Dana Andrews

  • Jacques Tourneur – Night of the Demon (1957)

    1951-1960HorrorJacques TourneurThrillerUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    Dr. John Holden ventures to London to attend a paranormal psychology symposium with the intention to expose devil cult leader Julian Karswell. Holden is a skeptic and does not believe in Karswell’s power. Nonetheless, he accepts an invitation to stay at Karswell’s estate, along with Joanna Harrington, niece of Holden’s confidant who was electrocuted in a bizarre automobile accident. Karswell secretly slips a parchment into Holden’s papers that might possibly be a death curse. Recurring strange events finally strike fear into Holden, who believes that his only hope is to pass the parchment back to Karswell to break the demonic curse. Read More »

  • Walter Lang – State Fair (1945)

    1941-1950DramaMusicalUSAWalter Lang

    Farm family Frake, with discontented daughter Margy, head for the Iowa State Fair. On the first day, both Margy and brother Wayne meet attractive new flames; so does father’s prize hog, Blue Boy. As the fair proceeds, so do the romances; must lovers separate when the fair closes?Read More »

  • George Sherman – Sword in the Desert (1949)

    George Sherman1941-1950ActionUSAWar

    In 1947, with only months remaining until the partition of British-administered Palestine, an American freighter captain smuggles European Jewish refugees ashore under the nose of the British authorities.Read More »

  • Lewis Milestone – The North Star (1943)

    Lewis Milestone1941-1950DramaUSAWar
    The North Star (1943)
    The North Star (1943)

    The North Star (also known as Armored Attack in the US) is a 1943 pro-resistance war film starring Anne Baxter, Dana Andrews, Walter Huston, Walter Brennan and Erich von Stroheim It was produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, written by Lillian Hellman and featured production design by William Cameron Menzies. The music was written by Aaron Copland, the lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and the cinematography by James Wong Howe. The film also marked the debut of Farley Granger.

    The film is about the resistance of Ukrainian villagers, through guerrilla tactics, against the German invaders of the Ukrainian SSR. The film is considered to be pro-Soviet propaganda at the height of the war.Read More »

  • Elia Kazan – Boomerang! (1947)

    1941-1950CrimeElia KazanFilm NoirUSA
    Boomerang! (1947)
    Boomerang! (1947)

    Quote:
    Boomerang, directed by Elia Kazan, is a chilling film noir, the true story about the murder of a priest, the subsequent arrest and trial of a jobless drifter, and the efforts of young state’s attorney Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews) to uncover the truth. Closely based on the actual 1924 murder of Fr. Hubert Dahme in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the film was directed by the young Elia Kazan in a highly effective, semi-documentary style. Kazan shot most of the film on location, using high-contrast cinematography and an extremely mobile camera to create a palpable sense of urgency. The screenplay, expertly crafted by Richard Murphy received an Academy Award nomination.Read More »

  • John Ford & Gregg Toland – December 7th (1943)

    1941-1950DocumentaryGregg TolandJohn FordUSAWar

    Quote:

    Utilizing stock military footage of Pearl Harbor, December 7th departs from the typical documentary form to present a narrative framing device featuring Walter Huston as a character representing Uncle Sam, Harry Davenport as a folksy representation of “conscience” called Mr. C, and Dana Andrews as the ghost of an American soldier. The story opens on December 6, 1941, the day before the attack, with Uncle Sam and Mr. C carrying on a discussion about the history of Hawaii and the country’s war preparations. One of the approaches taken by co-directors John Ford and Gregg Toland was to paint the Japanese-American citizens of Hawaii (37 percent of the population, according to the film) as potential traitors, fifth-columnists spying on their “American” employers for information to hustle back to the “homeland.” Read More »

  • Mark Robson – I want you (1951)

    Mark Robson1951-1960ClassicsDramaUSA

    The movie seethes with conflict and bad blood – often unspoken. The conflicts arise over deeply felt divisions in social class, in gender and in generation, and result in unspoken accusations of callousness and cowardice, vanity and selfishness.

    In many respects this is a movie of another time – these days, unless a family has a strong military tradition, I can imagine few families now enraged by a son’s expressed wish that a war could be won without his involvement, few families in which an employer would not draft a letter for his decades-long employee’s only child to keep him out of war – and even refuse to write a letter (for which his mother pleads) for his own beloved brother’s draft deferment.Read More »

  • Otto Preminger – Fallen Angel (1945)

    1941-1950250 Quintessential Film NoirsFilm NoirOtto PremingerUSA

    Quote:
    The huge success of Laura may have done more ill than good to Otto Preminger’s career, not only for setting expectations high early in the game, but also for forcing a “noir mystery master” image onto an artist much more interested in asking questions than in answering them. Fallen Angel, the director’s follow-up to his 1944 classic, is often predictably looked down as a lesser genre venture, yet its subtle analysis of shadowy tropes proves both a continuation and a deepening of Preminger’s use of moral ambiguity as a tool of human insight. Linda Darnell, a provocative bombshell caught behind the counter of a small-town California roadside café, is the flame around which the picture’s male moths circle, though the titular fallen angel is later revealed to be tainted drifter Dana Andrews, who comes to town and becomes quickly smitten with her. Read More »

  • John Brahm – Hot Rods to Hell aka 52 Miles to Terror (1967)

    1961-1970CampExploitationJohn BrahmUSA

    This revolutionary masterpiece was, at first, misunderstood as a mere exploitation film. However, the subversive genius shown in its subtext and plot construction was eventually recognized. It now plays quarterly at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which has instituted a lecture series on the various intellectual facets of the film. While the series is still in its infancy we have already heard Barak Obama speak on, “Hope and Hot Rods,” and Timothy Michael Cardinal Dolan on, “Christian symbolism and family values in Hot Rods of Hell,” to say nothing of the hilarious speech by Tim Curry, “What exactly is a ‘Hot Rod’.” Those interested in perusing the literature on the subject can contact the Hot Rods of Hell Research Department at Columbia University in NYC. However, you should be prepared to show your research credentials.
    @Unkabunk at TIKRead More »

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