In 1946,
The United Nations held its first meeting;
Juan Perón was elected president of Argentina;
Trygve Lie became the first Secretary-General of the United Nations;
Syria and the Philippines became independent nations;
Sony was founded (as Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering);
The first bikini was modeled in Paris;
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis debuted their comedy partnership;
Mensa was founded;
UNICEF was founded;
The San Francisco 49ers debuted;
John Paul Jones, Diane Keaton, Syd Barrett, Naomi Judd, Dolly Parton, David Lynch, Gene Siskel, Charlotte Rampling, Pete Postlethwaite, Gregory Hines, Karen Silkwood, Tyne Daly, Anthony Daniels, Alan Rickman, Frank Welker, Liza Minnelli, David Gilmour, Bobby Bonds, Timothy Dalton, Jane Asher, Ed O’Neill, Haley Mills, Tim Curry, John Waters, Lesley Gore, Candice Bergen, Reggie Jackson, André the Giant, Cher, Donald Trump, Gilda Radner, George W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone, Bon Scott, Sue Lyon, Cheech Marin, Linda Rondstadt, Danny Glover, Janet Yellen, Lesley Ann Warren, Bill Clinton, Connie Chung, Keith Moon, Rollie Fingers, Bob Beamon, Barry Gibb, Billy Preston, Dennis Dugan, Freddie Mercury, Tommy Lee Jones, Oliver Stone, Susan Sarandon, Suzanne Somers, Howard Shore, Phillip Pullman, Pat Sajak, Ivan Reitman, Stephen Rea, Laura Bush, Gram Parsons, Sally Field, Ted Bundy, Gianni Versace, Patty Duke, Eugene Levy, Steven Spielberg, Robert Urich, John Spencer, Carl Wilson, Susan Lucci, Jimmy Buffet, Larry Csonka, Marianne Faithfull, and Patti Smith were born;
While John Maynard Keynes, Harlan Stone, Booth Tarkington, Jack Johnson, William S. Hart, Antoinette Perry, Gertrude Stein, H.G. Wells, Herman Göring, Walter Johnson, Damon Runyon, and W.C. Fields died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 1946:
10) The Big Sleep
Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, this stylish film noir features detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) untangling a complicated web of murder and blackmail involving the daughters of General Sherwood. The younger daughter, Camen is in over her head with the criminal underworld, while the elder daughter, Vivian (Lauren Bacall) falls in love with Marlowe trying to protect her sister.
Because of Bogey’s delectable performance, Phillip Marlowe is still a useful byword for a hard-boiled, no-nonsense detective. The plot is dense and difficult, reminiscent of David Lynch, where every “resolution” pulls the rug out from under everything that’s gone before. Instead of plot, the driving force of the film is a delicious cocktail of a supreme sense of unease, razor-sharp dialogue, and electric chemistry between Bacall and Bogie.
9) Gilda
An American gambler, Johnny Farrell (Glen Ford) finds a job working for a corrupt casino owner in Argentina, Ballin Mundson. The arrangement works until Mundson returns from a trip with a new wife, Gilda (Rita Hayworth). Unbeknownst to Mundson, Gilda and Johnny have a long history together.
This is another film where the plot is only a thin excuse to showcase the central relationship. Johnny and Gilda have electric chemistry and deep uncontrollable feelings for each other.
Rita Hayworth has been largely forgotten. To trivia buffs, she’s best remembered as the a part of the title of the short story which inspired The Shawshank Redemption, or as the former wife of Orson Welles. This movie stands as a reminder of her immense talent. She’s a perfect personification of the femme fatale, and her immense sex appeal is undeniable. Her career, however, suffered because of her unpredictability and penchant to buck the studio system. By the mid 1950s, she was already a nostalgia act. Her death in 1987 from Alzheimer’s disease cast new light on why she was so difficult, but the damage was done.
Glen Ford was a uber everyman. His career existed in a sort of middle ground between star and character actor. He could occasionally headline a film, but never developed the cachet to become a major star. Even when his casting made you feel like he was semi-Hollywood royalty such as his turn as Superman’s adopted earth father, he was second banana to Marlon Brando as the actual father.
The openly toxic relationship dramatized here would be difficult to film today. Attitudes have changed and this type of relationship is pilloried. If I had to guess, in a remake, Johnny would be seen as a serial abuser and the film would end with Gilda overcoming his abuse by either killing him or turning him into the authorities. This discrepancy positions the film as an interesting marker in the evolution of sexual politics and cinema.
After World War I, Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) returns home to pick up the life he left behind, including his engagement to Isabel (Gene Tierney). However, his wartime experiences have changed him, so he leaves for a soul-searching trip to Europe which culminates in an encounter with a Holy Man in the Himalayas.
The film offers an early, sympathetic look at Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a stinging rebuke of unfettered capitalism and materialism.
Power and Tierney are fabulous and Anne Baxter won a well deserved Oscar for her performance as a childhood friend of Larry who takes refuge in alcohol after a personal tragedy.
In a stab at subtle metafiction, Somerset Maugham, the author of the original work appears as a minor character (played by Herbert Marshall).
