The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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HinkyDinkyTruesmith
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#51 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Sat Mar 16, 2019 12:14 pm

Black Hat wrote:
Fri Mar 15, 2019 1:46 pm
I think I agree with this, the first time I saw it I was completely enamored with Stanwyck, but by the third time MacMurray corniness was a bit cringeworthy. The question I'd ask tho, isn't he supposed to be seen that way? A total patsy? I think the way he's presented initially as the do right golden boy prodigal son would speak to that, but therein lies in another small quibble I have with the film, his turn from that into evil. I've always wondered how much of that was earned, especially since he's celebrated as a ladies man so it's not like the first time a woman's paid attention to him.
I have pretty much the same feelings as you, although by this point I've become a bit immune to Stanwyck's charms. I first saw it the same night as The Lady Eve, and both films floored me and seduced me to Stanwyck. Since then, I've seen quite a number of other Stanwyck films, both later and earlier and Double Indemnity just doesn't do it much for me anymore. Given that I agree that he's in a bit over his head, I can't help but see the whole noir side of the film (as opposed to Eddie G.'s buddy movie side) as sort of a send-up, not of noir, obviously, but of this sort of middle-class fantasy of crime (which is not an original thought. Unfortunately I can't recall where I first read this). So, yeah, MacMurray's a dope who only can redeem himself by playing father to Lola. What gives me pause is that most of Neff's lines are earnestly framed, and the narrative itself plays fairly sincerely (the actual murder/cover-up is still very strong). And that ending. Oh boy, what an ending. For Wilder, it's pretty irony-free.

I also thought that it was interesting to compare the final showdown between Stanwyck and MacMurray with the one between Bogey and Bergman in Casablanca––that whole, "let me make it easier for you to shoot me" bit.

They Made Me a Fugitive
Cold Bishop'll be happy to hear that I absolutely loved this one. I'd seen Went the Day Well? a while back and was astonished by that as well. There's something about British films of this 30s-40s period that I just love for the physical presence of the world. The 39 Steps, Young and Innocent, Odd Man Out all have it too, in addition to these Cavalcantis. I don't quite know how to describe it, although when I'm watching them, it sort of seems to me the ideal existence of the world: the architecture, the way light hits bricks and cobblestone, the little knick-knacks and props. There's just a weight to everything, a corporeality, a sense that I'm driving through these quaint country roads, watching antiquated trucks, my hand sliding down bannisters.

I lamented when watching T-Men the relative absence of women, and this was a welcome change! I actually wasn't expecting women to be a very large part of the narrative at all, and so when the story (however briefly) follows Sally, I was very pleased. Between Sally, Cora, Aggie, and the uncanny episode with the insidious housewife, there's a complexity to women in this that distinguishes it from many other noirs.

And then the ending. A cookie full of arsenic, to quote JJ Hunsecker. You can sort of feel Cavalcanti bitterly chuckling as it takes the sort of silly sentimentality of Sally and smothers it cold. Of course someone like Narcy would never change his mind. That "well in that case" he putters out is so perfectly delivered you almost believe it could have been another way.

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon!
Disclaimer: I'm perfectly aware that one of the major points of cinematic contention is the Hawks versus Ford debate, not only because of their westerns, but also how they work humor. I love both, but I seem to be one of the few who actively loves Ford's comedy as much as Hawks's. Most complain about Ford's rambunctious, digressive, "ill-timed" bawdy humor, at worst finding it not funny at all. I can understand that viewpoint, but, at the same time, I think that Victor McLaglen beating the shit out of seven other soldiers while wearing a monkey suit, trying to enjoy a drink, is one of the great pieces of cinematic comedy. McLaglen in general I find to be enormously funny. Watching him trying to be von Sternberg's disaffected, suave romantic antagonist in Dishonored is rather unpleasant, in all honesty, but what Ford gives him in the late 40s, not only here but also in Fort Apache, leaves me in stitches. Another instance: when he sees a dog laying lazily in front of his troop, and hollers belligerently asking whose dog it is? to no response, and then leaning down and patting it, cooing affectionately what a good dog it is: a summation of what I love most about him.

