Quote: One of Hitchcock’s finest films of the ’40s, using its espionage plot about Nazis hiding out in South America as a mere MacGuffin, in order to focus on a perverse, cruel love affair between US agent Grant and alcoholic Bergman, whom he blackmails into providing sexual favours for the German Rains as a means of getting information. Suspense there is, but what really distinguishes the film is the way its smooth, polished surface illuminates a sickening tangle of self-sacrifice, exploitation, suspicion, and emotional dependence. Grant, in fact, is the least sympathetic character in the dark, ever-shifting relationships on view, while Rains, oppressed by a cigar-chewing, possessive mother and deceived by all around him, is treated with great generosity. Less war thriller than black romance, it in fact looks forward to the misanthropic portrait of manipulation in Vertigo. — GA, Time Out Film Guide 13Read More »
Brief Synopsis:
Shirley’s last film on her 20th Century Fox contract (aged 12). Her parents (Oakie, Greenwood) decide to retire from show biz so she can have a normal life. They are unwelcome in the small town until a storm lets the family show their stuff. Clips from earlier films fill in Shirley’s background.Read More »
contents:
Blue Ribbon Town 44-02-05 Milwaukee One Hundred Years Ago
Blue Ribbon Town 44-02-12 One Hundred Years in the Future
Charlie McCarthy & Edgar Bergen 45-02-25 Gene Tierney
Command Performance 42-04-12 Gene Tierney, Betty Hutton, Gary Cooper
Command Performance 44-04-22 Gene Tierney, Roy AcuffRead More »
A group of people gathers back in the post-war ruins of a luxurious Munich hotel they inhabited at one point or another years before; each trying to cope with the tragic consequences of the war and their own actionsRead More »
King Arthur Was a Gentleman is a 1942 British musical comedy film, directed by Marcel Varnel, starring Arthur Askey as Arthur King. Set during World War II, the plot involves the diminutive Arthur joining the army to prove himself to his girlfriend Susan (Evelyn Dall), who is in the same unit as him. Here, his idealistic notions about King Arthur prompt his messmates to trick him into believing that a sword they have dug up is the fabled Excaliber. Armed with this talisman Arthur strides forth to deal with the Wehrmacht.Read More »
The Duchess of Langeais, as beautiful as she is brilliant, is a woman who likes to seduce but who does not give in. Until the day when she falls in love with General de Montriveau, a cabal goes up against her.Read More »
Disgusted by having to pass “pinhead” football heroes in order for his college to soar to football victory, Professor John Hathaway (Don Ameche) takes his leave of Digby College. With his wife Julie (Rosalind Russell) in tow, Hathaway sets out to conquer Manhattan’s literary circles, his scholarly manuscript on the subject of “jealousy” tucked under his arm in the romantic comedy The Feminine Touch (1941).Read More »
Old friends Ward and Phillip both become smitten with Phillip’s mother’s attractive young secretary Stella. But Stella marries Phillip and stands by him as his behavior becomes more and more erratic and his jealousy of Ward increases.Read More »