AndyM108
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Posts posted by AndyM108
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*1. Johnny Eager*
*2. The Hard Way*
*3. In This Our Life*
I didn't put them in that exact order, but nevertheless congratulations on your impeccable taste for 1942.
Continuing along the decade, here's my top 10 for *1947,* a year that had so many great movies that once you get past the top 5 or so, the order is almost random.
1. Out of the Past (tied with The Killers for best noir ever)
2. Germany: Year Zero (IMO the best of Rossellini's war trilogy)
3. Nightmare Alley (another top 10 noir)
4. Framed
5. Kiss of Death
6. The Unsuspected
7. Nora Prentiss
8. The Long Night
9. Possessed
10. High Wall
Best of the Rest: The Hucksters, Born to Kill, The Unfaithful, Dead Reckoning, Crossfire, Dark Passage, The Sin of Harold Diddlebock, Lady in the Lake, Brute Force, New Orleans (with Billie Holiday), Deep Valley, They Don't Believe Me
Best Actor: Tyrone Power (Nightmare Alley)
Best Actress: Jane Greer (Out of the Past)
Best Supporting Actor: Vincent Price (The Long Night)
Best Supporting Actress: Helen Walker (Nightmare Alley)
Underrated: High Wall
Way Overrated: Monsieur Verdoux
Films viewed: About 70, with almost no true clinkers
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1946 is more like it. What a year for movies!
1. The Killers
2. It's A Wonderful Life
3. No Regrets For Our Youth
4. Open City
5. The Best Years of Our Lives
6. Deception
7. Gilda
8. The Blue Dahlia
9. Paisan
10. Tomorrow Is Forever
Best of the Rest: The Dark Corner, The Locket, Shock, Somewhere in the Night, Till the End of Time, 13 Rue Madeleine, Undercurrent, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Big Sleep
Underrated: Till the End of Time
Overrated: The Stranger; Humoresque
Best Actor: Aldo Fabrizi (Open City)
Best Actress: Rita Hayworth (Gilda)
Supporting Actor: Harold Russell (The Best Years of Our Lives)
Supporting Actress: Anna Magnani (Open City)
Greatest Depth in Casting: The Killers, The Best Years of Our Lives
Titles viewed: About 70
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How did this thread become one about the whole friggin 40s. It buries the intent and message of the original poster. ...that this year had.some amazing movies.
TopBilled originally suggested expanding it to the rest of the 40's, and then when I took him up on it he and I have been exchanging lists. I'll continue with 1946 later today, so you might want to consider putting me and TopBilled on ignore if you only want to read about 1940.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my reasoning behind not starting a new thread for each year is simple: It would clutter up the General Discussions list to have 10 different threads on what would essentially be variants on the same subject. And anyway, *every* year has some amazing movies, not just 1940.
(Well, 1943 was pretty much of a clinker, but that's the exception that proves the rule.
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I Could Go On Singing played in June of 2012 and again last May, so I think there's a fair chance we'll see it again this year. I completely agree that it's a terrific movie, second only to A Star Is Born for Garland's dramatic roles.
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This is fun, but after 1945 I've got to take a break and gear up for Crawford night. Most of my 1940's favorites are towards the end of the decade.
1945 Top 10
1. Children of Paradise (serious candidate for all time top 10)
2. Roughly Speaking (God, do I love Rosalind Russell in this one)
3. Mildred Pierce (top 10 noir)
4. Detour (most appropriately named leading actress)
5. Leave Her to Heaven
6. The Lost Weekend
7. The Clock
8. Conflict
9. Danger Signal
10. Christmas in Connecticut
Best of the rest: The House on 92nd Street, Scarlet Street, Hangover Square, Fallen Angel, Power of the Whistler, Voice of the Whistler
Underrated: Roughly Speaking - I can't think of a better representation of the best of the American spirit, and Russell and Carson are perfectly matched
Worst Movie: Murder, He Says - one of the lamest attempts at comedy ever placed on celluloid
Have to Watch: Brief Encounter
Best Actor: Ray Milland (The Lost Weekend)
Best Actress: Rosalind Russell (Roughly Speaking)
Supporting Actor: Sidney Greenstreet (Christmas in Connecticut)
Supporting Actress: Ann Blyth (Mildred Pierce)
Titles watched: About 50
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WHOA! One second there, Andy. What's with this whole "1943/Rock Bottom" thing here?
