Odd Man Out

Carol Reed, 1947, bw (8.8*)
#634, Top Ranked 1000 Films, 2011 Update, all polls.

Master British director Carol Reed made a perhaps even tighter, white-knuckle crime thriller with this gem. In one of his best roles, James Mason shines as a wounded IRA gunman, who is trying to escape a net of British police, and who is both helped and hindered by those along his route.

We are made to feel his personal terror as the camera stays with him, he’s a man alone in an urban war zone and fighting losing odds. This is easily the most intense role of Mason’s long and distinguished career, as he really is noted for cool, collected characters with an experienced and wise demeanor, and normally projects an aura of calm confidence, such as God in Time Bandits (1981) or as heaven’ representative in Heaven Can Wait (1978).

Carol Reed directed some of the best British postwar films. Mostly noted for the noirish The Third man (1949, bw), I liked Outcast of the Islands, from the Joseph Conrad novel, even more. It has a white man in an isolated tropical paradise who sells his soul for money, and it features some of the most haunting images in cinema, filmed during a torrential tropical rainstorm. Reed also directed the Oscar®-winning best picture Oliver! (1967), the musical based on Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist (filmed seriously first by David Lean and later by Roman Polanski).

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Life With Father

Michael Curtiz, 1947 (8.2*)
From the director of Casablanca comes this wonderful classic comedy of the family patriarch and universal curmudgeon, a film of the long-running Broadway play which thrives on probably the best performance ever by William Powell, better known for the Thin Man series. This is author Clarence Day's coming-of-age story, which centers on the aristocratic and authoritarian, yet humorous father. Classic comedienne Irene Dunne is his long suffering wife.

Powell created the epitome of the stubborn, self-righteous, but lovable family man, later emulated in shows like The Honeymooners and All in the Family. In this first film (there were sequels), much is made of the fact that he has never been baptized, so everyone is convinced he's going to hell when he dies, which seems to worry everyone else more than father.

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Black Narcissus

Micheal Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947 (8.5*)
This is one of the most visually stunning films ever made. At the time, it broke new ground in the use of Technicolor, and won Oscars® for cinematographer Jack Cardiff and art director Alfred Junge. The story is a simple one: a group of nuns, led by new a new Mother Superior played by Deborah Kerr, are sent to a remote Himilayan village in India because a local general has donated a large house to them for use as a school and medical clinic.

The location is a daunting castle-like stone building halfway up some steep mountains, overlooking the valley and road below. It was built by a king to house his wives in an isolated locale where they couldn't run away or otherwise misbehave. The nuns are at first excited by the response of the locals, whom they truly desire to help. Soon however, hardships, the spiritual setting, and other temptations begin to erode the faith of some and raise questions of their ultimate survivability. This film is more about locale affecting people than any other picture in memory.

To make this an even more amazing work of art, the entire picture was shot at Pinewood Studios, England using sets, and matte or background paintings! The restoration to dvd has brought back the brilliant lighting and color, copied by Cardiff, a painter, from the art of Vermeer and Rembrandt; "clean light" was one element he mentioned in an interview on the dvd. Being an early trained Technicolor expert actually got Cardiff this job, as this was Powell's first film in color. Kerr is excellent as usual, but the film acting laurels are stolen by Kathleen Byron, who slowly disintegrates under the strain in an unforgettable performance. Two Oscars®.

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Out of the Past

Dir: Jacques Tourneur, 1947, bw (9.3*)

Jacques Tourneur's film is the epitome of film noir, even though only half of it occurs at night. Robert Mitchum (never better) is a small town gas station owner in the Owens Valley of California, east of the Sierras, when a passing stranger lures him back into his past association with criminal Kirk Douglas, in only his second film. The story revolves around a femme fatale, naturally, Jane Greer in a brilliantly understated performance - she was just 22 but was studio owner Howard Hughes' girlfriend at the time. You know when its tense because the main characters fire up a cigarette each time! Essential for noir buffs, often considered the quintessential film of that genre.

Quote: The view's only nice if you have someone to share it with.

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