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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schellenbergk
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#126 Post by schellenbergk » Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:22 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Thu Apr 18, 2019 11:56 am
You are not alone in considering a director’s representation on your list when compiling, but I never understood this methodology. If the list is to represent the fifty best films of the decade according to the submitter, to me that’s what it should contain, even if ten of those are by the same director
You make a good point - so on my first cut I took a look at the number of films per director and then ranked them internally. I ended up with three films for directors I felt were most important / had the best decade, two for directors I felt were important, and limited it to the best film for the rest. Still my list was too long!
But you're right - that might not be a solid approach.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#127 Post by knives » Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:36 pm

domino harvey wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 3:14 pm
I didn't read it that way at all, and I think it's far more complex in its religious vantage than your summary allots. The protagonist's vanity and selfishness in using external salvation of a third party as some kind of proof of self-righteousness is unsettling and pathetic, but I don't think ascribing these actions to the larger Catholic Church is fair, especially since her behaviors are shown as apart from those of her sisters and superiors and she is punished severely for her insolence
Yes and no. I agree that her actions are meant to be representative of her alone, but they are working in contrast to equally bad behavior on the part of the gossipy peers and that one bad mother. The film seems to be another one of Bresson's passion plays and in the context of that narrative model her self righteousness comes across as earned. It does bring up some interesting stuff as well, the temptation in this cut of the play being lesbianism is fascinating if undercooked in this film, but scenes like the apology tour are rancid to me and I don't know what purpose they are getting into especially in light of the ending.

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HinkyDinkyTruesmith
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#128 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:49 pm

swo17 wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:19 pm
"Awesome" in its modern connotation isn't one of the first words I would use to describe Late Spring but it did make my last list, as did Record of a Tenement Gentleman, which I cheekily titled The Tenement Directory as I'm trying to make that a thing
I used "awesome" deliberately for that mismatched tone, since I didn't want my initial comment to come off too seriously––it's sincere, surely, but I know sometimes people are sensitive to being told what to like.

I also like The Tenement Directory quite a bit! It may indeed make my list, but, Late Spring for me has always been the most beautiful (rhythmically) Ozu, and I've seen them all. It flows more naturally than most of his other works, which I think is also slightly deliberate. The classical Ozu model that we all think of to me actually seems to end somewhere around where he adopts color, when (late, esp.) Henry James becomes the much better model for understanding Ozu's construction. I don't think there are any films as similar to Late Autumn, for example, as the novel The Golden Bowl.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#129 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:02 pm

I had actually specified Last Spring when I wrote that post, since that is (pretty uncontroversially) my top Ozu for the decade, but then decided to leave that out! I just used Ozu as an example off the top of my head.

But very truthfully, this is a film I will revisit but I have no idea where it will rank and even if it will make the cut. Also my esteem of a film does not necessarily equate to my viscerally (or cerebrally!) liking or loving it, and the latter is really the only criterion I use in making such lists.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#130 Post by swo17 » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:16 pm

HinkyDinkyTruesmith wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:49 pm
I also like The Tenement Directory quite a bit!
Thank you for calling it that! I would also have accepted Ozu's L'eclisse

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#131 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:31 pm

One thing to pay special attention to in Late Spring -- Setsuko Hara's sheer physicality. Lots more range (and freedom) of movement than would become usual (including messy/graceless actions). For some reason, her performance here makes me think (at times) of Cherubino in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro.

Yes, it's about time to give so-called Tenement Gentleman a better (less inaccurate) name. (I love Choko Iida in this -- and wonder to what extent this film was one of Kitano's models for Kikujiro).

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HinkyDinkyTruesmith
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#132 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:34 pm

Of course, Bordwell touts "A Who's Who of the Tenements" as an alternate, more accurate translation in his book (p. 296). But that's tonally a bit off from the actual movie.

Michael, that's quite the observation! I don't know that I've ever noticed it. Imagine, messy, graceless movements in a mature Ozu film!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#133 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:37 pm

Even more graceless and messy (but wonderful) movements by Kinuyo Tanaka in Hen in the Wind.

