My Films – the 1940s
Orson Welles, Citizen Kane
RKO Radio 1941
119’ / RT 100% / Oscars, 1/9
The masterpiece of Orson Welles, who was both director & leading actor. He was only 26 at the time. Attacked by the Hearst Newspaper empire, the film often was not exhibited by cinema owners because of intimidation and legal threats. In its initial run, therefore, the film lost money. In the 1941 Oscars, while it received nine nominations (but booed each time), it won only one Oscar (Best Writing). Gradually its reputation as a film grew. Now most critics regard Citizen Kane as the greatest American film of all time. The story is loosely based on the life of William Randolph Hearst (though Welles denied this), and on other people, including Welles. The film is astonishingly innovative – particularly in cinematography, music, & narrative style.
In his 1941 review, Jorge Luis Borge called Citizen Kane a “metaphysical detective story.” He also wrote, “Overwhelmingly, endlessly, Orson Welles shows fragments of the life of the man, Charles Foster Kane, and invites us to combine them and reconstruct him” Of the mysterious rosebud motif in the film, Roger Ebert has said, “Rosebud is the emblem of the security, hope and innocence of childhood, which a man can spend his life seeking to regain. It is the green light at the end of Gatsby’s pier; the leopard atop Kilimanjaro, seeking nobody knows what; the bone tossed into the air in 2001.” This is a film to buy and to watch often.
Michael Curtiz, Casablanca
Warner Bros 1942
103’ / RT 97% / Oscars 3/8
Almost certainly the best-loved film, at least in the English-speaking world. Critically, Casablanca is usually found in the top three American films. It is a classic story of love & war, with a brilliant and witty script, and characters that we care about. Almost all the film is set within Rick’s Cafe, yet somehow we are very aware of World War II, just outside the door. For that reason, I have shown it in my course War in Literature & Film at the University of Tampa. Like Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), Curtiz brought together a war film & a love story. In so doing, he created an enduring cultural masterpiece.
- The AFI list of 100 Movie Quotes has the most quotes from Casablanca, with Rick’s toast to Ilsa, “Here’s looking at you, kid” coming in at #5. Roger Ebert has written, “Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it” (Chicago Sun-Times). Sam, playing piano & singing “As Time Goes By,” casts a spell. His song becomes not simply a musical motif in the film: it forms the soundtrack for our lives.
Many minor roles and extras in the film were actual exiles & refugees from Hitler’s Europe, bringing an emotional intensity to Casablanca, especially in scenes such as the “duel of the songs.” The main roles were as international as the War itself: Humphrey Bogart as Rick (American), Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa (Swedish), Paul Henreid as Victor (Austrian), Claud Rains as Capt. Renault (English), Conrad Veidt as Maj. Strasser (German), Sydney Greenstreet as Ferrari (English), Peter Lorre as Ugarte (Austrian-Hungarian/German), and Dooley Wilson as Sam the pianist (American).
- There are deeper historical dimensions in Casablanca. Initially, Rick Blaine will not “stick his neck out for anyone.” Others may be heroic, but not he. Rick’s Café Américain seems an oasis in a world of chaos and violence. Rick personifies an America that – before Pearl Harbor – was very reluctant to be drawn into this “European” war. Yet, in the end, Rick – like the USA – does commit. He joins the struggle: he finds his own heroism. In so doing, he, Ilsa, and Victor (and Capt. Renault) lead Casablanca to an ending unequaled in emotional & dramatic power. One never gets tired of this masterpiece.
Howard Hawks, The Big Sleep
Warner Bros 1946
114′ / RT: 96% / Oscars: 0/0
My earliest memory of the culture of the United States was actually an audio experience, listening to a BBC Radio play in the 1950s or 60s, probably of some Raymond Chandler novel. That wry & laconic Marlow tone helped me to first imagine America. But it was much later, probably not until 2000, that I remember watching The Big Sleep. The film stars Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall, who first lit up the screen in Hawks’ To Have and Have Not (1944). The plot of The Big Sleep is endlessly confusing & complex, with many loose ends, producing this iconic modernist thriller – and a great example of film noir.