That moment sums up in general what I love so much about this Ford film in particular. I used to hold it as perhaps my favorite of his non-Stagecoach westerns, although it seems to me now that Fort Apache is stronger in general, not least because of its more precise goals, but Yellow Ribbon is such a wonderful hangout movie. Its pace so leisurely, its drama so undercut at every moment. Back to that moment: Ford's films are a whiplash of moods. He inherits this, I think, from Shakespeare, and from a drunken temperament. A disregard for unity, to simplify it. In both this and in Fort Apache there is a scene where Wayne goes to talk with a Native American chief. In Apache, it's a very serious scene. In this, the Chief, channeling his inner Victor McLaglen, asks Brittles to go with him to hunt buffalo and get drunk together. That's the sort of ideal, I think, for Ford. It also typifies all the problematics of Ford, as it veers dangerously close to a sort of stereotype about drunken Native Americans, that is only barely offset by the fact McLaglen's been there through the whole movie taking his medicine.

The Web
Thank you Swo and Domino for this recommendation. This was quite a pleasure to watch simply because of the actors alone: Ella Raines is one of my favorite actresses of the 40s as anyone could probably guess from my love for Phantom Lady and, of course, Hail the Conquering Hero (I also quite enjoy The Suspect and encourage others to seek that out as well!) Domino's favorite William Bendix pops in from time to time to be a hardass (quite an effectively menacing one, too!) to everyone's favorites Edmond O'Brien and Vincent Price. There's some very elegant camerawork here, and a plot that works like a well-tied knot: looks convoluted, is actually very simple, but tightens the more you tug at it. It won't make my list, but, I sure am glad I watched it, and I wouldn't mind it getting a quality release!

All Through the Night
I don't have much to say about this, except, wow, what a zany mess. Makes you appreciate Powell & Pressburger propaganda. Rarely funny, although it's consistently amusing to watch all these wonderful character actors spout some of the most groanworthy dialogue (and I say this after defending Victor McLaglen's comedy chops!). Sherman directs it with energy, and it's worth watching at least once, maybe even twice if you caught it one late night and wanted to see William Demarest give Hitler the axe.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#52 Post by domino harvey » Mon Mar 18, 2019 1:38 pm

RE: Ella Raines and 40s Noir, have you seen the Suspect, Impact, or the Strange Affair of Uncle Harry yet? Here’s my writeup from the Noir thread for two of that trio:
domino harvey wrote:
Sun Nov 14, 2010 7:46 pm
Indulged in two more of his films today, the Suspect and the Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, to great results. These pictures really function as sister films, as both feature emasculated male characters played by established British character actors who find an escape from an overbearing female in their life in the form of Ella Raines, only to have their second chance at happiness blocked by all avenues but murder. Of the two, I favored the Suspect more, if only for the total pathetic charm Charles Laughton gives his henpecked and slovenly clerk. Certainly the film fulfills a bit of audience wish fulfillment in Raines' aggressive pursuit of a nice, unassuming man nowhere in her league, but the picture has a real sentimental attachment to its protagonist and skirts the production code's punishment requirements at the end in quite a charming way.

Raines is given more to do in the Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, and it's nice to see her livened up in contrast to her other noir work:

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but she's overshadowed by Geraldine Fitzgerald as George Sanders' overbearing sister. There's subtext and then there's literal incestual lust, and that's, shockingly, what's going on with this one. The film carries its perversity into its ending
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the "It's all a dream"-ness of which, while not working as brilliantly as in the Woman in the WIndow, has a sense of total falseness and narrative incongruity that it can and must be read symbolically as a fevered hallucination caused by suicide, probably by poisoning-- think, who shows up to greet him but his dead sister and lost love? But not his sister who he genuinely has no interest in seeing again, even before his death. Before the intrusion of the ending, the film hinted at Leave Her to Heaven and the later the Gunfighter in its implications, but if the dream is kept and read as false, it's yet another way around the code that works wonders!

