The Films of 1949 (part four)

I certainly didn't see all the films from 1949 but after this survey I'm ready to compile not a top 10 but a top 8. Good enough.

The Third Man -- A classic, one of my favorite movies of all time. I haven't seen it in a while but I'm never disappointed. There's humor, police procedural, melancholy romance, murder and intrigue, post-war corruption, the privileged yet always broke American, a classic score--this film has so much cool stuff going on its hard to know where to start. Plus, I always love Joseph Cotton.

Thirst -- This is my kind of movie: endless sexual angst with hardly any sex at all. Talking, talking, talking with amazingly little action--I love it! When Bergman is at his best his investigations of human weirdness can be utterly fascinating (see Persona, Scenes from a Marriage); at his worst it's hopelessly dull and frustrating (see Sarabande, Autumn Sonata). This is the story of women and men doing what it is they do: fucking and feeling guilty about it or fucking and feeling superior only to be brought low in some other manner. You may find it depressing, I find it inspiring. Bergman is in the flower of his youth here, fine performances, complicated relationships that glide along and train--I love trains, too.

The Heiress -- This is the film that probably should've won Best Picture and I'm surprised it didn't. It is a woman's tale, a costume drama, a frustrating soap opera and a wildly popular film in its day, those are pretty much all the things the Academy is looking for. I can only assume that All the King's Men touched some chord in the post-war years, when President Truman's approval ratings were struggling, social roles were quickly changing and USA's overwhelming dominance looked like a burden more than a boon. Olivia de Havilland is a plain girl living on the fringes of upper crust society in New York around 1850. Her father is a wealthy and respected doctor who dotes on his lonely daughter but mostly loves her through a series of back-handed compliments that are as distressing as comforting. When dashing young Montgomery Clift shows up and sweeps Olivia off her feet, dad is skeptical. It just doesn't seem possible that this young man could love anything other than her money which sets off a rift within the family. The way it all works out is frankly just fucking marvelous and the push and pull between love and cynicism is just so… real. This is a really great post-war American film. Well-made and powerful.

Kind Hearts and Coronets -- This is another one of those post-war British comedies that film nerds typically go so ga-ga for and I gotta say, this one sucked me in more than the rest. A young heiress marries outside of her class and is banished by her austere family to live a life outside their social influence. Her son grows up with revenge in his heart and longs to obtain the position that is his birthright. The only way to do it, though, is to kill several dozen people who have been moved ahead of him in line. So kill he does. Some of the killings are clever, some are funny, some are just necessary to the plot. But the dialogue all the way through is top notch, the performances (most of which are Alec Guiness) are all on time and the twist at the end is just about perfect. Big thumbs up, very funny flick, very worthy of its classic status.

A Letter to Three Wives -- I gotta be honest I never quite understood the ending. The attention that goes to the bickering couple doesn't complete the story to my mind so I wonder why they take over at the close. Otherwise, this is a clever and funny melodrama about three women trying to figure out which one just lost her husband to the neighborhood jezebel. Three wives bound together by social connections--all the sexual confusion of social connections in those days, thank God that's all changed!--have always been a little jealous of the one girl their husbands all endlessly romanticize. We never see her but we hear an awful lot about her and today is the day she finally snagged one of those husbands for herself. But which one? The puzzle is a good one. This won Best Screenplay and Best Director for Joseph L. Manckiewicz, who may be the most underrated figure in all of American cinema. He made many, many badass films and yet he's very rarely put along side Welles, Ford, Capra, Cukor, Chaplin, etc. and I'm not sure why.

Stray Dog -- Akira Kurosawa is my favorite filmmaker. This is one of his earliest films, a thriller about a cop whose gun is pickpocketed by a ruthless killer. The cop must end the killing spree all the while measuring his own culpability in the crime. Are we guilty of the sins of others? The detective obsessing over the bullets in his gun is one of Kurosawa's finer moments. This is a youthful effort from a guy well on his way to becoming a total badass and just like Bergman's Thirst, it gives a hint at the effortless intensity he's able to put on film. (The DVD features a fine commentary from a film historian who never misses a chance to gush over the occasional wide-angle shots that would dominate Kurosawa's visual palate in later years)

Champion -- I totally dug this flick. I saw it years ago at the Castro Theater in San Francisco and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I haven't seen it in a while but it is a gripping tale of a ne'er-do-well (Kirk Douglas) who finds himself prize fighting for money just to make ends meet. It turns out to be his secret talent and a fine world for the kind of bullying money grubbing social climbing that takes him all the way to the top…but only briefly. This is the fisticuffs version of Madame Bovary: the people he encounters along the way are merely tools for getting what he wants out of life.

The Small Back Room -- This is the story of secret British analysts during the war, sequestered away from the world so they may be undisturbed while obsessing over the most disturbing parts of the war. The main character is alcoholic, lonely and full of self-pity and he can only hold himself together by holding the operation together. The woman who loves him is prey to his mood swings but possesses such an admiration for him that she endures--similarly the co-workers, the friends, the bar keep, the landlord, etc. This guy is an alienation machine but he does what needs to be done and maintains a civil air. In many ways this film is way ahead of its time, it hardly seems representative of the glorious Technicolor years that were right around the corner. Indeed, this film is dour, stark, gloomy and pessimistic. Not easy to watch honestly but a fine production. Powell and Pressburger were just getting their groove on in these days and this (like Thirst and Stray Dog) just a taste of what was to come.


My favorite performances I've seen from 1949:

Actor
Broderick Crawford (All the King's Men)
Joseph Cotton (The Third Man)
Birger Malmsten (Thirst)
Edward G. Robinson (House of Strangers)
John Wayne (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)

Actress
Linda Darnell (A Letter to Three Wives)
Olivia De Haviland (The Heiress)
Mercedes McCambridge (All the King's Men)
Eva Henning (Thirst)

Supporting Actor
Van Heflin (Madame Bovary)
Howard de Silva (Border Incident)

Supporting Actress
Ethel Barrymore (Pinky)
Joan Greenwood (Kind Hearts and Coronets)
Thelma Ritter (A Letter to Three Wives)
Patricia Neal (The Fountainhead)
Ethel Waters (Pinky)