1941-1950

  • Marc Allégret – Les Petites du quai aux fleurs (1944)

    1941-1950DramaFranceFrench cinema under the OccupationMarc Allégret

    After his wife deserted him, Frédéric Grimaud had to bring up his four daughters alone. Today, as his daughters approach womanhood, they dutifully help him out in his busy bookshop. Rosine, the youngest, has fallen in love with Francis, the handsome fiancé of her sister Edith. Desperate, Rosine telephones Francis to let him know she intends to kill herself. Overhearing this conversation, a young doctor decides to come to the aid of the distressed adolescent…Read More »

  • Raoul Walsh – They Died with Their Boots On (1941)

    1941-1950Raoul WalshUSAWarWestern

    The story follows General George Armstrong Custer’s adventures from his West Point days to his death. He defies orders during the Civil War, trains the 7th Cavalry, appeases Chief Crazy Horse and later engages in bloody battle with the Sioux nation.Read More »

  • Charles Walters – Spreadin’ the Jam (1945)

    1941-1950Charles WaltersMusicalShort FilmUSA

    A young woman who is unable to pay her rent gets some unexpected help when the other tenants throw a last-minute rent party in her apartment. In the process, they all charm the landlady out of a year’s rent. The entire story is told in song (swing music) and dance (Jitterbug, Lindy Hop etc.).Read More »

  • James Tinling – Dangerous Millions (1946)

    1941-1950CrimeDramaJames TinlingUSA

    A crotchety, old fart millionaire shipping tycoon commands that eight of his relatives come to his Chinese mountain retreat upon his death.Read More »

  • Gustaf Edgren – Kristin kommenderar (1946)

    1941-1950ComedyGustaf EdgrenSweden

    A young medical student and his illustrator wife live a happy life but soon get their hands full with three children crammed into in their small city apartment, so they decide to put an ad out for a maid. They get a bit more than they were expecting in Kristin, who don’t suffer fools easily but has a heart of gold…Read More »

  • Michael Curtiz – Flamingo Road (1949)

    1941-1950DramaFilm NoirMichael CurtizUSA

    Quote:
    A corrupt small town sheriff manipulates local candidates to the state legislature but he eventually comes into conflict with a visiting carnival dancer.Read More »

  • Jacques Becker – Goupi mains rouges AKA It Happened At The Inn (1943)

    Drama1941-1950FranceJacques Becker

    Synopsis:
    In a remote village, a family of hard-working country folk known as the ’Goupis’ live at an inn, proud of their history and distrusting of all outsiders. The youngest member of the Goupi clan, Goupi-Monsieur, now lives in Paris, but he is summoned to the Goupi’s home by his father, who is planning to marry him to the young Goupi-Mugeut. Soon after Goupi-Monsieur arrives in the village, the elderly Goupi-L’Empereur is found unconscious and the imperious housekeeper Goupi-Tisane is discovered dead in the forest. When a wad of money goes missing, the Goupis fear that their ancestral treasure has also been stolen. Only Goupi-L’Empereur knows the whereabouts of the teasure but he is unable to speak. The finger of suspicion points squarely at the new arrival, Goupi-Monsieur. However, the wisest of the Goupis, Goupi mains rouges, has another theoryRead More »

  • Akira Kurosawa – Shûbun AKA Scandal (1950)

    1941-1950Akira KurosawaCrimeDramaJapan

    A handsome, suave Toshiro Mifune lights up the screen as painter Ichiro, whose circumstantial meeting with a famous singer (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) is twisted by the tabloid press into a torrid affair. Ichiro files a lawsuit against the seedy gossip magazine, but his lawyer, Hiruta (Kurosawa stalwart Takashi Shimura), is playing both sides. A portrait of cultural moral decline, Scandal is also a compelling courtroom drama and a moving tale of human redemption.Read More »

  • Bjarne Henning-Jensen – Ditte menneskebarn AKA Ditte, Child of Man (1946)

    1941-1950Bjarne Henning-JensenClassicsDenmarkDrama

    Synopsis:
    One of the most admired Danish films of all time, Bjarne Henning-Jensen’s Ditte Menneskebarn is the story of a poor girl born out of wedlock (Jette Kehlet plays the child Ditte, then Tove Maës) whose mother (Karen Lykkehus) is an abusive adulterer who nearly kills her eldest daughter. Ditte grows up with her grandmother (wonderfully played by Karen Poulsen), but is ill equipped to later fend for herself as a maid on a large farm. Impregnated and abandoned by the weak-willed son of the house (Preben Neergaard), Ditte, just like her mother, will have to face the future as a social outcast. The original novel was by Martin Andersen Nexø (Pelle the Conqueror), a writer who used a very broad pencil indeed. The American reviewers (who saw the film in 1950 sans several scenes of a nude Maës) certainly thought so, dismissing the film as mere melodrama. Some of the performances are difficult to take for a modern audience, but, overall, the film still has the power to move.
    — Hans J. Wollstein (allmovie.com)Read More »

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