Category Archives: 1947

Brighton Rock
Directed by John Boulting
Written by Graham Greene and Terrence Rattigan from the novel by Greene
1947/UK
Charter Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Rose: People change.

Ida: I’ve never changed. It’s like those sticks of rock. Bite one all the way down, you’ll still read Brighton. That’s human nature.[/box]

At only seventeen years old, Richard Attenborough’s Pinkie Brown makes Harry Lime look like a pussycat.  Brighton Rock is an absolutely gripping British film noir.

A title card informs us that between the wars, the English seaside resort of Brighton used to be over run by gangs preying on racegoers.  When the former gang leader is killed, fresh-faced Pinkie Brown takes over the collection of much older hoodlums through sheer force of will.  The deceased was fingered by a reporter named Fred Hale.  His newspaper has enlisted him to play “Kolley Kibber” out on a walking tour of Brighton for the day.  The gimmick is that the first person to challenge “Kolley” will win a prize and anybody picking up one of the cards he leaves around will win a smaller prize.  Fred’s picture appears on the front page of that day’s edition.

Forearmed, the gang is ready for revenge.  The first act of the film follows Fred’s terrified flight from the thugs.  One of Fred’s ploys is to enlist a good-natured lush, Ida (Hermoine Baddeley), to spend the day with him.  He begs her not to leave him for a minute.  He’s a goner when she does.  She gets back just in time to catch a brief glimpse of Pinkie.  Then we see Pinkie elaborately establishing his alibi for the crime.  Part of this is to order his men to distribute cards around town as though Fred had been in action later in the day.

But henchman Spicer, already very nervous about the gang’s involvement in murder, slips up.  He leaves a card under the tablecloth in a cafe where he stops for a beer.  Pinkie is irate and goes to retrieve the card.  Unfortunately for her, the waitress, Rose, has already found the card and reveals that she has an excellent memory for faces.  So Pinkie begins wooing the innocent young Catholic, who quickly adores him.

Meanwhile, Ida does not believe that Fred’s death was a suicide as ruled in the coroner’s inquest.  She takes it on herself to see that justice is done.  The remainder of the film is taken up with her investigation and Pinkie’s increasingly heartless efforts to stay one step ahead of the law.

Greene was a convert to Catholicism and a great student of human nature.  He certainly was not afraid to name Satan and incarnate him.  There is a very interesting morality play buried deep in what is basically a crime film.  I’d like to read the source novel some time.

This is a great movie, so dynamic that I was able to ignore the numerous coincidences and remain thoroughly engrossed.  It all hinges on the performances of Attenborough and Baddeley, both probably at career heights.  But the film is also full of unforgettable set pieces like the Hanes chase, the ghost train at the pier, the double cross at the racetrack, the gramophone recording and more.  Highly recommended.

Clip – sorry folks, it was the best I could do

For better clips on TCM go here

One Wonderful Sunday (“Subarashiki nichiyôbi”)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa and Keinosuke Uekusa
1947/Japan
Tojo Company
First viewing/Hulu Plus

Masako: All you people, applaud. All you young lovers, applaud for your dreams.

This film provides a very interesting glimpse into the wreckage that was Toyko immediately after World War II.  The ending has some major problems but until then Kurosawa shows off his developing mastery.

Yuzo and Masako have been engaged since before the war but, despite working, are too poor to marry and set up household.  Being too honest to participate in the black market, Yuzo sees little way out.  The couple meets only on Sundays.  On this particular Sunday, they have to figure out a way to amuse themselves on only the 35 yen they share between them.  Masako’s challenge is to prevent Yuzo from sliding into complete despair.  She is relentlessly cheerful, recalling the dreams they used to share of one day opening a cafe.

The film follows the two as they engage in the activities open to them.  Most everything seems to go wrong.  They tour a model house which is hopelessly out of their price range; visit a filthy rented room that is similarly too expensive. Yuzo plays a game of sandlot baseball with some children and damages a shopowner’s sign.  Yuzo looks up an old army buddy who has opened a cabaret but it turns out the place is the hangout of gangsters and the man refuses to see him.  Then a torrential downpour starts.  They try to go to a concert but are priced out of the cheap seats when scalpers buy them all up.

The couple retreat to Yuzo’s flat, where he seems lost in depression and beyond the reach of Masako.  But they are young and together they somehow survive the day and plan for next Sunday.

Evidence of the American occupation is everywhere in this film from the ruins of bombed out buildings and empty lots to English-language signage all around.  The general run of Japanese seem to be ruthless profiteers out only for their own survival.  The lot of children seems to be particularly bleak.  What chance does a young couple that retains an ounce of idealism have? According to Kurosawa, there is hope if they can hold on to their dreams.