For Hara, especially not her slouchy (and grouchy and mean) behavior when she visits her buddy's house after she gets angry at her father.

For Hara at her (post-war) wildest, there's Oba's Woman of the Typhoon District: https://www.facebook.com/michael.e.kerp ... 6151578909 (can't link directly to my screen shots here -- because I have no idea where to find them on any of my hard drives -- if they didn't get lost in a crash, which they may have).

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#134 Post by tarpilot » Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:23 pm

.
Last edited by tarpilot on Sat May 13, 2023 7:12 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#135 Post by swo17 » Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:35 pm

tarpilot wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:23 pm
Enough words for a spotlight yet? Screw Flanders screw Flanders screw Flanders
Image

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#136 Post by denti alligator » Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:22 pm

So I finally watched Meet Me in St. Louis. Oh, boy. What am I not seeing here that is apparently so beloved? I found it tedious in just about every way. Only the Halloween sequence was engaging. Anyone want to smack me upside the face and set me straight? I'd love to hear it.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#137 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:37 pm

Remorques (Grémillon 1941). Upon second viewing, this appears to me more like a minor, not that original, but still enjoyable film. The heart of poetic realism is still beating strong here: pure doomed romanticism, heavy on atmosphere. Not anywhere in the same league as Gueule d’amour though.


Bitter Rice (De Santis 1949). Neorealism meets pulpy Hollywood film (although Ossessione had trod this path before to a degree). It’s quite the mongrel, with the latter in the end dominating story-wise but especially stylistically. Still it’s a film with a lot of power and vitality in the performances and images, but I have to admit a preference for the “purer” specimens.


I've been housebreaking a new kitten and monitoring the slow introduction with the resident cat, so there have been less available evenings for film viewing these last 10 days. Hopefully within a week or so I'll get back to normal speed...

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#138 Post by HinkyDinkyTruesmith » Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:43 pm

denti alligator wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 9:22 pm
So I finally watched Meet Me in St. Louis. Oh, boy. What am I not seeing here that is apparently so beloved? I found it tedious in just about every way. Only the Halloween sequence was engaging. Anyone want to smack me upside the face and set me straight? I'd love to hear it.
It's been a bit since I've seen the film, so, forgive any small misrememberings.

Well, I think the first line of defense for Meet Me in St. Louis is its visual beauty. There are few Technicolor films that match its aesthetic splendor, the quality of the bright daylight early on, the glow of diffused close-ups of Judy Garland, the popping colors. Minnelli's always made beautiful movies but rarely do his 50s ventures match Meet Me in St. Louis for visual splendor (the American in Paris ballet, the climax of Tea and Sympathy). I understand that this may not be thrilling, but, it's certainly frequently astonishing.

If I had to guess from your language and what you find interesting (the Halloween sequence, a truly grotesque curiosity compared to the rest of the film), it's the banality of the subject material. The very first image of the film gives us an indication of what the film is: as the sepia tinted photograph of the house they live in fades into the Technicolor life of the movie, it's clear that this is about a time and place, it's a slice of life in a way that musicals rarely are. The major plotlines of the first episode are noticing the cute boy next door, how to make good ketchup, and awaiting the novelty of a phone call from a suitor in New York. Any hopes for a prominent plot are bound to fail, the pleasures are the interplay of the characters and the culture they exist in, and most of all, the radiant nostalgia of the imagery that Minnelli conjures up. Just think of the dinner that everyone in the family tries to rush through so that the older sister can have her phone call in privacy––a viewer hoping for more plot, a quicker pace, anything like that, is like the family, and meanwhile, the father wants everyone to slow down and cool their jets.

It's key, however, that things go this way. If we cannot fall in love with these things, the simple objects: the brilliant red of the ketchup in their bottles, or grandpa's hat, or the vivid green lawns, then there's no hope for us when father announces that he's going to sell the house and move them all to New York. The bitterness of the other family members when he selfishly announces it must come from our own desires to remain in this gorgeous place, this Technicolor Eden, otherwise you're left siding with father, feeling that everyone in the family is just being selfish and silly (which they are, of course).