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Shadow of a Doubt
Sahara
Heaven Can Wait
The Ox-Bow Incident
...aren't exactly "rock bottom" in MY book, ol' buddy!
Find any year in the studio era (or any year, for that matter) where you *can't* find more good to great movies than in 1943. Can't be done.
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After reaching rock bottom in 1943, things begin to pick up a *LOT* in *1944* .
1. Laura
2. Double Indemnity
3. Murder My Sweet
4. Arsenic and Old Lace
5. Ministry of Fear
6. Phantom Lady
7. To Have and Have Not
8. The Woman In The Window
9. The Lodger
10. The Whistler - first entry in my all time favorite series, with Richard Dix in the title role
Best of the rest: Since You Went Away, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Missing Juror, Crime By Night, Mr. Skeffington
Underrated: Ministry of Fear, The entire Whistler series
Overrated: Gaslight
Winner of the Reefer Madness award: The Last Ride (with bootleg tires in the place of "marihuana")
Best Actor: Dick Powell (Murder, My Sweet)
Best Actress: Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity)
Supporting Actor: Clifton Webb (Laura)
Supporting Actress: Josephine Dunn and Jean Adair (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Titles watched: About 50
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They ought to raise Mahalia Jackson from the dead so she can sing at the funeral.
Indeed. R.I.P. Ms. Moore.
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OTOH, it's often the cheezy effects that make those old sci-fi flicks fun to watch!
Exactly. You can't improve on those giant ants in Them!, or the Walks Under Mushrooms-sized character in The Incredible Shrinking Man.
And if you get into the related realm of monster movies, how can modern technology ever top the lumbering hulk of the ape in King Kong ?
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You listed many films I like and would probably add to my honorable mentions-- IN THIS OUR LIFE especially. I am surprised you didn't include THE BIG STREET, since it definitely has noir elements.
It does, but the Lucille Ball character was so offputting that I couldn't really enjoy it.
Here's my 1943 list, which may be the weakest for any year in the studio era. If you don't go for cookie cutter Hollywood war movies, there isn't much to choose from.
1. Old Acquaintance - the only movie of 1943 I'd have put on a top 10 list in any other year.
2. Crime Doctor - the first of the highly enjoyable Warner Baxter series
3. Mr. Lucky
4. Stormy Weather - a piece of fluff, but what a cast!
5. Frank Capra's Why We Fight series - propaganda, but at least it was up front about it and hence much more interesting
6. The Dark Tower
7. After Midnight With Boston **** - another great comic detective series, featuring one of my favorite B-movie actors (Chester Morris)
8. Heaven Can Wait - damn, did Laird Cregar ever die way too young!
9. Thank Your Lucky Stars - no plot whatever, but of course that wasn't the point for this all-star cast
10. What a Woman! - only because of Roz Russell's performance
Best of the rest: none
Underrated: none
Overrated: Shadow of a Doubt
Creepiest: The Nazi production of Titanic
Have to Watch next: Sanshiro Sugata
Best Actor: Cary Grant (Mr. Lucky)
Best Actress: Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins (Old Acquaintance)
Supporting Actor: Fats Waller (Stormy Weather)
Supporting Actress: can't think of any that stood out
Titles watched: About 40. 1943 really was the nadir of the movie industry.
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TopBilled, you're right about Swamp Water. What really hits home with me is that when I start going over these movies, I realize that I never saw the great majority of them until TCM (and to a much lesser extent the FMC) came along.
I don't really have lots of favorites until the WW2 glut ends and the noir era begins, but here's what I get for *1942*:
1. The Hard Way (my favorite Lupino movie)
2. The Glass Key
3. This Gun For Hire
4. Casablanca
5. In This Our Life (Bette Davis as pure evil)
6. Johnny Eager
7. Tales of Manhattan (another movie that TCM needs to get from Fox)
8. Moontide (I'll take Gabin and Lupino over any screen couple)
9. Orchestra Wives
10. Rings on Her Finger (another great Laird Cregar performance)
Best of the rest: Now, Voyager, Juke Girl, The Man Who Came to Dinner, To Be Or Not To Be, All Through the Night (dirty Nattzis and Fifth Col-yoo-mists!)
