1943 poll 2.0

[ofrene]

edit to 5 tiers

Day of Wrath
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Romance in a Minor Key

The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
Hangmen Also Die!
Meshes of the Afternoon

The Gang’s All Here
I Walked with a Zombie
The Song Lantern

Five Graves to Cairo
Heaven Can Wait
Le Corbeau

Ossessione
Shadow of a Doubt
The Leopard Man

[thoxans]

original or English

original is fine in cases where that's the title most commonly used (e.g. sanshiro sugata would be preferable to judo saga); otherwise, english please

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I wandered down Poverty Row, and I can't find my way out. Whoops. I have a Lubitsch, a Dreyer, and a Powell & Pressburger sitting unseen, while I marathon B westerns.

When I first started participating in these polls, I struggled to fill out a full 20. Happily, in my preferred era at least, I'm starting to know what I think of as the 'Gusottertrout' problem - too many options of roughly equal quality to choose from in the bottom ten. I'll have to think about what I want to prioritize, based on other ballots and the fancies of the moment. A happy dilemma to have!

[rischka]

the 'gusottertrout' problem!

[dominicano1970]

Air Force (Hawks)
Another Dawn (Bracho)
Day of Wrath (Dreyer)
Destination Tokyo (Daves)
Fires Were Started (Jennings)
Hangmen Also Die! (Lang)
I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Sturges)
So Proudly We Hail! (Sandrich)
This Land Is Mine (Renoir)

Le capitaine Fracasse (Gance)
Guadalcanal Diary (Seiler)
Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
Immortal Sergeant (Stahl)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell & Pressburger)
Northern Pursuit (Walsh)
Ossessione (Visconti)
Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner)
Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock)
The Song Lantern (Naruse)

[...]

Hey now! Well, yeah, I guess that's true enough when you end up watching scads of mass market releases, major or fringey, the differentiation gets to be along a narrower set of lines tied to things that may only stand out from the distance of time. I mean I dig binging on B movies for that reason, seeing them in bulk gives a feeling of context, but also keeps 'em all feeling a bit strange for that context being so removed. Good way to learn things that aren't capital A Arty, which isn't of course to everyone's preference, but I'm sure Lencho knows all about that too with his deep dives into different film histories. It isn't everyone who's gonna be interested in assessing whether or not there's any differentiation to be made in Cantinflas flicks, or Mongram westerns, or the filmography of Richard Wallace after all.

But, really, it ain't that different than anyone else's favoring of different genres, directors, national cinemas, or whatever else, from lighthouse films to hunting for underappreciated Balkan masterworks, other than the commercial aspect carries some different strategies for assessment and claims about the works that are sometimes a bit orthogonal to those for niche or arty films, and of course subject to all sorts of individual interpretation when any given concept may be applied and fit into our own "rankings" of merit.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Oh, I hope it's clear I meant it as the highest compliment! And more a tribute to how many movies you've seen than anything particular about the kind of movies, though yes, come to think of it, you're quite right that it's probably more the result of my having been binging B movies than anything else. I do hope I can hold myself to watching a few more real esteemed classics before the deadline, as that might help me separate the silver from the dross.

[...]

I don't think of it like that, and didn't take it as an insult at all, I was just having some fun with getting a, um, syndrome? named after me. I mean it's great to keep an eye open to a lot of different things to see how they might feed off of each other or just in how expand our thinking about them and other works, but I think mining a deep vein can be profitable in ways browsing a wider shallow field might not be, even when just trying to see "masterworks". (of course that way has its own benefits that deep digs don't have too). Looking at commercial works offers a more direct path of association between the works and some notion of the public awareness of the era and the form that can lead to a comparative appreciation and/or allow an aesthetic experience that isn't as possible otherwise for having delved into a point of conceptual history outside one's own. It can provide a kind of tension that is at the heart of the aesthetic experience, but one different than a more individualized "masterwork" might provide. Not necessarily better nor necessarily worse, just a different kind of appreciation that has its own rewards.

