Budapest Classic Film Marathon: Suburban Legend

Director: Félix Máriássy

Screenplay by Judit Máriássy
Director of photography: István Eiben
Music by Imre Vincze
Cast: Géza Tordy, Mari Törőcsik, Erzsi Máthé

Gems of Hungarian film history / Budapest 150 

Introduction: Gabriella Szállás, Collection operator, National Film Institute - Film Archive

Good-humoured Pista from the Angyalföld district of the capital knows how to enjoy life to the full: he is attended by a line of young ladies and mothers and he has a good job, too, as a conductor with the transport company. One day, he witnesses how one of his neighbours, the drunken bargeman, beats his wife, the fragile Annus. From that moment he cannot get the image of the sad young woman out of his mind and he makes every effort to attract her attention. Their story is interspersed between colourful episodes in the life of the run-down tenement block. Félix Máriássy, master of Hungarian neo-realism, captures the sometimes cheerful, sometimes tragic everyday life of workers in the outer districts in this most lyrical tale.

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