—B.S. (Both Stewart and Capra commented that it was their favorite of all the films they’d respectively worked on.) He’s a fraud, his work is empty, and he knows it, so like any hack who desperately needs artistic validation to assuage his feelings of creative guilt, he hefts a hobo stick over his shoulder and hits road in the guise of a down-on-his-luck tramp, followed all the while by a lavish double-decker bus as well as the inescapable grip of his own prestige. Not infrequently dubbed the best French film of all time, this is the movie Truffaut said he’d revoke his entire oeuvre to have directed. https://www2.bfi.org.uk/thriller/100-thrillers-see-before-you-die/1940s Watch these free Classic Mysteries Thru Opera TV, which is on many devices including TiVo. Kindler has has moved to a small New England town and married the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice, teaches at a prep school—essentially has erased every possible trace of his former identity, save one: a longtime obsession with clocks. Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Richard Thorpe —A.G. This list may not reflect recent changes . Out of the Past’s cheerlessness towers from the shoulders of its cast, a coterie of acting giants each at the top of their game. Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Charles Barton The Top 10 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 20 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 50 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 100 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 250 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Best Horror Movies Of the 1980s; The Best Science Fiction Movies of 1977; The Best Comedy Movies Of the 2000s; The Most Recently Released Movies On that note, the damage is no longer rooted in his environment; Jarrett’s a disaster from the inside out, dysfunctional in his very wiring (thanks, ma!). Special effects have become so sophisticated that many of us have probably forgotten how much pure amazement you can wreak with a great story and a script that doesn’t let up for one second. Go on: be cynical. My 25 personal favorite murder-mystery movies I have ever seen. According to Hemingway’s biography, The Killers marked one of the only times the author was legitimately impressed by an adaptation of his work. The trial goes as one might expect, with Hepburn’s charisma holding the attention of every scene, but the real surprise in Cukor’s film comes within its final moments, when the rocky marital fall-out between our leads ends in an almost nihilistic bit wherein Adam reveals he can be just as emotionally manipulative as he expects all women are. Robert Mitchum dominates, whether in his tête-à-têtes with Kirk Douglas or his simmering flirtations with Jane Greer. Trevor Howard, Alastair Sim, Megs Jenkins, Frank Tuttle ), and wonderful performances by Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer as a traumatized woman and a sociopath determined to drive her out of her mind. The American occupation whitewashes and corrupts Japanese culture in equal measure, and Drunken Angel captures it all with deft humanism. —A.C.  •    •   As with Bacall here, it’s not Bogart’s finest collaboration with director John Huston, but the palpable sense of atmospheric dread and post-war disillusionment make this a trip worth taking. (Everyone’s a critic.)  •   But in addition, you might notice that the film remains eerily timely in an age in which the influence and power of the mass media (and the accrual of gauche, pointless wealth) is a topic of constant discourse. He was dogged by cut-happy producers (it’s not even clear how much footage was removed but Welles was relieved of the first 16 pages of his script before principal photography even started) and contrarian casting and locations choices (Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead to play the investigator; the studio cast Robinson; likewise he got a budget-driven “no” on filming the prep school scenes at The Todd School in Illinois, his own alma mater). ), Bergman’s Dr. Petersen isn’t as emotionless as she seems, and justice is served in the end-all good. This is at once classic Howard Hawks and quite emotionally driven compared to many of his films.  •   Free Classic Movies from the 1920's,1930's, 1940's and 1950's of the Crime,Detective or Film-Noir Genre all in the Public Domain, edited to reduce video noise. Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Foreign Language Film  •  Mystery  •  Psychological Thriller, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger We must start with the movie that revitalized the Whodunit genre, and honestly maybe the best Whodunit film of them all. Taking up the themes he’d turned over in his two previous films—the now-iconic The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr (1932)—Dreyer brought his soul’s concerns onto an international stage by heading once again into the past, telling of a pastor (Thorkild Roose) and ersatz witch hunter in 1623 who’s spared a woman accused of witchcraft in order to wed her daughter, Anna (Lisbeth Movin). “By the time you read this letter, I might be dead.” This haunting romance by Max Ophüls is As is the case with many films of the 1940s, especially those foreign selections made or released in the shadow of World War II occupation—by the Axis or otherwise (see also: Kurosawa’s navigation