Underrated: Everything from 5 through 10 on the above list
Worst Movie: The sound version of The Gold Rush. What on Earth was Charlie Chaplin thinking? It's as if he took a perfect prime rib and dunked it in cold brine and mayonnaise.
Best Actor: Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca)
Best Actress: Ida Lupino (The Hard Way)
Supporting Actor: Laird Cregar (This Gun For Hire)
Supporting Actress: Joan Leslie (The Hard Way)
Titles watched: 67
Note: The Hard Way, like Casablanca, wasn't released until early 1943, but until recently I've always seen it listed as a 1942 movie, and that's how I've always thought of it.
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Andy,
I think we have two titles in common for 1941....
5. THE DEVIL AND MISS JONES
9. THE LADY EVE
The Devil and Miss Jones is one of my favorite romantic screwballs, both for Coburn and for Jean Arthur. But I have to admit that in my pre-AFI days when my knowledge of "classic" movies was limited pretty much to the likes of Casablanca and GWTW, the first time I saw The Devil and Miss Jones listed I thought it was that porno movie, "The Devil *in* Miss Jones".
And I don't think I was the only one who made that mistaken connection. -
My father came from Norway in 1927, but another branch of his family had emigrated to Texas sometime in the 1870's or 1880's. We used to get a Christmas card from one of them every year, a second cousin once removed or something like that, but until LBJ became president I hadn't realized that the guy who was sending those cards was one of Johnson's major cronies, and the trustee of all of his properties. He lived well into his 80's and didn't die until 2002, but I never got to meet him, let alone to make it into what must have been a rather humongous will. If only his family had settled in DC instead of Texas.
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I should have walked out of a film called EL TOPO. Instead I just went to sleep.
I never saw that movie, and I doubt if until tonight I've even thought about it since the year (1970) it came out. But I'll never forget the promo line that they used to advertise it on the radio:
*"FILMED IN SOUTH AMERICA - - - - WHERE LIFE IS CHEAP"*
For me that's always been right up there with the old Mogen David wine ad that claimed that it was *"AS MODERN AS A PEACE DEMONSTRATION".*
It's not hard to guess when *that* one was running.
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I give up. Just read my original comment and look up "context" in the dictionary. And that's the end of my half of this conversation.
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Did Streisand ever wear a beehive?
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*"In the Washington neighborhood where I grew up, the "other" Albert Einstein lived two houses up the street, and was a crotchety old geezer who was also a vocal anti-semite. One of life's little ironies."*
Only in the most twisted disingenuously applied use of the term.
It is used by offended Zionists to besmirch the integrity of prominent voices that dare to differ with them on key -for lack of a better term- "party" platforms, usually involving the establishment or extent of a(n) (the) official Jewish state and recognition and regard of such.
Sorry, but although I never heard this "other" Einstein's views on Israel, I heard him spout anti-Jewish comments right and left, using words I won't repeat here.
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I understand train of thought and everything but really: How the heck did that become a relevant comment in a Red Skelton thread? Sometimes it's just fine to let the engine run out of coal.
Pure free association, nothing else. Sorry if I offended you.
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OOPS, just re-checked this one Andy, and it appears "High Sierra" was released in '41, not '40)
So were all the others on that second list, which was in response to TopBilled's suggestion to list other years of the 40's. I listed my 1940 choices earlier.
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*My only criticism of the scheduling changes is that I think there should be a way to sign up for automatic e-mail notifications whenever such changes occur.* I don't mind the fact that Suspicion got aired two days in a row, but it *does* bother me that I didn't know about Blonde Cheat until it was too late to either watch it or record it for later viewing. This is especially true since that's a film that will never likely be shown more than once in a blue moon.
