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The Fountainhead (1949, USA, Vidor)

Now, I dislike Ayn Rand, her books, and her followers, and that includes you, all your friends, your children, and your children’s children to the seventh generation, etc. etc., (in a half-friendly family squabble sort of way), but it has to be said that this is the most intellectually interesting movie of the entire decade.  And it is an inspiring fable.  Rand’s insanities aside, her ideas here about the unshakable integrity of the individual, and what it means to take responsibility for your choices, are close to what I try to live by.  Perhaps you need to be delusional to empathize with Roark.  Perhaps I am.  Watched it all.

Samson and Delilah (1949, USA, DeMille)

Behold – a new age of Biblical epics is upon us!  As you may recall from Sunday school, Samson was the great warrior in the Book of Judges who introduced the principles of LIBERTY and FREEDOM to the DECADENT (ie. bikini-wearing) world of 1000 B.C.  Watched: 12 minutes.  I think these movies get better later.  Right?  And less campy?  At least I remember seeing one or two good ones.

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Lust for Gold (1949, USA, Simon)

A legendary hidden gold mine in the mountain has attracted adventurers and murderers for generations.  They usually meet bad ends.  The plot here is unusually complex for a movie.  It shifts between two different centuries, and manages to be just as interesting in both of them.  Watched it all.

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Gategutter / Boys from the Streets (1949, Norway, Skouen)

There are no easy paths through life for working class kids in 1920’s Oslo.  Crime is fun but dangerous.  Honest labor feels better, but you’re exploited by the middle class.  And Communism is appealing but also a bit scary.  What’s the point of revolution when all you want is a steady job?  Perhaps the answer is some sort of non-Communist Labor movement?  Watched it all.  I didn’t know there were Norwegian neo-realist movies, but this one fits right in with what the Italians were doing at the time.

Tight Little Island (1949, UK, Mackendrick)

Whiskey runs out on a Scottish island, oh no!  War is hell!  But maybe they could think of some desperate plan to get hold of some!  Watched: 17 minutes.  An entire community ravaged by alcoholism is no longer one of those inherently mirthful concepts, I guess.

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Rope of Sand (1949, USA, Dieterle)

Burt Lancaster doesn’t care about recovering the diamonds he has hidden in the desert.  He just wants to get revenge on the cop who once tortured him for no reason.  Watched it all.  I think this marks the point when South Africa takes over from Nazi Germany the role as the world’s creepy Aryan assholes.

Not Wanted (1949, USA, Lupino)

Peggy Olson gets pregnant with some loser from work, and has to give the baby away.  It’s the madhouse next for her!  Watched: 19 minutes.

The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948, USA, Huston)

Being poor doesn’t make you a better person.  It makes you greedy and mean and paranoid, and desperate to hold on to any wealth that may come your way.  Well, or maybe that’s just Humphrey Bogart, whose latent psychotic tendencies are triggered by the sight or thought or even smell of GOLD, GOLD I tell you, the hills are full of GOLD, and it’s all mine!!!!!  Watched it all.

.. and so we enter .. 1949!

House of Strangers (1949, USA, Mankiewicz)

You can put a moustache on Edward G. Robinson and teach him to talk like Chico Marx, but that still doesn’t make him a believable Italian-American.  And it’s a shame too, because this looked pretty good until he showed up.  Watched: 20 minutes.

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Reign of Terror (1949, USA, Mann)

Trust Anthony Mann to make the most out of a low budget, and bring out the Reign of Terror not the way it actually happened, but the way it appears in our nightmares, a time of blood and chaos and fanaticism.  Watched it all.

The Red Menace (1949, USA, Springsteen)

The Communist Party has tentacles all over America, and every time they manage to seduce and ensnare another disaffected veteran, a Party boss in some secret Party lair strokes his Party cat and goes muwhahahaha.   Watched: 14 minutes.  I kind of look forward to seeing some genuine red scare movies now.  Maybe there are even a few good ones?