I love this film because it points to a greater purpose than acquiring wealth, power and fame and reminds us the harmful, destructive power of war is meaningless.
7) Shoeshine
Desperate to buy a horse, Giuseppe and Pasquale participate in an illegal scheme to get money from a local fortune-teller.
After an afternoon spent with their horse, they return to find the police waiting to arrest them. Separated in the juvenile detention center, they must make difficult decisions about whether to reveal the true culprits or maintain their silence, stretching the limits of their friendship and personal integrity.
This is great film about the effects of economic disparity. These boys want a horse and can’t understand why they’re not allowed to have one.
The film asks great questions about how we should treat adolescent offenders? Incarcerate them? Rehabilitate them? It’s a difficult question, and Vittorio De Sica does us a fantastic service by raising it.
Because of the dearth of available animators during the war, Disney packaged short films together into a lengthy one to continue the company’s feature film aspirations.
As a result, this film has ten segments, mostly set to popular contemporary music, including two pieces by Benny Goodman, one of which features Goodman and his orchestra portrayed as animated instruments.
There are animated versions of Casey at the Bat and Peter and the Wolf narrated by Sterling Holloway. The section featuring two love-crossed hats echoes in the 2013 Pixar short, The Blue Umbrella.
The final segment is a dark tale about a whale with a fantastic voice whose dreams of being an opera singer end in tragedy.
While Fantasia has been promoted as a modern classic and a watershed moment in film animation, this film and the other anthology films of the era have been largely forgotten by the Disney company. It’s a shame because this is a wonderful piece of art: funny, poignant, and delightful.
5) Paisan
With six vignettes set in Italy during the closing stages of WWII, Roberto Rossellini reminds us of the humanity of our enemy.
A drunk African-American soldier attempts to punish a local Italian boy for stealing his boots until she sees the poor conditions of the boy’s home.
Another American soldier pines for a woman he briefly met six months earlier. While describing the woman to a prostitute, he fails to realize she’s the woman he’s looking for.
While offering refuge to three American chaplains, Roman Catholic monks pray for the salvation of the Protestant and Jewish clergy.
A technicality results in a group of freedom fighters losing Geneva Convention protection. German officers take advantage and execute them, to the dismay of the prisoners of war who fought alongside them.
Without glamorizing war or engaging in hero-worship, this beautiful war film about the stuff around the fighting reminds us our “enemy” is somebody’s father, mother, or brother.
Thanks to annual appearances on television, this film has become an integral part of the Christmas experience for generations of Americans and remains the most indelible memory of James Stewart and the most well-known film by Frank Capra.
There are a seemingly endless number of cultural touchstones in the film’s two hours: Bedford Falls, Clarence, Mr. Potter, George Bailey, Bert and Ernie.
The cast is uniformly excellent (featuring five performers who had either already won an Oscar or soon would). The movie works because it idealizes the America we all wish we had grown up in and plays with the assumption most wealthy people are using their wealth and power to tighten the screws on the less fortunate.
One of the most quintessential American films is a celebration of small town life and continues to resonate because it carries such a strong, positive message, reminding us the simple things in life (being a good father, self-sacrifice, falling in love) are worth celebrating. A good life doesn’t require being famous or wealthy. A good life is having friends and loving relationships.
David Lean’s adaptation of Dickens’ classic novel condenses the action, but keeps its themes of fate versus free will. Orphans Pip and Estella are manipulated by those around them, but overcome the difficult circumstances of their respective childhoods.
The bitter, jilted Miss Havisham wearing her tattered wedding dress in her decrepit home is one of Dickens’ most sublime creations.
While fellow Brit Hitchcock was seduced by the values and allure of Hollywood, Lean was forever focused on British themes, mining British plays and novels and semi-mythological figures like TE Lawrence.
Alec Guinness is forever fixed as Obi-Wan Kenobi, but he spent a good deal of his career keeping Dickens’ work alive in twentieth century British consciousness. He’s excellent as Herbert Pocket.
The film’s meandering plot reminds me of Tom Jones, especially it’s sudden happy ending. The triumph of innocence over the corrupting powers of life and the victory of orphans over the deficiencies of their parentage, is why the film continues to resonate. We all want to believe we are masters of our own fates.
British fighter pilot Peter Carter (David Niven) contacts an American radio operator, June (Kim Hunter), minutes before he jumps out of his plane without a parachute.
He was supposed to die, but when the guide sent to take him to the afterlife can’t locate him in the dense British fog, Peter wakes up on a beach near June’s base and the pair begin a forbidden romance.
Peter’s escape from death precipitates a crisis in the Other World requiring a special trial to determine if his reprieve will be permanent.
This Powell and Pressburger collaboration is a wonderful film about the things that make life worth living. Niven has rarely been more charming and the courtroom scenes were delightful.
This reminds me of the recent television show, The Good Place. Both manage to be about the ramifications our choices have in the great beyond without focusing on religion, which is a difficult and exceedingly rare thing to do.
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 fairy tales and the power of archetypes.