Crossfire (1947, USA, Dmytryk) – Life after the war is all confused.  Nobody knows what’s what, and all the hatred of the war years has no place to go.  Watched it all.  Contains one of the earliest anti-semitic murders in Hollywood – and that includes the movies that were actually about Nazi Germany.  I’ll forgive the preachiness, it’s about bloody time.  Actually, the victim in the original novel was murdered because he was gay, but they couldn’t show that on film, so they made him a Jew instead.  One prejudice at a time.

Queen of the Amazons (1947, USA, Finney) – The natives are restless in “India”, an exotic country far far away, possibly in Africa or maybe even further away than that.  Watched: 5 minutes.

Hue and Cry (1947, UK, Crichton) – Here’s why Ealing Studios is superior to the Italian neorealists, (because I’m sure you were wondering).  Vittorio de Sica made Shoeshine, a bleak movie about street boys who are hurled towards inevitable doom by forces beyond their control.  Ealing made this Boy’s Own-type adventure story about some kids who solve crime from their secret base in the war ruins of London.  Watched it all.

Brute Force (1947, USA, Dassin) – All the guards at the penitentiary are assholes, straight out of the NSDAP.  Let’s get out of here!  Watched: 12 minutes.

Cinderella (1947, USSR) – In Soviet Russia, Cinderella disneyfies you.  Dear God this is awful.  But the sets are impressive, especially in this colorized version.  (It’s a nice thought: Eventually, all black and white movies that ought to be colorized, will be.)  Watched: 18 minutes.

The Web (1947, USA, Gordon) – I’ll watch anything with William Bendix, Vincent Price and Fritz Leiber’s dad, even if it’s just another noir about some guy who gets mixed up in etc. etc.  Favorite moment: Price explaining that he’ll have to do something  he’s .. not going to like, not going to like at all.  Watched it all.

Copacabana (1947, USA, Green) – In their glory years, the Marx Brothers would use test audiences to fine tune their jokes and get the timing just right before they ever started filming.  If they hadn’t, and if Chico and Harpo had been replaced by Carmen Miranda, I imagine the result would have been a little bit like this.  Watched: 17 minutes.

Monsieur Vincent (1947, France, Cloche) – A priest throws himself into the struggle against poverty in 17th century France, sacrificing everything he is and has.  He learns that there’s nothing noble about being poor, and that charity work is often hypocritical and futile.  But he keeps going, because it’s the right thing to do, and because it’s better than being a lazy rich asshole.  Watched it all.

Captain From Castile (1947, USA, King) – The inquisition imprisoned his family.  They killed his sister.  Now Tyrone Power travels with Cortez to America .. to fight for FREEEEEDOM!  Hey this is a pretty fun swashbuckler.  Watched it all.  IMDB reviewers praise its “historical accuracy”, which I guess must be some sort of euphemism for Jean Peters’ legs.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947, USA, Seaton) – Santa Claus is real!  Or possibly fake, but it doesn’t matter, because of Christmas Spirit.  Watched: 12 minutes.

Out of the Past (1947, USA, Tourneur) – Kirk Douglas hires Robert Mitchum to find his girl, who has run away because he’s a creep.  Watched it all.  Robert Mitchum feels out of place in the 40′s, like he’s just hanging around, waiting for the 50′s to arrive.

Intrigue (1947, USA, Marin) – An ex-pilot gone rogue walks into the headquarters of a Shanghai mafia and tells the sexy female boss that because women are too soft and gentle to be good at crime, she should partner up with him, and they’ll share the profits fifty-fifty.  She accepts, and kisses him.  Wow, these male fantasies sure can get stupid.  Watched: 26 minutes.

Dead Reckoning (1947, USA, Cromwell) – Some guy has a shady past of some kind, and Humphrey Bogart’s not going to stand for it.  Watched: 14 minutes.

The Lady From Shanghai (1947, USA, Welles) – Rita Hayworth is so taken with Orson Welles that she sends her husband to hire him to work on her yacht.  Kinky!  Also suspicious.  Watched it all, but I’m not sure I like it.  It’s a bit self-conscious, as if making a regular noir wasn’t good enough, so Welles had to show off with nuclear-age existensialism and an unusually implausible murder plot.

