1951: A Place in the Sun (George Stevens)

1951: A Place in the Sun (George Stevens)
Goddamn Shelley Winters is annoying in this movie!  Okay now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's have a quick discussion.  

I first saw this one in the same theater in Paris, Rue Mouffetard, where I saw You Only Live Once and The Blue Angel.  It's not even that great of a theater, but for some reason almost every time I went there, I saw something that became a favorite.  I wonder if others experience this phenomenon.  Even when I was living in Los Angeles, it happened. Some theaters I would go to, I almost always disliked the movie I saw. Other places were almost batting a 1,ooo.  Anyway, this theater on Mouffetard still holds one of the best records for me.

I guess if I had to boil down my reasons for loving this one as much as I do, I would say it has almost all to do with Montgomery Clift's vulnerability meeting Elizabeth Taylor's staggering beauty.  Paired with one of these doomed romance stories (based on Theodore Dreiser's famous novel An American Tragedy), this one becomes an incredibly powerful concoction for me.

I have a thing for tragedy in general, I almost always love Clift, and Taylor's beauty at this point in her career is about as convincing as anything I've ever seen.  George Stevens, the director,  just confidently delivers the goods.  The emotions are there, and I'm along for the story from almost minute one until the very end.

Other contenders for 1951: A year, like any other, where there are some things I still need to see.  These include:  Anthony Mann's The Tall Target, Federico Fellini's The White Sheik, Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet, Mikio Naruse's Repast, Georges Franju's Hotel des Invalides, Albert Lewin's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, and Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still.  I really like Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain (yes, Mom, that pick's for you :), Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan, Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Nicholas Ray's Flying Leathernecks.  I love Raoul Walsh's Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.  However, my closest runner-up would be another Ray film, On Dangerous Ground.

11/10/10 I watched Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still.  An incredibly useful tool to see the mindset of our country in the early fifties and full of Wise's extremely solid craftsmanship.  Michael Rennie suggests Tony Perkins circa-Psycho, and this film certainly wasn't lost on Spielberg and his Close Encounters.

11/11/10 I watched Federico Fellini's The White Sheik.  The director's sensibility is already large and well on display in this, his second feature.  The acting and Rota's music are both superb, but the story's not always entirely captivating.  Fellini shows promise that will produce greater work in the years that follow.  

11/17/10 I watched Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet.  Fuller's expressionistic style and inventiveness under constrained circumstances elevate this film to great interest.  Raw and full of engaged subtext, it's maybe not as thoroughly engrossing as his Pickup on South Street, but it's still an incredibly original film for its time.  

11/25/11 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's Early Summer.  Ozu mixes up the approach a little, adding more music than usual and quite a number of incredibly expressive tracking shots.  The cumulative effect though is about the same as I have to come expect with Ozu's cinema - piercing and majestic as anything the cinema has ever produced.  Feeling rattled or a bit adrift, I would think anyone coming in with the right amount of patience would leave Ozu's cinema, (this work definitely included), reminded of the lyrical beauty of life.  Ozu has gotten short shrift, too, when it comes to a reputation as something austere and wholly cerebral.  There's a nice playfulness at times with this one, as well as a real lively spirit.     

3/2/13 I watched Alexander Mackendrick's The Man in the White Suit.  A great little film I never knew much about.  Alec Guinness is wonderful as the vulnerable scientist.  And Mackendrick keeps things suspenseful, fun, and heartfelt.  One of those films that will be great fun to watch for years to come.

3/8/14 I watched Joseph Losey's The Prowler.  Shot by the great Arthur Miller, Losey brings a western, expansive aesthetic to noir.  Full of Losey's typical psychological discomfort, Heflin is spot-on as the sociopathic stalker.  Nothing is rosy here and trouble is announced nearly at second one.  Working its story more psychologically than viscerally, it is up there with the upper shelf artistic noirs. 

10/18/14 I watched Albert Lewin's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.  A stately film with Cardiff behind the camera and a bit of the Powell-Pressburger aura is a bizarre work that is part confounding, part moving.  Gardner seems more exposed than ever and you can't help but think about the Cardiff-Gardner collaboration a few years later.  I liked this one less than I had hoped but am glad to have finally caught up with it.  

4/24/16 I watched Ida Lupino's Hard, Fast and Beautiful.  Possibly the first Lupino feature I have seen in its entirety impresses with its expressionistic camerawork and unconventional emotional passages such as the film's poetic final few frames.  Lupino has a big reputation as a marginal, early independent American filmmaker and after seeing this it is obvious why.  

1/19/19 I watched Sacha Guitry's La Poison.  Another excellent performance from Simon but Guitry's style just feels a little too cute to me.

12/30/21 I watched Jacques Becker's Edouard et Caroline.  It's the ninth of his thirteen features I have seen and what impressed me more than anything is how modern the narrative construction still feels today.  The film consists of only two sets and bears more resemblance in its scope to many low-budget American indies than to the other films of Becker.  It seems to have lots to say about the importance of art in post WWII French society.  

9/30/23 I watched Anthony Mann's The Tall Target.  The text is interesting in how similar it still speaks to the political landscape in this country 72 years later.  But the film itself and the way it unfolds is not very visceral or entertaining.  

