1941-1950

Quote:
Dana Andrews is brutal metropolitan police detective Dixon, who despises all criminals because his father had been one. When the cops pick up two-bit gambler Ken Paine (Craig Stevens) as a murder suspect, Dixon subjects Paine to the third degree—and accidentally kills him.

In disposing of the body, Dixon inadvertently places the blame for the killing on cab driver Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully). Having fallen in love with Jigg’s daughter (Gene Tierney), Dixon tries to clear the cabbie without implicating himself, but ultimately he becomes trapped in a web of his own making; luckily Tierney promises to stand by him.

Where the Sidewalk Ends was adapted from a novel by William A. Stuart; its director was Otto Preminger, who’d previously put Andrews and Tierney through their paces in Laur (1944).Read More »

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In Akira Kurosawa’s first film after the end of World War II, future beloved Ozu regular Setsuko Hara gives an astonishing performance as Yukie, the only female protagonist in Kurosawa’s body of work and one of his strongest heroes. Transforming herself from genteel bourgeois daughter to independent social activist, Yukie traverses a tumultuous decade in Japanese history.Read More »

Synopsis wrote:
Two U.S. Treasury (“T-men”) agents go undercover in Detroit, and then Los Angeles, in an attempt to break a U.S. currency counterfeiting ring.Read More »

Quote:
This is based on a short story by neo-romanticist writer Johannes Linnankoski, and is a remake of Tulio’s now-lost debut film Taistelu Heikkilä Talosta (Battle for the House of Heikkilä). I don’t know how faithful this is to the story, which involves an abusive, alcoholic master of a country house and his wife, who struggles for the upkeep of the property against his destructive tendencies. The movie started Tulio’s downfall, with contemporary critics consistently calling it half-baked, and accusing Tulio of repeating himself.Read More »

Quote:
Latvian-born Teuvo Tulio came to Finland as a young boy, and started his film career as a teenager acting in movies directed by his friend Valentin Vaala. His oriental looks (there was at least Turkish blood in him) and romantic roles gained him fame and the nickname of Finland’s Valentino. At the onset of adulthood Vaala’s and Tulio’s roads would part with Vaala eventually becoming the most prominent director inside Finland’s studio system (mini-Hollywood) and Tulio becoming perhaps the most esteemed independent director-producer of the nation.Read More »

Synopsis:
Mikami, a Japanese soldier serving in China, is captured by the Chinese. Although he is able to escape, his troubles are far from over. He returns to his unit but is treated with contempt for the disgrace of having been captured. Mikami falls in love with Harumi, a prostitute. She tries to convince him to desert from the army, with fatal results.
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Synopsis:
The camera shows Phillip Marlowe’s view from the first-person in this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s book. The detective is hired to find a publisher’s wife, who is supposed to have run off to Mexico. But the case soon becomes much more complicated as people are murdered.
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Synopsis:
RKO Radio’s Johnny Angel was adapted by Steve Fisher and Frank Gruber from a short story by Charles Gordon Booth. In one of his better performances, George Raft plays sea captain Johnny Angel, who doggedly pursues the no-good rats who murdered his father and swiped a shipment of gold bullion. Along the way, Johnny crosses paths (and words) with Lilah (Claire Trevor), the faithless wife of his boss, and French stowaway Paulette (Signe Hasso), apparently the only witness to the murder-hijacking. Aiding and abetting Johnny is philosophical cab driver Celestial O’Brien, engagingly played by songwriter Hoagy Carmichael.Read More »

Saburo and Keiko fall in love with each other but the tide of the war separates them.

Review:
It’s a scene that would be cherished and preserved in the cinema’s pantheon of moments were it known; a simple scene – a young man saying goodbye to his girl at her home. They are trying to come to terms with the fact that the fates don’t seem to want to be together. He leaves, and she goes back to the living room and moves to the window to watch him go. Snow is falling steadily. She waits for him to look back, which he does about 10 yards or so away. He starts to come back and stops in front of the window. He’s positioned lower down than her, but after longingly staring at each other, and the camera showing us each of their anguished faces in turn, he stands on tip toe to pucker up his lips to the glass. She in turn motions her head down to meet his lips.Read More »