1941-1950

Quote:
After being forced to shoot a friend in a duel, fast-gun Randolph Scott swears to take off his gunbelt forever but finds himself drawn to the middle of a range war when he’s blamed for the murder of his best friend. Now Scott must prove to the dead man’s kid brother (John Miles) that he’s innocent. Naturally, Scott is forced to strap on guns once more to bring an end to the tyranny of local land baron Griff Barnett, his devious foreman Bruce Cabot, hired gunslinger Forrest Tucker (in a really underwritten, wasted role) and mean, crooked deputy Grant Withers. To complicate matters, Scott becomes involved with the land baron’s two daughters, nice girl Dorothy Hart and conniving Barbara Britton who is in love with Cabot. Alan Le May’s script from Zane Grey’s TWIN SOMBREROS seems to need a bit more “polish”, but Scott is terrific as always, plus the gorgeous Sedona locations (abetted by Vasquez Rocks, Jauregui Ranch and Monogram Ranch) in Cinecolor are enough to recommend this one.Read More »

Synopsis:
Director Robert Hamer’s fiendishly funny Kind Hearts and Coronets stands as one of Ealing Studios’ greatest triumphs, and one of the most wickedly black comedies ever made. Dennis Price is sublime as an embittered young commoner determined to avenge his mother’s unjust disinheritance by ascending to her family’s dukedom. Unfortunately, eight relatives—all played by the incomparable Alec Guinness—must be eliminated before he can do so.Read More »

Quote:
Mildred Pierce (1945) is a classic, post-war film noir mixed with typical soap-operish elements of the woman’s melodramatic picture or “weeper,” including a strand of a typical murder mystery often told by flashback. The family melodrama was significantly modified from its original source due to pressures of the Production Code regarding its sordidness – namely, the incestual behavior of the dissolute playboy character named Monte.Read More »

A couple traveling across a war-ravaged Europe. A disintegrating marriage. A ballet dancer’s scarred past. Her friend’s psychological agony. Meanwhile, a widow resists seductions from two different persons – her psychiatrist and a lesbian friend. Told in flashbacks and multiple narrative threads, Ingmar Bergman’s Thirst shows people enslaved to memory and united in isolation.Read More »

Quote:
This is another of the Pete Smith Specialities, which was co-written and directed by Dave O’Brien, who plays the poor fool with the hiccoughs. He tries various “remedies” to “cure” himself (some of which Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition might have applauded) to no avail. It’s all great fun, for everyone but the poor twit. O’Brien frequently played a character not likely to be joining Mensa any time soon in these shorts. This runs on TCM as filler fairly often and virtually every March as part of the “31 Days of Oscar”. Most recommended.Read More »

Synopsis
Based on an Ibuse Masuji short story, this delightful escapist drama is set at a hot spring resort providing sanctuary to people of vastly different backgrounds and personalities bounded by one thing: their common desire to not leave. The resort’s patrons include a Tokyo woman (Tanaka Kinuyo) with a mysterious past who develops a brief relationship with a wounded soldier (Ryu Chishu). A comedic piece filmed and set during wartime Japan, Kanzashi makes a statement with its lightness.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Right Cross stars Dick Powell as cynical sportswriter Rick Gavery and Powell’s wife June Allyson as boxing manager Pat O’Malley. Subbing for her incapacitated father (Lionel Barrymore), Pat grooms prizefighter Johnny Monterez (Ricardo Montalban) for the championship. Johnny holds a grudge against the world because he feels that his Mexican heritage has made him an outcast, though curiously the audience never sees any prejudice levelled against him. Gradually, Pat falls in love with the tempestuous Monterez, while Gavery, who’s always carried a torch for Pat, observes from the sidelines. The film wisely avoids the usual boxing-flick cliches, most commendably during the climactic Big Bout. Marilyn Monroe appears unbilled in the opening scene as Dick Powell’s dinner companion.Read More »

Plot:
Franco, a young man of noble descent, decides to marry Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother’s will. But a terrible tragedy upsets the life of the newly married couple: their little daughter Ombretta drowns in Lake Como and Luisa goes to the brink of madness…Read More »

Quote:
“Les dames du Bois de Boulogne is a 1945 film directed by Robert Bresson. It is a modern adaptation of a section of Diderot’s Jacques le fataliste (1796), telling the story of a man who is tricked into marrying a former prostitute. The title means “the women of the Bois de Boulogne”, a park in Paris. Les Dames was Bresson’s second feature and is an early example of his dramatic experimentation and innovations in reducing dramatic form to its bare essentials, signifying his status as an auteur, rather than simply a metteur en scène. It is also his last film to feature a cast entirely composed of professional actors.The film’s editing rhythms are similar to Bresson’s later work. However, while his later work often reflects Bresson’s personal Catholic beliefs and Christian-intellectual mentality, Les Dames is a more secular work. The redemptive ending is more secular than spiritual although it does establish Bresson’s later, more refined, thematic obsessions with redemption and salvation.”Read More »