It's all anecdotal. The Halloween episode is of course a treat, exciting and bizarre, grotesque, but also morally troubling. Without demanding an entire film's worth of plot to be reallocated to it, the children's Halloween prank that gets them in hot water with the Truett boy produces a disturbing disruption in the otherwise wholesome world of the film that the older character's briefly react to negatively, before moving along. The first time I watched it, I was deeply stunned by how disregarded it became only moments later as they all burst into laughter.

But the moments I find most affecting and that speak to the film's power are the "You and I" duet between Mary Astor and Leon Ames. A genuinely beautiful duet, tender and quiet, perhaps even more beautiful than even Judy Garland's "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (which itself is perfectly sentimentalized through the little wind-me-up music box). Astor and Ames truly feel like a long married couple, and while I've always found Astor's comeback in The Maltese Falcon overrated, here she is sublime. The way she responds to her husband's voice breaking, and changes key.

As the family regathers around them, it provides the stepping stone, the counter moment for when he sits alone later on, having just witnessed his two daughters crying over the impending loss of their home; the camera tracks in on his slowly realizing face as he puts off lighting his pipe––and he realizes it, and reverses course on his plans. A moment of reunification of the family under father's orders (ironically, comically played by him telling them that they don't realize how great a city St. Louis is). There's just a treasure trove of lovely moments scattered throughout the film: I've never found Judy's love interest particularly charming, but them going through the house and turning the lights off is so romantic to me, and so mired in period detail.

Meet Me in St. Louis is perhaps the quintessential old school musical, before songs and narrative were perfectly integrated. It's central that each song slow us down, bring us to the moment of it happening rather than move the plot along, as this is a film about remembering a place, living in it, recalling the details and savoring them. It's a truly indulgent filmn in that way, as theoretically the cyclical nature of the film could continue, as one season gives way to another, as more details arise in fine Technicolor brilliance.

It's also a film of fantasies and nightmares: the dreaming of a Prince Charming, the transformation of an old man into a young one at the ball, the evil man with his evil dog, being forced to leave your home. All these things fringe the film which is otherwise concerned with the routines of the day, of the dinner, of the year (we see the morning routine first thing, as one character to another sings, "Meet Me in St. Louis"; or the dinner process; or the ritual of Halloween; or the big events of the year, one by one). And it's this oscillation between reality and fantasy that results in such striking uncanniness, as the Halloween children's bonfire, or the snowman mass murder, which speak to dark undercurrents that the film nostalgically sweeps away.

All in all, it just seems to me a very rich film, precise and vibrant in its details, and uninsistant on its importance. It's a film to luxuriate in, just relax and fall back into 1903-04 St. Louis. To quote Robin Wood, "The life of a film is in its detail."

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#139 Post by denti alligator » Sun Apr 21, 2019 9:08 am

Great defense. Thank you. The color photography is indeed stunning. As for the rest: you make a convincing case, but I guess it's just not for me. I was not struck by any of the other features you point out.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#140 Post by domino harvey » Sun Apr 21, 2019 12:24 pm

I love Garland, Minnelli, and Freed Unit musicals, but the appeal of Meet Me in St Louis has always escaped me too, so you’re not alone denti— but we’re def in the minority! Plenty of better musical choices this decade (On the Town, the Harvey Girls, the Pirate, Easter Parade, Good News, Where Do We Go From Here?, A Song is Born, Yankee Doodle Dandy, It Happened in Brooklyn, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and and and...)

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#141 Post by schellenbergk » Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:19 am

Rayon Vert wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:37 pm

Bitter Rice (De Santis 1949). Neorealism meets pulpy Hollywood film (although Ossessione had trod this path before to a degree). It’s quite the mongrel, with the latter in the end dominating story-wise but especially stylistically. Still it’s a film with a lot of power and vitality in the performances and images, but I have to admit a preference for the “purer” specimens.
Great film - OK I will have to revise my list . . .

