Category Archives: 1949

Here’s to the Girls (Ojôsan kanpai, AKA “Here’s to the Young Lady”)
Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita
Written by Kaneto Shindô
1949/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
First viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] “It was against all scientific reason for two people who hardly knew each other, with no ties at all between them, with different characters, different upbringings, and even different genders, to suddenly find themselves committed to living together, to sleeping in the same bed, to sharing two destinies that perhaps were fated to go in opposite directions.” ― Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera[/box]

Here’s a romantic comedy, Japanese-style.  I thought it was charming.

Keizô Ishizu (Shûji Sano) is a self-made man, having built up a thriving auto repair business from nothing.  He is now 34 years old and his friend Mr. Sato has decided that it is time for him to marry – and he has just the girl.  Keizo is very reluctant but Sato eventually convinces him to at least meet this prospect.

The girl is Yatsuko Ikeda (Setsuko Hara).  Keizo considers her high above him in every way.  Nevertheless, it is love at first sight.  He soon finds out that Yatsuko’s aristocratic family will lose everything if it does not pay off a large loan in three months and that her father is in prison.  Now, despite is continued passion, he is a little worried he is only wanted for his money.  He agrees to go out with her for three months.

We follow their courtship, which is full of social blunders on Keizo’s part.  Eventually, it is not the money issue that bothers Keizo but Yatsuko’s continuing gentle reserve in the face of his enthusiasm.  The fate of the romance is in doubt until the very last minute.

This was right up my alley.  I cared about all the characters and enjoyed the gentle humor. The situation just seemed very real to me despite the completely different cultural setting.

Holiday Affair
Directed by Don Hartman
Written by Isabel Lennart from a story by John D. Weaver
1949/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Connie Ennis: If you wish for things you can get, you’re gonna be happy. If you wish for real big things, all you’re gonna get is real big disappointments.[/box]

The stars’ irresistible charisma lightens this utterly predictable Christmastime romantic comedy.

War widow Connie (Janet Leigh) works as a comparison shopper.  She meets salesman Steve (Robert Mitchum) when she buys a toy train set in a most business like way.  When she takes the train home, we meet her adorable little boy, Timmy, and Carl (Wendell Corey), an attorney who has been courting her for years.

The next day, when she returns the train, Steve confronts her and threatens to expose her.  She tells him she will lose her job and Steve takes pity on her.  They have lunch in the park where Connie finds out that Steve is actually a free-spirit who dreams of a career designing sail boats.  His kindness ends up getting him fired instead.  Janet’s meeting with Steve shakes her up so much that she agrees to marry Carl.

Will Steve and Timmy bond over toy trains?  Who will get the girl?  Neither of these questions are in doubt for a single minute.

The chemistry between Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum is palpable and makes the movie enjoyable despite all the cliches.  Another one to possibly add to one’s holiday viewing list for one Christmas, at least.

Trailer

Impact
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Written by Dorothy Davenport and Jay Dratler
1949/USA
Cardinal Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Walter Williams: In this world, you turn the other cheek, and you get hit with a lug wrench.[/box]

This odd film noir had an intriguing premise.  The execution not so much …

Hard-charging industrialist and automotive wizard Walter Williams (Brian Donlevy) has a soft spot for his wife Irene (Helen Walker).  He showers her with flowers, presents, and sweet talk.  He is so much in love with her that when she begs off from a romantic trip to Lake Tahoe due to illness and asks him to give her unemployed cousin Jim a ride instead he gladly agrees.  We soon find out that the “cousin” is actually her lover and as soon as he gets Walter in an isolated place he conks him over the head with a lug wrench and dumps him into a ditch.

When Jim speeds off in Walter’s car, he gets hit by an oil tanker and goes up in a ball of flames.  The corpse is unrecognizable.  Walter is not dead but manages to crawl into the back of a moving van.  Lt. Tom Quincy (Charles Coburn) of the police starts to investigate the murder.  All the circumstantial evidence seems to show that the victim was Walter and the murderer was Irene.