[pabs]

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell, Pressburger)
Day of Wrath (Dreyer)
Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
Five Graves to Cairo (Wilder)
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman)
I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur)
Le corbeau (Clouzot)
Ossessione (Visconti)


Watched for this poll:


The Gang's All Here


Hope to see:

[...]

I Walked with a Zombie
Day of Wrath
The Leopard Man
Lumière d’Été
Madame Curie

Heaven Can Wait
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Miracle of Morgan's Creek
Jane Eyre
The Man in Grey

Someone to Remember
Edge of Darkness
Cabin in the Sky
Presenting Lily Mars
Sanshiro Sugata

Monsoon/Isle of Forgotten Sins
Hi Diddle Diddle
We Dive at Dawn
Tonight We Raid Calais
Hello Frisco Hello

[Lencho of the Apes]

It's too late for recommendations, but I want to mention Danger: Women At Work for its lovely gynocentric playfulness, Patsy Kelly as a truckin' gal who scoots around on the interstate picking up all the female hitchhikers. Edgar Ulmer all up in the screenplay and shit.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

My ballot below. When The Seventh Victim comes in 3rd, heavens. Four tiers of five (4.5/3.5/2.5/1.5).

Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges)
The Gang’s All Here (Busby Berkeley)

My Learned Friend (Basil Dearden and Will Hay)
Dumb-Hounded (Tex Avery)
Border Patrol (Lesley Selander)
Port of Flowers (Keisuke Kinoshita)
Whispering Footsteps (Howard Bretherton)

Mystery Broadcast (George Sherman)
The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur)
Ballet of Lines and Dots (Herbert Seggelke)
Le capitaine Fracasse (Abel Gance)
The Ape Man (William Beaudine)

Silver Spurs (Joseph Kane)
The Meanest Man in the World (Sidney Lanfield)
Our Dreams (Vittorio Cottafavi)
Jive Junction (Edgar. G. Ulmer)
Dispossessed Blues (William Forest Crouch)

[sally]

so this new scoring system means we can't have just one favourite film then? right i guess mine are all unranked (hard enough choosing one film let alone sorting the rest into some kind of order)

coastal village (stanley irving)
miss hothead (valentin vaala)
the voice of the heart (dimitris ioannopoulos)
our dreams (vittorio cottafavi)
ordet (gustaf molander)
the phantom baron (serge de poligny)
a good lad (boris barnet)
first comes courage (dorothy arzner)
the life of matsu the untamed (hiroshi inagaki)
doña bárbara (fernando de fuentes)
mr lucky (h c potter)
lumière d'été (jean grémillon)
carnival of sinners (maurice tourneur)
angels of sin (robert bresson)
i walked with a zombie (jacques tourneur)
the leopard man (jacques tourneur)
day of wrath (dreyer)
ossessione (luchino visconti)
the song of bernadette (henry king)

[grabmymask]

five tiers of two:

I Walked With A Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur)

The Ghost Ship (Mark Robson)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)

Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
Angels of Sin (Robert Bresson)

Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli)

Carnival of Sinners (Maurice Tourneur)
The Spider Woman (Roy William Neill)

[Silga]

Final list:

Four tiers of four

I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)

The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William A. Wellman)
Dumb-Hounded (Tex Avery)
Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)

The Spider Woman (Roy William Neill)
Baby Puss (Joseph Barbera, William Hanna)
The Desperadoes (Charles Vidor)
Background to Danger (Raoul Walsh)

China (John Farrow)
Hit the Ice (Charles Lamont)
The Ghost Ship (Mark Robson)
What's Buzzin' Buzzard? (Tex Avery)

[lineuphere]

Five Tiers of 4

Ossessione (Luchino Visconti)
Day of Wrath (Dreyer)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell & Pressburger)
Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot)

Hangmen Also Die (Lang)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
Cabin in the Sky (Vincente Minnelli)
Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner)

Lost Angel (Roy Rowland)
The More the Merrier (George Stevens)
Angels of the Streets (Robert Bresson)
Stormy Weather (Stone)

The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
Port of Flowers (Keisuke Kinoshita)

Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
Air Force (Hawks)
The Man in Grey (Arliss)
O Costa do Castelo (Arthur Duarte)