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#142 Post by Black Hat » Fri Apr 26, 2019 4:48 pm

knives wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 3:02 pm
Minnelli is a lot more uneven, but The Pirate is possibly the best musical of the '40s.
I'm not a big musical person, but The Pirate is the one I'd show someone who says they don't like musicals. All the more surprising given the film's less than stellar reputation. Gene Kelly's at the peak of his powers, so in charge without being domineering, that he brings a natural life out of Garland I've found lacking in her other pictures. Most of the time I've found Garland to be hyper aware of herself as a performer instead of acting. Admittedly this was the age of the star overwhelming any possible character, but even within those parameters Garland was on the extreme end, but in The Pirate you get the sense Kelly coached her into a more soft, sympathetic performance to fit his physicality.
domino harvey wrote:
Sun Apr 14, 2019 2:39 pm
Nah. I mean, just looking at Oscar nominees alone from this year, there’s plenty of worthwhile movies in 1949:


Madame Bovary
Surprisingly Minelli was at the helm of this extremely strange film that has a moment or two, but misses the mark thanks to being unbalanced in Jennifer Jones histrionics. The framing of this I thought was interesting, but for the most part was left unexplored, a waste of James Mason, but as per usual I'm sure cashed that check.
Rayon Vert wrote:
Mon Apr 15, 2019 5:18 pm
Reign of Terror is one of the few Mann's I haven't seen.
Not one that's going to go into the library of the Actor's Studio, but on sheer pace alone it makes for a lot of fun. The intro especially drives you right into the thick of it and it goes on from there into a creepy rush of conspiracies competing for power.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#143 Post by domino harvey » Sat Apr 27, 2019 3:28 pm

Madame Bovary's worth seeing for the dance sequence alone... I actually don't even remember anything else about it!

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#144 Post by knives » Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:13 pm

That and James Mason are for me the whole. The rest is pleasant filler.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#145 Post by Rayon Vert » Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:26 pm

The Street with No Name (Keighley 1948). Kind of a sequel to The House on 92nd Street, another self-congratulatory FBI procedural, this time focusing on infiltrating gangsterism rather than Nazis in America. Again, nothing great in terms of individualized characters or style, but pretty solid and fun, and helped by Widmark playing one of his early psychopathic villain roles.


Green for Danger (Gilliat 1946).
It’s in no danger of making my list (no pun intended), but it’s fun and charming for what it is. The generic limits are made enjoyable by the oddness and originality of the setting and various story elements, along with the performances. Just the right mix of comedy and suspense also.


Waterloo Bridge (LeRoy 1940).
This remake radically transforms the original plot elements, and dampens down the controversial aspects, but the result is nevertheless a superior film. Vivien Leigh’s performance in particular elevates the picture greatly and is the best thing about it.


Image
Strange Cargo (Borzage 1940). It puzzles me how so many of Borzage’s films are spiritual in nature when he didn’t write them and he worked for different studios. Did he choose the projects because of that aspect, or did the producers choose him? Or was some or a lot of it just happenstance? Anyway, this is a strange adventure drama that turns halfway, somewhat gratuitously, into a religious tale. I think that later dimension isn’t as successful, and tonally confuses a little what up to then was a fairly entertaining prison-escape-into-the-jungle and then proto-Lifeboat adventure piece. The qualities stuck in my mind and made me want to see it again, but I had the same reaction to how it eventually unfolds. It gets points for oddness though. Crawford’s acting is also pretty good here.
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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#146 Post by nitin » Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:05 am

Agree with your assessments of Strange Cargo (although you forgot to mention Lorre’s Monsieur Pig!) and Green For Danger.