Carnegie Hall (1947, USA, Ulmer) – Even the cleaning women at Carnegie Hall are morally elevated by working in such culturally superior surroundings.  Watched: 7 minutes.

Magic Town (1947, USA, Wellman) – Pollster James Stewart discovers a statistician’s utopia: A town where everyone thinks exactly like the nation as a whole.  Phase 3: Profit!  Watched: 12 minutes.

Black Narcissus (1947, UK, Powell & Pressburger) – Deborah Kerr goes to start a nunnery in an abandoned palace in the Himalayas, where something about the air, the mountains, and the erotic paintings on the walls reminds the nuns of earthly pleasures and the lives they left behind.  This is not a horror movie, which may be why it’s so scary.  Watched it all.

Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947, Japan, Ozu) – A homeless boy shows up in a neighbourhood, and nobody wants to help him.  They have enough to worry about already, what with no longer being able to reap the benefits of the greater Asian prosperity sphere.  Watched: 19 minutes.

The Sea of Grass (1947, USA, Kazan) – Interesting: A western where the uncaring big landowner is mostly in the right, the poor homesteaders who want a share of his land are misguided, and the idealist who opposes him is kind of an asshole.  Katharine Hepburn befriends all three, trying to bridge their opposing interests, but fails.  I guess the movie does too, but I like what it could have been.  Watched it all.

The October Man (1947, UK, Baker) – I was hoping the traumatic accident John Mills is in would give him an interesting case of madness, but he’s just a little sad, and keeps getting better.  Watched: 21 minutes.

Heaven Only Knows (1947, USA, Rogell) – Another of those movies where the amusingly bureaucratic angels of Heaven interfere with events on Earth.  Watched: 7 minutes.

Brighton Rock (1947, UK, Boulting) – A journalist runs into trouble with the Brighton Mafia, which is run by a sadistic 17-year old.  I think this is the earliest English gangster movie I’ve seen – and right from the start they make it their own.  It feels dirtier than the American counterparts.  Watched it all.

The Long Night (1947, USA, Litvak) – One of my favorite things about watching a movie is when I gradually realize that it’s a remake of something I’ve seen before, and I’m trying to remember which one.  I don’t know why, it’s just a wonderful feeling.  In this case, it’s Le Jour se Lève from 1939, which was pretty good, and this is more or less the same movie.  Watched: 18 minutes.

The Senator was Indiscreet (1947, USA, Kaufman) – Senile old fool William Powell wants to become president, with only the help of his vaguely statesmanlike looks, a public relations expert, and a diary full of embarassing secrets.  Watched it all.

The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947, USA, Lewin) -  George Sanders seems to have been typecast as the arrogant 19th century gentleman.  Every time he opens his mouth it sounds like he’s bored and secretly thinking depraved thoughts about the dimwitted woman he’s talking to.  Watched: 24 minutes.

My Favorite Brunette (1947, USA, Nugent) – According to Britannica, Bob Hope represented “the comic tastes of the World War II generation, by whom wit and wordplay were highly valued”.  That is so sad.  So very very sad.  But at least they won the war.  Watched: 5 minutes.

Make Mine Music (1946, USA) – A cheaper-looking Fantasia.  I must find out what was going on at Disney in the mid-40′s.  They released all these mediocre movies that were also pretty inventive – and fun, especially when you don’t know what to expect.  But still mediocre.  I loved the jazz numbers, though, and the one with the singing whale.  Watched it all.

Paisan (1946, Italy, Rossellini) – Short stories from the invasion of Italy.  In the first, it seems the filmmakers just grabbed some random G.I.’s and put them in front of a camera.  Their dialogue is possibly more convincing if you don’t understand any English at all.  Watched: 10 minutes.

Ride the Pink Horse (1947, USA, Montgomery) – An American tough guy arrives in Mexico to take revenge on a gangster who killed his friend, but mostly he just walks calmly about town being awesome.  I think what I love most about this movie is Robert Montgomery’s voice.  Watched it all.

I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (1947, USA, Bacon) – A troubadour who cares little for money and less for fame travels around the country spreading joy and harmony.  That’s what the intro text says, and I’ve decided to take it at its word.  Watched: 4 minutes.

13 Rue Madeleine (1947, USA, Hathaway) – There are right ways and wrong ways to make a spy movie.  Starting it with 6 minutes of newsreel-style exposition is one of the wrong ways.  Watched: 7 minutes.