...And if you take it all literally, it's one of the worst endings of all time. You choose!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#53 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:04 pm

I've seen The Suspect, but neither of the others. The other night I watched a clip from Tall in the Saddle with Ella Raines and decided, what the hell, akin to domino's Carole Lombard project, I'm just gonna throw my hat in and watch all the Ella Raines films from the 1940s (which, unfortunately, is the majority of her career). I'll hold off on writing about any of them at length until I've watched them all (I've tracked them all down in more or less watchable copies), but I do just want to say that I did just finish Tall in the Saddle and thought it was superb! A great pulpy romp. Ella Raines and Audrey Long shared more sexual tension than Wayne did with either ("lovely"), and Ward Bond gives a real joy of a performance.
Last edited by HinkyDinkyTruesmith on Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#54 Post by domino harvey » Sat Mar 23, 2019 6:14 pm

Letterboxd tells me I’m only five titles shy of seeing all her 40s work myself, maybe I’ll have filled in the gap by the time your study is ready!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#55 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Mar 31, 2019 2:07 pm

Like last time, I'll be doing revisits first, of favorites and potential list-makers. I've got a lot of ground to cover just with these. In the last weeks I've watched several that I'm not doing write-ups for because I did them already in past projects, but I needed to see where they might rank. These were Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion, Rebecca, Rome Open City, Les Maudits (Clément), The Big Sleep, The Red Shoes and Henry V. (Of these, relative to the last viewing, Hawks and especially Rossellini improved the most, Suspicion took the biggest dive.) Here are the others:


The House on 92nd Street (Hathaway 1945). Sleeper Nazi agents in the U.S. and counterespionage. Basically an FBI self-promotion piece but a solid little spy procedural nevertheless (Eddie Muller argues that it really isn’t a noir) that I enjoyed again. No great actors, not much in terms of style, but plenty of location shooting which adds a lot to the semi-documentary feel, in addition to the recent historical setting.


The Maltese Falcon (Huston 1941). This is almost as complicated as The Big Sleep! I forgot how Spade is such a morally ambiguous character initially, with the cheating on his partner and so on. It makes sense that Bogart, up to now mostly cast as a bad guy, would be chosen for this role. What an awesome performance he gives. But the whole thing is so well-written (granted it follows the ’31 version pretty closely) and played, and the camera framings are very effective. It’s quite impressive that Huston as a first-time director would execute something as confident and stunning as this.


Jane Eyre (Stevenson 1943). I didn’t think this had actually a chance of making my list but I was surprised at how much less I liked it the second time around. Just going by what’s on screen (I’ve read the novel but it’s too long ago to remember), I’m possibly not that fond of the source material. The childhood scenes are good but afterwards it’s a lot of Joan Fontaine looking pitiful, and Welles hamming it up impossibly. Also, in several scenes, his dialogue is looped so much it becomes quite an awkward distraction (not just in terms of the audio-visual mismatch, but the jarring effect between the unalike-sounding original vs. looped dialogue lines). Still there’s a fair amount of enjoyable Gothic atmosphere to be had in the art direction and the cinematography.


La Terra Trema (Visconti 1948). It’s remarkable to think that the actors here are not only all non-professionals but actual local inhabitants - there isn’t any weakness in the performances that gives this away. I forgot many of the details of the film that make it so potent, at least for most of it – not only the hard-nosed Marxism-sympathizing study of socio-economic injustice and the ethnographic/documentary quality (and the occasional New Testament overtones), but smaller things like the two courtships we follow and the working men in the background constantly singing love songs. Just tons of beauty. It’s a long film, 2 and a half hours, and I do find that it shifts in tone, and for me starts losing the same level of appeal it had at the beginning, about an hour and half into it when the story seems exhausted following
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‘Ntoni’s business failure and the impact it has on his family.
It feels the films starts crawling in its pace and narrative drive afterwards, although I do recognize that somehow fits the dejection and listlessness of the characters. Afterwards the film really is mostly about the disintegration of a family, something Visconti will return to in other films, and the kinship with Rocco and His Brothers in particular is striking.


