His Girl Friday (1940)
Walter Burns (Cary Grant) is an editor for The Morning Post. His ex-wife, Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell), was a star reporter for his paper, but quit when she got engaged to Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy).
Walter goes to great lengths to convince Hildy to return, including framing Bruce for various petty crimes, but she remains steadfast in her desire to leave until she finds an escaped convict and wants to write his story.
Few people are as charming and debonair as Cary Grant. He perfected the smooth, wise cracking, smart ass which has become one of the major tropes of twentieth century cinema. His banter is reminiscent of Grouch Marx, but while Groucho tended towards anarchy, Grant always stays in control.
Despite her fantastic work here and in Auntie Mame (1958), Rosalind Russell was primarily a character actress who seems to have faded from public consciousness.
Howard Hawks was a chameleon director, capable of making films in virtually any genre: gangster, western, film noir, screwball, war epic, and science fiction. This versatility has ironically made it more difficult for critics to accurately asses his legacy.
The second film adaptation of the play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur introduced one radical departure from the original, turning Hildy into a woman. This brilliant alteration added a romantic subtext to the relationship and makes Walter’s obsession with Hildy seem slightly more reasonable.
This film is one of the funniest and best of the screwball comedies.
Ball of Fire (1941)
A group of professors, including Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper) live together while working on a massive encyclopedia. When Potts goes on a fact-finding mission to research current American slang, he meets nightclub singer “Sugarpuss” O’Shea (Barbara Stanwyck). The two of them fall in love, but their burgeoning relationship is complicated by O’Shea’s involvement with a notorious gangster.
Howard Hawks was one of the most adept at directing fast paced, frenetic comedies where the faster the dialogue, the better the film.
At this point in his career, Billy Wilder and frequent collaborator Charles Brackett were stuck writing material for other directors to shepherd to the screen. Frustrated at this lack of control and determined to protect his artistic vision, Wilder asked Hawks to allow him to observe the filming of this film and Hawks’s guidance played a large part in Wilder becoming one of the most celebrated directors of the twentieth century.
Gary Cooper specialized in larger than life, better than perfect men such as Lou Gehrig, Sergeant York, and Will Kane leading to his association with the “strong, silent type.” He was an underrated comic performer and his earnest, wide-eyed innocence is a perfect foil for the jaded worldliness of Sugarpusss.
Barbara Stanwyck is hysterical as Sugarpuss because she understands how to sell sexuality as a joke, when to exaggerate a line and when to reign it in. Mae West used humor to enhance her sexuality, and as a result her performances have a creepy sexual predator vibe, but Stanywyck uses sexuality to enhance the humor of her performance and this film benefits for it.
Casablanca (1942)
In December 1941, American Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is surprised to see his former lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) arrive in his Moroccan café with her husband, Victor Lazlo, a Czech Resistance leader. Rick and Ilsa had a brief, passionate affair in Paris after the war began. Assuming her husband had been killed in the conflict, Ilsa intended to leave and start a new life with Rick, but abandoned those plans when he returned. Rick must make a choice, protect Lazlo and join the fight against the oppressive Nazi regime, or embrace the woman he loves and put his own desires above what he knows is right.
Everyone remembers this as a big, romantic film, but there are a lot of really funny scenes: like when Captain Renault has a lucky night at the casino.
Peter Lorre (Ugarte) excelled at playing shady yet sympathetic characters such as Hans Beckert and Joe Cairo because he was odd-looking enough to evoke sympathy, but attractive enough not to warrant repulsion.
Claude Rains (Captain Renault) was the star of the The Invisible Man (1933) and a reluctantly corrupt politician in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), but this movie is his crowning achievement. He gets the best lines, and his development from cowardly Nazi appeaser to full-fledged member of the Resistance is the most important story in the film because it mirrors the world’s own awakening to the dangers of Nazism.
Bogart made plenty of movies before this and had a fifteen year career to follow, but he’ll always be Rick Blaine, and nearly every iconic image you have of “Bogie” comes from this movie. In retrospect, it’s difficult to believe someone else won the Best Actor Oscar. In this film, he created an archetype, the sensitive romantic with the tough as nails exterior, which continues to resonate.
Ingrid Bergman’s great in Gaslight (1944), Joan of Arc (1948), Anastasia (1956), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974), but Ilsa will be in the first paragraph everyone writes about her.
It’s difficult to imagine what is was like to watch this movie in 1942 before US victory in World War II was assured, while American soldiers were dying on battlefields fighting the Nazi threat and the story of Rick and Ilsa and Victor was being played out by real people all over the world.
Day of Wrath (1943)
Anne wishes her older husband, Absalon, would die, because she’s fallen in love with Martin, his son from his first marriage. When Herlof Marte is accused of witchcraft, she blackmails Anne by threatening to expose her true feelings, but Anne calls her bluff, and Marte is burned at the stake.
After Absalon dies, Anne defiantly announces to the crowd of mourners she killed her husband and enchanted his son with evil magic.
Did Anne kill her husband? Is she a witch? If not, why does she confess to witchcraft, knowing it will lead to her death? This movie based on a Norwegian play which was inspired by the story of Anne Pedersdotter wisely refuses to answer these questions.
This beautiful, languid film continues Dreyer’s preference for slow, ponderous films which challenge us to look at how faith or its absence impacts the world around us.