[karl]

Day of Wrath
Sanshiro Sugata
Les Anges du péché
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Ossessione
Shadow of a Doubt
Heaven Can Wait
The Song Lantern (Naruse)

I Walked with a Zombie
Le Corbeau
Ordet (Molander)
This Land Is Mine

His Butler's Sister
Campo de' fiori (Bonnard)
Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner)
Nasreddin in Bukhara (Protazanov)

Initiation of the Two-Sword Style (Itō)
The Leopard Man
The Seventh Victim
A Good Lad

[greennui]

Kinda annoyed that I couldn't get the Day of Wrath rewatch over the line.

Ossessione (Luchino Visconti)
Romance in a Minor Key (Helmut Käutner)
The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)

Voyage Without Hope (Christian-Jaque)
Ordet (Gustaf Molander)
Melody of a Great City (Wolfgang Liebeneiner)
The Phantom Baron (Serge de Poligny)

The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur)
The More the Merrier (George Stevens)
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Preston Sturges)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Emeric Pressburger/Michael Powell)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Ghost Ship (Mark Robson)
Carnival of Sinners (Maurice Tourneur)

[mesnalty]

Final list (4 tiers of 3):

Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren)
Day of Wrath (Dreyer)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell and Pressburger)

I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur)
Lumière d’Été (Grémillon)
Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock)

Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
The Silent Village (Jennings)
Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner)

The Seventh Victim (Robson)
It Happened at the Inn (Becker)
The Gang's All Here (Berkeley)

[oscarwerner]

My final list
4 tiers of 5 (4.5-3.5-2.5-1.5 pts)
Ossessione (Luchino Visconti)
Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Man in Grey (Leslie Arliss)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Love eternal (Jean Delannoy)
Angels of the Streets (Robert Bresson)
The More the Merrier (George Stevens)
The Song of Bernadette (Henry King)

The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges)
Heaven Can Wait (Ernst Lubitsch)
Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
This Land Is Mine (Jean Renoir)

Jane Eyre (Robert Stevenson)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
Carnival of Sinners (Maurice Tourneur)
Voyage Without Hope (Christian-Jaque)
Sahara (Zoltan Korda)

[thoxans]

just a friendly reminder today is the official deadline for this month's year poll; but for anyone who'd like to sneak in another watch, i'll have zero time to tabulate until sunday

next month's year poll will still officially open up tomorrow

[Lonnie]

Two tiers of six:

Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Romance in a Minor Key (Käutner)
Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Heaven Can Wait (Lubitsch)
Strich-Punkt-Ballett (Herbert Seggelke)

The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell & Pressburger)
Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren)
The Ox-Bow Incident (William A. Wellman)
Hangmen Also Die (Lang)
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)

[Lencho of the Apes]

OK, I'm basically done. 116 tiers, between 2.7 and 9 titles per tier.

Angels of the Streets Les anges Du Peche - Bresson
Heaven Can Wait - Lubitsch
Life and Death Of Colonel Blimp - Powell/Pressburger
Meshes Of The Afterrnoon - Deren
Shadow Of A Doubt - Hitchcock

Day Of Wrath - Dreyer
Dona Barbara - Fernando de Fuentes
Flesh And Fantasy - Duvivier
Flor Silvestre - Emilio Fernandez
Ossessione - Visconti

Distinto Amanecer - Julio Bracho
The Demi-Paradise - Anthony Asquith
I Walked With A Zombie - Tourneur
Jive Junction - Edgar Ulmer
No Time For Love - Mitchell Leisen

The Adventures of Tartu -
Air Force - Hawks
Prithvi Vallabh - Sohrab Modi
Que Hombre Tan Simpatico - Fernando Soler
The Seventh Victim - Tourneur

[ororama]

1. Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Millions Like Us (Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder)
3. The Song of Bernadette (Henry King)
4. Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
5. Ossessione (Luchino Visconti)
6. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges)
7. I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur)
8. For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood)
9. Hangmen Also Die! (Fritz Lang)
10. Guadalcanal Diary (Lewis Seiler)
11. You, John Jones! (Mervyn LeRoy)
12. The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
13. Day of Wrath (Carl Theodor Dreyer)
14. The More the Merrier (George Stevens)
15. The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur)
16. Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
17. Background to Danger (Raoul Walsh)
18. Lady of Burlesque (William A. Wellman)
19. Port of Flowers (Keisuke Kinoshita)
20. Son of Dracula (Robert Siodmak)

[thoxans]

results : film title | point total (lmk if anything looks amiss)

Day of Wrath | 77.5
I Walked with a Zombie | 60.5
Shadow of a Doubt | 54
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | 53
Ossessione | 41
the seventh victim | 39
Romance in a Minor Key | 38.5
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek | 37.5
Heaven Can Wait | 37
Meshes of the Afternoon | 34
Le corbeau | 33.5
Five Graves to Cairo | 28.5
Les Anges du péché | 26.5
The Leopard Man | 26
Hangmen Also Die (Lang) | 24.5
lumiere d'ete | 21.5
The Ox-Bow Incident (Wellman) | 20.5
The More the Merrier (1943, George Stevens) | 17.5
dona barbara | 16.5
the gang's all here | 16.5
carnival of sinners | 14
This Land Is Mine | 14
the song of bernadette (henry king) | 12.5
Cabin in the Sky | 11.5
stormy weather | 11.5
Air Force | 11
Ballet of Lines and Dots (Herbert Seggelke) | 10.5
Jane Eyre | 10.5
The Man in Grey | 10.5
Another Dawn (Bracho) | 9.5
L'éternel retour (1943, Jean Delannoy) | 9.5
ordet (gustaf molander) | 9.5
Sanshiro Sugata | 9
The Song Lantern | 9
Douce | 8.5
Port of Flowers (Keisuke Kinoshita) | 8.5
Le capitaine Fracasse (Abel Gance) | 7.5
Melody of a Great City (Wolfgang Liebeneiner) | 7.5
A Good Lad | 7
Destination Tokyo | 7
Dumb-Hounded (Tex Avery) | 7
Goupi mains rouges | 7
His Butler's Sister | 7
Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery, 1943) | 7
So Proudly We Hail! | 7
The Ghost Ship (Mark Robson) | 7
Voyage Without Hope | 7
Hi Diddle Diddle | 6.5
the phantom baron (serge de poligny) | 6.5
Fires Were Started (Humphrey Jennings) | 6
mr lucky (h c potter) | 6
Background to Danger (Raoul Walsh) | 5.5
Edge of Darkness | 5.5
Guadalcanal Diary (Lewis Seiler) | 5
Baby Puss (Joseph Barbera, William Hanna) | 4.5
isle of forgotten sins | 4.5
Madame Curie | 4.5
Our Dreams (Vittorio Cottafavi) | 4.5
Das Bad auf der Tenne (Volker von Collande, Germany) | 4
Die beiden Schwestern / The Two Sisters (Erich Waschneck, Germany) | 4
Eloisa is Underneath an Almond Tree (Rafael Gil) | 4
Geography of the Body (Willard Maas) | 4
Immensee (Veit Harlan, Germany) | 4
Jive Junction - Edgar Ulmer | 4
Phantom of the Opera (Arthur Lubin, USA) | 4
Sophienlund (Heinz Rühmann, Germany) | 4
The Life Cycle of the Pin Mould (Mary Field) | 4
Who Killed Who? (Tex Avery) | 4
Border Patrol (Lesley Selander) | 3.5
Flesh And Fantasy - Duvivier | 3.5
Flor Silvestre - Emilio Fernandez | 3.5
Love eternal (Jean Delannoy) | 3.5
My Learned Friend (Basil Dearden and Will Hay) | 3.5
The Spider Woman (Roy William Neill) | 3.5
