Category Archives: 1949

White Heat (1949)

White Heat
Directed by Raoul Walsh
Written by Ivan Goff and Bob Roberts; suggested by a story by Virginia Kellogg
1949/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#227 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Verna Jarrett: It’s always “somebody tipped them.” Never “the cops are smart.”[/box]

I wish somebody had bottled James Cagney’s energy and stayed around to sell it to me! This is one of the all-time best gangster pictures and it’s 90% Cagney’s.

As the movie begins, Cody Jarrett (Cagney) and his gang pull off a train heist.  The leader’s psychopathic brutality is revealed by his gratuitous murders of the engineers and abandonment of one of his own men who was badly burned by steam during the robbery. Cody’s heart belongs to Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly), who is the only one that can soothe the raging headaches that turn him into a wimpering baby.  She evidently had practice with Cody’s father, who died in an insane asylum.  Cody’s affection for his sexy, vulgar, lazy, two-timing wife Verna (perfectly portrayed by Virginia Mayo) is a distant second in his priorities.  He’d as soon give her a kick as a kiss.

The gang spends several weeks in hiding while Verna whines about not being able to have any fun with their money and makes eyes at second-in-command Big Ed (Steve Cochran). Finally, the cops take to trailing Ma using radio transmitters.  Cody decides to take the heat off by turning himself in for a minor robbery committed at the same time as the train job and serving a short prison sentence.

The cops are wise and assign veteran Hank Fallon (Edmond O’Brien) to masquerade as Vic Pardo, a fellow prisoner, and get close to Cody.  This works better than anyone could have imagined.  Pardo becomes a sort of substitute Ma for Cody in jail.  When the two eventually escape together Cody treats him like a brother.

After dealing with Big Ed’s treachery, Cody is up for his next job.  The boys have purchased an oil tanker they plan to use in a payroll heist at chemical plant.  Cody decides to use it as a Trojan Horse for an even bigger operation.  Fallon/Pardo tries to get the word out to the police while in constant danger of blowing his cover.  The movie has one of the most memorable endings in film history.  With Fred Clark as a money launderer.

I had seen this before and thought the movie might suffer from its fairly detailed coverage of police procedure.  Not so.  Walsh manages to keep the energy up even as we learn all about radio technology.  Cagney is simply brilliant.  He is as white hot as the title.  Mayo and Wycherly both wring every bit of juice out of their characters.  O’Brien makes a great straight man if not much more.  The many action sequences are gripping.  Highly recommended.

White Heat was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

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

Trailer

Clip – Cody’s reaction to bad news

Late Spring (1949)

Late Spring (Banshun)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu from a novel by Kazuo Hirotsu
1949/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga

Repeat viewing/Criterion Collection DVD

 

[box] Shukichi Somiya: Happiness isn’t something you wait around for.  It’s something you create yourself.[/box]

This is my very favorite Ozu film and that is really saying something.  Something about the combination of the music, the stately visuals, and the writing creates a kind of melancholy nostalgia in me for a place and time I have never seen.

Noriko Somiya (Setsuko Hara) is 27 years old and unmarried.  She is just now recovering her health after years of wartime malnutrition and forced labor.  She lives happily with her father Shukichi, a professor, doting on him and caring for his every need.  Her aunt has decided that it is high time for Noriko to marry and has the ideal candidate picked out (he “looks like Gary Cooper”).  The father agrees but Noriko resists.  Privately, she says she can’t imagine how he can take care of himself without her.

So the father resorts to acting as if he has it in mind to remarry himself. This really upsets Noriko, who previously told another widower she thought remarriage “indecent”.  But this push is what she needed and all’s well that ends well.  The father bears his new loneliness with a sad resignation and dignity.

This very slight and seemingly happy story has me in tears throughout its final third every single time. There is a clear sense of the change going on in Japan in the subtext of the film.  Evidence of the occupation appears in the strangest corners of the scenery and Noriko’s best friend is a divorcee and thoroughly modern stenographer.  I guess change, even change for the better, is usually fraught with sadness and a letting go.   Most highly recommended.