I myself rewatched Flamingo Road and came away with a similar reaction to last time, it’s beautifully shot and Sydney Greenstreet is fantastic but the sudden shifts in characterisations and tone about 1/3 of the way through seem too contrived for the sake of the plot. It either needed to be 25 min longer to flesh things out more or needed to be more ridiculous/campy in tone.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#147 Post by Feego » Sun Apr 28, 2019 7:05 am

I really enjoy Madame Bovary, and I think Jennifer Jones' performance is a marvel. The ballroom scene is justifiably famous, reaching a frenzied crescendo of window smashing (which definitely is not in the book!). Jones is all over the place, but that's what her character calls for, jumping from one extreme emotion to another (passion, depression, ecstasy, disillusionment). The moment where she revels alone in orgasmic memory of her first tryst with Louis Jourdan is one of the most explicitly sexual moments I've encountered in 1940s Hollywood cinema. And the framing device with James Mason as Flaubert defending his book struck me as a rather amusing plea by MGM for the censorship boards to cut the film some slack.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#148 Post by knives » Wed May 01, 2019 7:06 pm

Unconquered (dir. DeMille)
The story of a slave fighting for her freedom with her fight explicitly linked to the very foundation of America would be a daring choice in most eras let alone the '40s if that slave were someone other than Paulette Goddard. It's a glaring thematic choice where DeMille goes out of his way to ignore the much worse type of slavery that was in full swing at the time in lieu of getting his Ayn Rand on. Unlike some of his other movies though DeMille's weird regressive streak doesn't totally cripple the movie which stays consistently entertaining if overlong.

I also saw his The Story of Dr. Wassel and for such an adequate film it's shocking that it's never been released on DVD. An important lesson in the need for film preservation ultimately. That an Oscar nominated, colour, war film from a major studio with a major star and name director has never been released on DVD and people are dependent on an old VHS to see it is a horror of reality. Sure it might not be a big name title, but for it to never been released even as a boxset filler is downright disturbing especially as the movie is actually pretty good.

Waterloo Bridge (LeRoy)
It's really shocking how explicit the prostitution subplot is. They all but say the word. It's also a really weird turn given how the film ends it, but before dealing with the narrative implications the shock of the film going there stays. Beyond that this is a pretty good romance with one of Leigh's best performances. It probably goes on too long past the point of drama, but by that point the characters are charming enough for that not to matter much.

The Blue Dahlia
The film really only makes sense with the original ending in mind which would have certainly made a better film. The first act carries this to a really effective and thematically rich movie. It devolves into generic genre trappings though after the requisite murder with no pay off for the themes set up in the beginning. That makes for a good film that never really takes off to the great one it could have been.

The Spiral Staircase & The Dark Mirror
It's easy to see why these two have such a strong cult going for them. They are not only great for their smart proto-slasher vibe bridging for the next generation of mystery, but also some unique touches as well. The Spiral Staircase plays the cinephiles like a fiddle. The whole film is about the relationship between image and sound with editing and light being central to that element of the meta-narrative. Siodmak isn't even subtle about it opening with a silent movie and explicitly having characters engage with the aesthetic (that's basically the killer's MO).

The Dark Mirror doesn't have as obvious a hook thematically, but I think I like it even better with de Havilland giving the best performance I've seen from here. It's always obvious which twin she's playing with just the right amount of obviousness to make this a gas. The supporting performances are fun as well. Usually you'll have at least one bore in these films, but even the psych boyfriend is pretty entertaining. If the former film could have been a giallo this is basically a De Palma film with gleeful violence in its portrayal of psychological twinning.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#149 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed May 01, 2019 9:11 pm

Re: Waterloo. In the original, Myra is a prostitute from the beginning, so the story has been substantially changed so that here she is initially "purer", but yeah I did not remember well and it is quite surprising that it is that explicit that she becomes a streetwalker in this one as well. It's also nice that they managed to bring the new, emerging European war into the film, and then going back to WWI as a mirror flashback. I don't remember if the 1931 version used a flashback framing.

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Re: The 1940s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#150 Post by knives » Wed May 01, 2019 9:48 pm

Well, the original is pre-code so being explicit, especially in a Whale film, is the name of the game. The original does not if I recall correctly, but it also is post WWI if I am recalling correctly. The best I remember is a hilarious joke on prohibition near the start of the movie.

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