Arsenic and Old Lace

Frank Capra, 1944, bw (8.3*)
Pleasant trifle in which Cary Grant has a field day of double-takes and other physical humor as Mortimer Brewster, the doting nephew of two elderly aunts, the kind with whom you share tea, and discuss family history. Unfortunately, these aunts are not so kindly, as Mortimer begins to discover bodies hidden in furniture around the house, and at the same time there seem to be some missing elderly gents who were former friends.

Priscilla Lane is around for romantic interest and eye candy, or else it would be just Grant and two old ladies, plus you need an outside catalyst to drive the action, someone who could discover the family secret.

Adapted by the Epstein Brothers from a play by Joseph Kesselring. This is one of Capra’s best comedies, as it doesn’t try to do too much but entertain, one that takes homicidal insanity with a nonchalant attitude, as if bodies are empty liquor bottles, something to discard without the neighbors seeing - after all, it’s 1944 and the middle of mass psychosis.

This just recently fell out of the IMDB top 250.

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Meet Me in St. Louis

Vincente Minnelli, 1944 (8.4*)
This is one of the best of the Judy Garland musicals, and it involves a family that enjoys life in hometown St. Louis, around the time of the world's fair in 1903. There's not a lot of story here, but it's also not the old "let's put on a show, let's make a musical" plot either. It's primarily about the family enjoying each others company on holidays, and the girls entertaining beaux, all the noise driving father Tom Drake 'to distraction'.

Margaret O'Brien plays Garland's scene-stealing little sister, especially during one Halloween sequence that involves some pretty delinquent behavoir: bonfires in the streets, dusting residents with wet flour, and later even trying to derail a streetcar with a fake body. These kids were middle-class hoodlums, but all in good fun, like the Our Gang comedies.

The musical numbers include "The Trolley Song", "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", and the title song. Garland was in her prime here, a young woman of 22 who could really belt out a song. The technicolor is absolutely mouth-watering, perhaps a little too intense, but this is a good, fun family film for all ages. In fact, many think it's director Vincente Minnelli's best, along with An American in Paris. #293 on our top ranked films on the net survey.

Garland didn't want to star in this, as a teenager, but Minnelli not only convinced her to, but also to marry him later.

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A Canterbury Tale

Micheal Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1944, bw (8.4*)
This newly restored high definition version of this British wartime film should remind everyone what a classic film it remains. Absolutely beautiful to look at, the films closing sequence contains some of the most beautiful black and white images in popular films.

The story uses Chaucer's classic Canterbury Tales as inspiration, updating it to wartime England; The three travelers to Canterbury are a local girl whose husband is missing in action, who's come here to work; an American GI sergeant interested in the local scenery; and a British sergeant stationed nearby for pre-invasion training. The three become involved in the "glue bandit" crime when the girl becomes a victim of what has to be the most bizarre crime in cinema mysteries. Along the pilgrim road to Canterbury we see the British countryside around Kent, where Powell was born. We are also shown perhaps the most jubilant and whimsical children's mock battle ever captured on film. It's more than a road film, or a local travelogue, though parts are obviously in "Major Exposition" style, to all Powell to relate the history of the area to the audience, a history of a road that goes back 1000 years.

Powell chose two real soldiers for the army sergeant roles, and this was filmed without any major stars at all. Perhaps the soldiers are a little amateurish as actors, but there's no doubt they are real soldiers. On the dvd from Criterion, they've included scenes added to the American release of the film, a perplexing new opening with Kim Hunter on a rooftop in New York discussing this area of England with Sgt. John Sweet, the American soldier in the film. This was her only scene, yet she shared star-billing with all the film's real actors! This is ranked #537 on our Top Ranked survey, #334 on the critics consensus 1000, and deserves the higher ranking in my opinion. It's a small and unassuming film, yet has the Powell/Pressburger magic working.

The film's page at Criterion

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To Have and To Have Not

Howard Hawks, 1944, bw (7.6*)
This was the sultry Lauren Bacall’s dazzling screen debut, as she steals this version of an Ernest Hemingway story from star Humphrey Bogart, as well as his heart, soon becoming Mrs. Bogart (anyone can see why!). William Faulkner actually co-scripted this story (with Jules Furthman), very reminiscent of Casablanca (from 2 years earlier), of a selfish American in French Vichy territory, in this case Martinique. Bogart runs a deep-sea fishing charter service with alcoholic buddy Walter Brennan, apparently here for humor, and tries to remain apolitical. Victor Buono steals scenes as a polite but slimy Vichy official hunting down anti-Nazis on the island. Obviously not as good as Casablanca, and bogged down by some unnecessary songs (Bacall sings! but 3-4 times? down a star for this...), but still worth seeing as an example that era’s romances, where the war was present but took a back seat to onscreen seduction.
Quote: Waz ya ever bit by a dead honey bee? (Brennan)
Quote2: You do know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow. (Bacall)

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Double Indemnity

Billy Wilder, 1944, (9.0*)

AFI Top 100

Wilder's dark, erotic crime film is considered the birth of film noir, or "night film", a crime film using mostly scenes shot at night or in dark interiors, and whose lead character is usually criminal himself. The plot concerns a wife, Barbara Stanwyck, who hires an insurance salesman, Fred McMurray in an abrupt career defying role, to kill her husband for the insurance, double the amount if its an accident. Of course, the two set off sparks onscreen, and the implication, done through smoking after just a kiss, is that they are having an adulterous affair as well. McMurray took a part turned down by more famous actors, who didn't want to play a homicidal adulterer onscreen, while Fred saw a chance to escape typecasting.

Edward G. Robinson was also persuaded to take a rare supporting role, as an insurance investigator in McMurray's company, likely due to the strength of the script, by Wilder and pulp novel author Raymond Chandler, hired for his underworld dialogue. The two mixed like oil and water, as Chandler was an introverted alcoholic, while Wilder was an extrovert who needed people. He later penned The Lost Weekend as a critique of Chandler's lifestyle. Robinson nearly steals the movie, this would have been an excellent chance for the motion picture academy to have awarded him a supporting actor nomination at least, as he was never once nominated for an Oscar®.
7 Oscar® nominations, no wins

Quote: That's some ankle bracelet. [after one of the greatest entrances in cinema history]

Wilder is one of the great directors, here's a small list of his best films:
The Front Page, Sunset Boulevard, Lost Weekend, The Spirit of St. Louis, One Two Three, Ace in the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Sabrina, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Witness For the Prosecution, The Fortune Cookie.

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