Double Indemnity (1944)
Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces mild-mannered insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), then convinces him to help her take out an insurance policy on her husband, murder him, and stage it to look like a suicide.
Everything goes according to plan until claims inspector Barton Keyes (Edward G Robinson) begins an investigation. Soon, Neff learns Mrs. Dietrichson has a different, secret agenda.
Despite his talent, for most of his career, Fred MacMurray was content to focus on less challenging, more profitable, wholesome roles like Professor Brainard or Steve Douglas. For his effort, he became the first person honored as a Disney Legend.
Barbara Stanwyck is at the top of her game here as the prototypical femme fatale.
With his star making turn in Little Caesar (1931), Edward G. Robinson became one of the definitive movie gangsters. Despite his tough guy image, his reluctant detective is the moral center of this film.
All of the elements of film noir are here: moral ambiguity, a dangerous woman, unbridled lust, a betrayal, a pervasive sense of hopelessness, and a tragic ending. What sets this film apart from other noir films of the era is Billy Wilder’s skillful direction and the subtle touches of dark humor he adds.
Scarlet Street (1945)
Amateur artist Christoper Cross (Edward G. Robinson) bravely rescues a young woman, Kitty, from an assailant. Unbeknownst to him the attack was coordinated by her boyfriend Johnny to elicit sympathy; Kitty plans to seduce the married Cross and extort him to keep their affair a secret.
Cross happily takes the bait and pays for an apartment for his paramour by stealing money from his employer and wife. Meanwhile, Johnny steals a few of Cross’s paintings and sells them under Kitty’s name. When Cross discovers the deception and confronts her, Kitty ridicules him for believing she could love him. Enraged, he murders her, but circumstantial evidence places the blame on Johnny who is arrested and convicted for the crime.
Christopher is alone and broke, Johnny is condemned to die, and Kitty is mistakenly eulogized as an artist taken too soon.
Fritz Lang is a forgotten genius. Metropolis (1927) is one of the most influential films of all time. M (1931) is a brilliant examination of paranoia and ahead of its time in its portrayal of a child predator.
This is a densely layered film about unfulfilled dreams and secret desires, and Edward G. Robinson’s heartbreaking work as Christopher Cross may be the closest we’ll ever get to answering Langston Hughes.
Beauty and the Beast (1946)
When Belle’s father is imprisoned for accidentally picking a rose from the garden of The Beast, Belle offers to takes his place. During her imprisonment, she develops feelings for her captor.
After Belle’s spurned suitor Avenant mortally injures Beast during an attempted robbery, he is transformed into a hideous creature, while the dying Beast is freed from his curse as Belle admits her love for him.
In this version of the classic tale, there’s no cheap humor or unnecessary modernization. Cocteau’s version is handled with great care and respect and his opening monologue suggests he believes deeply in the magic of fairytales and the power of archetypes.
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947)
After the Civil War, celebrated union general Ezra Mannon (Raymond Massey) returns home with his fellow soldier son, Orin (Michael Redgrave). Unfortunately, his unhappy wife Christine (Katina Paxinou) plans to leave him to be with her cousin, Adam Brant.
Christine’s daughter Lavinia (Rosalind Russell) also fancies Adam and confronts her mother about the clandestine relationship. Determined to begin a new life, Christine poisons Ezra, an angry Orin murders Adam, a guilt-ridden Christine commits suicide, and Lavinia asks a loyal servant to board her up in the family home.
Based on Eugene O’Neill’s play, this feels like the Yankee retort to Faulkner: a grand and glorious family struggling to adjust to post-war realities.
Like an opera singer finessing her way through ridiculous melodrama and nailing the arias, Russell is sublime. Paired with Redgrave, the scenes between the put upon siblings are tinged with delicious undertones of smoldering, forbidden sexuality.
Germany, Year Zero (1948)
The final entry in Rossellini’s war trilogy, this film shows the devastation of Germans rebuilding their lives after the Second World War through the eyes of twelve-year-old Edmund Kohler, who lives in Berlin with his adult siblings and ailing father.
Naive Edmund misunderstands what his former teacher (a closeted Nazi sympathizer) says about the survival of the fittest and makes a consequential decision which leaves him even more confused and isolated.
Rossellini may have agreed with the principles and rationales which led to the Allied invasion and defeat of Nazism, but he didn’t wish to lionize or mythologize the war. There may be just wars, but none are fought justly, and once unleashed, the awesome destructive power will inevitably matriculate and metastasize in unexpected ways, leaving ruin in its wake.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Awaiting his execution, Louis Mazzini writes his memoir. His mother was a member of the aristocratic D’Ascoyne family, but was disowned when she married an Italian opera singer. When the elder Mazzini died, Louis’s mom asked her wealthy family for help, but they refused and barred her burial in the family vault.
As revenge, Louis kills every living member of the D’Ascoyne family, leaving himself as the only heir, but before he can inherit his title, he is (ironically) framed for a murder he did not commit.
In a tour de force performance, Alec Guinness plays all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family, including Lady Agatha. Famous now for his dramatic work in A Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Star Wars (1977), Guinness was a talented comedic performer here and in several Ealing Comedies such as The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955).
This jaded, cynical film was a product of European disillusionment after the devastation of World War II.