The Usual Choices
Brief Encounter (David Lean)
Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti et. al.)
The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin)
They Were Expendable (John Ford)
But how about...
And Then There Were None (Rene Clair)
My favourite (and probably that of most cinephiles) Agatha Christie mystery on film, primarily because it is nonstop fun, exactly like a spirited boardgame should be. Played for light comedy and trimmed with bold lightning flashes and furtive glances to jazz up the drama/suspense quotient, this is greatly enhanced by featuring some of the best character actors of all time (Walter Huston! Barry Fitzgerald! Roland Young! Judith Anderson! C. Aubrey Smith! Mischa Auer!). All those murder roleplaying games played at dinner parties began here: preposterously plotted with a twist ending that is genuinely surprising (and a little silly), all guests will have a terrific time. Don't expect to be frightened though, just puzzled and entertained. Professor Plum, in the library, with the candlestick...
...and what about...
The Enchanted Cottage (John Cromwell)
Pauline Kael says: "(This film is) given the full solemnly sensitive treatment which only seems to add to the painful ickiness of the material. The pathos and sloshy uplift can make one squirm with embarrassment mixed with anger".
Danny Peary says: "One of Hollywood's schmaltziest films. The syrup is laid on thick and it is a bad brand".
I say: "A romantic fantasy fairy tale in the class of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. The acting (apart from Mildred Natwick, who is an admitted embarrassment) is sensitive and appropriately careful. Far closer to heart-warming than corny, this is the ultimate film litmus test for cynicism. It's a love story; it's a tale about redemption; the theme is Perception vs Truth. The yang to 1945 Detour's yin. Don't be afraid to soften and be won over".
...not to mention...
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Elia Kazan)
Director Elia's debut film, and while it lacks the prestige and cultural impact of On the Waterfront, East of Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire, it has the bigger heart. Set in the overcrowded tenement areas of 1912 New York, this struggling-family story is carried on the sturdy back of a 12 year old girl: Peggy Ann Garner. This movie could have so easily become a saccharine-overdose, but is genuinely touching instead. A poor family of 4 live as best they can, with Dad dreaming, drinking and singing his way through life (but making people happy as he does) and Mum hardened from years of being practical and penny-pinching. The two kids are destined for better (and they already know it) but are aware of the toll on their parents. Marvel at the performance given by Peggy (she was the best thing in 1943's Jane Eyre too) and smile at how wholeheartedly the rest of the cast acknowledge the child's gift and support her.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Murder, He Says (George Marshall)
There's nothing like a dud comedy to turn minutes into hours, and this broad slapstick farce is about as funny as Fred MacMurray. Highly regarded by many (Pauline Kael loved it), I dragged my feet through the entire thing, trying desperately to be amused, but only emerging with posterior numbness. Fred is a sap who visits a farmhouse which is inhabited by a murderous hick family on a mission: where did Grandma hide the money? A Lazy Susan, identical twins, secret passages, being clonked on the head a lot, Marjorie Main doing her Ma Kettle routine, phosphorescent poisoning and a hay baling machine are thrown into the frantic mix, aiming to build laugh upon uproarious laugh. Helen Walker demonstrates zero comic touch and the other players go large to the extent of buffoonery. Caveat: I didn't like Arsenic and Old Lace either.
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| Even as a pre-teen, Gidget dreamed of riding her Malibu board with Moondoggie and surfing the world. |
My Top 10 Films of 1945
#02 A- The Enchanted Cottage (Cromwell)
#03 A- And Then There Were None (Clair)
#04 A- The Body Snatcher (Wise)
#05 A- Brief Encounter (Lean)
#06 A- I Know Where I'm Going (Powell)
#07 A- Dead of Night (Cavalcanti; Crichton; Dearden; Hamer)
#08 A- Scarlet Street (Lang)
#09 A- Confidential Agent (Shumlin)
#10 B+ The Clock (Minnelli)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ Fallen Angel (Preminger)
#12 B+ Detour (Ulmer)
#13 B+ The Thin Man Goes Home (Thorpe)
#14 B+ Saratoga Trunk (Wood)
#15 B+ Leave Her to Heaven (Stahl)
#16 B+ My Name is Julia Ross (Lewis)
#17 B+ The Way to the Stars (Asquith)
#18 B+ They Were Expendable (Ford)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B Spellbound [best bit is the Dali dream sequence; Hitch wanted it to be longer; as usual, he was right]
> B Mildred Pierce [how can someone as canny as Mildred allow herself to be exploited by her own kid?]
