1940 poll

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Thanks for the Japanese cinema recommendations/info!

— You might also try Hiroshi Shimizu's Nobuko, which I don't think you have listed yet (unless it's there under a different title). I haven't seen the film, but I know it's available with subs and has a good reputation. Don't think I'll get to it during my pre-poll viewing, but it sounds promising: "Renowned actress/singer Takamine Mieko stars as titular heroine Nobuko, a spirited young teacher working in a conservative school. Based on a novel by Shishi Bunroku, the film follows her experiences as she challenges the school with her liberal thinking and teaching methods."

Come to think of it there are others as well. I'm aware of Naruse's Travelling Actors, the short animation The Quack Infantry Troop, and China Nights, which is settler colonial propaganda and not available online with subs to my knowledge, though do let me know if you find them!

[rischka]

Unelma karjamajalla

this is in 'resources' and travelling actors is hilarious







green hell has every jungle movie cliche ever and i enjoyed it immensely what a cast! and i now know exactly what sally meant about more swooning vincent price and less boorish george sanders. also yes it's pretty racist.

Vincent Price said it best, "About five of the worst pictures ever made are all in this one picture."

-- IMDb

[arkheia]

Re: Evelyn

You're welcome and thanks so much for the additional recommendations! I forgot about Shimizu's Nobuko, I'll be sure to add it to my 'to-watch' list along with Naruse's Traveling Actors which I've been meaning to rewatch.

I wasn't aware of Quack Infantry Troop but I just checked it out - very interesting, the overt Disney influence in the character design finds a distinctive weight here which sets it apart from other similarly-influenced Japanese animation, stylistically mirroring the film's ultimately anti-war sentiment by seeking to reconcile American and Japanese animation styles. I wish I could find some more context around it since the ending certainly runs contrary to the propagandistic agenda, perhaps it slipped past or something.

I can't find subtitles for China Nights either although I might just watch it without them if I find the time. I also watched 'Vow in the Desert' (another 1940 film in the 'Continental Trilogy' of colonialist Japanese films) without subtitles and while it's difficult to parse the intricacies of the films' thorny context and subject, it's interesting to examine what formal strategies were used to carry the film's message.

I've been reading a few articles on the 'continental trilogy' which have somewhat helped contextualize them. The two which I found most informative were Empire, Language and Nationhood: Japanese Colonial Cinema in Korea and Manchuria
(precisely starting on page 366 which delves into 'Vow in the Desert' and offers an intriguing analysis which complicates its colonialist message and Race as technology and blurred national boundaries in Japanese imperialism: Nessa no chikai/Vow in the Desert (1940)


Re: Rischka

Thanks Now you've got me curious to check out Green Hell too!

[Angel]

La fille du puisatier (The Well-Digger's Daughter)

Battement de coeur (Beating Heart)
Christmas in July
Dance, Girl, Dance
Der Postmeister (The Stationmaster)
Dopo divorzieremo (Later We Will Divorce)
L'assedio dell'Alcazar (The Siege of the Alcazar)
Man och kvinna (A Handful of Rice)
Menaces… (Threats)
Nobuko
Our Town
Paradis perdu (Four Flights to Love)
Pride and Prejudice
Seven Sinners
Stranger on the Third Floor
The Thief of Bagdad
The Westerner
They Drive by Night
Three Faces West
Vigil in the Night

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S&S top 500)
Fantasia
His Girl Friday
Pinocchio
Rebecca
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
The Philadelphia Story
The Shop Around the Corner

To see before the deadline
Con el dedo en el gatillo
Dora Nelson
Ett brott
The Biscuit Eater

Wanted
Argila
Die Geierwally
Die mißbrauchten Liebesbriefe
South of Pago Pago

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I wasn't aware of Quack Infantry Troop but I just checked it out - very interesting, the overt Disney influence in the character design finds a distinctive weight here which sets it apart from other similarly-influenced Japanese animation, stylistically mirroring the film's ultimately anti-war sentiment by seeking to reconcile American and Japanese animation styles. I wish I could find some more context around it since the ending certainly runs contrary to the propagandistic agenda, perhaps it slipped past or something.

Very insightful analysis of Quack Infantry Troop, thanks for that!

Thanks too for the paper links and further info! At this point I plan to watch China Nights without subtitles myself too and see how much I can learn just on that basis. I'll want to read Michael Raine's paper ""You Can't Replace Gone with the Wind with Chūshingura ": China Nights and the Problem of Japanese Film Policy in Occupied Shanghai" alongside that viewing too, which sounds like a resource that might interest you too!

[arkheia]

Glad you liked it! I might go post it on letterboxd just so I can keep a record of having seen it, lol.

Indeed, that Michael Raine paper looks like an essential supplemental text for the film. I'll see if I can track down a copy!