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(...of course I'm speaking of the OTHER "Albert Einstein" known better as "Albert Brooks")
In the Washington neighborhood where I grew up, the "other" Albert Einstein lived two houses up the street, and was a crotchety old geezer who was also a vocal anti-semite. One of life's little ironies.
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I love the idea of this thread! Good job. I think we should do this for each year of the 1940s. I particularly like where posters include the number of films they have personally viewed from said year.
I'll stick my toe in the water with 1941.
1. Pepe Le Moko (Gabin) Glad I caught this on Gabin's SUTS day
2. The Lady Eve
3. I Wake Up Screaming (TCM needs to get this from FOX)
4. Ladies in Retirement (Lupino & Louis Hayward)
5. The Devil and Daniel Webster (that ending!)
6. High Sierra
7. The Maltese Falcon
8. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
9. When Ladies Meet (Garson and Crawford)
10. Swamp Water (another Walter Huston classic)
Best of the rest: A Woman's Face, The Devil in Miss Jones, Remorques (another Gabin), Sullivan's Travels
Underrated: Meet Boston ****
Best Actor: Jean Gabin (Pepe LeMoko)
Best Actress: Barbara Stanwyck (The Lady Eve)
Supporting Actor: Walter Huston (The Devil and Daniel Webster)
Supporting Actress: Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon)
Titles watched: 81, and yes, that's including Citizen Kane
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1940 wasn't a great year for movies compared to 1950, but there were a few pretty good ones.
*1. His Girl Friday*
*2. The Great McGinty*
*3. The Letter*
*4. The Philadelphia Story*
(Big gap)
5. They Drive By Night
6. Christmas in July
7. Babies For Sale (early Glenn Ford)
8. Girls of the Road (in spite of the Breen ending)
9. Remember the Night
10. Foreign Correspondent
Best Actor: Brian Donlevy (The Great McGinty)
Best Actress: Bette Davis (The Letter)
Supporting Actor: Akim Tamaroff (The Great McGinty)
Supporting Actress: Ida Lupino (They Drive By Night)
Titles watched: about 80-85
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and, according to urban legend, spiders.
The head lice version was from the DC area. Where did the spiders come from?
Though now that I think about it, given that the setup part of the legend was that the poor girl had never washed her hair for something like three months before her rather nasty demise, her skull may well have been infiltrated by a few mice and snakes as well as by all those lice and spiders.
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Did anyone else catch that terrific Saturday night underground double feature, Mixed Blood and Alphabet City ? To me it's fascinating to see movies like that along a continuum of gangland movies that run from Chaney/Bancroft through Cagney/Robinson through Pacino/De Niro and up through Menace II Society and beyond. The Brazilian actress Marilia Pera in particular gave a stunning performance in Mixed Blood, while Vincent Spano is almost as good in Alphabet City. These are just two more examples of why TCM will never become stagnant in bringing us the best of the old and of the (relatively) new.
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1940- an underrated year
in General Discussions
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Andy, we?re in total agreement about something else: 1947 was one of the great years for Hollywood films. That is, if you like film noir, 1940s romances, and women?s films?and I do, I do. Trying to make a top 10 is all but impossible with so many splendid movies to choose from.
Until I began assembling these lists by year, I've never quantified my suspicions, but my gut instinct has always been that the true "Golden Era" of Hollywood in terms of quantity and quality was roughly between 1946 and 1951. Noirs were the obvious leaders, but then you get some non-noir dramas like The Search, Three Came Home, Tomorrow Is Forever, Homecoming, and the Rossellini war trilogy, all of which are on a level that makes you realize just what film can be in the hands of a good storyteller and actors. Maybe it was just the memory of war that took a lot of the fluff out of the average film, and introduced a touch of seldom-before seen realism.
Here's another IMO special: The overall quality of films diminished at first with the advent of color. Not for any inherent flaw in color films, but simply because it seemed so new and spectacular that filmmakers often would shape the story around the technology, rather than the other way around. Once color became the default mode, then after awhile the balance became better restored. Of course here I'm not thinking about the idiotic special effects movies that form the staples of Hollywood blockbusters today; those are an entirely different matter altogether.