Sergeant York 1941
Sullivan’s Travels 1941
Ball of Fire 1941
In Which We Serve 1942
Cat People 1942
To Have and Have Not 1944
To Each His Own 1946
Out of the Past 1947
Crossfire 1947
The Bicycle Thieves 1948
Watch for: The battle of the Argonne. The actual battle went much longer than 10 or so minutes in the movie; it lasted 47 days. Listen for Max Steiner's score, it is terrific, doing the classic Warner's soundtrack of patriotic motifs and gripping themes. to get a truer sense of how horrible the war actually was, I recommend the Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Podcast about it.
What you might not realize: While the Great War started in 1914, Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force (AEF) came late to WWI. The US arrived in 1917, 4.3 million strong and the American's suffered 323,000 killed or wounded. By the end of war for comparison, the French had lost or had wounded 6.1 million out of a fighting force of 8.4 million, The British had 3.2 million died or wounded out of a mobilized force of 8.9 million.
Sullivan's Travels. Preston Sturges is back, showing us the resilience of comedy movie director John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) bent on learning about real life as a "forgotten man" and hitting road for a major drama he wants to direct. Veronica Lake, at barely 5 feet, is a perfect foil for the 6'2 1/2" Joel McCrea, because we learn fairly quickly, he will need some protection from the cold, dark world of the Depression. Sturges makes it a even-handed with hilarious then tragic incidents for our two heroes. Watching it, I can't help thinking Sturges had a particular producer in mind for Lake's mocking bit about "Mr. Smearcase."
Watch for: In a sequence of McCrea and Lake wandering the side roads at night, watch for an inexplicable shot of a man's legs dangling from a tree limb over their heads. And the chain gang sequences, sadly, are fairly accurate.
What you might not realize: Veronica was pregnant during shooting of Sullivan's Travels (she had a baby girl later).
Ball of Fire is another Howard Hawks film, think the opposite from Sergeant York - yet still stars Gary Cooper! Sugarpuss O'Shea(Barbara Stanwyck) plays a burlesque princess who runs off to hideout as the heat builds around her mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews). She runs off to the foundation home of bookish encyclopedia-writing professors, headed by Bertrum Potts (Gary Cooper), trying to master slang study. The professors all have their unique personalities and they rally around to rescue the dancing and slang-cracking charmer in their midst when the hoodlums plot goes south and they hijack the whole lot for a "pistol wedding."
Watch for: Drum Boogie, the Yum scene and books stacked for a good purpose.
What you might not realize: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder penned the screenplay. Their inspiration? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In Which We Serve. directed by Noel Coward and David Lean, is a character-driven movie with flashbacks and answers the question of what do fighting men think about when faced with the real possibility of death? The answer: Being with their loved ones in the most lovely and sweetly mundane days of their lives before war broke out. But the movie is not boring, not at all. The fighting men of the destroyer HMS Torrin, from its beginnings, the Evacuation at Dunkirk, and the engagements in battle and dodging torpedoes--and sometimes being hit.
Watch for: In the lifeboat scenes, you almost can smell the oily, salty sea. You do learn something about the HMS Torrin and differences between a destroyer (lighter, less armor, more maneuverable) and a battleship. This film brings a bit knowledge about the war effort for the folks at home.
What you might not realize: Many actors who appear became more famous after the war, among them: John Mills & Juliet Mills, Celia Johnson, Kay Walsh, Michael Wilding, and Richard Attenborough.
Cat People. Jacques Tourneur directs. A pretty refugee, Irena (Simone Simon), who in a whirlwind- meets, loves and weds New Yorker Oliver Reed(Kent Smith). Then, the real people behind the clouded magic of newlywed infatuation come out. Eventually, the groom, with support of good friend Alice (Jane Randolph) and trying to gain advice from a therapist, Dr. Judd (Tom Conway), it just makes the environment more suspenseful, for Oliver wants to do what is best for Irena. But he is not prepared for the what happens to all of them whenever Irena feels threatened.
Watch for: Atmospherics and lighting. The use of shadows. It is one of those movies I won't watch alone at night. The pool scene is..!
What you might not realize: RKO had put Val Lewton on the payroll as executive producer in their horror unit and this is the first effort with an extremely limited budget. I think it made back for RKO SIXTY times its budget.
To Have and Have Not. It is pretty simple and straightforward story, that's because the story is Ernest Hemingway's, and it's the war and the Vichy authorities that make it complicated. Fishing charter captain Harry Morgan (or aka "Steve") (Humphrey Bogart), Slim (Lauren Bacall), Piano-player Cricket (Hoagy Carmichael) and rummy first mate Eddie (Walter Brennen) all make it pretty special. Once again directed by Howard Hawks, it has the unpleasant tinge of Vichy France in sleepy Martinique and the chances our heroes take when the situation limits their choice to helping the Resistance.
Watch for: Hoagy Carmichael and Bacall in duet. Am I Blue? How Little We Know.. Lovely counterpart to the drama. I know you are already watching for "the kiss."