Ivan the Terrible – Part 2 (1946, USSR, Eisenstein) – Josef Stalin, Tsar of Muscovy, is now at the peak of his power, but there are very few people left he can trust.  Only fear keeps his underlings in line.  Watched it all.  There isn’t a single frame in this movie that isn’t carefully composed to the point of absurdity.  It’s like this isn’t a movie at all, but what movies could have been like if they’d been invented by painters.  This second part wasn’t shown until 1958, because Stalin didn’t like what he saw in the mirror.

Monsieur Beaucaire (1946, USA, Marshall) – You know, in addition to all the comedy teams of the 30′s and 40′s I don’t like, I don’t think I particularly like Bob Hope either.  I don’t ask much, only that the jokes be funny.  Watched: 12 minutes.

Bedlam (1946, USA, Robson) – Boris Karloff is the sadistic head of an 18th century madhouse.  He clashes with an idealistic woman who thinks the inmates should be treated humanely.  The acting is stiff, (apart from Karloff), but the mood is enjoyably grim, and reminds me of Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death.  Watched it all.

Tangier (1946, USA, Waggner) – Sure, take the name of an Arab city, and throw in some Thousand And One Night-ish fonts and music.  That should do the trick.  Watched: 6 minutes.

Black Angel (1946, USA, Neill) – Some fancy dame has been murdered, and her admirers and lovers are all suspects.  I think the police should look closer at that Peter Lorre fellow, he looks fishy.  Watched: 15 minutes.

Notorious (1946, USA, Hitchcock) – Ingrid Bergman goes drunk driving with Cary Grant, which leads to all sorts of troubles with gangsters/anarchists/Nazis.  This may be Grant’s first serious role where I’m actually able to take him seriously.  Watched it all.  Btw, why is it that these fascists-in-hiding always have such creepy, domineering mothers?

The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946, USA, Levin, Sherman) – Robin Hood is possibly the most awesome story premise in the history of storytelling, but this son-of-Robin version is quite stupid: Old Robin Hood gathers together his former comrades, (who all still live in the forest, wtf?), because the Lord Regent wants to overturn the Magna Carta and thus End Freedom and Democracy.  Robin gets help from his son, who has been educated in all things Robin Hoody, up to and including the smirk. Watched: 8 minutes.

The Razor’s Edge (1946, USA, Goulding) – Somerset Maugham’s novel about a man who goes loafing around the world in search of enlightenment has stayed with me ever since I read it at an impressionable young age.  I’ve done my searching in other ways, (the whole Indian guru thing was ahead of its time in 1944, but hasn’t aged well), but the story has always been a model for me.  It works fairly well as a movie, more superficial, but some of the message comes through.  Watched it all.

Valley of the Zombies (1946, USA, Ford) – A man jumps off a ledge with his cape flapping around him.  I guess the movie’s trying to tell us he’s a vampire.  Watched: 7 minutes.

Pink String and Sealing Wax (1946, UK, Hamer) – Mervyn Johns drives his kids away by being an asshole in the good old patriarchal tradition.  He believes in sobriety, religion and respectable family life, but the kids want to hang out with loose women and do something in media and fall in love with someone outside their social class and all that.  Watched it all.

Two Guys from Milwaukee (1946, USA, Butler) – Some fancy foreign prince befriends a New York taxi driver to see how the common people live.  He’ll probably learn valuable life lessons.  Watched: 12 minutes.

Cinderella Jones (1946, USA, Berkeley) – A man dies and leaves behind a will with amusing stipulations that must be fulfilled before the movie is over.  Watched: 3 minutes.

The Captive Heart (1946, UK, Dearden) – British officers are taken prisoners, and spend the war reading about and dreaming of home.  It’s not such a bad life.  In fact, all things considered, I think they’re pretty lucky.  Look at them, garden and everything!  Watched it all.

London Town (1946, UK, Ruggles) – A British attempt at a big, expensive, technicolor musical, Hollywood-style.   Watched: 2 minutes.  The movie was a flop – that ought to teach them.

The Story of Menstruation (1946, USA) – This Disney animated short was made for health education classes and explains that menstruation is a normal part of life.  It advises girls not to worry, but stay healthy – and stop slouching, (it looks bad).  Wikipedia says this was the first movie ever to use the word “vagina”.