Odd Man Out (Reed 1947). Quite an ambitious film, with top notch production values. It’s especially strong in the visual department, especially in those night scenes outside in the snow. As strong as it starts out, though, I’m not as keen on the fairly sharp turn it takes away from the police chase and the pure drama into slightly stranger, more Dickensian humor towards the end, starting at the point where the business with the priest, Shell and the painter come in. The film’s expressionistic streak becomes more pronounced at that time too. I wish it would have been executed straighter, but then that’s not the film.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#56 Post by knives » Sun Mar 31, 2019 6:07 pm

I feel bad I haven't really posted in this thread. Hopefully that will change a bit now.
Two People (dir. Dreyer)
Image
This is a very interesting film with a lot to talk about, but unfortunately interesting doesn't mean good. The film ha many promising elements to it, but none of them fully satisfy and there are three poor points that completely and totally sink the film to being well earned in its reputation as Dreyer's worst film. The most immediate failing is the score. It is fortunately sparse enough, but whenever it drones over the images it underlines the emotions in a way that just made me feel talked down to. The movie would maintain a significantly better first impression with that score ripped out completely. Another major flaw to the film is Rydeberg's lead performance. It's awful and melodramatic in just the right way to make every second with him insufferable. Unfortunate to that is the fact that he is in nearly every second of the film. He gives a stiff, charmless performance when the script demands someone to fall in love with. The script derives a lot from the female lead willing to go to great lengths to remain loyal to him. In fact the way the film asks the audience to interact with its conveying of reality is dependent on being invested in a game of cat and mouse based around his charm. There is, to emphasize the point, none to be had here though. It's like instead of Cary Grant Hitchcock cast Suspicion with Macdonald Carey.

The worst flaw of the film though and one which rests squarely on Dreyer's shoulders is how embarrassing repetitive without meaning the film is. This script is a bore in the most literal sense. The themes are thoroughly hashed out by the twenty minute mark and no new narrative twist to them comes about until the last fifteen. In a movie that is already fairly short to have about thirty five minutes of dead air is at best a frustration.

To end with some positivity though while as a Dreyer film this is a total failure as a Gunnar Fischer film it is a raging success. Even through Dreyer's typical gray scale Fischer comes through as a unique voice on what I believe is his first feature as DP. This is a wonder of framing with some stunning moments that are powerful in the way that Bergman in his later stages was. It weirdly looks more like a Nykvist film in some shots.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#57 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Apr 07, 2019 12:17 am

It Always Rains on Sunday (Hamer 1947). I have a fair amount of British films on my revisiting list – films that really caught my attention the first time out. It’s probably fair to say that this was Britain’s greatest cinema decade? I don’t know that I’d call this film a masterpiece but it’s a very good and interesting piece of work. Superficially there’s a resemblance to the same year’s Odd Man Out in that at the center of the story is a woman hiding a fugitive. But that’s only one storyline in this film that examines the social microcosm that the whole working class family represents. In some ways it’s really a kitchen-sink realism ahead of its time, as you are immersed in the details of the drab existence of this frustrated young woman and the quotidian miseries of some of the other characters as well. Meanwhile you get a very evocative portrayal of East London in the immediate post-war period, courtesy in part of a lot of excellent location shooting.


La Bataille du rail (Clément 1946). There’s not much in the way of creating individualized characters or narrative development in Clément’s début. This is pretty much a series of vignette-like scenes, in quasi-documentary style, foregrounding the ferrovial Resistance efforts, frequently involving sabotage under the hapless Nazi commanders’ watch. It’s a little simplistic in that way and it sometimes comes across like a propaganda film after the fact. But on the other hand it’s pure action from beginning to end, and frequently quite thrilling in that regard.


Letter from An Unknown Woman (Ophuls 1948). I’m surprised this got into the top ten in the last round. I had the same reaction watching it again as previous times: I think it’s a fine, beautifully shot film, as Ophulsian as you can get, but I get never engaged emotionally in it the way I do with Madame De. (I was struck how Johann is written and played so similarly as his equivalent Général André in the latter.) I’m with the film following the young Lisa’s idealized obsession, and into the courtship, but for reasons I can’t see quite clearly I feel more detached with everything that follows Stéfan’s leaving for Milan.


The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston 1948). A fine film that I can’t say anything against (except maybe for a few notes of sentimentality in the middle, like the way the score overplays the emotion as Cody’s wife’s letter is read), although it probably won’t make my list just because of other preferences. It is surprising how boldly and savagely dark it is, as our originally sympathetic protagonist turns into a full-blown paranoiac. It’s quite sad to see the three men, as soon as they start to extract the gold, able only to bond to their loot rather than to themselves. The film also isn’t afraid to go for fairly long stretches of Spanish dialogue in certain scenes without any translation. A great looking film, and I always especially enjoy that first half-hour or so in Tampico before the quest starts, just for the gritty realism of the atmosphere that’s evoked.


Image
The Man in Grey (Arliss 1943). I find this such a pleasurable film. It strikes just the right balance – provocatively and surprisingly pulpy, but not too much to make you consider the whole thing a joke and disengage from the characters. That’s there, for example, in the way Clarissa, the virtuous lady, is indeed in general a wholesome (if not very deep) person, but one who nevertheless violates the viewer’s expectations of propriety by the manner in which she responds to the amorous charge of the actor who hijacks and steals into her coach. Nice production values and acting that makes the whole thing work. The child actor in blackface (and use of the n word) is an unfortunate distraction.


The Postman Always Rings Twice (Garnett 1946). Speaking of pulp... Watching this for the second time only, I realized I did not remember much of it beyond the leads’ initial intention and course of action. I know noirs are supposed to have morally ambiguous characters, but jeezus, I didn’t see much ambiguity here: Frank doesn’t think for a second about turning back and not taking the job once he finds out the cute Cora is the diner owner’s wife, and she doesn’t hesitate to bring up the most drastic measures to realize her dreams. Initially at least, they were both very repellent to me. But as I digested that, the bigger problem was that in the second half there are so many, unrelenting twists and turns that by the end I was finding the whole thing completely silly. Enjoyable performances and mise-en-scène though.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#58 Post by nitin » Sun Apr 07, 2019 5:28 am

I also watched/rewatched It Always Rains on Sunday, The Small Back Room and Green For Danger recently and really liked all of them. It certainly was an exceptional decade for British cinema.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#59 Post by dustybooks » Sun Apr 07, 2019 3:29 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sun Apr 07, 2019 12:17 am
Letter from An Unknown Woman (Ophuls 1948). I’m surprised this got into the top ten in the last round. I had the same reaction watching it again as previous times: I think it’s a fine, beautifully shot film, as Ophulsian as you can get, but I get never engaged emotionally in it the way I do with Madame De. (I was struck how Johann is written and played so similarly as his equivalent Général André in the latter.) I’m with the film following the young Lisa’s idealized obsession, and into the courtship, but for reasons I can’t see quite clearly I feel more detached with everything that follows Stéfan’s leaving for Milan.
This one works brilliantly for me -- it's one of the few times I feel totally in key with the full-on florid melodrama of the classic Hollywood romance -- but you've described exactly how I feel about Brief Encounter, which still leaves me kind of chilly. I think in that case I don't find the attraction especially believable, whereas I totally buy Fontaine's lifelong torch-carrying. Fontaine to me is such a miraculous actress, I regret she has so few truly iconic roles.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#60 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Apr 07, 2019 3:42 pm

And I'm the opposite with Brief Encounter, go figure!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#61 Post by domino harvey » Sun Apr 07, 2019 3:46 pm

Brief Encounter does nothing for me either

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#62 Post by dustybooks » Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:41 pm

I do like a few scenes in it; the
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final goodbye in which they keep getting interrupted by the oblivious nuisance at the bar rings very true for me. Perhaps not unrelated to this is that on an occasion when I had to bid farewell forever to a girlfriend who was leaving permanently for another country, we had to spend the last twenty breathless minutes working through some problems at the Delta counter! Painful.

I'm also fond of the demonstration of unspoken marital understanding in the final scene, though I can't get past the feeling of what a hopelessly repressed situation Celia Johnson's still left in. I do love her in the film, for what it's worth.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#63 Post by nitin » Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:24 am

I’m with Rayon Vert on his reaction to both films! Brief Encounter is one of my favorite films and Letter From an Unknown Woman is a very fine film but well short of being a great one.

