I watched 84 films that were released in 1943, including some shorts, documentaries, and “B” movies that were not reviewed here. You can see the full list on IMDb here or at Letterboxd, with some short reviews not published on the blog, here. 1943 was the first year in a long time, maybe ever, that I was able to view all the nominees in the major categories (Picture, Director, four Acting categories, and 3 Writing categories).
After a long hiatus, I thought I’d bring back my Top Ten list. For purposes of this exercise, I have considered both Casablanca and In Which We Serve to be 1942 films.
Here are my favorite films of 1943 in reverse order.
The Man in Grey
Directed by Leslie Arliss
Written by Doreen Montgomery, Margaret Kennedy, and Leslie Arliss
1943/UK
Gainsborough Pictures/The Rank Organization
First viewing/Amazon Instant Video
#172 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Lord Rohan: [after Hester bites him. Aroused with excitement] I never thought I’d find a woman with a spirit as willful as mine. You take what you want and the devil with the consequences. So do I![/box]
I certainly could have died without having seen this Regency romance bodice-ripper.
The story is told in flashback after two of the character’s descendents meet at an auction of goods from the Rowan estate.
Lovely, sweet Clarissa (Phyllis Calvert) attends a finishing school in Bath. She alone befriends the charity student who joins their midst, Hester Shaw (Margaret Lockwood). Hester runs away with some sort of scoundrel and leaves Clarissa for several years. In the mean time, their families arrange a “suitable” match between Clarissa and the haughty, cruel Lord Rowan (James Mason). They care nothing for each other, Rowan having married to produce an heir, and live as separately as possible.
Clarissa happens to see an advertisement for a play Hester is appearing in in St. Albans. On her way to the performance, the coach is highjacked by a handsome rascal Peter Rokeby (Stewart Granger) who poses as a highwayman to get the vehicle to stop. He hitches a ride and steals a kiss at goodbye. Clarissa is surprised to see that he is playing Othello to Hester’s Desdemona in a very poor offering of that work. She is so delighted with finding her friend that she offers Hester a job as governess to her young son. Rowan refuses to hire Hester in that capacity but agrees that she can stay on as companion to Clarissa.
As we have previously learned, Hester is a manipulative, deceiving trollop and was made for the surly Rowan. They begin an affair but Hester has marriage on her mind. After another chance meeting between Clarissa and Rokeby, she decides that the best way to get Clarissa out of the picture is to bring her and Rokeby together. Hester succeeds in kindling the fire of love between the two but is forced to resort to more drastic measures to get rid of Clarissa.
Hollywood “women’s” pictures have nothing on this one for intrigue and innuendo. Indeed, it seems specially designed to appeal to the mildly sado-masochistic fantasies of part of its target audience. I found it rather turgid myself. If you are coming for Mason, he has been much, much better elsewhere and basically has a supporting role, the meaty stuff having been reserved for the ladies.
This film also has the unfortunate distinction of being the most racially-problematic British film I have seen yet. Clarissa has a small Black page boy who, though somewhat heroic, is the butt of every one of the rare jokes.
The Fallen Sparrow Directed by Richard Wallace Written by Warren Duff from a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes 1943/USA RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD
John ‘Kit’ McKittrick: [First Lines] [Thinking, not speaking out loud] All right. Go on. Let’s have it. Can you go through with it? Have you got the guts for it? Or have they knocked it out of you? Have they made you yellow?
This early film noir had potential but never quite clicked. Maureen O’Hara was not cut out to be a femme fatale.
“Kit” McKittrick (John Garfield) has returned from the Spanish Civil War, having suffered Torture by fascists for two years as a POW. He still has nightmarish flashbacks from his ordeal (and talks to himself a lot). When he returns to the city after a rest cure, he discovers that his best friend, who rescued him from captivity, fell from the balcony of a high-rise apartment. The police have ruled the case a suicide but Kit is sure it was murder. He starts a one-man investigation and vendetta.
He traces all the people that were at the party the night his friend fell. They include Dr. Christian Skaas (Walter Slezak), a wheelchair-bound “Norwegian” who delights in describing modern torture techniques, and his son Otto (a blond Hugh Beaumont). The lovely lady that was sitting with the friend at the time of his fall is Toni Donne (O’Hara), with whom Kit falls in love of course. As Kit sensed, it develops that he is the prime target of the people who murdered his friend. Some attempted plot twists follow but in the end it turns out just as one would have predicted.
I was paying attention and I still had to stretch to write a plot summary. The story is all over the place. There are tons of characters whose reason for existence is never made clear. The goal of the spies either is so slight as not even to qualify as a McGuffin or is not sufficiently developed.
I now understand why the first-person narrator became a film noir staple. This film conveys the protagonist’s thoughts through several interior monologues addressed to the character himself (see quote) and it just doesn’t work. Much better to allow the character to speak to the audience.
The Fallen Sparrow was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Roy Webb and C. Bakaleinikoff).
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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9. Ossessione (directed by Lucino Visconte)
