It’s easy to search for specific titles. Or, if you’re open to suggestions, check out the Browse options.

All films have close captioning and can be viewed from anywhere in the world.

Visit the Film and Screen Studies LibGuide for access to more resources available to you in Film Studies.

ECM Advent Calendar Window 11 : Kanopy

Guest post by Melendra Sutliff Sanders, Research Support Librarian / German / Film Studies, Modern & Medieval Languages and Linguistics Library

Looking for some thought-provoking entertainment?

Have a look at Kanopy’s collection of award-winning films and documentaries.

Follow the University of Cambridge Kanopy Link to create account. All you need is your University of Cambridge credentials.

Once you’ve logged in, you can stream 100s of award-winning films and television shows. It’s easy to search for specific titles. Or, if you’re open to suggestions, check out the Browse options.

All films have close captioning and can be viewed from anywhere in the world.

Visit the Film and Screen Studies LibGuide for access to more resources available to you in Film Studies.

New e-resource : Classic Brazilian Cinema Online

Cambridge University members now have online access to Classic Brazilian Cinema Online, a unique digital archive of magazines covering the film history of the largest country of Latin America.

Access is available now via this link

Also available via the Cambridge E-resources A-Z

Also available via iDiscover

Brazilian cinema gained international acclaim through the Cinema Novo of Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos and other directors in the 1960s. Yet Brazil produced numerous films throughout its various regions since as early as 1896. Until now, a proper appreciation of early Brazilian cinema has been hampered by the loss of a significant number of the films, as well as a lack of available printed sources pertaining to Brazil’s movie industry.

The present collection remedies this situation by providing easy online access to more than sixty Brazilian movie magazines, from the earliest ones published in the 1910s to later magazines covering the 1960s and early ‘70s. Many of them survive in only a few or even single copies and have not been available to researchers before. By bringing together film magazines from institutions and private collections in both Brazil and the United States, this collection dramatically increases the number of sources available to researchers interested in understanding the role of cinema in the largest country in Latin America.

Major transformations
The magazines in this collection not only shed a light on the history of Brazilian film — whose production periodically encountered great financial difficulties before it would expand again —, but also on the creation of both a market and a cinematographic culture in Brazil, strongly influenced by France until World War I, then dominated by Hollywood. In addition, the collection documents the major transformations that took place after World War II, when Brazilian audiences became increasingly familiar with films produced in other Latin American countries, as well as in Asia and Europe.

From Silent Period to Cinema Novo
By digitizing for the first time magazines on Brazilian cinema from the archives of the Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro, the Fales Library & Special Collections at New York University (NYU) and four private collectors in Brazil, this collection offers a unique source of a wide-ranging scope. From Portuguese magazines issued by the major Hollywood studios — Revista Universal (1921), Mensageiro Paramount (1926), Films (1926) by MGM, and Fox Revista (1927) — to highly influential publications from the Silent Period, such as Selecta (1915). The collection also contains trade magazines aimed at owners of movie theaters, which are little known and have virtually never been studied before, including O exhibidor (1927), Jornal do Exibidor (1938), Revista do Exibidor (1952) and O Exibidor (1955). Many publications not only address cinema, but also offer valuable material for the study of Brazilian theater, radio, and music, such as the influential Cine-Rádio Jornal (1938) or the corporate magazine Atividades Byington (1938). The collection also includes popular magazines read by (young) movie fans, such as Cine Revista (1938), Filmelândia (1951) and Cine Fan (1955). On the other hand, it documents the emergence of publications aimed at more sophisticated cinephiles, from the pioneering Filme (1949) to the influential Revista de Cultura Cinematográfica (1957). For the research of Cinema Novo films and filmmakers, little-known magazines from the early 1960s such as Cine Clube (1960) and A Tela Ilustrada (1961) are veritable gems.

Unknown even to experts
Major critics and filmmakers such as Pedro Lima, Alex Viany, Antonio Moniz Vianna, Vinícius de Moraes, Zenaide Andréa, Luiz Sérgio Person and Jean-Claude Bernardet appear in the pages of several magazines gathered in this collection, hitherto unknown even to experts. The breadth and diversity of this collection, which includes a number of short-lived publications, embody the richness and complexity of cinema in Brazilian society and culture; it will serve as an invaluable tool for historians, anthropologists, sociologists, designers, and many others.

Fernanda Montenegro em “Oh! Que belos dias”

MEDALHA PARA FERNANDA “Fernanda Montenegro jâ é uma estrê- la de pritfieira grandeza na constelaçdo do Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia. Bonita, meiga e talentosa ela é capaz de enfrentar qualquer papel, agradando tanto na cria- dinha espevitada de “Os Filhos de Eduar­ do” como naquela tîpica mâe de familia americana de “Nossa Vida Com Papal”. Esta sua ultima criaçâo, alias, valeu a rhe- dalha de ouro da Assooiaqäo Brasileira dos Criticos Teatrais, urn diploma para a gloria e passaporte visado para novos triunfos.”–Cine Revelaçâo, 1957, issue 16, p. 21

This new acquisition is funded by a grant from UKRI (UK Research and Innovation) for building capacity through strategic investment in research priorities. 

