This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.
"Brief Encounter" - Before David Lean made his epics, he was known for his intimate domestic dramas. "Brief Encounter" is considered one of the best British romances ever made, a gentle film about ordinary people with ordinary lives. It's also a lovely time capsule of the era, where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard's have their chance meetings at a railway station, and bond over Donald Duck cartoons. The bittersweet ending is one for the ages.
"The Clock" - Judy Garland and Robert Walker star as a young couple trying to get married before Walker's 48 hour leave from the army is over. The film proved Garland's bona fides as a dramatic actress, but the real romance was going on behind the scenes, between Garland and her director, Vincent Minelli. Like "Brief Encounter," the power of the story is in its simplicity and realism - the rushed wedding leaves Garland in tears, but love wins in the end.
"The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail" - One of Akira Kurosawa's earliest films as a director, made at the tail end of WWII. It depicts the famous twelfth century story of Yoshitsune and the six loyal samurai, using Noh elements and a new comic character to enliven the familiar events. Many of its elements would echo Kurosawa's later, more famous films. Due to censorship concerns, it was dubbed an illegal production and not released until 1952.
"Spellbound" - I include this Alfred HItchcock thriller mostly for its production design, where Salvador Dali was hired to provide Surrealist imagery for the film's dream sequences. The depiction of psychoanalysis here is woefully out of date, but the film remains very watchable thanks to the efforts of its stars, Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. And special kudos should also go to Miklós Rózsa for his wonderfully evocative, Oscar nominated score.
"The Bells of St. Mary's" - A sequel to "Going My Way," where Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley is paired with Ingrid Bergman's formidable Sister Benedict to save a school and a passel of adorable inner city kids. It's a very sweet, uplifting picture about the power of faith, and was a box office smash. Crosby gets to sing a few numbers, but it's Bergman who steals the show. Sister Benedict is so earnest in her belief in the impossible, you can't help being won over.
"Anchors Aweigh" - Who could resist the pairing of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire as sailors on shore leave in Hollywood? This is famously the movie where Kelly danced with Jerry the Mouse from the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. It also features Sinatra singing at the Hollywood Bowl, Dean Stockwell as an annoying kid, and glimpses of MGM and other Hollywood studios they way they existed in the 40s. Kelly and Astaire would team up again in other films, but never so well.
"Christmas in Connecticut" - A Barbara Stanwyck screwball comedy that functions as an anti-Hallmark Christmas movie. The main character can't cook, has to scramble to create the illusion of cozy farmhouse bliss, and in the end gets both the man and her job as a magazine writer. Some seem to think the film champions the women's place being in the home, but I think it exposes this attitude as a hilarious sham. S. Z. Sakall as Stanwyck's handy Uncle Felix steals the show.
"The Southerner" - A moving chronicle of the difficulties of a family of Texas sharecroppers. This was one of Jean Renoir's handful of American films, which raised a storm of controversy because it showed the poverty and harshness of the sharecroppers' lives, and Southerners didn't want to be associated with this image. The film itself, however, is beautifully made - full of stirring human drama, capped off with a breathtaking flood and survival sequence.
"The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" - One of my favorite film noir, in spite of a neutered ending to placate the Production Code. George Sanders has never been more sympathetic onscreen, playing a desperate man who accidentally murders the wrong person. Lots of twists and turns result, leading to an ending that is mostly emotionally satisfying, even if it's a clear cop-out. Lose the very last "it was all a dream" scene, and this is just about perfect.
"Conflict" - A cleverly executed suspense film that features Humphrey Bogart committing what appears to be a foolproof murder. This is one of several films where Bogart plays a criminal that involves narrative trickery and different levels of reality. This one feels like it plays fair, however, because the psychological elements are handled so well. Director Curtis Bernhardt includes some excellent symbolic imagery, and a gorgeous final shot.
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