What you might not realize: If it "feels" like Casablanca in Martinique, you aren't far off. That's Warner Bros for you. It has "a man can make a difference" by the choices he makes and the cynical hero themes.
To Each His Own, directed by Mitchell Leisen and starring Olivia de Havilland as Jody Norris, was a break from the steady drip of noirs. Jody is a middle-aged business owner who lives alone in London during the war when a sudden near-disaster of her fire-spotter partner, Lord Dasham (Roland Culver) on New Years eve starts a series of flashbacks about her lost love. Jody had a glorious romance with a WWI flyer (John Lund), that lasted hardly a day but with effects that will last her a lifetime when she has his child out of wedlock. She knows society will never forgive her or her child-so she's pressured for the baby boy to be brought up by friends as their own. It is a regrettable decision. Years later, she may have a chance to see her son again, now a pilot in the Eighth Air Force in England.
Watch for: Olivia's careful and believable aging. She won the Oscar for this role. John Lund carries the dual role of father and grown son.
What you might not realize: Babies out of wedlock were not rare, especially during either war and many were in just the situation that Jody finds herself. The mother-to-be was heavily pressured to give up the child for adoption, by their families, the church, and the civil authorities, and to never see the child again.
Out of the Past, another Jacques Tourneur film, the film noir that doesn't look like film noir in the opening--but it soon sounds, acts, and feels very noir as the tale unwinds. Jane Greer is the penultimate femme fatale. (I will get into the ultimate femme fatales in a upcoming chick-flick collection). Greer plays Kathie Moffat, a beautiful young woman who is trying to get out from under the grip of Whit Sterling(Kirk Douglas), who just wants his girl back and hires a gumshoe (Robert Mitchum) to fetch her. But nothing is that easily explained in Out of the Past, and the bad stuff is happening to Mitchum, and his reactions keep you focused on the action. It's a don't miss.
Watch for: This movie is loaded with all the cues of noir suspense and sexual subtext. Kathie can't help who she is..
Listen for: If you are a fan of the Prairie Home Companion radio character Guy Noir, you will definitely recognize the flashback narration.
What you might not realize: Like her character, Jane Greer had been caught up in real life in a toxic relationship with a wealthy man - Howard Hughes.
Crossfire, directed by Edward Dmytryk, is a classic mystery that looks like a 20th Century Fox production, but it's RKO. (When you love these Forties films, you start to sense the studio's style). Robert Young plays Finlay, a police detective searching out who murdered Joseph Samuels. The suspects are soldiers. The story is given in different perspectives in flashback (a structure familiar to Laura-the 20th Century Fox mystery) and they reveal themselves, their anxiousness, and their American attitudes postwar. Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Gloria Graham, Steve Brodie, and especially Robert Ryan are all good.
Watch for: The implicit bigotry in the movie. There's a line that (hopefully) bothers you, because it is still heard today in prejudice in its different forms: "This business about hating Jews comes in a lot of different sizes. There's the 'you can't join our country club' kind. The 'you can't live around here' kind. The 'you can't work here' kind. Because we stand for all these, we get Monty's kind. He grows out of all the rest... Hating is always insane, always senseless."
What you might not realize: Dmytryk refused to testify to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC), and there was political blow-back about that. The original source novel, The Brick Foxhole, focused on homophobia.
The Bicycle Thieves. Director Vittorio Di Sica gives us the neorealism that while the war's over, life isn't good. In the postwar atmosphere of Italy, survival comes down to getting the only opportunity to succeed or you face ruination. A story how it can tail-spin your whole existence to have one incidence of selfishness and theft befall your fragile family. All in one day. All about one bicycle.
Watch for: There are iconic scenes in Bicycle Thieves. The faces, the reactions of people in Rome. Rome appears filled with strangers to one another, which feels more isolating for it is another thing that happens because of war.
What you might not realize: As you watch this movie think the comparison of what you would know with the postwar of London, or Vienna (The Third Man). Before Mussolini, Italy was a poor, devolving state right after WWI (they had allied with the British & French). And post WWII, it was in desperate poverty after suffering military losses and occupation. Then in 1948, the Marshall Plan and the Italian Economic Miracle. It was all to be a part of a new unified Europe. By 1952, there was a decided change in the imagery out of Italy, think Roman Holiday.
Extra Credit:
Capra's opus to the Everyman as national leader caught up in a grassroots campaign to "be a better neighbor" is fraught with the ominous silent organizing hand behind the movement and the romance of the two idealistic protagonists. They careen into a dark place that looked at first so right and noble. Can one redeem themselves through commitment to the cause?
"There are eight million stories in the Naked City" The star of the movie really is New York, shot on location and this needs to be seen to be appreciated. The shots, the scenes, the action all support the this civic star and her residents. Has a documentary feel that seems perfect.
The Western grows up a bit in this movie. John Ford looks at the mythology of the West, part of a trilogy with She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande. Of course, it still is a Hollywood treatment with Henry Fonda and John Wayne in the starring roles. But a great one to watch until we get to Red River.