In Cambridge University Libraries we are proud to be recipients of the UKRI award enabling us to purchase high-priority, data rich electronic research resources to provide a step change in research capacity and research environment. The selection of resources has been informed by benchmarking with peer institutions and developing academic research priorities across multiple schools and themes, including diversification and the Global Humanities.

 

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 8 : Bloomsbury Video Library (new platform for Artfilms)

Have you seen what’s new this Christmas?

Bloomsbury Video Library launched this month with the Arts and Humanities Collection (formerly known as Artfilms).

With an international range of content across the visual arts and performing arts, film, history, and more, this collection features exclusive indie films and shorts, avant-garde performances, interviews with renowned writers, artists, choreographers, performers and practitioners, documentaries on an international range of themes, traditions, and historical figures, and much more.

We hope you enjoy this video of Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas’ A Child’s Christmas in Wales

In this recording, Richard Burton recites Dylan Thomas’ poem A Child’s Christmas in Wales while walking in lower New York City, sitting in the kind of bar Thomas favored, looking at the Hudson river. Black and white film, moody, effectively handled by the young Burton, who introduces the reading by pointing out that like Thomas, he, too, is a Welshman.

Also available to access via the Databases A-Z.

E-resources Advent Calendar Window 2 : Japanese and Korean films for the holidays

Would you like to start the holidays with a gentle and heart-warming film? We recommend ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service,’ a 1989 animated film by Hayao Miyazaki.

This is one of many Japanese and Korean films available on the ‘Box of Broadcasts’ from Learning on Screen, a database of programmes shown on UK television dating back to the 1970s. Please note access is only available within the UK.

Dr Kristin Williams, Head of Japanese and Korean Section at Cambridge University Library, has  made playlists of Japanese and Korean films that you might want to use for listening practice over the Christmas break. There are samurai films by Kurosawa, animated films from Studio Ghibli, the zombie movie ‘Train to Busan’, the recent award-winning Korean film ‘Parasite’, and many others.

Film playlists:

Korean films https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/playlists/303745

Japanese films https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/playlists/352279

More e-resources:

Korean: https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/korean-collections/e-resources-korean-studies

Japanese: https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/japanese-collections/e-resources-japanese-studies

New e-resource: Digitalia Film Library

Cambridge University Libraries are delighted to inform University members now have access to the Digitalia Film Library, a multilingual streaming video collection comprising more than 1200 films with a focus on Romance languages in general and Spanish in particular.

You can access the Digitalia Film Library via this link or via the Cambridge University Libraries A-Z. Records for the individual films in the collection will be available via iDiscover shortly.

The Digitalia Film Library is the most complete collection from South and Central America. Titles in foreign languages have English subtitles available. The content mix is 35% documentaries and 65% feature films.

Digitalia Film Library (streaming video)  is a multilingual collection of films from Spain, France and other European countries, North American Classic films, and Latin American films from South America, Central America and Caribbean including Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and others. This library now has approximately 1,200+ films.

From Around the World with Willy Fog (Spanish: La vuelta al mundo de Willy Fog)

New e-resource: Artfilms

The University of Cambridge now has access to Artfilms via this link .

Artfilms is a video streaming service that offers more than 5,000 films for arts education and arts practitioners. Masterclasses, documentaries, interviews, content that can entertain, educate and inform: Artfilms streams thousands of videos from top artists and producers.

Access is also available via the link in the Cambridge Libraries A-Z of eresources.

Black Camera : an International Film Journal

New on ejournals@cambridge A-Z : BLACK CAMERA

From the JSTOR website:

“Black Camera, a journal of Black film studies, is devoted to the study and documentation of the Black cinematic experience and aims to engender and sustain a formal academic discussion of Black film production. The journal includes reviews of historical as well as contemporary books and films, researched critiques of recent scholarship on Black film, interviews with accomplished film professionals, and editorials on the development of Black creative culture. Black Camera challenges received and established views and assumptions about the traditions and practices of filmmaking in the African diaspora, where new and longstanding cinematic formations are in play. The journal devotes issues or sections of issues to national cinemas, as well as independent, marginal, or oppositional films and cinematic formations.”

Now available to the University of Cambridge electronically from volume 1 (1985) to present.

Access the Black Camera via the ejournals@cambridge A-Z or at this link.

 

Journal of British Cinema and Television

New on ejournals@cambridge A-Z :

Journal of British Cinema and Television

From the Edinburgh University Press website:

“The Journal of British Cinema and Television is the prime site for anyone interested in reading or publishing original work in the fields of British cinema and television. Themed issues alternate with general ones, and each issue contains a wide range of articles and substantial book reviews. The Journal also runs conference reports, in-depth interviews with leading practitioners in the field, and a section intended to encourage debate amongst those studying British cinema and television.”

Now available to the University of Cambridge electronically from volume 1 (2004) to present.

Access the Journal of British Cinema and Television via the ejournals@cambridge A-Z or at this link.

Photo by Bruno Massao from Pexels

 

Artfilms : available until 30 September

The University of Cambridge now has access to Artfilms via this link until 30 September 2020.

Please tell us what you liked about Artfilms by using your feedback form.  Thank you.

 Artfilms is a video streaming service that offers more than 5000 films for arts education and arts practitioners. Masterclasses, documentaries, interviews, content that can entertain, educate and inform: Artfilms streams thousands of videos from top artists and producers.

Access is also available via the link in the Cambridge Libraries A-Z of eresources.