The Blue Dahlia (1946, USA, Marshall) – Alan Ladd comes home from the war and discovers that his wife has turned into a shrewish, child-killing femme fatale, a common occurence in those days, judging from what I’ve seen so far.  Also, his friend has gone mad from war trauma.  And it’s raining.  Watched it all.

The Mask of Diijon (1946, USA, Landers) – A former illusionist is being a complete asshole to everyone he knows because he wants to “get in touch with the infinite”.  I believe meditation or drugs is the generally recommended approach.  Watched: 12 minutes.

The Kid from Brooklyn (1946, USA, McLeod) – Opens with an army of pretty girls singing about how much they just love to milk cows.  What could they mean?  Watched: 9 minutes.

Humoresque (1946, USA, Negulesco) – Virtouso violinist John Garfield enters into a complex relationship with Joan Crawford, a troubled New York aristocrat.  His mother doesn’t approve, and I don’t either.  There’s no reason not to go with the nice girl in this one.  Watched it all.  Lots of good music.

Two Years Before the Mast (1946, USA, Farrow) – The captain of the Pilgrim is a real meanie, who works his crew to death and sends out press gangs to find replacements.  But if you ask me, the real problem is the exploitation inherent in the capitalist system of production.  Watched: 15 minutes.

91:an Karlsson (1946, Sweden, Bolander) – The Swedish officer corps is full of fat and jolly old men.  Staying out of the war by cosying up to Nazi Germany clearly has its benefits.  Watched: 7 minutes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz742shaS24]

Great Expectations (1946, UK, Lean) – John Mills has a Dickensian childhood in alternate, gothic England, and after a series of rather unlikely events he gets married and lives happily ever after.  Watched it all.

The Overlanders (1946, UK, Watt) – Australians evacuate the Northern Territory, because the Japs may be coming.  Finally an Ealing movie that isn’t particularly good, perhaps because it isn’t about the English National Character.  Watched: 8 minutes.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946, USA, Milestone) – Barbara Stanwyck kills her aunt in a fit of juvenile delinquency, and ends up married to Kirk Douglas, a cowardly alcoholic.  Life sucks all around, but at least they’ve got money and power and an entire little town to boss around.  Watched it all.

Anna and the King of Siam (1946, USA, Cromwell) – Welcome to the half-barbaric land of Siam!  (Cue dramatic music by Bernard Herrmann.)  Watched: 6 minutes.

Gilda (1946, USA, Vidor) – Glenn Ford is the cynical gambler who makes his own luck.  Rita Hayworth is the boss’s wife who sleeps around.  They’re headed for love/hate, murder and ruin etc.  These noir plots are beginning to get predictable, but oddly enough that actually makes them more enjoyable.  Watched it all.

Without Reservations (1946, USA, LeRoy) – Claudette Colbert has written a popular inspirational novel that makes everyone feel all warm inside despite the cover looking just a tiny bit like a Nazi propaganda poster.  She wants Cary Grant to star in the movie version, but will probably have to settle for John Wayne.  Watched: 13 minutes.

The Killers (1946, USA, Siodmak) – Two Tarantino-awesome professional killers arrive in a small town and murder a guy.  An insurance claims investigator (well, why not?) looks into the death, and puzzles together the life of the victim, a good boy gone bad.  A woman is to blame, though all she seems to do throughout the movie is lie seductively in the background.  Watched it all.

Devil Bat’s Daughter (1946, USA, Wisbar) – Devil Bat’s dead, daughter arrives in town, yada yada.  On a completely unrelated note, I miss MST3K.  Watched: 8 minutes.

Cluny Brown (1946, USA, Lubitsch) – Holly Golightly pretends to be a plumber in pre-war London.  Watched: 14 minutes.

The Verdict (1946, USA, Siegel) – A Scotland Yard superintendent hangs an innocent man in foggy, 1890′s London, loses his job, and falls to pieces.  A locked-room murder mystery gives him the opportunity to play the Holmes to his successor’s Lestrade, while Peter Lorre hangs about being Lorreish.  Watched it all.

Road to Utopia (1946, USA, Walker) – Bob Hope and Bing Crosby tell dirty jokes and parody the movies, none of it funny.  Watched: 9 minutes.

