Paris: ‘House of European Films’

In the ’50s and ’60s, there was an art theater billed as ‘House of European Films,’ Paris, located along Dakota St. near the Manila Zoo.

Your columnist remembers watching movies at Paris theater, some of them so-called art films, including Sensualita, OK Nero, Bitter Rice from Italy and De Madrid al Cielo (Spain).

Bitter Rice starred Silvana Mangano, who later married producer Dino de Laurentiis. The Mangano starrer is an early example of the Italian neorealist cinema.

Also exhibited at Paris were And God Created Woman and Virgin Spring, from France and Sweden, respectively.

Directed by Roger Vadim, And God Created Woman propelled Brigitte Bardot to international superstardom. Virgin Spring was an Ingmar Bergman classic, starring Max Von Sydow and Brigitta Pettersson, winner of the Oscar Best Foreign Film in 1959. —RKC