of American censors during the U.S.’s squatting in Japan)—Le Corbeau is a morally thorny tale, infatuated more with the indelible darkness of all human beings than in exploring any sense of hope that the world need not be a crappy place. The rewrite was strongly influenced by the War (for example, the setting was moved from Cuba to Martinique to avoid provoking ire from the Roosevelt administration) and beyond the beginning of the book, the film veers off in its own direction—specifically in directions that made it resemble Casablanca since it had been so popular. The other thing that is likely to grate upon the sensibilities of modern viewers is the tacit understanding (whether Hawks deliberately placed it there or whether it happened by default) is the “white guys can take whatever they want” attitude that pervades the minds of the characters. Mike Mazurki, Anne Shirley, Dick Powell, Edgar G. Ulmer There are disastrous miscommunications and something suspicious hidden in the wine cellar and a couple of Hitchcock’s most iconic shots and a hell of a lot of drinking. And, of course, some of the most beautiful and evocative scenes of endless skies and endless prairies to be found. Seriously, if this doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, see your opthalmologist. (You might even believe, given both the passage of time and enough viewings of The Third Man under your belt, that Welles himself is the architect of the piece, but of course you’d be 100% wrong if you did.) The Top 10 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 20 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 50 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 100 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 250 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Best Horror Movies Of the 1980s; The Best Science Fiction Movies of 1977; The Best Comedy Movies Of the 2000s; The Most Recently Released Movies Your preference will come down to how well you like your schmaltz: Those with a taste for unadulterated sentimentality will likely lean more toward Capra, while those who like a healthy sprinkle of cynical realism on their holiday fare will probably go for George Seaton’s Miracle instead. —A.G.  •   Mysterious, rich in feeling, deliciously creepy, and with jewel-tone supporting performances by Angela Lansbury and Joseph Cotten, it was a great psychological thriller in its day and it remains one now. Frank Capra’s adaptation of this darkly comedic Broadway play (some of the Broadway cast reprised their roles in the film) stars Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, one of a family of Mayflower bluestocking WASP types who have, over the generations, become—I think the phrase is criminally insane? Still, Cagney is mesmerizing to watch self-destruct. Seven years before his powerhouse turn in The Big Heat, Glenn Ford played second fiddle to Rita Hayworth—how the hell could you not?—in Charles Vidor’s exotic thriller. But at times the framing makes Hayworth’s erotic physicality all the more charged, and dangerous. Despite the basic unlikability of the majority of the characters, it’s a remarkably riveting film; a testament to Wyler’s directorial choices, in which we see character surehandedly reflected in small physical details and hard angles. Starring: Starring: This amazing, dizzyingly paced screwball comedy by Howard Hawks stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and takes us back into two of the decade’s hallmark preoccupations: The “remarriage comedy” and the intrigue and obsessiveness of the newspaper world. It is impeccable in every sense. The very fact of its existence (it was filmed in 1945 during the Nazi occupation of France, which of course created significant obstacles for director Marcel Carné ) seems to contribute to its rather magical quality. No high-suspense mystery here. Some films are artistically groundbreaking and writ-large Important. The first commercial film-animated or live-action-ever to be shown in stereophonic sound. (Disney scrapped a portion of the Rite of Spring sequence that showed the discovery of fire out of concern that it would provoke angry Creationists; but biologists, paleontologists and astronomers, for example, were consulted.) The Third Man 1949, 93 min.  •    •   It doesn’t take much to do violence upon others. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot treats as a given that the world is a crappy place, through and through, detailing how the denizens of a small French town (“anywhere”) are pitted against one another through a series of “poison pen” letters sent by the titular Raven. Starring: It’s one of those films that really send you to another dimension. Like most of Hitchcock’s work, what makes it truly spooky are its relatable themes—in this case, living in someone else’s shadow and worrying that a loved one’s hiding something. Not that it’s completely cynical, mind, but it is a surprisingly frank and thoroughly practical demonstration of the stress Christmas customs—particularly shopping—visit upon us year in and year out. The former associate does find him, but Kindler’s a little reluctant to confess, opting to strangle his former friend, instead. One of the many interesting things about Casablanca is its epic durability – the story feels as fresh and real today as it did in 1945. —A.S. Crawford’s performance as the phony voice of the common “hick” is