Clip – Some fatherly advice

The Small Back Room (1949)

The Small Back Room (“Hour of Glory”)small back room poster
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Written by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
1949/UK
The Archers/London Film Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

 

Susan: Wouldn’t it be silly to break up something we both like doing, only because you think I don’t like it.
Sammy Rice: Yes, you’ve got it all worked out in the way women always have. They don’t worry about anything except being alive or dead.

The Archers follow up a couple of technicolor extravaganzas with a little black and white film that harkens back to One of Our Aircraft Is Missing.  The result is uneven but enjoyable.

It is London in 1943.  Bomb demolition wizard Sammy Rice (David Farrar) lost his foot in some unspecified accident.  Since then he has been in constant pain that neither pills nor alcohol seem to touch.  Nevertheless, he persists with taking both to excess.  He lives with Susan (Kathleen Byron), a secretary at work, and feels sorry for himself.  She does her best to soothe his woes.

Sammy works in a top-secret research unit in the Ministry of War.  He is presented with the challenge of guessing what kind of German bomb is responsible for killing a number of young people.  The military authorities continue to search for the actual device.  Sammy promises to travel anytime, anywhere if the bomb is found or claims additional victims.

small_back_room_uk_gallery_2

Sammy’s unit is also asked to test a new gun for use by the military.  The army brass thinks very little of the weapon, judging it unsuitable for use by the raw recruits that will have to use it.  Sammy’s boss (Jack Hawkins) is pushing the gun hard at the behest of his superiors. Although Sammy’s figures reveal the gun’s drawbacks, he is unwilling to argue forcefully against it or stand up to his boss.  Susan is disgusted and they quarrel, sending Sammy back to the bottle.  Can he redeem himself and regain his manhood?  With Lionel Banks as a colonel and Robert Morely as a clueless Minister.

SBR07

This film is a bit of a mess combining as it does a psychological study with wartime political intrigue and suspense.  We get elements as disparate as a dream sequence that seems straight out of The Lost Weekend and a bomb demolition scene as tense as something from a Bond film.  It doesn’t hold together that well but is still enjoyable thanks largely to the performances, including many from new faces who would go on to make a name for themselves in the British cinema.

Clip

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Kind Hearts and Coronets
Directed by Robert Hamer
Written by Robert Hamer and James Dighton from a novel by Roy Horniman
1949/UK
Ealing Studios
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
#231 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Louis Mazzini: The next morning I went out shooting with Ethelred – or rather, to watch Ethelred shooting; for my principles will not allow me to take a direct part in blood sports.[/box]

As the film opens, the Duke of D’Ascoyne (Dennis Price) is calmly awaiting his execution.  He has just completed his memoirs, which detail his strange ascent to the title.  We segue into flashback.

The Duke was born of the union of a daughter of the then-duke with an Italian opera singer and christened Louis Mazzini.  His mother was promptly disowned by her family and a couple of different attempts at reconciliation following the death of her husband were rebuffed.  Louis grew up steeped in the family history and aware of the remote chance that he could yet become Duke himself.  The refusal of the Duke to allow his mother’s burial in the family crypt is the spark that lights Louis’s determination to eliminate every D’Ascoyne standing between him and the peerage.

Following his mother’s death, Louis becomes a lowly draper and moves in with a neighbor. There he spends many happy hours with his childhood sweetheart Sibella (Joan Greenwood).  She, however, elects to marry the loathsome Lionel for his money.  Their dalliance, however, resumes quickly after the wedding.

The bulk of the story is devoted to Louis’s imaginative murders of the eight D’Ascoynes standing in his way.  These are all played by Alec Guiness to great effect.  After he is close to his prize, Louis decides that Edith (Valerie Hobson), widow of the youngest D’Ascoyne to die, will make an ideal Duchess.  His failure to predict the full fury of Sibella’s wrath has landed him in the condemned man’s cell.  But there may yet be a way out …

This is a bone dry British comedy with many digs at the English aristocracy.  I find it more wry than laugh out loud hilarious though I did giggle at the executioner’s lines.  Its great drawing card is the multiple roles taken on by Guinness who disappears, chameleon like, into characters of every age, sex, and occupation.  I am also in love with the archly purring Joan Greenwood and her ridiculous hats.  Recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yidAvsBhD7U

Trailer

Stray Dog (1949)

Stray Dog (Nora inu)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa and Ryûzô Kikushima
1949/Japan
Film Art Association/Shintoho Film Distribution Committee/Toho Company
Repeat viewing/Hulu Plus

[box] Det. Sato: A stray dog becomes a mad dog.[/box]

Kurasawa makes a solid police procedural  that harkens back to films like The Naked City and Bicycle Thieves.

