A New Dawn – 1946

Post-war movie production began to click into full gear.   In movie news, the Cannes Film Festival debuted in France on the French Riviera. Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) was the first Best Picture Oscar-winning film to also win Cannes’ top prize (known now as the Golden Palm or Palme d’Or). The Motion Pictures Code allowed films to show drug trafficking so long as the scenes did not “stimulate curiosity.”

Screen comedian, actor, writer, and juggler W.C. Fields died at the age of 66.  Supposedly, he despised the holiday of Christmas, the day on which he died, of an alcohol-related stomach hemorrhage. The last pairing of Basil Rathbone (as Sherlock Holmes) and Nigel Bruce (as Dr. John Watson) was in Dressed to Kill – the last of 14 Sherlock Holmes films they were teamed in from 1939 to 1946.

Returning G.I.’s were more than ready to get back to normal.  The baby boom began in the U.S., heralded by the publication of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s childcare classic. Dissatisfaction with employment conditions and opportunities showed itself in the worst work stoppages since 1919, with coal, electrical, and steel industries hit hardest.  The US Atomic Energy Commission was established.

The first automatic electronic digital computer, ENIAC, was dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania.  The average cost of a new house was $5,600 and the average annual wage was $2,500.  The number one song of the year was “Prisoner of Love” sung by Perry Como.  No Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded.

Juan Peron at his inauguration

Outside the U.S., the world continued to reel from the effects of the war with wartime shortages in food and materials persisting and shortages of housing and jobs exacerbated by the return of soldiers to the workforce.

In world news,  Emperor Hirohito announced he was not a god on January 1.  The first meeting of United Nations General Assembly was held.  The Philippines gained independence from the United States on July 4.  Twelve Nazi leaders (including 1 tried in absentia) were sentenced to hang, 7 imprisoned, and 3 acquitted in the Nuremberg trials. Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech warned of Soviet expansion. Juan Perón became president of Argentina.

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The list of films I will selectively choose from can be found here and here.  I have already reviewed the following films on this site:  ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and .  I now see that I was inadvertently cherry-picking some of the great films from the 40’s and 50’s during my Noir Month viewing.  Ah, well, there are plenty more where those came from.

I have already seen 20 of the films released in 1946.  Just for fun, here are my ten favorites as of now in no particular order:  The Best Years of Our Lives; It’s a Wonderful Life; Notorious; The Killers; Beauty and the Beast; The Blue Dahlia; My Darling Clementine; The Big Sleep; Shoeshine; and Great Expectations.  It will be interesting to see where they will stand after I have seen a bunch more.

Montage of stills from Oscar winners

Montage of stills from all films nominated for an Oscar