Tag: top fifty films of the 40s

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-One

Dan Seeger

#41 — Key Largo (John Huston, 1948) I typically put John Huston in the category of classic Hollywood directors whose excellence is best measured by their absolutely command of craft. As the vocabulary of classic narrative was still being shaped, Huston was one of those in the cinematic blacksmith shop, swinging his mallet at the glowing red steel. Unlike some of his immediate predecessors (and rough contemporaries) on this timeline — John Ford and Howard Hawks are the two who immediately come to mind — Huston embedded a slightly shiftier personality into his art. He had a flair for the torrid that … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-One

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Two

Dan Seeger

#42 — The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges, 1941) “I’ve got some unfinished business with him. I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” That bit of barbed dialogue is hardly unique within the cascade of knotty language that spilled from movie screens throughout the nineteen-forties. Roughly a generation after movies learned to talk, they’d mastered talking sharp and hard. Any number of offerings — especially comedies — cut like hacksaws, the crazy strong ones made for getting through metal. But few of his contemporaries could weld cynicism and downright meanness onto a script and still keep it paradoxically light … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Two

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Three

Dan Seeger

#43 — Riff-Raff (Ted Tetzlaff, 1947) Ted Tetzlaff only directed a handful of movies, but he shot over one hundred. He starting working as a cinematographer in the nineteen-twenties (his handiwork was found in the 1926 films Atta Boy and Sunshine of Paradise), racking up some impressive credits over the course of the next couple of decades. Included in that number is striking, evocative work on Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious. Remarkably, his efforts on that film earned him no official accolades (Tetzlaff’s sole Oscar nomination came a few years earlier, for the George Stevens comedy The Talk of the Town), though it did … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Three

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Four

Dan Seeger

#44 — The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947) After his debut feature accomplished nothing less than redefining the possibilities of cinema itself, Orson Welles never delivered another film that wasn’t compromised in one way or another. Even with his smaller, scrappier efforts, on which he came closest to the unquestioned creative authority of Citizen Kane, he was constrained by tight budgets and his own bad habits, which only grew the further away he got from Hollywood’s irritating controls. And when Welles was trying to work within the system, it often seemed as though he was thwarted at every turn, in part … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Four

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Five

Dan Seeger

#45 — My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946) I have an abiding fascination with and appreciation for those directors who have an uncommon mastery of the language of film narrative. Much as I might ply my modest critical acumen against certain films, willingly and unapologetically lamenting muddy storytelling or other shortcomings in the vital business of presenting a coherent, compelling beginning, middle, and end, I recognize that the task of adhering to established grammar of traditional Hollywood cinematic narrative is extremely challenging. Even coming close can be reasonably termed a feat of craftsmanship. Given that, I am even more agog … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Five

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Six

Dan Seeger

#46 — Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau, 1946) Jean Cocteau’s presentation of the classic French fairy tale La Belle et la Bête begins with a plea. In a written introduction, Cocteau invokes the intertwined sense of ready belief and excited wonderment with which children meet stories. He then calls upon all viewers, regardless of age, to engage his film with a similar openness to enchantment: “I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy.” Cocteau then introduces the story in only manner suitable: “let me speak four truly magic words, childhood’s ‘Open Sesame’: Once upon a time….” This entry into the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Six

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Seven

Dan Seeger

#47 — The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1948) Even though he was consistently billed as James Stewart, we call him Jimmy. He is one of the classic movie actors who represents a nostalgic view of America as a land of benevolent geniality. In the collective imagination he is stalwart and kind, always prone to doing the right thing, even when terrible beset by circumstance. It’s part of the reason his overtly twisted turn in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo is heaped with praise; critics are eager to reward Stewart for playing against type. While Stewart’s placement on a pinnacle of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Seven

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Eight

Dan Seeger

#48 — 3 Godfathers (John Ford, 1948) A common and entirely apt complaint about modern Hollywood filmmaking is the evident pronounced disinterest in the pursuit of originality in favor of figuring out ways to cram familiar brands into the CGI-shaped contours of self-perpetuating (and, increasingly, interlocking) blockbuster franchises. It’s not unreasonable to wish for more invention and less anxious opportunism in the creative choices of modern crafters of cinema, and yet any misty-eyed pining for more golden eras necessarily require a certain amount of willful amnesia. Back in the time before older movies hung around like atrophied specters on late … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Eight

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Nine

Dan Seeger

#49 — Woman of the Year (George Stevens, 1942) Woman of the Year came out a mere four years after Katharine Hepburn’s career was at such a low ebb that she was famously included on a list of actors headed “Box Office Poison” that had been compiled by the Independent Theatre Owners of America. That’s especially notable because Woman of the Year was forceful proof of how completely Hepburn had turned around her fortunes. Not only was she now considered among the most bankable stars, her clout was so enormous after shepherding her own comeback vehicle, The Philadelphia Story, to smashing … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Forty-Nine

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty

Dan Seeger

#50 — Mighty Joe Young (Ernest B. Shoedsack, 1949) There was really no pretense to originality with Mighty Joe Young. “Mightier than King Kong,” the trailer shouted, and similarities to the colossal primate who scaled the Empire State Building in the prior decade were more than superficial. Mighty Joe Young director Ernest B. Schoedsack shared that same title on the earlier film. His King Kong co-director, Merian C. Cooper, was a producer on Mighty Joe Young, and Ruth Rose worked on both scripts. While the oversized gorilla named Joe Young is different enough from his predecessor that it’s not reasonable to … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Fifty