Category Archives: 1951

A Christmas Carol (AKA Scrooge)
Directed by Brian Desmond Hurst
Written by Noel Langley from the story by Charles Dickens
1951/UK
Renown Pictures Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Spirit of Christmas Present: [quoting Scrooge] Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

This movie will always be my favorite version of Dickens’ story of redemption at Christmastime.

Everybody know the story but here goes anyway.  Ebenezer Scrooge (Alistair Sim)  is a hard-hearted old miser who thinks Christmas is a humbug.  He can barely stand to let his beleaguered clerk Bob Cratchit have a single day off for the holiday.  He believes neither in charity nor in celebration.

One Christmas Eve a miracle happens.  Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his equally miserly deceased business partner Jacob Marley.  Marley’s spirit has been condemned to wander the earth carrying a heavy chain built up of his own greed because he did not live as part of humanity while he was alive.  The ghost cautions Scrooge that he will suffer the same, or worse, fate if he does not mend his ways.

Marley says he will send three spirits of Christmas to help in Scrooge’s reformation and disappears.  Scrooge is then visited by the Spirit of Christmas Past, who shows him how he got to be the miserable creature he is, the Spirit of Christmas Present, who shows him how the rest of the world is celebrating Christmas in their hearts, and the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come, who shows him the bleak future that awaits him if nothing changes.  Scrooge awakens with Christmas in his heart.  With Hermione Baddeley as Mrs. Cratchit, Ernest Thesinger as an undertaker, and Patrick Macnee as the young Jacob Marley.

It was such a treat to catch back up with this one!  Sims is a phenomenal Scrooge. There is enough of humanity in him even at his worst that you totally believe in his redemption.  I remember being really scared by some of the scenes as a child.  The worst was the one where the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come points at Scrooge’s grave.  It’s still effective film making and even a bit scary now I have grown.  This version also features some really nice traditional music and special effects.  Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PwRDfHBlg

Trailer

Early Summer (Bakkushû)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu
1951/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Mr. Ozu looked happiest when he was engaged in writing a scenario with Mr. Kogo Noda, at the latter’s cottage on the tableland of Nagano Prefecture. By the time he finished writing a script, after about four months’ effort, he had already made up every image in every shot, so that he never changed the scenario after we went on the set. The words were so polished up that he would not allow us even a single mistake. — Chisû Ryû[/box]

Yasujirô Ozu was at the height of his powers when he made the three films in which Setsuko Hara starred as a young woman named Noriko.  This is perhaps lesser known than the other two – Late Spring and Tokyo Story – but is just as good.

Three generations of the Mamiya family live in the same household.  They are grandmother and grandfather, their son Koichi (Chisu Ryô), daughter-in-law and two grandsons, and unmarried daughter Noriko (Hara).  Noriko is a modern sort of 28-year-old and helps with the expenses by working in the city as a secretary.  Koichi is a physician.

Noriko’s boss and everyone else who knows her think it is high time for her to get married. The boss has what seems to be the ideal candidate in mind.  Noriko’s parents and brother are enthusiastic about the match but Noriko is skillful at dodging any discussion about the matter.

Then Noriko accepts a marriage offer from an unexpected quarter and the household is thrown into a mild uproar until everybody gets used to the idea.

I love this film.  It all seems just like real life to me despite the exquisitely contrived compositions.  It takes about an hour for the marriage drama to arise.  Before that the story is more or less just a snapshot of daily life.

This is another film on Ozu’s favorite topic, which is not in fact marriage, but the dissolution of the Japanese family.  We are treated to an especially moving denouement in this one as the hoped-for marriage will mean that all the people in the household must go their separate ways.  The Criterion DVD has an excellent commentary by Ozu scholar Donald Richie.

Clip

To Joy (Till glädje)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1950/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
First viewing/Hulu

[box] No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul. — Ingmar Bergman[/box]

Ingmar Bergman allows a little bittersweet joy to seep into yet another of his early films about a failing  marriage.

The opening of the film has violinist Stig Eriksson called to answer a phone call in the midst of rehearsal.  We see him running frantically home.  There he learns that his wife Marta was killed when a kerosene stove exploded and that his daughter is recovering from her injuries in the hospital.  The story then segues into flashback.

Violinists Marta Olsson IMai-Britt Nilsson) and Stig Eriksson (Stig Olen) join the symphony orchestra of their provincial city on the same day.  Its crusty old conductor (Victor Sjöström) is all business.  Stig is a gloomy sort of Bergman hero who obsesses about his art and the meaninglessness of life. To make things worse, he is terribly insecure about his violin playing.  Nevertheless, he manages to fall in love with and marry the more stable Marta.  She soon reveals her pregnancy, which he does not welcome.  But eventually he gets used to the idea and they end up having two children, a boy and a girl.

The marriage starts out very tenderly.  Eventually, Stig is asked to replace a soloist for a concert at the last minute.  His performance is a disaster.  This setback causes him to wallow in self-pity and bitterness and he begins an affair with a much-older musician’s young wife.  Marta patiently bears this initially but finally they separate.  After some time, Stig comes to his senses and the couple reconciles.  I’ve already told the way the marriage finally ends.

As I have come to expect from Bergman, this is beautiful, psychologically insightful, and well acted.  Despite much vicious fighting and the downer ending, this is actually more optimistic and life affirming than some of his other early films.  The ending is a really beautiful sequence of the orchestra rehearsing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while Stig’s little son looks on.

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

Clip — love blooms

Another Man’s Poison 
Directed by Irving Rapper
Written by Val Guest based on a play by Leslie Sands
1951/USA
Angel Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime Instant Video

Janet Frobisher: You asked a pretty question; I’ve given you the ugly answer.

This did not work for me at all.

Janet Frobisher (Bette Davis) is a successful mystery writer who lives in an isolated corner of the Yorkshire moors.  She is in love with or in heat for (she vacillates depending on whom she is talking to) the much younger fiance of her secretary.

One day, her estranged husband reappears after several years.  Soon afterwards, George Bates (Gary Merrill), who was her husband’s accomplice in a bank robbery in which a policeman was killed, shows up at her door looking for him.  After awhile, Janet is forced to admit that she poisoned him.  George agrees to help her dump the body in a deep tarn.  He then refuses to leave and stays to impersonate her husband, whom no one has ever seen.

George and Janet mix like oil and water.  Meanwhile, her secretary and the fiance show up and Janet takes the fiance on long rides during which she attempts to seduce him.  The household is graced with the increasingly disturbing visits of Janet’s nosy next-door neighbor (Emlyn Williams).

This movie was produced by Davis and filmed at Davis and Merrill’s home. Davis is clearly not Davis’s ideal producer as there was apparently no one on the crew willing to discourage her from playing a caricature of herself.  Also, this is again one of those films where the middle-aged star is portrayed as being a radiant beauty who is irresistible to all men.  It is less irritating when Davis does this than when Joan Crawford does but it still gets on my nerves.  Otherwise, the plot is all over the place and the movie seems much longer than its 90 minute length.  The film does have its fans though.  It has a 7.2/10 user rating on IMDb.

Trailer – cinematography by Robert Krasker