Lady on a Train (Aug. 17, 1945)
Deanna Durbin is an absolute delight in this farcical murder mystery. Durbin, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was once one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, but never made a movie after 1948. (She...
View ArticleThe Lost Weekend (Nov. 16, 1945)
In the decades since Billy Wilder made The Lost Weekend, an entire vocabulary about alcoholism has entered the national consciousness through self-help books, 12-step programs, and daytime talk shows,...
View ArticleSpellbound (Dec. 28, 1945)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound gets knocked around for its basis in Freudian theory. Many reviews of the film written in the past 20 years use words like “dated,” “implausible,” and “preposterous.” A...
View ArticleThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers (July 24, 1946)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers is based on a short story called “Love Lies Bleeding” by playwright John Patrick, who published it under the name “Jack” Patrick. I don’t know why the name was changed...
View ArticleThe Killers (Aug. 28, 1946)
The Killers (a.k.a. Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers) was the screen debut of Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster. It was also an early but significant role for another legend, the beautiful Ava Gardner, who...
View ArticleThe Red House (March 16, 1947)
Is there really a red house in Delmer Daves’s The Red House? The movie is filmed in black and white, so I can’t tell you. I’m not being cheeky, I’m making a point. The “red house” in The Red House is a...
View ArticleThe Other Love (May 14, 1947)
Director André de Toth is mostly associated with hairy-chested genres like westerns and war movies. The Other Love, which is based on a short story by All Quiet on the Western Front author Erich Maria...
View ArticleBrute Force (June 30, 1947)
Snitches get stitches. Or, in the case of Jules Dassin’s Brute Force, they get forced into a giant machine press by a group of cons wielding acetylene torches. They also get tied screaming to the front...
View ArticleDesert Fury (Aug. 15, 1947)
For me, Lewis Allen’s Desert Fury is currently running neck and neck with Felix Feist’s The Devil Thumbs a Ride for the honor of “wackiest movie of 1947.” But maybe I’m comparing apples to oranges....
View ArticleA Double Life (Dec. 25, 1947)
George Cukor’s A Double Life stars Ronald Colman as a brilliant stage actor named Anthony John — “Tony” to his friends — who loses himself so completely in each of his roles that he has to be careful...
View ArticleKiss the Blood Off My Hands (Oct. 30, 1948)
Norman Foster’s Kiss the Blood Off My Hands begins with some onscreen text that could fit at the beginning of nearly every single post-war film noir: The aftermath of war is rubble — the rubble of...
View ArticleThe Asphalt Jungle (May 23, 1950)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950) Directed by John Huston Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer I love heist stories. True or fictional, filmed or written; it doesn’t matter. Any tale of a well-planned robbery is catnip to me....
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