It is interesting to contrast the more muscular Kurosawa to the softer Ozu film of the same year.  Both One Wonderful Sunday and Record of a Tenement Gentleman explore Tokyo at its lowest ebb.  But though both films end with a plea for compassion, the poverty in the Ozu film is incidental to the human story while it seems to be part of a more political polemic in the Kurosawa.

Kurosawa makes dynamic use of his beloved rain and wind.  The scene in Yuzo’s apartment drags on endlessly as we watch him mope with and without the support of Masako.  But the length seemed to add to the realism for me.  The ending sequence, however, went on and on to much less effect only to culminate in some too obvious speechifying,  Nonetheless recommended to anyone interested in the period or the filmmaker.

Clip

Body and Soul
Directed by Robert Rossen
Written by Abraham Polonsky
1947/USA
Enterprise Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Charlie Davis: What are you gonna do? Kill me? Everybody dies.[/box]

From before the blacklist, when boxing was a stand-in for cut throat capitalism. John Garfield is terrific as a scrapper who almost loses his soul to the game.

Charlie Davis (Garfield) is a talented amateur boxer who lives with his parents above their candy store, dreaming of bigger and better things.  His mother (Anne Revere) wants him to give up the ring and get an education.  His friend Shorty is trying to get him an in with manager Quinn (William Conrad) to turn pro.  Charlie’s father secretly supports Charlie’s boxing ambitions but is killed suddenly when the speakeasy next to the shop is blown up.  For awhile, Charlie stays home to please his mother.  It is then that he meets and falls in love with beautiful immigrant painter Peg (Lilli Palmer).   But he can’t get work and when a welfare worker comes around Charlie defies his mother and starts fighting for Quinn to get money.

Charlie defeats all comers as a pro.  Soon he and Quinn are looking for a championship bout.  Nobody can get one without the backing of ruthless promoter Roberts.  Roberts wants nothing less than half of Charlie.  As he waits for his fight, Quinn and Roberts show Charlie the high life, complete with wine, women and song.  By the time the championship fight is sight, Charlie is thoroughly corrupted and prefers money even at the cost of Peg and Shorty.

Finally Charlie is scheduled for a championship bout with  Ben Chaplin (Canada Lee) who, unbeknownst to him but not to anyone else, is suffering from a life-threatening blood clot in the brain.  A KO in the ring almost takes Ben’s life.  But despite learning that his keepers have set him up for this mockery of a fight, Charlie takes it in stride only hiring Ben as his sparring partner to make up for it.  Charlie gets softer and softer the higher he flies until the time when he must make a final choice between money and integrity.

The film is the prototypical boxing movie in which the hero must prove his mettle when asked to take a dive.  Here though, the moral issues take on a philosophical and political significance thanks to the pointed and pithy dialogue of Abraham Polonski (Force of Evil).  In addition, what sets Body and Soul apart from more pedestrian fare is a the mesmerizing performance by Garfield and the gritty fight sequences, cited by Martin Scorsese as as inspiration for Raging Bull.  Nobody did shiny night streets better than cinematographer James Wong Howe and we get these in abundance here.

Per IMDb, an extremely large number of the cast and crew on the film – writer Abraham Polonsky, actors John Garfield, Anne Revere, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, Art Smith, Shimen Ruskin, producer Bob Roberts and, to a lesser extent, cinematographer Howe – found themselves either blacklisted or greylisted during the HUAC witch hunts of the 1950s, while director Robert Rossen only avoided that fate by naming names.

Body and Soul won the Oscar for Best Film Editing.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Actor and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Clip

Record of a Tenement Gentleman (“Nagaya shinshiroku”)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Tadao Ikeda and Yasujirô Ozu
1947/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. ~Pearl S. Buck[/box]

Ozu sets his first post-War film in a Tokyo where residents live on the margins, scrounging for everyday items like mirrors and garden hoses and waiting for food to become available.

In this atmosphere, a fortune-teller (Chishû Ryô) finds  a lost or abandoned homeless boy who will not stop following him.  He takes him home but his flat mate seems to be beset by romantic difficulties (we overhear this in one of the most bizarre film openings ever) and is unwilling to take the child.  The two dump the boy for “one night” on neighbor Tane (Chôko Iida).  Tane, a childless widow, resists taking the child and is even less impressed when he turns out to be a bedwetter with fleas.

The very next day Tane makes the long walk to the neighborhood where the boy last lived with his father.  The father has moved.  Now Tane curses the father and does all in her power to lose the boy.  But no such luck.  So they continue their fretful co-existence until the day Tane wets the bed again and runs away and Tane finds she will search high and low until she finds him.

This film ends on an uncharacteristically dogmatic note with Tane calling for a return to the old ways, before “modern” self-centeredness took hold.  This somewhat mars the proceedings which are basically light and airy.  Ozu had a special way with children and it is totally evident here.  This would also be worth watching just to see Ryô entertain his neighbors with a recitation from his old days with a peep-show.

Clip