It is summer in Tokyo before air conditioning.  Every one is covered in sweat and befuddled by the heat.  After target practice, rookie Homicide Detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) is as drained as everyone else in town.  He lets his guard down for just a second while riding the bus home and a thief pickpockets his service revolver.  He chases the thief but can’t catch up with him.

He reports to headquarters filled with remorse and expecting to be fired.  Instead, he is given the go-ahead to search for the gun.  Disguised as a down-and-out war veteran, he scours the haunts of black marketeers and loose women.

Then the gun is used in a robbery in which the victim is wounded.  Murakami grows more and more desperate to find the thief before the gun can be used again.  He slowly begins to identify with the thief, who like him is a war veteran whose knapsack was stolen on the train home.  Finally, he is teamed up with veteran Detective Sato (Takashi Shimura) and they begin to make some progress.

Kurosawa was still developing the mastery that would reach full flower in the next year’s Rosohomon.His view of crime land Tokyo has always struck me as a bit fanciful but its denizens are nevertheless a lot of gritty fun.  He wrings every bit of heat out of the setting. Mifune and Shimura are great as always.  Not a masterpiece but a very enjoyable film noir.

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

A Letter to Three Wives
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; adapted by Vera Caspary from a novel by John Klempner
1949/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sadie: If I was you, I’d show more o’ what I got. Maybe wear somethin’ with beads.

Lora Mae Hollingsway: What I got don’t need beads.[/box]

If you can look past the 1949 gender politics, you will find a very sly comedy of manners.

The story takes place in an upper-middle class enclave in the suburb of a big city.  Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) is the farm girl who joined the WAVES and found love with a wealthy officer to whom she is now married.  Rita Phipps (Ann Southern) writes soap operas for the radio and now makes more money than her intellectual college professor husband George (Kirk Douglas).  Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) used her considerable looks and cunning to escape existence on the other side of the tracks by hooking crude but wealthy chain store owner Porter Hollingsway (Paul Douglas).  An unseen presence is Addie Ross (voiced by Celeste Holm) who is admired by all the men as a model of taste and “class” and naturally despised by all the wives.Just as the three friends are about to leave for a picnic on an island without a telephone, they get a note from Addie saying she is leaving town for good and taking one of their husbands with her.  Each of the women has all day to ponder the state of her marriage and look back on the possible reasons they might have to lose their man.

Deborah remembers her first cocktail party at the country club where she appeared in a disaster of a dress and juiced to the gills to calm her fears.  Rita thinks about a dinner party for her philistine boss and George’s rant about mass media.  Lora Mae looks back at  her “courtship” with Porter.  All the women will have a shot at redemption.  With Thelma Ritter to provide a constant backdrop of wisecracks.

The Mankiewicz dialogue is a razor sharp, if a little stagy, and all three actresses sparkle. Darnell and Paul Douglas’s bickering exchanges are classic.  Recommended to all those looking for a good time.

A Letter to Three Wives picked up Oscars for Best Director and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.  It was nominated for Best Picture.

Trailer

 

The Heiress (1949)

The Heiress
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz from their play and suggested by the novel Washington Square by Henry James
1949/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental
#229 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Mrs. Montgomery: I think, Doctor, that you expect too much of people. If you do you’ll always be disappointed.[/box]

For some reason I waited until now before seeing this great movie.  I was looking forward to the acting and was pleased to find it was pretty thought-provoking as well.

Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson) lost his beautiful accomplished wife in childbirth.  He never considered the awkward, shy daughter he got in exchange a fair trade.  Still, he is kind and tries to encourage Catherine (Olivia DeHavilland) to exert herself in society. Catherine already is the possessor of $10,000 a year she inherited from her mother and stands to inherit an additional $20,000 a year on the death of her father.  This would make her quite a catch if she were able to master anything but the needlepoint she works on incessantly.  Catherine’s widowed aunt Lavinia comes to live in the Sloper house one winter and takes Catherine under her wing.

