1945: Mildred Pierce

The story itself - about how a man came to be murdered - isn't all that interesting, but it is told at quite a pace, and the frames show this was directed by Michael Curtiz, the man responsible for Casablanca. Why this is often classified as a noir escapes me, though. (7)

1943: Vredens Dag (Day of Wrath)

In a 17th century Danish village, witch-burning is alive and well, and people are not shy to let non-witch-related influences guide their decisions about whom to denounce. Combine with the intra-family conflict in a Danish pastor's household, and you have a nice setup for this drama directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer using austere frames and deliberate (but not slow) pacing. (7)

1942: Listen to Britain

Mashup of sounds and moving pictures recorded in wartime Britain. Meant as uplifting in a patriotic way and considered a classic, but strikes me as pointless. (3.5)

1943: Meshes of the Afternoon

Mirrors, knives, waves - this experimental short has the whole psychoanalytic mumbo-jumbo. It's easy to see how someone could call this "meaningless experimental crap", but I quite like its Latin feel - the grainy b/w recording of the sunlight -, the music (not that I'd buy it on CD) and the crude surrealism. (7)

1948: Germania anno zero (Germany, Year Zero)

Rosselini's neorealist classic about a boy in bombed-to-pieces postwar Berlin features lay performances from lay actors and more technical ineptness than you should expect from a 1948 picture. Historically important it may be, particularly good it's not. (5.5) Better films in the same mould are Ladri di biciclette and Rosselini's own Roma, città aperta.

1944: The Pearl of Death

Holmes (Rathbone) and Watson are looking for a precious pearl in this one. Other people want it too. There's a conflict for you! (6.5)

1944: The Scarlet Claw

Does the recent series of murders call for a supernatural explanation? The village's people say yes, Sherlock Holmes says no. Who will turn out to be right? (6.5)

1942: This Gun for Hire

Noirish crime drama about a nightclub singer/magician (Veronica Lake!), a hitman and, in the baddie roles, a bunch of ruthless capitalists. Very crisp. (7)

1946: Gilda

This noir take on the meange a trois trope, which contains Rita Hayworth's famous one-glove strip, is a very solid piece of work. (7)

1942: Saboteur

In this Hitcock wartime film, you'll be surprised to learn, a man is wrongly accused of being a saboteur. It's a little patchy and the showdown on the Statue of Liberty has more in terms of symbolism than in terms of spectacle. Not a bad film, but North by Northwest it is not. (6)

1944: Laura

There's little to say about this conventional 1940's murder mystery, which is competently done but not very exciting. On the superficial front, Gene Tierney's hair is always impeccable and Dana Andrew's jackets are always too large. (6)

1945: And Then There Were None

Director René Clair decided to cut out any nonsense and instead concentrate on the story, which, if you have managed to forget all the details (as I had), is good enough to carry the movie. (7)

1944: Ivan Groznyy (Ivan the Terrible), Part I

Featuring great frames but suffering from overly expressive acting, Eisenstein's picture about the first Russian Czar looks like what it is: a talkie by a silent film director. There are also major issues with the screenplay: the lack of any narrative arc to speak of and, relatedly, a lack of characterization. There is a common view about film and narratives more generally that you need a likable character you'd like to identify with, but great films like A Clockwork Orange or Goodfellas do fine without one. What you really need is an interesting character you get to know. But we never get to know Ivan. Why does he choose to alienate powerful cliques left and right once he's made Czar? We never learn. Why does he start another war? It's a mystery.

All in all, although Eisenstein overdoes the shadowplay at times, worth a look for the visuals. (6)

1946: A Matter of Life and Death (a.k.a. Stairway to Heaven)

From a burning airplane, and thinking he is about to die, a British World War II pilot gets in touch with an England-based American radio operator and the two fall in love during a few minutes of conversation. As it turns out, he survives and, naturally, meets the woman right away, so they can fall into each other's arms. Meanwhile in heaven, they're missing a scheduled new arrival. Yes, this Powell-Pressburger classic has a totally bizarre setup, but once you've managed to switch off your higher reasoning faculties, it's possible to appreciate it as a nice-in-a-stupid-way-for-a-rainiy-Sunday-afternoon-way film, in particular for its rather decorative Technicolor (though the technology isn't used nearly as effectively as in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes). Unfortunately, it contains a twenty-minute segment about how great it is to be British towards the end. Might make a nice UK Technicolor Trash double feature with Peeping Tom. (5.5)

1942: To Be Or Not To Be

The famous comedy about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw is cleverly constructed, well-paced and generally charming, but after all, it's nothing but a comedy, so I really don't see the need to put it on par with the likes of A Clockwork Orange and Once upon a Time in the West. (7.5)

1948: The Red Shoes

As young ballet dancer Vicky makes a brilliant carreer for herself, she attracts the interest of both ballet company director Lermontov and composer Julian. Conflict ahead! - Really, the melodramatic story of this film isn't much to speak of; the movie thrives, however, on the cinematography by Jack Cardiff, using three-strip technicolor and making this one of the best-looking colour films in the history of cinema. (If you don't want to take my word for it, take Martin Scorcese's word for it.) And the dance scene in the middle belongs in the museum of great movie sequences. I'm saying that as someone who usually has no time whatsoever for ballet. (8)

1945: Roma, città aperta (Rome, Open City)

Its technical weaknesses (including a real howler at 60 minutes) do little to hurt the overall quality of Roberto Rosselini's classic neorealist film about resistance fighters in German-occupied 1944 Rome, the nitty-gritty visual style of which may easily detract from the fact that the narrative is wholly conventional. It's an engaging film overall (7), but both the somewhat rushed way the story is told and the artless use of the camera create a feeling of looking at the film, rather than being in it, and if pressed, I'd recommend Ladri di biciclette over Rosselini's war film.

It's a nice little pastime to think about which songs one would like to hear covered by which artists or which films one would like to see remade by which directors. I vote for a Paul Thomas Anderson remake of Open City.

Fun fact: The film was banned in West Germany until 1961 for counteracting the cordiality between the European peoples (to clumsily paraphrase the original wording).

1942: Cat People

A man marries a Romanian immigrant despite her telling him some mumbo-jumbo about "cat people". Then she starts acting funny - is it just a mental health problem or is she turning into one of those mysterious cat persons?

This setup makes the film into a strange hybrid of marriage drama and horror film, not really succeeding on either front. Yes, the film features some nice shadowplay and many examples of the trick of drawing attention to something because we don't see it (later perfected in Blair Witch Project), but it also features tedious dialogues and a poor narrative structure. (5.5)

1943: I Walked with a Zombie

The nurse Betsy Connell is hired to care for Jessica Holland, who lives with her husband on a Caribbean island where they do the voodoo. Jessica appears to be caught in a state of constant sleepwalking. Is it a mental illness - or is Jessica a zombie? - The film is only 68 minutes long, but especially in the first half it appears that's too much for the little story there is. Though it's considered a minor classic, I found it to be just the B-picture that it actually is, although the last three or so minutes are really strong. (5.5)

1946: The Killers

Although much was made of the film's being an adaptation of the Hemingway short story of the same name (e.g., the poster), the picture takes the story's plot only as a starting point for a look back on the killee's life, asking why he was shot. In other words, a Rosebud type of story, a format I'm not particularly fond of. Coherently connecting all the usual noir elements, the movie's great strength is the stylish, contrast-rich cinematography. (7)