Home not Attractive I’ve been watching propaganda movies recently. I don’t think we appreciate the government influence on the industry. It is easiest to see here. In this case, the message seems to be that GIs can be relatively happy away compared to home. The story is that Popeye comes home to his girlfriend and… Continue reading A Jolly Good Furlough (1943)
Tag: 1940s
Films made in the 1940s
The Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
Conspiratorial Filmmaking I maintain that some very important conventions were worked out in 30s mysteries. The Charlie Chan series was instrumental in some of these, and this is the last of them. It incidentally has Charlie’s son as the detective, the first Asian playing the character. The sensitivity to Chinese culture is no better than… Continue reading The Phantom of Chinatown (1940)
Joan of Arc (1948)
Burned Alive I wonder if there is anyone who can view this film with any sort of fondness today. Everything about it is false, with no element one can point to for relief. Yes it has Ingrid, but as wooden as a pike. Yes it has a powerhouse story, but rendered here lifeless. Even the… Continue reading Joan of Arc (1948)
Jud Suss (1940)
Slippery Everyone should view a few of the Nazi propaganda films before they die. Nazis were not the ones who committed the atrocities, rather it was the mass of Germans. Whether they were manipulated or what we see as manipulative devices (like this film) is a matter for learned speculation. But there is no denying… Continue reading Jud Suss (1940)
Dressed to Kill (1946)
A Sad Goodbye These Basil Rathbone Holmes movies are a wonder. They deviate so far from the stories in intent, they offend. Yet at the same time, they were important to the redefinition of the British wartime character. They were not important at all in the scheme of evolution that defined the detective genre. They… Continue reading Dressed to Kill (1946)
Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc. (1949)
Red Haired Magic This is a Republic serial, which is to say that it is tedious watching. You’ll find everything about this cheap and unimaginative. The device this time is an evil woman who has one of a pair of golden hands. Obtaining the second and solving a puzzle will result in untold riches. The… Continue reading Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc. (1949)
Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)
Audrey What a wonderfully flexible this thing is, cinema. Within it, one can structure all sorts of things that can reach us. Probably the two that are the most profound are how movies define fate and sometimes in the breath, love. This is one that deals with both. And the love part has nothing to… Continue reading Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)
Double Indemnity (1944)
The Match is Out Filmviewing is like most things in life: there are a few predefined roles among which it is convenient to pick. Once you define who you are in the world of cinema, it determines a lot of what you think about what you have just experienced. One of these roles is the… Continue reading Double Indemnity (1944)
And Then There Were None (1945)
Dame Agatha’s Dead Christie has been as profoundly influential in film as Shakespeare. We can’t take too lightly how often we see the effects of her experiments in tweaking the identity of the reader/ viewer. This is one of her most interesting constructions: presented quite differently in the book. It only works when we become… Continue reading And Then There Were None (1945)
I Remember Mama (1948)
Dismembered There are a few things to like about this: the framing and staging is extraordinary, as if George Stevens wanted to reinvent the eye after his war experiences. Some choreography is worth seeing over and over. I have recalled that bit about the window falling down for decades. The acting is generally very good… Continue reading I Remember Mama (1948)