especially captivating—and not only because he so closely resembles a certain nascent president who espouses the same flimsy schtick, openly lying to the people he supposedly represents. Joan Fontaine stars as a woman haunted by the memory of her husband’s (Laurence Olivier) first wife. Alfred Hitchcock • Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey. “The Great American Novel made one of the few enduring Great American Motion Pictures,” John Springer wrote of The Grapes of Wrath in The Fondas, his chronicle of the Fonda family dynasty. —A.C. But certainly for its day, and quite equally so now, this film is a pretty astute and sophisticated look at post-traumatic dissociative compartmentalization, and it’s really fun to watch it unfold. Just watch the visual motif of that boudoir introduction recur in the “Put the Blame on Mame” musical number-turned-striptease. But that alone wouldn’t be just cause in a bad movie. A life insurance investigator is subsequently sent to piece together the events that led to the Swede’s demise. You might have to watch Stray Dog under cover of air conditioning: It’s a hot film, not in the sense of carnality but in the sense of temperature. The film is lively and dynamic and visually arresting. Aren’t mob heavies supposed to be intimidating? Yup, it’s a Christmas story. Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Comedy Drama  •  Comedy of Manners  •  Drama, Sidney Gilliat His second, a period drama based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, was destroyed (in Welles’ view) when he lost control of the editing to RKO.  •   George Cukor’s Adam’s Rib is a curio of a time when misogyny wasn’t so much a fault as a societal given, which may be why the dynamic between married lawyers Adam Bonner (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn, whose character thankfully wasn’t named Eve) feels at once well-balanced and hilariously unreal. What sets Laura apart is the music. —D.S. Starring: But perhaps most striking is the use of actual footage from concentration camps, which are still shocking to look at today but were exceedingly potent in the 1940s when large numbers of Americans still did not understand that the camps really existed. The bookending set pieces, shot on location in industrial California, pulse with realism. —A.G. Creeping in stark contrast to Universal’s monster movies of the same era, it leans on suspense and carefully constructed shots rather than Jack Pierce makeup to make an impression.  •   Then its reputation began to grow. —A.C. And it’s one of the most enduring ones for a bunch of reasons, including Stewart’s amazing performance and a beautiful script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett along with Capra. The Wizard of Oz gets more populist attention, but Meet Me in St. Louis is the best Judy Garland musical by an easy margin. So he shows Bailey visions of his life, progressing from his childhood, showing Bailey all the times he made someone’s live better (or outright saved it). Only one, a mime named Deburau (Jean-Louis Barrault), has pure intentions: Naturally, he’s the one who gets hurt. Innovative cinematography, intriguing storytelling and great acting are all reasons to watch this dramatic mystery, in which journalists race to unspool the mystery of the absurdly wealthy and tyrannical Kane’s mysterious dying word, “Rosebud.” The way the plot unfolds is fascinating, the shifts in point of view are superb, and the mirroring opening and closing sequences are beautiful. Like Double Indemnity, Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce succeeds on the strength of its leading lady; in this case that’s the immortal Joan Crawford, who plays the film’s central character, not to mention all of its heart and soul. Famed for the groundbreaking FX of its iconic transformation scene, and aided by the same top-notch makeup that Jack Pierce employed in Frankenstein, it raised the bar for horror FX substantially. Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Lewis Allen Dreyer’s first film in more than a decade, a tense and measured reaction to the overwhelming forces oppressing him and his country, filtered through the systemic corruption that has both plagued and defined civilization since its Edenic Fall. We chat his character Jeff Jackson, what it was like to executive produce, what to expect in future movies and get some insight into his career journey. It’s both a classic and a somewhat unconventional Western, and it’s a killer drama. Rossellini contrasts Italian fear with Italian heroism, creating opportunities for the movie’s German characters to look inward and realize that force of arms isn’t the same thing as force of courage. —A.C. Also, we just think these are some damned fine films. —A.G. Starring: Greed is not good. Mel Blanc, Edward Buzzell —A.C. A man in London tries to help a counter-espionage Agent. What gaslighting is (and isn’t) is defined by this film. Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Based-on-20th-Century-Literature  •  Drama  •  Ghost Film, Henri-Georges Clouzot Van Dyke A brother and sister move into a crumbling seaside manor to discover restless spirits with a connection to the young granddaughter of the former owner. —Mark Rozeman. —D.S. —A.C. —A.G. Starring: She’s not bound (at least briefly, repeatedly) to the mise en scène, a rebellious force keenly aware of her charms. If you’re of the impression that Quentin Tarantino invented the concept of a nonlinear crime story involving boxers and hitmen, Robert Siodmak’s adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s celebrated short story is a must-watch. (And it’s pretty brilliant now, for that matter.) But when the businessman—now Johnny’s boss—seems to meet an untimely end, the guilt-stricken employee is determined to cruelly punish both himself and Gilda for their deceit. In typical Welles-versus-studio fashion, the producers backed out at the last minute on the promise of a four-picture deal to follow this film—-they had become convinced it would run at a loss and Welles was incapable of directing a mainstream hit movie. Five nuns are sent to establish a convent, school and hospital in a former harem. Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Based-on-20th-Century-Literature  •  Gothic Film  •  Mystery, Otto Preminger Smart, sweet, and witty; probably the quintessential film of the 1940s, and one of the best feel-good movies of the 20th century. The Top 10 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 20 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 50 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 100 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Top 250 Mystery Movies of the 1940s; The Best Horror Movies Of the 1980s; The Best Science Fiction Movies of 1977; The Best Comedy Movies Of the 2000s; The Most Recently Released Movies As it turned out, it was Welles’ only significant box office success on release, and remains a canonized film noir. —A.G. —Andy Crump. Starring: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Based-on-20th-Century-Literature  •  Drama  •  Film Noir, Joseph L. Mankiewicz Starring: The 1940s saw the rise of Technicolor but also of film noir with its dark, cynical, moody and fatalistic stories of hard-boiled detectives and treacherous women. As the letters pile up and one cancer patient (Roger Blin) commits suicide (due to a letter from the Raven informing him that his cancer is terminal), the town grows increasingly desperate to find the culprit, sparking a witch hunt that catches Dr. Germain in the midst of his many lies. Check out June 1940 Mystery movies and get ratings, reviews, trailers and clips for new and popular movies. —A.C.  •   Truthfully, you’ll want to watch it more than once for Howard Hawks’ direction, Sidney Hickox’s dread-inducing cinematography, and Chandler’s barbed exchanges, not to mention the raw chemistry and animal magnetism of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. There are probably a decent number of auteur-theorist types who’d quibble with me for saying Casablanca is a perfect film. —A.G. It’s a story of the malignancy of lust for wealth, and if you’re looking for a happy ending, this movie’s not your go-to; Davis ends up very, very alone. © 2021 Paste Media Group. Regardless, poor Larry never asked to turn into a werewolf, and he spends most of the sequels trying to figure out a way not only to be cured, but to kill himself and end his long suffering in the process. Considered by many to be a major turning point in Hitchcock’s career, this film, still very much in the spy/noir realm, is his first serious attempt at a love story. David Raskin’s score is a haunting chromatic tune that plays in some variation through the entire film-perhaps the first and certainly one of the best uses of music to advance a theme in the film (obsession, in this case) and influence how we see characters. An hour of the original film was cut and the ending re-shot, and though Welles had left detailed instructions on how it should be edited, the studio overrode him and the excised footage from his rough cut was trashed. Mutilated or not, the film continues to be lauded for its inventive mise-en-scène and its superlative performances by Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello and Agnes Moorehead. Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, John Carradine, Roy William Neill Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price, Robert Siodmak The film has so much going for it beyond the music—sleek, stylish, twisted Otto Preminger direction, and great performances by Tierney, Dana Andrews as the detective, Vincent Price as Laura’s waste-of-space fiancé, and Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker, the journalist who claims to have been Laura’s mentor.  •   In another example of how the repressive Production Codes of the time gave rise to a much more exciting scene than he might otherwise have made, Hitchcock got around the “no kisses longer than three seconds” by breaking the performers apart every three seconds for some kind of embrace and then resuming the kiss. The film almost demands to be seen twice for the sheer volume of slants and revelations. This neo-realist film is has been considered by many to be “the greatest film of all time.” It received a special Academy Award for Most Outstanding Foreign Film several years before the category officially existed. —Tim Grierson. Starring: With a beauty for the ages as his star, Vidor doesn’t have to do much, and his static, voyeuristic direction shows in fact he didn’t.  •   Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Before there were Jerry Orbach and Angela Lansbury voicing animated, animate household items, there was Jean Cocteau. 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