Just watched Nobuko, which was very good. Perhaps not top-tier Shimizu for me on first viewing but I'll add it to my 1940 list since the sharp sense of composition and elegance in editing is, as always, impeccable.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I haven't seen any Shimizu yet; I just put a library hold on the Eclipse boxset Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu so I'll hopefully get to pour through some soon. (incidentally: Eclipse boxsets > mainline Criterion, any day of the week; I wish they released more of them).

[rischka]

nobuko -- i'll admit to being a shimizu fangirl but i love the way this is shot







up and down hallways and staircases, through windows, doors and even shrubberies. great use of the institutional setting. all female cast in a typical school melodrama i suppose but shimizu's humanism and love of children really suit the material. i'll go ahead and post my list as i don't know when/if i'll get to watch more

travelling actors -naruse
the letter -wyler
the long voyage home -ford
the mortal storm -borzage
nobuko -shimizu
menaces... -greville
gaslight -dickinson
the sea hawk -curtiz
they drive by night -walsh
foreign correspondent -hitch
night train to munich -reed
rebecca -hitch
his girl friday -hawks
shop around the corner -lubitsch
remember the night -leisen
the westerner -wyler
thief of baghdad -powell
dance girl dance -arzner
stranger on the third floor -ingster
all this and heaven too -litvak

this order as good as any i reckon

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

So ends a fine day of 1940 film viewing for me, highlighted by multiple gun-toting gals and one rain-drenched John Wayne.

• Granny Get Your Gun, a light Western mystery comedy vehicle for the ever-delightful May Robson, grandmother to us all, which I can recommend. It's only 56 minutes too!

• Olive Oyl trying her best in the Popeye cartoon Onion Pacific.

• and a movie I was surprised to find is less a Western than the above!, but which has considerable pleasures of its own: Republic's well-done Three Faces West. John Wayne is so sexy.

[arkheia]

They Drive By Night
Raoul Walsh

Don't want to spoil the interesting turns this film takes, in case anyone goes into it cold, so these thoughts may seem a little vague. A film less concerned with its characters than with their actions. Walsh ably handles the shifts in POV while finding subtle ways of contrasting the characters' ambitions and gambles; Raft, Lupino, and Wilson all take calculated risks behind other people's backs, Bogie and Lupino both become haunted by their actions, Sheridan and Lupino both take their destiny, as well as that of the men they desire, into their own hands. These actions, self-contained within two distinct sections of the film, speak to each other as if the film were drawing connections between the disparate perspectives, perhaps most lucidly expressed in a single frame where Raft and Sheridan talk on the phone while bisected by superimposed telephone wires. Since many of the characters are confined (in certain segments of the film as well as certain areas in the frame), principle themes of class division, manipulation/machination, and physical/mental exhaustion are not so much tracked alongside any character's development as much as they are sketched in parallel to one another. An experiment uniquely suited to Walsh's singular approach to cinematic subjectivity.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

A good analysis of They Drive By Night's criss-crossing narrative wires, and love that screen grab! Perhaps not a great film, but interesting. Personally, I saw it as something of a meta-film. Excerpt from my old review:

Darting between genres, this is three movies in one, each representative of the studio. The first, from an A.I. Bezzerides novel, is social conscience drama about independent truckers. The second, a remake of Bordertown, is hysteric, bourgeois melodrama about a desperate wife with murder on the mind. But replace 'Fabrini' with 'Warner' and there's a third movie in the margins, a metafilm about ambitious brothers trying to make their name by distributing mass-market product. Naturally, multiple movies are crammed into 93 minutes. Whether you're hauling apples or film canisters, it's speed that sells. "Do you believe in love at first sight?," Raft asks Sheridan. She says yes, the Warner Bros. way: "It saves a lot of time."

I'm due for a rewatch of this.

[kanafani]

Added the Tulio to my list. Quite good, lots of lyrical shots of fields and trees and rivers and lambs and such. Melodrama kicks into hyper-drive mode in the last forty minutes.

[arkheia]

But replace 'Fabrini' with 'Warner' and there's a third movie in the margins, a metafilm about ambitious brothers trying to make their name by distributing mass-market product. Naturally, multiple movies are crammed into 93 minutes. Whether you're hauling apples or film canisters, it's speed that sells. "Do you believe in love at first sight?," Raft asks Sheridan. She says yes, the Warner Bros. way: "It saves a lot of time."

That's a terrific observation. I especially like your reading of "It saves a lot of time", certainly a multitude of meaning behind such an ostensibly simple line of dialogue. I'd definitely need a rewatch myself and I only just watched it yesterday, lol. Walsh's films grow on me over time with repeated viewings though so I'm not in any hurry since I still have to get to that Tulio, Naruse, and hopefully a few more before this poll wraps up!

[sally]

holy crap, strange cargo was good!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

That's a terrific observation. I especially like your reading of "It saves a lot of time", certainly a multitude of meaning behind such an ostensibly simple line of dialogue. I'd definitely need a rewatch myself and I only just watched it yesterday, lol.

Thanks! It's one of my favourite movie lines ever. I definitely relate to that, rewatches, even or especially after having just seen a movie, can be such rich viewing experiences! Of course, the call of the unknown tends to be louder... Case in point: I've rewatched next to zilch for the poll thus far. Hoping to change that in the home stretch.

[rischka]

I've seen that film (they drive by night)4 or 5 times at least though not for years. It's one that used to play on tcm all the time and it certainly is an odd duck but I love it just the same. It's at least two movies. V nice writing evelyn. Strange cargo is one I really owe a rewatch. Didn't know who borzage was at all when I saw it

[sally]

i'm afraid that i'm not even going to get halfway on my list (life) but i'm back to the 1940 direction for now.



confucius was pretty, but what lencho said on letterboxd, henry fonda was the wrong man for chad hanna, and aside from strange cargo the film i've enjoyed most lately was gold rush maisie. god help me.

[Brotherdeacon]

Dead Birds, I'm with you all the way on Strange Cargo. Joan Crawford surprised me--though both the Cargo and the Strange belong (like a Bresson) to the director.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

My initial Letterboxd review was hyperbolic so now I'm trying to tone it down, but still I can heartily recommend Columbia's hour-long 1940 programmer Girls of the Road, a by no means perfect but never-less-than incisive and arguably feminist B film about homeless women in Depression-era America. It'll make my list.

[sally]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

someone add some more days to january!

[oscarwerner]

1)Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock)-my top hit
-------------------------------------
other19:
Fantasia
Pinocchio
The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin)
The Grapes of Wrath ( John Ford)
The Thief of Bagdad (Michael Powell, Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda)
The Philadelphia Story ( George Cukor)
Waterloo Bridge ( Mervyn LeRoy)
Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock)
Gaslight ( Thorold Dickinson)
Night Train to Munich ( Carol Reed)
Dark Command (Raoul Walsh)
The Westerner (William Wyler)
The Bank Dick (Edward Cline)
His Girl Friday ( Howard Hawks)
The Mortal Storm ( Frank Borzage)
The Mark of Zorro ( Rouben Mamoulian )
The Sea Hawk ( Michael Curtiz)
They Drive by Night ( Raoul Walsh)
Knute Rockne All American ( Lloyd Bacon, William K. Howard )

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

someone add some more days to january!

Indeed... "Had we but world enough, and time,"

[Lencho of the Apes]

To add to the pile of last-minute recommendations,

Angels Over Broadway - Ben Hecht is looking awfully proto-noir. Came out six weeks after Stranger On The Third Floor... I haven't watched it yet, but it's in queue. Appears to offer something of the overripe dialogue pushing toward self-parody that made Spectre Of The Rose such a blast.

3 ang.JPG (55.11 KiB) Viewed 5633 times

3 ang 2.JPG (55.15 KiB) Viewed 5633 times

[sally]

i know i don't really have the time now, but for future ref, anyone know if there's english subs for the well-digger's daughter?

(&and is this site being mega slow for anyone else?)

[liquidnature]

i know i don't really have the time now, but for future ref, anyone know if there's english subs for the well-digger's daughter?

(&and is this site being mega slow for anyone else?)

check the usual spot

[sally]

well, thanks to liquidnature, i've another film to watch before monday. it's fine, it's too cold to do anything this weekend anyway.

and just watched asquith's french without tears. just lovely film-making, despite the apparent misogyny. i LOL'd at some of the shots, and it even made me fancy ray milland, which is quite a feat. going on my list.

[ofrene]

Final

The Long Voyage Home
Rebecca
The Shop Around the Corner
His Girl Friday
Fantasia
The Philadelphia Story
Travelling Actors
From Mayerling to Sarajevo
The Letter
They Drive by Night

[Angel]

i know i don't really have the time now, but for future ref, anyone know if there's english subs for the well-digger's daughter?

https://we.tl/t-s31kIWje8e

In sync with the file at KG (24 fps, 2:25:13)

[sally]

thanks angel, but i've already wheedled the whole thing out of liquidnature but i guess if two people are being so helpful i really have to watch it before the poll ends.

which is good because tonight i watched the last remaining non-english film i had access to for 1940, aside from the pagnol.

tempête is not erich von stroheim's best performance this year (you'll never see him the same again) but anyway what the fuck is arletty wearing?

[Angel]

Lencho, If you started the next poll a bit earlier, we could take advantage of KG free leech.