At a dance in which Catherine is suffering the agonies of a perennial wallflower she is asked to dance by the personable Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift).  Morris has just returned from Europe where he spent is entire small inheritance in enjoying what the Continent had to offer to its fullest.  He is apparently unfit for any form of gainful employment.  Just why is never made entirely clear.  He is well-spoken, handsome and cultivated.  He soon showers Catherine with his attentions and before long declares his love for her.

Dr. Sloper instantly brands Morris a gold-digger and sets out to prove it.  He invites the young man’s sister to tea and confirms his suspicions with a few well placed questions.  He tries to dissuade Catherine from marrying Morris tactfully.  This proves futile.  Catherine loves Morris with all her heart and is convinced he loves her.  Dr. Sloper is forced to baldly state his conviction that Catherine has nothing to offer a man than her money.  Catherine is aghast at this revelation, decides her father has never loved her, rejects her inheritance and sets out to elope with her lover.

This does not match up with Morris’s plans for a marriage.  Catherine devotes the rest of her life to revenge on all those who have wronged her.

Considering its source material I should have been prepared for something more than the obvious melodrama of the surface plot.  I was left wondering at the complexities of the characters we find here.  Was the father really such a monster or was he honestly trying to protect his daughter?  He could not help comparing her to his late wife but at the same time seemed actually concerned with Catherine’s welfare.  Morris did apparently seem to lack every quality but charm and looks.  On the other hand, how could we know what kind of marriage the two would have made?  Would Morris have been willing to treat Catherine well in exchange for the money?  Catherine evidently thinks so in the end.  The moral seems to be that the truth hurts.  Is the pain necessary or honorable?  Perhaps I need to read the novel to find out.  Knowing my James, I suspect he will he keep his cards hidden.

Wyler and his cast are well up to the material.  Very highly recommended.

The Heiress won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Aaron Copland).  It was nominated for Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (Richardson); and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White.

Trailer

The Third Man (1949)

The Third Man
Directed by Carol Reed
Written by Graham Greene from a story by Greene
1949/UK
Carol Reed’s Production/London Film Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#230 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Calloway: [to Holly Martins] You were born to be murdered.[/box]

It’s films like this that inspired my love for classic movies,  I have seen it so many times that I can hardly write about it.  It retains its ability to excite and surprise from one viewing to the next, perhaps better than any other movie.

Pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives in occupied Vienna broke and in happy expectation of a reunion with his old friend Harry Lime who has offered him a job.  He calls on Harry only to discover that his friend was run over by a car and killed.  The funeral is to take place that very day.

Holly arrives in time for the burial at the cemetery.  There he meets Maj. Calloway (Trevor Howard) for the first time.  He also glimpses three of Harry’s European friends and the beautiful Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli).  Calloway offers Holly a ride into town.  Calloway, a British investigator, had been on Harry’s trail for quite some time.  He claims that Harry was one of the corrupt capital’s worst racketeers, his most notorious crime being robbery of penicillin from military hospitals and selling it back in a worthless, diluted form.  He tells Holly to go back home immediately and even offers him space on a military plane.

Holly, who distrusts policemen, thinks Calloway must be wrong about Harry.  He sets out to prove it when he fortuitously stumbles into a lecturing gig.  Holly’s meetings with the porter in Harry’s building and Harry’s colleagues begin to make him to suspect that the death was a murder.  His growing infatuation with the heart-broken Anna leads him to be drawn further and further into the case.

Holly is in way over his head.  The closer he comes to the truth the greater is his danger. Eventually, he is wanted for the murder of the hotel porter. Anna, a Czech carrying forged identity documents provided by Harry, retains her loyalty to her dead lover despite the increasing possibility that she will be turned over to the Russian military for repatriation to her home country.  Holly must wrestle with his own loyalties before the story is over.  With Orson Welles.

It is impossible to say anything new about this film.  To me it is perfect in every way from the breathtaking chiaroscuro lighting to the oddly fitting zither score.

The Blu-Ray DVD I rented came with an audio commentary by the Reed’s assistant, a continuity girl, and a Welles scholar.  I loved the war stories from the shooting.  Cotten was none too happy to be playing the part of a laughable American bumbler.  This view was shared by David O. Selznik, who cut 8 minutes out of the film and added an opening narration by Cotten for the American release.  I think both men missed the point of Greene’s screenplay.  In the end, Holly Martins is the one character of conscience and with a true morality.  There are also many stories about Welles. who was not about to set foot in any sewer.  See The Third Man before you die.  Preferably more than once.

