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Post by berkley on Mar 17, 2022 18:05:59 GMT -5
1942, as usual mostly from fairly distant memory: All Through the Night - lightweight Bogart war-propaganda, but pretty fun if you take it for what it is Pardon My Sarong - Abbott and Costello movie, not one of their better efforts from what I recall You Were Never Lovelier - just saw this the other night so its impact is still fresh; I really loved it: fantastic dance numbers by stars Astaire and Hayworth; Hayworth is so beautiful, I could look at her all day Gentleman Jim - I remember liking this as a kid but can't recall many details; Flynn knew how to fight so good idea casting him as famous boxing champ Corbett Casablanca - it's Casablanca, what more can you say? Ride 'Em Cowboy - another Abbott & Costello; I remember liking this one; the best part is a young Ella Fitzgerald singing A Tisket a Tasket on a bus Gotta go with Casablanca, one of the best films of all time, not just 1942 I can't believe I forgot All Through the Night! It's brilliant, like Preston Sturges doing a gangster movie. Really a wonderful satire of gangster and Nazi soy movies. Bogey spoofs himself beautifully. Great character work by Judith Anderson, Jackie Gleason, William Demarest, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt. Priceless scene: Bogey and Demarest in the cellar of a toy store; it's a like a Rube Goldberg invention with real people. Beautifully directed by Vincent Sherman, a solid director -- try Mr. Skeffington (1944) with Bette Davis and Claude Raines -- who lost his movie career because he told the HUAC that he would stand by his friend John Garfield and other victims of the blacklist. That was a real "cancel cuture."
Can't remember any details, to be honest, just my overall impression when I saw it on tv some time in the 1970s, I think it would have been. Looking through Sherman's filmography, I think I've seen only The Return of Mister X (another oddball Bogart movie) and Affair in Trinidad, a Rita Hayworth crime/espionage drama that I watched only just recently. From what I can tell, it isn't too highly thought of but I thought it was quite good. Hayworth could carry a film all by herself when she was used properly.
Apart from his famous part in Casablanca I think I remember Claude Raines best from Notorious, probably my favourite Hitchcock and favourite Cary Grant movie. But he was in a lot of good ones. Very impressed with his courageous stand against the HUAC.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 17, 2022 20:30:08 GMT -5
I can't believe I forgot All Through the Night! It's brilliant, like Preston Sturges doing a gangster movie. Really a wonderful satire of gangster and Nazi soy movies. Bogey spoofs himself beautifully. Great character work by Judith Anderson, Jackie Gleason, William Demarest, Peter Lorre and Conrad Veidt. Priceless scene: Bogey and Demarest in the cellar of a toy store; it's a like a Rube Goldberg invention with real people. Beautifully directed by Vincent Sherman, a solid director -- try Mr. Skeffington (1944) with Bette Davis and Claude Raines -- who lost his movie career because he told the HUAC that he would stand by his friend John Garfield and other victims of the blacklist. That was a real "cancel cuture."
Can't remember any details, to be honest, just my overall impression when I saw it on tv some time in the 1970s, I think it would have been. Looking through Sherman's filmography, I think I've seen only The Return of Mister X (another oddball Bogart movie) and Affair in Trinidad, a Rita Hayworth crime/espionage drama that I watched only just recently. From what I can tell, it isn't too highly thought of but I thought it was quite good. Hayworth could carry a film all by herself when she was used properly.
Apart from his famous part in Casablanca I think I remember Claude Raines best from Notorious, probably my favourite Hitchcock and favourite Cary Grant movie. But he was in a lot of good ones. Very impressed with his courageous stand against the HUAC.
I think he’s talking about Vincent Sherman and HUAC. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 17, 2022 22:30:19 GMT -5
I love The Return of Dr X.
I watch it every so often.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 17, 2022 22:30:47 GMT -5
My pick for 1943 is Shadow of a Doubt.
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Post by berkley on Mar 17, 2022 23:23:47 GMT -5
Can't remember any details, to be honest, just my overall impression when I saw it on tv some time in the 1970s, I think it would have been. Looking through Sherman's filmography, I think I've seen only The Return of Mister X (another oddball Bogart movie) and Affair in Trinidad, a Rita Hayworth crime/espionage drama that I watched only just recently. From what I can tell, it isn't too highly thought of but I thought it was quite good. Hayworth could carry a film all by herself when she was used properly.
Apart from his famous part in Casablanca I think I remember Claude Raines best from Notorious, probably my favourite Hitchcock and favourite Cary Grant movie. But he was in a lot of good ones. Very impressed with his courageous stand against the HUAC.
I think he’s talking about Vincent Sherman and HUAC. Oh, I see. Impressed with Sherman then. |
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Post by berkley on Mar 17, 2022 23:26:34 GMT -5
Haven't finished going through the list of 1943 films yet but I see there was one titled The Clancy Street Boys: anyone know if this was an influence on Kirby or Lee calling Ben Grimm's old neighbourhood antagonists the Yancy Street Gang?
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Post by coke & comics on Mar 20, 2022 17:32:34 GMT -5
1942. Easy choice.
One of my favorite movies of all time. Has been for some 35 years. Of course I mean Bambi. It got a theatrical rerelease when I was young and was one of the first movies I watched in the cinema. Loved it. Still love it. I went some years without seeing it, high school, college. Finally a nice DVD release came out when I was in graduate school. So I had some guys over one night to watch Bambi. As one does. Some expressed concern that the plot is so straightforward, but I've come to appreciate that. Probably even moreso now. Bambi grows up. Makes friends, learns things, faces tragedy, meets a girl, gets older. It's just life, beautifully rendered on that screen.
#2, fine. Casablanca. To each their own when it comes to deciding when a movie came out. My movie site calls Ox-Bow Incident 1942, so I'm going to call it 1942. Cat People and Saboteur round out my top 5. Gotta have a Hitchcock entry.
And yeah, I like all the Superman shorts, Magnificent Ambersons, and To Be or Not To Be.
I don't particularly appreciate any post-Bambi Disney efforts of the decade, e.g. Saludos Amigos.
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Post by coke & comics on Mar 20, 2022 17:36:34 GMT -5
While I love 1942, my 1943 is lacking. Maybe I should have moved up the Ox-Bow Incident.
My top choice is Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, which I somewhat appreciate, but don't really have any passion for. After that, I Walked with a Zombie is a fine film. #3 will go to Hitchcock for Shadow of a Doubt.
That's really all I've seen that I care about. If you made me make a top 5 at gunpoint, I'd throw in Heaven Can Wait and, I dunno, Ghost Ship.
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Post by coke & comics on Mar 20, 2022 17:37:14 GMT -5
Worst film of 1943 by a mile is the Batman serial. Dear lord.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 20, 2022 18:02:14 GMT -5
Worst film of 1943 by a mile is the Batman serial. Dear lord. The other 1940s Batman serial is worse. The early one at least has J Carroll Naish as Prince Daka, and he’s often hilarious. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 23, 2022 11:20:58 GMT -5
Holy Moly, 1944! This isn't going to be easy at all. 1944 is kind of ground zero for the evolution of film noir. Yeah there were films that were noir before and proto noir. But 1944 hit like a hammer for that amorphous genre. And there was other good stuff as well...but, damn, those noir films. Double Indemnity - This is one of those movies that is frequently tossed around as the best film-noir of all time. I'm not sure that I'd go that far, but it's a damn fine movie and it just might be. Directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler (we're not worthy) and based on the novel by James M. Cain, it certainly has the right pedigree. Barbara Stanwyck's performance is one of the standard setters for femmes fatale. Fred McMurray is a revelation for those of us who grew up with him on My Three Sons and in Disney movies. And while his chemistry with Stanwyck isn't maybe all it should be, McMurray and Edward G. Robinson are incredible in every scene they share. John Seitz's cinematography set the standard for almost ever film noir to come and is, in its way, as influential as what Welles and Toland did in Citizen Kane. It just hits and codifies all the classic tropes of film noir. Laura - Another in the pantheon of greatest films noir and another of the earliest examples of a true noir. Produced and Directed by Otto Preminger and starring the luminescent Gene Tierney in the title role, along with Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price. Again there is fabulous cinematography by Joseph LaShelle who won the Oscar for filming this picture. Based on the novel by Vera Caspary this hits and establishes many of the tropes of the genre, being told largely in flash-backs, the normal man fascinated by and turned to crime by the beautiful woman. While I love this one I think the whole is better than the sum of the parts. The story is a bit too convoluted and it just doesn't really pack the punch of the best noirs and the high society setting isn't quite as compelling as the normal everyman noir setting. Still it's a damn fine and an important movie. To