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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.

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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.

A Hen in the Wind (1948, Japan, Ozu)

There’s a better way for a young mother to stay alive in post-war Japan than to sell off your last belongings.  But don’t expect any thanks from your husband, who thinks a family can survive on nothing but good intentions while he’s been stuck in a POW camp.  Watched it all.

Rogues’ Regiment (1948, USA, Florey)

And the award for least plausible Nazi Untergang scene goes to .. Watched: 8 minutes.  I hope the war criminal they’re hunting turns out to be Vincent Price.  He’s really starting to get the hang of his Evil Voice.

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Road House (1948, USA, Negulesco)

This is something new – I love when that happens!  What’s new is the way Ida Lupino walks into a bar, sits down by the piano, and sings like she thinks singing is pointless but can’t think of a reason not to.  Everything bores her, but seeing as there’s nowhere else to go, she intends to chain smoke her way through life until something interesting happens.  Watched it all.

A Southern Yankee (1948, USA, Sedgwick)

You can tell this is a comedy because the title sequence summarizes the story with the use of cute caricatures.  Watched: 4 minutes.

Rope (1948)

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Rope (1948, USA, Hitchcock)

Two men kill their friend just to see what it feels like.  It feels good.  Rope is maybe my favorite movie ever.  I rewatch it every chance I get, and it’s comforting to know that, even if I hadn’t discovered it already, I would have today.  Watched it all.

Red River (1948)

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Red River (1948, USA, Hawks)

John Wayne  arrives in Texas and steals a good chunk of land from the people who stole it last.  While turning it into a successful cattle ranch, he crosses the fine fine line between stoic Western hero and psychopath.  (Yes there is a difference.  It has to do with the way your eyes look while you slaughter people: Cold, or really cold.)  Watched it all.

The Naked City (1948, USA, Dassin)

I love the style here.  It’s all shot on location in New York, and the story sort of strolls along casually, with us just happening to be there to watch.  But there’s still only a police procedural underneath, like everything on TV right now.  Watched: 19 minutes.

The Bicycle Thief (1948, Italy, De Sica)

The realistic lives of the Italian working class are so real and gritty that even a stolen bicycle can make the difference between work and hunger.  If you’re going to watch a neo-realist movie anyway it should probably be this one, because it’s actually pretty good.  Watched it all.

Quartet (1948, UK)

Here’s how to make a literary movie extra boring: Have the author, W. Somerset Maugham, introduce the movie by explaining the Purpose of his Art.  How to make it pathetic: Have him make a joke about some critics who once said something mean about him.  Watched: 4 minutes.

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Germania Anno Zero (1948, Italy, Rossellini)

Life sucks for all the ex-Wehrmacht, ex-Hitlerjugend and ex-Nazis in Berlin.  No place to stay, no food, an no tolerance for freethinkers any more.  What did they ever do to deserve this?  Oh, if only Hitler was alive.  Watched it all.  The ruins of Berlin are the star here.  Ruins always are.

Silver River (1948, USA, Walsh)

I hate Errol Flynn so much that I won’t even download a movie if I know he’s in it.  (He, and Shirley Temple, but I don’t think she’s making movies any more).  But sometimes one slips through the net.  Then I catch it, for a segment I call: Out like Flynn. Watched: 3 minutes.

So Dear to My Heart (1948)

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So Dear to My Heart (1948, USA)

It would seem that there is nothing Disney did in the 1940’s that I do not like at least a little bit, no matter how far they sink from their golden years.  I can’t even dislike this sentimental children’s movie, mostly live action, about a boy and his adorable black lamb.  I mean, look at the intro sequence above, where memories from a scrapbook come alive.  Isn’t it awful!  But kind of nice!  And so is the rest.  Watched it all.

So Evil My Love (1948, UK, Allen)

It feels weird to watch movies that were written by Margaret Thatcher’s speechwriter.  Mostly in a good way.  Watched: 11 minutes.