Robert Krasker won an Academy Award for his awesome cinematography.  The film was also nominated in the categories of Best Director and Best Film Editing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihlku1aKpRg

Trailer

 

 

Thieves’ Highway (1949)

Thieves’ Highway
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by A.I. Bezzerides from his novel
1949/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Nico ‘Nick’ Garcos: Do you know what it takes to get an apple so you can sink your beautiful teeth in it? You gotta stuff rags up tailpipes, farmers gotta get gypped, you jack up trucks with the back of your neck, universals conk out…[/box]

Before the Blacklist bit down too hard, there were many of these exposés of cutthroat capitalism.  This one takes the analogy out of the boxing ring and into the unexpected territory of bringing fruit and vegetables to the table in California.

Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) comes home from the war flush with the money that will allow him to start in business with the father of long-time girlfriend Polly.  He is appalled to discover, however, that his trucker father has lost his legs in a trucking accident.  This happened after a drunken night with notorious produce distributor Mike Figlia (Lee J. Cobb) and his boys.  Nick’s father is sure that Figlia didn’t pay him for some tomatoes Figlia sold on consignment.  After his accident, the father sold his truck to Ed Kinney (Millard Mitchell) who likewise has not managed to pay.

Filled with righteous indignation, Nick heads off to repossess the truck and drive to San Francisco for a confrontation with Figlia.  Instead, Ed convinces him to invest his nest egg in the first Golden Delicious apples of the season and join him in hauling the fruit to San Francisco.  Nick survives a near-death experience with a flat tire on the journey and makes it there in one piece.  Ed takes much longer with his rig, which is on its last legs.

On arrival, Nick seeks out Figlia who is desperate for the apples.  Figlia uses every trick in the book to basically steal the fruit out from under him.  One of these is the lures of the streetwise Rica (Valentina Cortese).  Despite her callousness, though, Rica eventually becomes Nick’s one ally.  With Jack Oakie and Joe Pevney as truckers who tail the convoy like vultures looking to cash in if the truck breaks down.

Filmed on location, this has a gritty documentary feel and some excellent acting.  Every single person in it, even Nick, is looking to make a quick buck, not caring who gets hurt in the process.  I wondered how Figlia could have stayed in business for more than a week using his tactics.  This time around I was also bothered by the obviously tacked-on Hayes Code speech by a policeman on taking the law into one’s own hands and the rushed resolution of the Conte-Cortese romance.  Even as I cut pictures a lot of slack for the time, I like my happy endings to be prepared for.

Trailer

The Set-Up (1949)

The Set-UpThe Set-Up Poster
Directed by Robert Wise
1949/USA
RKO Radio Pictures

Repeat viewing

 

[box] Stoker Thompson: Everybody makes book on something.[/box]

This superbly acted and utterly grim boxing film is a noir classic of the genre.  The movie is one of the few to be told in real time.  The action encompasses the 73 minutes it takes to tell the tale.

Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) is a washed-up fighter taking matches at the bottom of bills in regional clubs.  His manager has so little faith in him that he takes a bribe for Stoker to throw a fight without bothering to tell his man.  Stoker’s wife Julie (Audrey Totter) pleads with Stoker to give up the game and refuses to attend this night’s fight because she doesn’t want to see him beat up.  Her absence eats away at Stoker and makes him more determined than ever to win his bout.  Most of the last two-thirds of the film takes place either in the ring or in the dressing-room.

The Set-Up 1

I think Robert Ryan is one of the great actors of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and he is phenomenal in this movie.  He tells more with his eyes in a single close up than most actors can with pages of dialogue.  Audrey Totter did not have a big career but is also excellent as are the supporting players.  Both these actors may be better known for playing heavies but handle these sympathetic roles well.

The great noir cinematography is by Milton Krasner who won an award for his work here at Cannes.  Robert Wise keeps everything flowing brilliantly.  I especially liked the use of the bloodthirsty fans in the crowd, who are almost like a Greek chorus.  Not an uplifting experience but highly recommended.

Clip – Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter