1941-1950

from Noir City 17
Quote:
Boozy assistant DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) reels from a stifling marriage into an affair with the mysterious Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck). He’s so smitten, and besotted, he misses the warning signs: Thelma has a sickly aunt loaded with dough and spends lots of time in the arms of shadowy and sinister Tony Laredo (Richard Rober). Something bad is bound to happen … and when it does Cleve winds up working both sides of the law. Noir master Siodmak does a spellbinding job with a terrific script, and Stanwyck—Queen of Noir—offers a terrific, two-faced turn in one of her most rarely screened films.Read More »

Quote:
Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Eadie Allen overnight to such effect that she’s starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy’s eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie’s show troupe, at which she’s sure to learn his true identity…and meet Vivian, his ‘family-arrangement’ fiancée. Mostly song and dance.Read More »

A late entry from Frank Borzage and hs first “prestige” picture in years, after being cut loose from the Majors during his personal heyday of the 1920s and 30s.

This was Republic’s first Technicolor feature (and Borzage’s second). The color palette Republic concocted for the film is bizarre to say the least – dominant are pinks, purples, wedgewood blues, mauve, taupe, lilac, with highlights of orange aqua and apricot. The general tone of hyperreality is enhanced further with set design that extends to underfurnished rooms, and cavernous spaces and headroom, like the concert hall wiith virtually surreal intrusions of doric columns and poritcos as decorative objects.Read More »

Plot synopsis:
A cavalry officer posted on the Rio Grande must deal with murderous raiding Apaches, his son who’s a risk-taking recruit and his wife from whom he has been separated for many years.

Rio Grande is a 1950 film and the third installment of John Ford’s “cavalry trilogy”, following Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949). John Wayne stars in all three films, as Captain Kirby Yorke (York) in Fort Apache, then as Capt. of Cavalry Nathan Cutting Brittles in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and finally as a promoted Lieutenant Colonel Kirby Yorke (York) in Rio Grande.Read More »

A solitary flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a phone off the hook: discordant images a woman sees as she comes home. She naps and, perhaps, dreams. She sees a hooded figure going down the driveway. The knife is on the stair, then in her bed. The hooded figure puts the flower on her bed then disappears. The woman sees it all happen again. Downstairs, she naps, this time in a chair. She awakes to see a man going upstairs with the flower. He puts it on the bed. The knife is handy. Can these dream-like sequences end happily? A mirror breaks, the man enters the house again. Will he find her?Read More »

Synopsis:
Eddie Cantor insists upon being chairman of the Cavalcade of Stars benefit show, in return for the use of his vocalist, Dinah Shore. Cantor disrupts the producers’ plans with his own egocentric ideas. When they discover a talented bus driver named Joe Simpson, who can’t get an acting job because he too closely resembles Eddie Cantor, a scheme is hatched to put the show back on track.Read More »

Judy Garland is at the peak of her charm and appeal as Lily Mars. The 19-year-old aspiring actress has great hopes for the future but can’t catch a break, even when a Broadway producer (Van Heflin) returns to her small Indiana town for a family visit. Undeterred, she follows him to New York. She earns a small part, and a romance is sparked, but when the leading role unexpectedly opens up, will Lily be ready?Read More »

Upon the death of his brother, Larry Talbot returns from America to his ancestral home in Wales. He visits a gypsy camp with village girl Jenny Williams, who is attacked by Bela, a gypsy who has turned into a werewolf. Larry kills the werewolf but is bitten during the fight. Bela’s mother tells him that this will cause him to become a werewolf at each full moon. Larry confesses his plight to his unbelieving father, Sir John, who then joins the villagers in a hunt for the wolf. Transformed by the full moon, Larry heads for the forest and a fateful meeting with both Sir John and Gwen Conliffe.Read More »

letterboxd:
The film is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House. The film uses Ibsen’s alternate ending where the unhappy couple are reconciled at the end.Read More »