- The Big Sleep received no Oscar nominations. While the film is based on the 1939 Raymond Chandler novel, The Big Sleep, the film was heavily censored by Hays Code requirements. The novel clearly shows that Carmen is a killer, and that Geiger sells pornography and is gay, but none of this could be portrayed in the film, except by subtle allusions. However, the suggestive racehorse scene did slip by the Hays Office – Roger Ebert calls it “one of the most daring examples of double entendre in any movie up until that time.”
The dialogue is always sharp & smart, a testimony to Chandler’s novel but also to screenwriters who included William Faulkner. As Roger Ebert says, this is “one of the great film noirs, a black-and-white symphony that exactly reproduces Chandler’s ability, on the page, to find a tone of voice that keeps its distance, and yet is wry and humorous and cares.” In the genre of film noir, some may prefer John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941) or Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947), both great films. But for me, The Big Sleep not only taps into some personal memories of Philip Marlow’s skeptical and wry tone, it is also a classic film noir. A confusing plot, indeed, but does not that well portray modern life? Like much of film noir, this is a film that presents far more questions than answers.
Carol Reed, The Third Man
British Lion 1949
104′ / RT: 100% / Oscars 1/3
A masterpiece of British cinema, with the screenplay written by Graham Greene. The notorious Harry Lime, played by Orson Welles, may be based on the famous British spy & traitor, Kim Philby. Joseph Cotton is pulp writer Holly Martins, Trevor Howard plays Major Calloway, and Alida Valli is Anna Schmidt, Lime’s girlfriend.
“Of all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of going to the movies” (Roger Ebert). The film, evoking Vienna after World War Two, is a superbly enigmatic story, “… superficial mysteries wrapped around deeper mysteries of the human heart, all immersed in a desperate universe suspended by the silent witnessing of a thousand eyes” (Tom Keogh).
- This British film noir thriller has been remastered and is available as a DVD with a useful booklet in in the Criterion Collection (2007). There, critic Luc Santes says that The Third Man is one of a handful of films “that have become archetypes… a construct that would lodge itself deep in the unconscious of an enormous number of people…. Vienna after the war represents the ruins of Europe” (6). Among those same ruins, through distorted camera angles, brilliant close-ups, and melancholy zither music, Reed & Greene tell their story. They give us a haunting image of the early Cold War.
In The Third Man, with his excellent cast, crew, and setting director Carol Reed “created a portrait of postwar corruption and the death of idealism that has lodged ever since in our collective consciousness. Together, they made a rich, moody masterpiece of guilt, love, and ambivalent redemption” (Michael Wilmington). This is one of my favorite films of all time. You should see it.
My Films – the 1940s
Raymond M. Vince
© 9th September 2012
https://rayvince.wordpress.com/
Notes
- These are my personal lists by decade, not necessarily the greatest films of all time. They are the movies that have meant the most to me. Some are recognized as great movies: some may seem more marginal. But, to some degree, all have illuminated and interpreted my life. Most of my chosen films are American or British, but some are from other cultures. However, I have yet to see some of the greatest foreign films.
- The films are not ranked in order of merit. I have arranged them in chronological order, by decade, beginning with the 1940s. But if we were to rank them, critics have usually put Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) first, describing it as the greatest of all American films. Number two are three are usually The Godfather (1972) and Casablanca (1942), in either order. Recently, in the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) was, to the surprise of many, voted number one. As time goes by, our way of viewing films, our expectations of a great film, and our evaluations of excellence, change. These are simply my choices as I see them in 2012.
- For each film, along with an image or photograph of the film, I give
Director & Title
Distributor & Year of Release
Running time in minutes / Rotten Tomatoes Rating (RT) / Oscars Won / Nominated.
- Then, I have annotated each film with comments, quotations, & evaluations. Of the film critics, I find Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times) generally the most perceptive & helpful, but other critics are also cited. Quotations and information is taken from various sources, including IMDB, Filmsite.org, Rotten Tomatoes, and Wikipedia.
Raymond M. Vince
September 2012
rayvince 