Has anyone seen The Constant Nymph? That sounds similar to Letter From an Unknown Woman but I don’t hink Goulding is anywhere near Ophuls as a director.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#64 Post by Rayon Vert » Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:17 am

nitin wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:24 am
Brief Encounter is one of my favorite films
Well at least there'll be two of us giving the film a big push! :)

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#65 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Mon Apr 08, 2019 4:27 pm

Rayon Vert wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 9:17 am
nitin wrote:
Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:24 am
Brief Encounter is one of my favorite films
Well at least there'll be two of us giving the film a big push! :)
Make that three. It’ll likely make my top ten, as it’s my second favorite Lean (after A Passage to India).

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#66 Post by nitin » Tue Apr 09, 2019 7:36 am

At the moment, it is number 12 on my list.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#67 Post by domino harvey » Tue Apr 09, 2019 9:18 am

Brief Encounter is a much respected/loved popular film that will easily make the final list

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#68 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Tue Apr 09, 2019 7:41 pm

The real question is, will Blithe Spirit?

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#69 Post by knives » Thu Apr 11, 2019 4:06 pm

The Picture of Dorian Gray (dir. Lewin)
What a beautiful and magical film. I hardly remember the book, just enough to know the opening replicates it well, but as an independent entity this is simultaneously sad and hilarious enough to earn a deep respect. At first I was a bit disappointed to find that Sanders was a secondary player since he has a mastery of this sort of dialogue and wit that every scene has an amused power. Certainly 100 minutes of him being a bitchy little queen sounds appealing especially when compared to the mannequin that is Hurd Hatfield. Eventually though that dullness reveals a deep, gothic purpose and causes the choices to seem well planned. The best point of comparison I have to this is Last Year at Marienbad where Gray is a wisp of a memory that eventually leaves humanity and just becomes this presence thudding at the malevolence of the spirit. Unlike the rest of the cast which could easily fit into The Importance of Being Earnest Hatfield is just this relentless thud. The aesthetic plays to this well blasting the whites like, well, Resnais so that we're quietly in a world of extremes that makes the occasional blast of colour shocking. Almost disturbing.

The film would be a perfect example of studio era experimentation if the studio fully trusted itself. There are a few external touches that just keep the film out of the reach of the greatness it is capable of. My biggest problem is with the loud wailing of the score which cuts against the contrast in emotions that is the building block of the story. It bridges the gap when the gap is the whole reason to watch the movie. Also, and I wasn't too bugged by this, the narration is overly explanatory to the point of seeming like a joke. We get scenes of Gray walking sadly as the narration mutters. "he walked sadly." It almost works as another form of comedy, but comes up at the absolute wrong moments.

Holiday Inn (dir. Sandrich)
You can only believe how loud the sigh was when Louise Beavers came on screen was. The movie was blandly awful before that, but I just was not in the mood for lazy racism while watching this mediocre hackery (though her two seconds in the Lincoln song is fascinating for how different it is from the rest of the song). Crosby is his usual starchy self, but Fred Astaire is asked to basically play a jerk variation of a Gene Kelly character and doesn't succeed except when asked to dance. It is funny how even when trying to dance poorly like in the drunk scene he's still more mesmerizing then anything else in this bore.

Samson and Delilah (dir. DeMille)
Delightfully perverse in a way only DeMille knew how. He goes out of his way to make Delilah the main character and basically heroine which is actually a fairly interesting subversion of the material that deserves a serious discussion. At the same time though Lamarr gives the most over the top orgasm to violence the cinema would see until Ray's King of Kings so I'm not sure how much people would care to hear serious opining on this. Also Sanders, who's been hitting it out of the park lately, is at his most fabulously gay as the local vamp.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#70 Post by denti alligator » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:39 pm

swo, why d'you take your 40s list down from RYM? I was consulting it...

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#71 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:38 pm

I had it temporarily disabled while it's "in progress" for this new iteration, but I suppose that can wait. Here you go!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#72 Post by denti alligator » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:50 pm

Thanks, there are some interesting picks there. I've only seen 30 of your 50. So it's about time I seek out the missing ones.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#73 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:25 pm

Hope you find something you like!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#74 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:41 pm

I didn’t see it here, is your write up of Laura only in your Noir List? I remember that one making me laugh

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swo17
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#75 Post by swo17 » Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:40 pm

Yeah, that one's here, where I restricted myself to one-liners

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