Badman’s Territory (1946, USA, Whelan) – I’m not against voiceover in movies, but two minutes of it is too much, especially when it’s just to inform us that we’re in a lawless town where one lone journalist stands up for the cause of Freedom.  Also I prefer the “absolutely true historical fact!” section of a movie intro not to be completely made up. Watched: 11 minutes.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946, UK, Powell & Pressburger) – David Niven bails from his plane without a parachute, and survives by a miracle.  From this point on, he’s either being visited by agents of Heaven, who accuse him of having cheated death, or he’s a confused veteran who’s cracking up.  Watched it all.  Whatever you do, for Heaven’s sake watch the opening scene:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSruSe_m8OI]

Duel in the Sun (1946, USA, Vidor) – One sure way for a movie to piss me off is to open with a 9 minute musical prelude, followed by a 2 minute musical overture.  They’re the same thing, you pretentious assholes.  Watched: 12 minutes, only a minute into the titles, so I guess I’ll never know what this movie was actually about.

Suspense (1946, USA, Tuttle) – Some guy is hired right off the street, and quickly climbs his way to the top of the dangerous world of figure skating.  It’s Noir on Ice, (literally, in one scene), and not only does it work very well, it makes figure skating seem cool and daring.  Watched it all.

The DARK Corner (1946, USA, Hathaway) – Who is Bradford Galt?  He’s a private investigator, with a standard P. I. office, a standard secretary, and a standard William Bendix on his tail.  Watched: 6 minutes.

Inside Job (1946, USA, Yarbrough) – Say, did they make anything other than noir in 1946, or are the dice I use to select these movies loaded?  Watched: 4 minutes.

House of Horrors (1946, USA, Yarbrough) – An artist finds inspiration in the deformed face of a killer, and uses him to act out his rage against the critics who mock him.  Beauty is virtue: The bad guy looks creepy and makes grotesque statues.  The good guy is good looking and paints pretty pictures of pretty pin-up girls.  I, for one, cheer for the bad guy.  Watched it all.

The Hoodlum Saint (1946, USA, Taurog) – William Powell returns from the war, (the previous one), and finds he’s got no job or money.  But he has friends, and a wise neighbourhood priest, so he’ll be allright.  Watched: 11 minutes.

Kris (1946, Sweden, Bergman) – A girl who’s been adopted by a respectable small town family is visited by her fun-loving biological mother and a no-good dandy, who teach her to boogie woogie.  It’s a clash of small-town and big-town values, with a little of good and bad in both, but the small-town values come out ahead.  Watched it all.

California (1946, USA, Farrow) – The scourge of state-named movies continues.  There’s been maybe ten so far, so I guess there are fourty left.  This one shows how California was founded by Barbara Stanwyck, a prostitute with a heart of gold.  Watched: 12 minutes.

Beauty and the Beast (1946, France, Cocteau) – The French insist on making these odd, unappealing dramedies.  There must be a reason for this.  Watched: 11 minutes.  IMDB reviewers argue that “Cocteau’s attempt to socialize his female viewers and alleviate their fear of sex is clear through textual analysis”.

Somewhere in the Night (1946, USA, Mankiewicz) – A soldier wakes up after the war with amnesia, and goes looking for his old self.  Seems nobody liked his old self much, and the search takes him through the usual web of thugs and shady women in the noir underworld.  Watched it all.

Jungle Captive (1945, USA, Young) – A man who looks so much like a thug that it’s a wonder he’s allowed to walk about freely steals the body of the Ape Woman, (who must have been killed in some earlier monster movie), and plans to ressurect her with the Power of Electricity.  Watched: 13 minutes.

Ziegfeld Follies (1945, USA) – I have high hopes for you, post-war technicolor musicals.  This isn’t a good start.  Watched: 15 minutes.

A Thousand and One Nights (1945, USA, Green) – Another failed attempt to walk in the footprints of The Thief of Bagdad.  This one is unusually bad, some sort of parody.  Watched: 7 minutes.  IMDB says it contains an early use of “groovy” as a slang term.  Groovy.

Love Letters (1945, USA, Dieterle) – A love story by Ayn Rand.  No really.  Watched: 9 minutes.

Mom and Dad (1945, USA, Beaudine) – Teenagers all across the nation are getting into all sorts of trouble because their parents never taught them about Hygiene, Social Diseases and the Facts of Life.  But before we get into any of that: hey audience, let’s sing the national anthem!  Watched: 11 minutes. The story behind the movie is a lot more interesting: It was the original exploitation blockbuster.