1936: Les bas-fonds (Jean Renoir)

1936: Les bas-fonds (Jean Renoir)

I put this as my third favorite when I recently did my "Favorites of My Favorites" post on Jean Renoir.  It's yet another one of these gritty and very moody early works from Renoir.  I also remember it having at its core one of the most wonderful stories of friendship I've ever seen (this time it's between Jean Gabin and Louis Jouvet).  If there's anything I'm a sucker for on screen (maybe even more than a great love affair), it's a great friendship.  We'll come back to this interest of mine, at least another couple of times, as we count down this list.  

One thing I love so much about Renoir is the tone he's able to strike in these early films.  He manages to be an extraordinary humanist without ever becoming overly sentimental.  Not an easy balance to strike, and I think Renoir does it as well as anyone.  

Akira Kurosawa re-made the film in 1957, and I haven't seen it yet.  But this is one I can't wait to re-visit.  It's also exciting for me to think about people, who have only seen The Rules of the Game and La grande illusion, discovering these early Renoir films for the first time.  It's almost like going back in time and getting to watch your wise grandfather in his rough, and sometimes dangerous, early youth.

Other contenders for 1936: As with previous years, I have some things from this year I still need to see.  These include Howard Hawks' The Road to Glory, Sacha Guitry's The Story of a Cheat, James Whale's Show Boat, John Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island, Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent and Sabotage, Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey, Douglas Sirk's Schlusakkord, Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy.  I also need to re-watch Modern Times at some point.  I think I've only seen it once, and for some reason, it didn't have the impact on me of City Lights, or even The Kid.  I would have two fairly close runner-ups.  George Stevens' Swing Time might be my second favorite musical.  And Jean Renoir's 40 minute Partie de campagne (A Day in the Country) is my favorite short film of all time, and probably the most poetic film Renoir ever made.  

2/13/10 Another runner-up for me this year that I forgot to add would be Kenji Mizoguchi's Sisters of the Gion.  I still have much to see by this great director.  But this is one of my favorites of what I've seen so far.  

6/20/10 I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent.  It's staggering to see Hitch's modernism and genius already on display in such an early work.  Peter Lorre in an incredibly entertaining role and some of the most psychologically disturbing scenes I've ever seen from Hitch, particularly the early murder in the mountains inter-cut with the disturbed dog.  And Hitchcock is already doing so much with sound. This is very close to top-tier Hitch in my book.  

7/1/10 I watched Gregory La Cava's My Man Godfrey.  The zaniness of it all wasn't always up my alley.  But there's a real original tone and sentiment here that makes this pretty damn original.  Powell and Lombard have great chemistry, and there are some fantastic moments, including Lombard's impulsive engagement and shower scene. 

7/1/10 I watched Frank Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.  There's some real greatness here.  But Capra can't always stay out of his way and his heavy-handed sentimentality.  Regardless, this one boasts terrific performances from both Cooper and Arthur.  And it's clear that Capra during this period was working at a very impressive level.  

7/2/10 I watched Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy.  Although I don't think it's Mizoguchi at his absolute greatest, it's still a fantastic film. The composition of many of the shots is staggering and Mizoguchi creates a lasting impression with the character of Ayako.  A great final minute or two and humanity, truth, and a very casual naturalism as Mizoguchi could do so well.  

7/5/10 I watched Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage.  It kinda dragged a little for me towards the end.   But the celebrated set piece with the little boy and the bomb is rightly so, and Hitch's experimental touches and narrative mastery are already well on display.  Minor Hitch but still well worth watching.  

7/5/10 I watched John Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island.  Although Ford's tremendous humanism is on display yet again, this one lacked a little depth and urgency for me.  But as always, chez Ford, it is extremely well-acted and extremely well-told.  

10/21/11 I watched Sacha Guitry's The Story of a Cheat.  It's playful and in the first-person, and so I can see why it was meaningful to the filmmakers of the Nouvelle Vague.  But now it's a little bit of a bore.  

2/12/17 I rewatched George Stevens' Swing Time.  Long time considered one of my favorite musicals since I first saw it in 1995, Astaire and Rogers still impress with their amazing chemistry and both their fast and elegantly slow numbers.  

3/3/18 I watched Jack Conway's Libeled Lady.  There are some fantastic scenes, certainly, including the scene when William Powell first has dinner with Myrna Loy and Walter Connolly and really every moment with Powell is top shelf.  But some of the other scenes just seem to sag a little.  

1/16/22 I rewatched Sacha Guitry's Le Roman d'un tricheur.  There should be a name for a work of art that was significant in the development of another artist one greatly admires but for which the power is greatly diminished when consumed in a much different context and historical moment.  I can see why Guitry's film would have such an influence on early Godard and Truffaut.  It is liberated and playful in ways that no other film at that moment that I know of had been and it's told almost entirely in voiceover and first person.  

2/13/22 I watched John Ford's The Prisoner of Shark Island.  The more John Ford I watch the more I feel that, as much as any American director of his generation, he explored the issue of race relations among blacks and whites in this country.  Here, already in the 1930s, he gives us a story with black heroes and once again a scenario where our white lead needs his black friend in order to overcome the obstacles in front of him.  

Has there ever been an American director who more consistently grappled with our country's past or who more often employed songs like "Taps" and "Dixie" that immediately call to mind our wars and our history?

Not to mention it is hard to overlook the deep humanism at work in this film, a quality of Ford I've read about but have only begun to appreciate.