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.
"Lifeboat" - One of Hitchcock's most inventive suspense films has the bulk of the action take place in and around a lifeboat on the open water. The characters consist of eight British and American survivors of a wreck, plus a suspicious German U-boat captain. Hitchcock is able to do a lot with a limited space and a passel of good performances. He's even able to include one of his famous director cameos in an ingenious way.
"Arsenic and Old Lace" - Cary Grant famously disliked how silly his performance came out in this screwball classic, but I think it's a terrible shame that he rarely allowed himself to be this funny onscreen again. It's one of the greatest un-scary Halloween films ever made, and features some of the sweetest murderers and most friendly lunatics you could ever meet. Plus Peter Lorre as a bullied minion! Plus Teddy Roosevelt taking San Juan Hill! Chaaarge!
"Meet Me in St. Louis" - A nostalgic portrait of Midwestern family life in the early 1900s, built around a year of holiday celebrations and anticipation for the World's Fair. Features some of Judy Garland's best remembered musical performances - "The Trolley Song" is a favorite - and all the greeting card visuals that Vincent Minnelli can conjure. The blissfulness is especially impressive in light of all the production chaos going on behind the scenes.
"Gaslight" - This is the George Cukor directed film, starring Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman, that was a direct remake of the 1940 British version. It's probably the best remembered take on the story, known for a great Bergman performance, as well as Angela Lansbury making her screen debut as her sinister maid. "Gaslight" has become a cornerstone of the paranoid thriller genre, and is still terribly relevant - especially since the term "gaslighting" took off.
"Hail the Conquering Hero" - This was the height of Preston Sturges' popularity, and 1944 saw the releases of three of his films. My favorite is the tale of a hapless fellow who can't cut it in the army, but thanks to a prank, is sent home to an adoring town that greets him as a war hero. I can't make heads or tails of the story logic, because all that matters here is the feelings of the crowd. Patriotism wins out over any form of sense, and honesty somehow wins the day.
"Henry V" - The earliest of Laurence Olivier's great Shakespeare adaptations for the screen. This is the one that recreates Shakespeare's Globe Theater and switches from presenting a staged version of the play to a full dramatization, and back again. Meant to be a WWII morale booster, the emphasis is on the pageantry and the patriotism, all rendered in glorious Technicolor. The best scene, however, remains Henry's intimate wooing of Katherine after the battle is won.
"National Velvet" - The horse girl trope really had its genesis in this Clarence Brown directed heartwarmer. It made a twelve year-old Elizabeth Taylor a screen star, but she had help from a sterling supporting cast, including Ann Revere, Donald Crisp, Mickey Rooney, and Angela Lansbury. The sentiment is laid on pretty thick, but handled with such care that it still feels like nearly every subsequent film about a child's bond with an animal owes something to this one.
"None Shall Escape" - Hollywood's first stab at depicting the atrocities of the Nazis is a surprisingly even-handed melodrama. It allows the audience to first sympathize with the protagonist, a troubled WWI veteran, before charting his turn to Nazism and the horrors that he commits against his former loved ones. The starring performance of Alexander Knox in particular is memorably complex and often chilling. It's obviously a very American production, however.
"Torment" - Alf Sjoberg directed the film, but it's best remembered for Ingmar Bergman's involvement as its writer and assistant director. There was some controversy around it at the time of release, because of its' unhappy depiction of school life, but the film has since come to be seen as a classic story of youthful rebellion against tyranny - found here in the form of the sadistic Latin teacher.
"To Have and Have Not" - William Faulkener famously helped script this adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway novel, but I don't remember much about the "Casablanca" -esque plot. The chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, however, was off the charts. The flirtations and the innuendoes come fast and furious, making this one of the best screen romances of all time.
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