Whispering Footsteps (Howard Bretherton) | 3.5
capitan fracasse | 3
coastal village (stanley irving) | 3
first comes courage (dorothy arzner) | 3
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Sam Wood) | 3
in nostri sogni <--- | 3
Journey into Fear (Norman Foster) | 3
Lady of Burlesque (William A. Wellman) | 3
Lost Angel (Roy Rowland) | 3
Millions Like Us (Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder) | 3
miss hothead (valentin vaala) | 3
Münchhausen (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) | 3
Safo, historia de una pasión (Safo: A Passion Story) | 3
Son of Dracula (Robert Siodmak) | 3
the bloodstain <--- | 3
the life of matsu the untamed (hiroshi inagaki) | 3
the voice of the heart (dimitris ioannopoulos) | 3
Una carta de amor (A Letter of Love) | 3
You, John Jones! (Mervyn LeRoy) | 3
Dangerous Blondes (Leigh Jason, 1943) | 2.5
Mystery Broadcast (George Sherman) | 2.5
No Time For Love - Mitchell Leisen | 2.5
Presenting Lily Mars | 2.5
Someone to Remember | 2.5
The Ape Man (William Beaudine) | 2.5
The Demi-Paradise - Anthony Asquith | 2.5
The Desperadoes (Charles Vidor) | 2.5
The Silent Village (Jennings) | 2.5
Wilder urlaub / The Deserter (1943, Franz Schnyder) | 2.5
A Stranger in Town (Roy Rowland) | 2
Above Suspicion (Richard Thorpe, USA) | 2
Campo de' fiori (Bonnard) | 2
Color Sequence (Dwinell Grant) | 2
Film Exercise 1 (John Whitney Sr.) | 2
Geliebter Schatz (Paul Martin, Germany) | 2
Hemp for Victory (Raymond Evans) | 2
Immortal Sergeant (Stahl) | 2
Lache Bajazzo (Leopold Hainisch, Germany) | 2
London Blackout Murders (George Sherman) | 2
Looking Through Glass (Cecil Musk) | 2
Mission to Moscow (Michael Curtiz) | 2
Nasreddin in Bukhara (Protazanov) | 2
Northern Pursuit (Walsh) | 2
Point Rationing of Foods (Chuck Jones) | 2
Ration Bored (Emery Hawkins, Milt Schaffer) | 2
The Hard Way | 2
They Stooge to Conga (Del Lord) | 2
Wenn der junge Wein blüht (Fritz Kirchhoff, Germany) | 2
China (John Farrow) | 1.5
Dispossessed Blues (William Forest Crouch) | 1.5
Hello Frisco Hello | 1.5
Hit the Ice (Charles Lamont) | 1.5
It Happened at the Inn (Becker) | 1.5
Passing Parade No. 44: Storm (Paul Burnford, 1943) | 1.5
Prithvi Vallabh - Sohrab Modi | 1.5
Que Hombre Tan Simpatico - Fernando Soler | 1.5
Sahara (Zoltan Korda) | 1.5
Silver Spurs (Joseph Kane) | 1.5
The Adventures of Tartu - | 1.5
The Meanest Man in the World (Sidney Lanfield) | 1.5
Tonight We Raid Calais | 1.5
We Dive at Dawn | 1.5
What's Buzzin' Buzzard? (Tex Avery) | 1.5
Initiation of the Two-Sword Style (Itō) | 1
O Costa do Castelo (Arthur Duarte) | 1
The Amazing Mrs Holliday (Jean Renoir/Bruce Manning) | 1
The Nazis Strike (Anatole Litvak/Frank Capra) | 1

[Lencho of the Apes]

Congrats! And your formatting ideas look like they give a more nuanced/interesting approach to the material.

But this:
L'éternel retour (1943, Jean Delannoy) | 7.5
The Eternal Return | 2

[thoxans]

But

list order updated! thx

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Looks splendid!

Another title mix-up: the English title for Strich-Punkt-Ballett is Ballet of Lines and Dots, so it's on there twice too - should be 10 points in total for BoLaD.

[thoxans]

mix-up

noted, fixed, and updated! thx much

[Curtis, baby]

I feel like I overvalue Gang's All Here compared to most others, but cats just haven't seen Stormy Weather. Suprised by how Ox-Bow performed. I think I'm the only one who doesn't like those Val Lewton movies (seen 9 of 11, rated none higher than 3/5)