> B Pink String and Sealing Wax [British costume drama / thriller that's more costume melodrama than thriller]
> B Kitty [a costumed Pygmalion, where Paulette outdoes Audrey but not Wendy and probably not Julie]
> B The Naughty Nineties [aka The One Where Abbott & Costello Do "Who's on First"]
> B Conflict [Bogie as a self-trapping wife-killer...intriguing mystery; implausible solution]
> B The Picture of Dorian Gray [I find the B&W actor more unsettling than his Technicolor portrait]
> B Isle of the Dead [atmospheric & creepy, but just too damned chatty for a horror film]
> B A Place of One's Own [an English ghost story: a reserved and polite haunting]
> B The Southerner [a look at a farming life which is more poetic & gauzy than backbreaking & sweaty]
> B Our Vines Have Tender Grapes [sugary but sweet smalltown Americana that only MGM could make]
> B The Story of G.I. Joe [WWII observational with all the usual great guys, letters from home and death]
> B- The Seventh Veil [a Svengali story where too much time is spent watching someone play a piano]
> B- The House on 92nd Street [WWII/FBI docudrama where the docu is interesting but the drama is lacking]
> B- Caesar and Cleopatra [wants to be more than a talky stagebound play by Shaw but just isn't]
> B- Blithe Spirit [def. of "blithe" = casual and cheerful indifference...which is exactly how I feel]
> B- Christmas in Connecticut [too-sappy rom-com with half a great cast]
> B- The Bells of St. Mary's [funny nuns are less schmaltzy than old Irish priests...but not by much]
> B- A Walk in the Sun [atmospheric & suspenseful, but just too damned chatty for a war movie]
> B- The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry [censorship and poor casting nobble a strong familial obsession story]
> B- The Lost Weekend [yep, being a hopeless drunk is not all beer and skittles]
> C Bewitched [aka The Schizophrenny Made Me Do It, I Tells Ya!]
> C Blood on the Sun [a Jimmy Cagney action film set in Asia with lousy fights and no Asians whatsoever]
> D The Wicked Lady [a load of old cobblers in period costume]
> D Murder, He Says [A Personal Unmentionable]
> D Abbott & Costello in Hollywood [awesomely mirthless]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1945 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
The Affairs of Susan (Seiter); Along Came Jones (Heisler); Anchors Aweigh (Sidney); A Bell for Adano (King); The Brighton Strangler (Nosseck); The Cheaters (Kane); Cornered (Dmytryk); Dangerous Partners (Cahn); Dillinger (Nosseck); Hangover Square (Brahm); Horn Blows at Midnight (Walsh); House of Dracula (Kenton); I Love a Mystery (Levin); Lady on a Train (David); A Medal for Benny (Pichel); Objective, Burma! (Walsh); Pride of the Marines (Daves); The Rake’s Progress (Gilliat); Roughly Speaking (Curtiz); A Royal Scandal (Preminger; Lubitsch); State Fair (Lang); The Unseen (Allen); Vacation From Marriage / Perfect Strangers (Korda); The Valley of Decision (Garnett); Waterloo Road (Gilliat); Without Love (Bucquet); Wonder Man (Humberstone); You Came Along (Farrow)
Best Performances of 1945
Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce
James Dunn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Peggy Ann Garner in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter
Angela Lansbury in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend
Michael Redgrave in Dead of Night
Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven
But how about...
Charles Boyer in Confidential Agent
Charles plays a Spanish Civil War-weary loyalist (to the Republicans of course) who is covertly sent to England to negotiate a deal for coal to aid the good fight. Along the way, Fascist bastards try to stop him by all possible means, especially death. While the film lacks the zip of most secret agent films, it does go heavy on the Callanesque atmospherics (fog & street grime & sudden shocks of violence), which helps it no end. Charles is wonderful as the artist who has been caught up in the war for his country, having lost people whom he loves and clearly suffering from physical and emotional wounds which just won't heal. When he finally rips into action to avenge the murder of a child, his rage is tantamount to rebirth. He envies British peace (a 1945 irony!) but still willingly returns home to do what he can.
...and what about...
Ingrid Bergman in Saratoga Trunk
Ingrid had been a conniving slut in Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde, a heart's desire in Casablanca and an exciting heroine in For Whom the Bell Tolls. In Saratoga Trunk, she was called upon to combine those three personas and add flirty comedy... and it resulted in what is her most entertaining and, dare I say it, most accomplished (read: best) performance. While the film has some awkward features (Dame Flora Robson in blackface posing as a Haitian maid [!!!] and a dwarf used as comic-relief [groan]), Ingrid barrels past them all, doing a winking Scarlett O'Hara impersonation, using men as bank accounts and pouncing on anyone (especially other women) who dare to slight her. No wonder man's man Gary Cooper takes one look at this dish, grins and licks his lips, more than happy to go along with this woman on her ride.
...not to mention...
Judy Garland in The Clock
A sweet story about a young soldier on leave in New York, who meets shopgirl Judy..and within 48 hours, they marry. In between the meeting and the marrying there are little incidents and interludes, all designed to show how they are right for each other and how they may be madly rushing things, but so what?...there's a war on. To me, Judy's performance in this is an extension (a maturing) of her role as Betsy Booth in the Andy Hardy movies: the girl next door who is nice, naive but not simple, and easily caught up in a boy's enthusiasm just to simply DO something crazy. Not many actresses could invert such a part to where it is the male role which is overshadowed by the female's...but Judy does it. Supremely endearing, you can see why Robert Walker is in a surefire hurry to wed and bed her...she is a darling.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend
I am not a fan of drunk or druggie movies...it seems to me that they all pretty much follow the same trajectory: decent person who, through risk-fascination, an inability to handle tough times or peer group cajoling start overdoing the drug of choice + which gets to be a habit + which gets out of hand + the harrowing side effects + the impact on loved ones + the even-more-harrowing withdrawal symptoms + they either come out the other side okay or they don't. There is a lot of obligatory screaming, a wallow in degradation and a glimmer of hope (which is dashed or built upon). Ray does all of that and no more than that. A case of war shortages limiting the leading man pool, I am sure. Hey, at least he gets the message across: alcoholism is a bugger.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1945
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| "Henry...have you thought it may be time to quit smoking?" |
#02 Peggy Ann Garner in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
#03 Celia Johnson & Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter
#04 Charles Boyer in Confidential Agent
#05 Boris Karloff in The Body Snatcher
#06 Margaret Rutherford in Blithe Spirit
#07 Angela Lansbury in The Picture of Dorian Gray
#08 Ingrid Bergman in Saratoga Trunk
#09 Judy Garland in The Clock
#10 Wendy Hiller in I Know Where I'm Going
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 Edward G. Robinson & Joan Bennett & Dan Duryea in Scarlet Street
#12 The cast of And Then There Were None
#13 Wanda Hendrix in Confidential Agent
#14 Googie Withers in Pink String and Sealing Wax
#15 Margaret O'Brien & Jackie "Butch" Jenkins in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
#16 Dorothy McGuire & Robert Young in The Enchanted Cottage
#17 Dana Andrews in Fallen Angel
#18 James Mason in The Seventh Veil
#19 Katina Paxinou in Confidential Agent
#20 George Macready in My Name is Julia Ross
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce [I can't veer my eyes away from her 90 degree shoulders]
> Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend [A Personal Unmentionable]
> Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven [I believe in her being stunning; I don't believe in her being a kid killer]
> James Dunn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn [nice try but is far overshadowed by his daughter]
> Robert Mitchum in The Story of G.I. Joe [was always at his blandest when he played a nice guy]
> Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's [a foxy nun who twinkles more than necessary]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1945 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Elia Kazan)
SILVER: The Enchanted Cottage (John Cromwell)
BRONZE: And Then There Were None (Rene Clair)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Charles Boyer (Confidential Agent)
SILVER: Boris Karloff (The Body Snatcher)
BRONZE: Dana Andrews (Fallen Angel)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Ingrid Bergman (Saratoga Trunk)
SILVER: Judy Garland (The Clock)
BRONZE: Wendy Hiller (I Know Where I'm Going)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Michael Redgrave (Dead of Night)
SILVER: George Macready (My Name is Julia Ross)
BRONZE: George Sanders (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Margaret Rutherford (Blithe Spirit)
SILVER: Angela Lansbury (The Picture of Dorian Gray)
BRONZE: Katina Paxinou (Confidential Agent)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Celia Johnson & Trevor Howard (Brief Encounter)
SILVER: Edward G. Robinson & Joan Bennett & Dan Duryea (Scarlet Street)
BRONZE: C. Aubrey Smith & Judith Anderson & Walter Huston & Mischa Auer & June Duprez & Barry Fitzgerald & Louis Hayward & Roland Young & Richard Haydn & Queenie Leonard (And Then There Were None)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Peggy Ann Garner (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
SILVER: Wanda Hendrix (Confidential Agent)
BRONZE: Margaret O'Brien & Jackie "Butch" Jenkins (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes)
The Alternate Razzies for 1945 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Murder, He Says (George Marshall)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Jason Robards [Sr.] (Isle of the Dead)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Mildred Natwick (The Enchanted Cottage)