Have and Have Not - Is it noir or is it not. With a genre that tends to be defined by "I know it when I see it" I've seen it argued both ways. I lean toward it being noir, but only vaguely. Howard Hawks took what was considered an unfilmable book by Hemingway and filmed it (though with significant changes) and made a film that is just compulsively watchable. A lot of that has to do with the chemistry between Bogey and Lauren Bacall. Because they absolute SIZZLE. Obviously they were falling in love on the set, but the chemistry between them is completely insane. But it's not just them. Walter Brennan is a hoot. Hoagy Carmichael gives us some great music and decent acting. The screenplay by Jules Furthman and William Faulkner is absolutely top notch. I sincerely love this movie. Murder My Sweet - The first film to feature Raymond Chandler's seminal P.I. Philip Marlowe. Fans are split over Dick Powell's portrayal of Marlowe with some loving it and some finding it too light. Chandler himself liked it, though later thought that Bogart was the better Marlowe. The movie revived the careers of both Dick Powell and Claire Trevor. A number of aspects of Chandler's book had to be changed to comply with the Hayes Code, but overall this is a good film that is important for its place as an early noir and for bring Marlowe to the screen. And even if I'm not in the Powell camp, he was certainly and enjoyable Marlowe. I feel like I need to mention Gaslight, The Woman in the Window, Ministry of Fear, and Phantom Lady even though it's been so long since I've seen any of them that I probably can't fairly judge them. 1944 was a dark year. There were non-noir movies in 1944 though.
Arsenic and Old Lace - we talked a bit about this in 1943. Apparently a lot of people find it hoary and too theatrical. I think it's a fun and funny movie. And Grant is delightful. Lifeboat - A great claustrophobic film by Hitchcock. It's probably been a little too long since I've seen it to judge it fairly. I'd also really like to re-watch House of Frankenstein and Curse of the Cat People. It's been way to long for both. It was kind of a weak year for animation. The Warner cartoons continued to evolve, but none really stick out for me. Superman was gone as the Fleisher studio fell apart. The best of Disney were the various Goofy sports shorts. So what was my favorite film of 1944? By a narrow margin, I give it to To Have and Have Not. Double Indemnity is the more important film. And it's probably the better film overall. But I just LOVE watching Bogey and Bacall together. There's never a time that I would not happily sit down and watch that movie. 1944 in film for those as need a look. |
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Post by badwolf on Mar 23, 2022 11:45:10 GMT -5
Laura was my favorite of 1944--saw it twice in the theatre (No I'm not that old! We have an arthouse here that screens classic pictures in the summer.) But I also liked Double Indemnity and The Uninvited a lot.
The Curse of the Cat People was weird. It wasn't supposed to be a sequel, but the studio, I think, shoehorned it in somehow. It's okay. I think it would have been better had they let it stand as it was originally intended.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 23, 2022 11:58:00 GMT -5
I looked at my IMDB list and I put Double Indemnity.
But Gaslight and Murder My Sweet are both really really good, and I’ve seen all three of these films again since I made the list.
I might change it to Murder My Sweet.
And then there’s the sentimental favorite House of Frankenstein, which I’ve seen over and over again since the 1970s.
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Post by commond on Mar 23, 2022 18:21:37 GMT -5
I've never really thought about what the best film of 1944 was, but it looks like Double Indemnity is the runaway runner. There are some interesting looking avant-garde films from this era, and I'm interested in the emergence of world cinema toward the end of the war. I'm interested in María Candelaria, which won the Palme d'Or, The Children Are Watching Us, and Torment. The Phantom Lady is an interesting looking noir that I don't think I've seen before.
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Post by berkley on Mar 23, 2022 18:30:02 GMT -5
memories of 1943 films:
Mr. Lucky - no one would pick this as one of Cary Grant's best but it's a sentimental favourite with me; bit of emotional button-pushing war propaganda at the end but it works; and Grant is great here playing Grant
Son of Dracula - Lon Chaney Jr was certainly physically imposing enough but otherwise mis-cast as the aristocratic Dracula; never a great actor, this was too far outside his range as a character
I've gone through the wiki list a couple of times and those are the only two I can swear to having seen, though there may be others I'm forgetting - there was an Abbott and Costello movie this year but I don't recognise the title. So I have a great excuse for choosing Mr. Lucky as my favourite film of1943!
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