40′s movies marathon – part 119

Unfaithfully Yours (1948, USA, Sturges)

Rex Harrison accidentally has his wife tailed by detectives, and tries hard not to learn what awful secrets they’ve discovered.  Watched it all.  So now Preston Sturges is with a major studio again?  I’m glad his autobiography has just come up in my book queue, because the more I see of his movies the more I want to find out who he was.  It’s almost like his movies were made by a real person, with a brain and a heart and everything.

Johnny Belinda (1948, USA, Negulesco)

In movies from this era is you can usually tell when a major female character is about to be introduced because the music suddenly shifts into a single high-pitched violin.  Watched: 9 minutes.

A Foreign Affair (1948, USA, Wilder)

I wonder how this movie was pitched.  “See, it will be set in Berlin.  There’s ruins and poverty everywhere.  It will deal with black marketeering, fraternization, Nazi leaders who escape justice, and corruption in the Army, all seen through the lens of the growing disconnect between soldiers and the people back home.  And it will be hilarious!”  Watched it all.

Open Secret (1948, USA, Reinhardt)

While fast forwarding through this awful movie, I thought I saw .. I thought I saw .. yes, I saw a television set!  Watched 5 minutes.

Drunken Angel (1948, Japan, Kurosawa)

As tuberculosis is to the young yakuza Toshirô Mifune, so he and his friends are to society: An infection that consumes its victim from within, and resists any half-hearted treatment.  Watched it all.