In the meantime, the heartbroken Walter painfully makes his way to Idaho where he adopts an assumed name and gleefully keeps abreast of his wife’s murder trial.  There he helps out war widow and gas station owner Marsha Peters (Ella Raines) with his prowess as an auto mechanic and soon they are in love.  Marsha’s mother finds out the truth.  The rest of the movie is devoted to homespun wisdom about doing the right thing supplied by Marsha and her mother and Walter’s trial for Jim’s murder.  With Anna May Wong as a star witness.

I knew this was not going to end well as soon as Charles Coburn started speaking in a bad Irish brogue.  The story is really a mess.  The tacked on Capraesque corn in the second act is bad enough but a lot of the developments just defy logic. Too bad, this had definite possibilities.  Most of the actors did fine with the material.

It is old home week on flickersintime!  First we get Buster Keaton in In the Good Old Summertime and now the cruelly underutilized Anna May Wong makes a reappearance in this.   So good to see a familiar face.

Trailer

The Great Madcap (El gran calavera)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Janet Alcoriza, Luis Alcoriza and Adolfo Torrado
1949/Mexico
Ultramar Films
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Thank God, I’m an atheist. — Luis Buñuel[/box]

Buñuel comes back after a long absence with an only slightly subversive satirical romance.  I thought it was pretty charming.

Since his wife died, millionaire Ramiro de la Mata (Francisco Soler) has become an amiable drunk who indulges every whim of his freeloading family and office staff.  The one unselfish member of his household is daughter Virginia, who is preparing to marry a fortune hunter he doesn’t much like.  Ramiro’s carousing leads to some sort of an attack that leaves him unconcious for a while and his brother decides to teach him a lesson.  He persuades the family to go along with a scheme to fool Ramiro that he has lost all his money in a fraudulent bankruptcy.

So the family moves in to a flat in the poor section of town and pretend to go to work doing laundry, carpentry, etc.  When Ramiro wakes up they easily convince him he is broke.  He decides to commit suicide by jumping off the roof but is rescued by handsome young Pablo.  Pablo falls in love with the beautiful Virginia at first sight.  Despite their poverty, Pablo and his mother take pity on their neighbors and bring them food.

Before long, Ramiro gets wise to the scheme.  He decides to carry on with the charade to teach his family a lesson.  He has reformed though and his business is more successful than ever.  Eventually, Virginia’s no-good fiancé gets wind of this and shows up pretending to help out the family.  Pablo is outraged when he finds out about the ruse.  Can things be made right?  Hint:  this is a comedy.

I liked this a lot.  Mostly it is a straight-forward narrative though there are a few Buñuel touches like the fiancé’s mustachioed mother and Pablo blaring out advertisements on a loudspeaker during Virginia’s wedding ceremony.  The dialogue is nicely written and all the performances are good.  It is probably my favorite Mexican movie of the period thus far.

Clip – wedding scene – no subtitles

Jour de fête (AKA “The Big Day”)
Directed by Jacques Tati
Written by Jacques Tati, Henri Marquet, and Rene Wheeler
1949/France
Cady Films/Panoramic Films
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] [at the 1959 Academy Awards] I find that the people who speak the worst English want to talk more than the others. — Jacques Tati[/box]

This was Tati’s first feature film and pre-dates the creation of Monsieur Hulot.  It’s talkier than later films and drags a little but has some great sight gags.

Postman François (Tati) makes his rounds by bicycle in a small French village and the surrounding countryside.  This particular day is a holiday and a little carnival has come to town.  We start off with a commentary by an old lady on the foibles of various villagers and scenes of people setting up the merry-go-round etc. before François appears.  François is a bit of a bumbler but tolerated by his fellow villagers.  He tries to help with set up to predictably dire results.

About two-thirds of the way through, François and some of his buddies go to see a newsreel about how mail is delivered in America.  This includes break-neck scenes of letters delivered via helicopter, etc.  François’ pals rib him mercilessly and finally the postman takes up the challenge and starts furiously delivering the mail in a most alarming way.

You don’t go to see Tati’s films for the plot or dialogue but for the sight gags.  There are some good ones, particularly when Tati starts demonstrating “modern” techniques of delivering letters by bicycle.  He’s a long way from his peak here but I enjoyed the film. The music is very nice as well.

