1941-1950

  • Henry Hathaway – Kiss of Death (1947)

    1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsCrimeFilm NoirHenry HathawayUSA

    Quote:
    Small-time crook Nick Bianco gets caught in a jewel heist and despite urgings from well-meaning district attorney D’Angelo, refuses to rat on his partners and goes to jail, assured that his wife and children will be taken care of. Learning that his depressed wife has killed herself, Nick informs on his ex-pals and is paroled. Nick remarries, gets a job and begins leading a happy life when he learns one of the men he informed on, psychopathic killer Tommy Udo, has been released from custody and is out for revenge against Nick and his family.Read More »

  • Max Ophüls – Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

    Max Ophüls1941-1950DramaUSA

    Quote:
    LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN is set in Vienna at the turn of the century, an era Ophüls loved and had used in LA RONDE and LIEBELEI. Joan Fontaine gives a moving, heartfelt performance as Lisa Berndl, a romantic young woman who falls in love with the handsome concert pianist Stephan Brandt (Louis Jourdan).

    After a brief affair, which she takes for love, not seeing that he is just a philanderer, he leaves for a concert in Italy and never returns to the now-pregnant Lisa. She bears the child herself and later enters into a stable marriage, although one lacking the passion and love she still feels for Stephan. Ten years later, when he returns to Vienna, Lisa attempts, at the risk of her marriage, to see if he loves, or even remembers her. Fontaine and Jourdan perfectly project the feelings of a woman in love and a man too selfish to notice or care.Read More »

  • René Clément – Les maudits AKA The Damned (1947)

    René Clément1941-1950DramaFranceWar

    At Oslo in 1945, a French doctor, Guilbert, is abducted by a group of Nazis and taken aboard their submarine. The Germans plan to evade capture by the Allies by steering a course for South America. Guilbert finds himself in the company of several unsavoury fugitives, including a Gestapo chief, a German general, an Italian industrialist and a French journalist who collaborated with the Nazis. When news of the armistice is received, mutiny breaks out aboard the submarine.Read More »

  • Alexander Mackendrick – Whisky Galore! (1949)

    1941-1950Alexander MackendrickComedyCrimeUnited Kingdom

    Based on a true story. The name of the real ship, that sunk Feb 5 1941 – during WWII – was S/S Politician. Having left Liverpool two days earlier, heading for Jamaica, it sank outside Eriskay, The Outer Hebrides, Scotland, in bad weather, containing 250,000 bottles of whisky. The locals gathered as many bottles as they could, before the proper authorities arrived, and even today, bottles are found in the sand or in the sea every other year.Read More »

  • David Lean – Great Expectations (1946)

    1941-1950ClassicsDavid LeanDramaUnited Kingdom

    Quote:
    Based on the book by Charles Dickens Great Expectations (1946) tells the story of a young boy by the name of Pip (Antony Wager/John Mills) who lives in the British countryside with Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles), a poor blacksmith, and his bossy wife Mrs. Joe Gargery (Freda Jackson). They reside in a rundown house not too far from the local cemetery.Read More »

  • Jean Grémillon – Lumière d’été (1943)

    1941-1950DramaFranceJean Grémillon

    A shimmering glass hotel at the top of a remote Provençal mountain provides the setting for a tragicomic tapestry about an obsessive love pentangle, whose principals range from an artist to a hotel manager to a dam worker. Scripted by Jacques Prévert and Pierre Laroche, the film was banned from theaters for the duration of the occupation for its dark portrayal of the hedonistic excesses of the ruling class. Today, it is often singled out as Jean Grémillon’s greatest achievement. Written by AnonymousRead More »

  • Ralph Thomas – The Clouded Yellow (1950)

    1941-1950DramaRalph ThomasThrillerUnited Kingdom

    The Clouded Yellow stars Trevor Howard as David Sommers, a former member of the British Secret Service. After the war, Sommers takes a low-profile job cataloguing butterfly specimens. While thus employed, he make the acquaintance of Sophie Malraux (Jean Simmons), a curious young lady who seems to be hiding something. Indeed she is, as Sommers discovers when Sophie is brought up on murder charges. Championing her cause, Sommers helps Sophie escape, prompting Scotland Yard to put another ex-secret agent on the couple’s trail. The chase extends from London to Liverpool, culminating in a tangled web of murder and madness. The Clouded Yellow was the first independent production supervised by Betty E. Box.Read More »

  • Henry Levin – I Love a Mystery (1945)

    1941-1950Henry LevinHorrorMysteryUSA

    The first of a short-lived series of films based on Carleton E. Morse’s classic radio serial, this is a movie version of one of the show’s most popular stories, “The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk.”

    Brief Synopsis:
    A detective tries to protect a man who has predicted his murder will take place in three days.Read More »

  • John Harlow – This Was Paris (1942)

    1941-1950DramaJohn HarlowUnited KingdomWar

    Rousing wartime agitprop set in 1940 Paris on the brink of collapse to the German invaders. Scurvy spies, nosy newshounds, dashing intelligence officers and fetching female ambulance drivers keep the plot percolating, and the cast is chockfull of familiar faces including Ann Dvorak, Ben Lyon, Griffith Jones, Bernard Miles, Robert Morley, Hay Petrie and the always welcome Miles Malleson.Read More »

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