Restoration trailer

The Walking Horse Winner
Directed by Anthony Pellisier
Written by Anthony Pellisier from a story by D.H. Lawrence
1949/UK
Two Cities Films
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Bassett: You won’t never see the end of it, ma’am, nor will I. As long as ever we’ll live, we’ll remember, and we’ll know just what it is was done.

This psychological fantasy is a nice allegory for the frantic need of children to “fix” their dysfunctional homes.

The Grahames have a problem.  The mother, Hester (Valerie Hobson), feels entitled to a certain standard of living and believes that the money should be made to fit the standard rather than the reverse.  Mr. Grahame has no hope of making enough money from his current job and is an unlucky gambler to boot.  Hester has a small trust fund but her uncle Oscar (Ronald Squire), the trustee, is getting tired of making loans from the principal which is, at any rate, running out.  Mr. and Mrs. Grahame spend most of their time arguing about money.  Their eldest son, Paul (John Howard Davies), seems to spend most of his time overhearing these fights and worrying.

Into this unhappy life comes Basset (John Miles) who served as Oscar’s batman during the war, and has been hired as a sort of driver/gardener. Basset soon befriends Paul who is fascinated with his stories of his life when he was a jockey.  When Paul gets a rocking horse for Christmas, Basset shows Paul how to ride it as if it were a real horse.

Things go from bad to worse and Paul begins to hear the house talking to him.  “We must have more money” it whispers.  He has a talk with his mother who is complaining about how his father is unlucky and decides to convince her that he is lucky and can take care of them. Bassett likes to play the ponies and Paul convinces him to lay down a small bet.  The first bet loses.  Then Paul finds that if he can ride his rocking horse to the “lucky place” he will know to a certainty which horse will win a race.  Paul and Bassett become partners and secretly lay up a large amount of money.  Later Oscar joins the enterprise.  Finally, Paul can secretly provide for his mother’s extravagances.

At the same time, Paul is driven to ride his horse more and more furiously to get where he needs to go, frightening his siblings and nanny and taking a toll on his health.

Everything from the acting to the cinematography is first rate.  It’s an unusual and troubling story which I enjoyed very much.  Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbgsMDtSucs

Clip – spoiler

Lust for Gold
Directed by S. Sylvan Simon
Written by Ted Sherdeman and Richard English from the novel “Thunder Gods Gold” by Barry Storm
1949/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

Julia Thomas: Who is he?
Man in crowd: Jacob Walz. Must be a Dutchman.
Julia Thomas: Or a German.
Man in crowd: Yeah, that’s what I said – a Dutchman.

On the surface, this is a Western about the discovery of the Lost Dutchman gold mine.  Underneath, it is 100% film noir.

A long flashback is framed by the story of Barry Storm a descendent of the namesake of the Lost Dutchman Mine who runs across a corpse while searching in the mountains for the old mine.  Turns out that there have been a number of murders in the vicinity.

As Storm searches through a pile of old documents, we segue into the flashback.  Jacob Walz (Glenn Ford) rides into town and heads straight to the assay office with a pile of gold nuggets.  The townspeople are clambering to find out where the mine is.  The proprietress of the local bakery Julia Thomas (Ida Lupino) gets wind of this and plots how she will get a share of the loot.  She orders her husband Pete (Gig Young) to introduce her to Jacob.  Pete is forced to comply because Julia has the info that will tie him to an unsolved murder back in Milwaukee.

At any rate, Jacob goes on a drinking spree, but manages to keep his secret even while dead drunk.  Julia spots him passed out in the street and takes him home with her.  When he wakes up she appears like an angel with no interest in anything but her baking.  When she tries out her German on the lonely miner, it is love at first sight.

Soon Jacob begins courting Julia. who is having a harder and harder time keeping her marriage to Pete hidden.  She is finally forced to admit her marriage and agrees to get a divorce.  Soon she will caught between two violent, angry men.

Once the love triangle is resolved, we return to the modern-day mystery involving the location of the mine and the identity of the killer.  With Paul Ford as the modern day sheriff and a youngish Will Geer as his deputy.

This is a fairly solid noirish Western with a truly evil femme fatale.  Glenn Ford is handicapped by a bad German accent that comes and goes repeatedly and the story is a bit too convoluted.  It’s not a bad way to spend a couple of hours, though.

Clip