1947 Poll 2.0

[Lencho of the Apes]

Time for a hate-watch... Thanks, Mario n Sally.

[sally]

Time for a hate-watch... Thanks, Mario n Sally.

ha! it had sexless singing and dancing in it, which maybe you're more okay with than my zero tolerance though

[rischka]

figgy the obvious mvp of la perla. that stunt baby went through hell tho

[niminy-piminy]

With his business in the doldrums, travel agent Grandpa Piuff comes up with a cute gimmick.
Why not book customers on a "surprise" voyage, with no set itinerary or destination?
Vacationers are delighted with the notion of a journey to goodness-knows-where.
Their revelry is threatened by the wicked machinations of rival travel agent Grosbois and larcenous political insurrectionist Mikhail.

MYSTERY TOUR (Pierre Prévert, 1947)

[rischka]

forever amber is so beautifully lit, almost like it's underwater



linda has the best 40s hair



very enjoyable saturday afternoon rewatch ♥♥



king charles and his king charles ♥

so i didn't realize the fugitive is a mexican production! and based on graham greene's the power & the glory - a scandalous book i read in mexico should be fun

[sally]

the house under the sea - henri calef

wanted to see this ever since maqroll mentions it in one of the mutis novellas but it's a very bizarre film....at least 50% of it was filmed from the floor, the dialogue is incomprehensible, the characters and their actions are almost abstract: falling asleep instantly, scorning cheating wives in one breath, cheating herself the next without the slightest sign of inner conflict...the unexplained mechanical contraptions....i think they focused on the allegorical meanings so much that the material referent lost its grasp.....i don't know what to make of it other than i'll forget it pretty fast....was it something to do with the war? you got to see viviane romance's knickers at one point.

[rischka]

i did figgy a terrible disservice with those screenshots from my old crap copy of la perla! weird nostalgia







with ward bond as 'el gringo'









that's better isn't it. the film doesn't quite work, the book is better but both are christian propaganda imho

in the book the priest is an alcoholic with an illegitimate child. The pope can't have been pleased. Still the priest is the (reluctant anti) hero of the story and much more interesting than fonda's bland character (a problem i often have with hank) 2 lesser films from these directors with figueroa at the top of his game

[niminy-piminy]

still reading the past CoMo book (viz another thread).
1947 was a breakthrough year for Greek cinema...

Marina (1947) by Alekos Sakellarios is also worth mentioning for its fusion of music and action in a strange musical melodrama with loose script
and minimal action. It also introduced the new form of female star, in the mould of Katharine Hepburn, with the singer Stella Greca (1925–?), who
sang more than acted, thus linking contemporary production to prewar film traditions and practices in an attempt to produce the first Greek film musical. This was also the first Greek movie in which a long and passionate kiss was recorded to the extreme consternation of moralists—from both left and right.

[niminy-piminy]

MASTERPIECE!



THE CZECH YEAR (Jiří Trnka, 1947)

first of all, all the feathers of Czech fauna are on display...








but all is not just a parade of colorful feathers (after an idyllic intro, the wicked nature of the Czech nation is shown)...








but a good Lord forgives the sinners...





the whole episodic narrative is very very meta (a puppet playing puppet theater)...


a feel-good movie...

[rischka]

that looks ADORABLE thank you jiri!

[niminy-piminy]

you are welcome!

[billyhu85]

I've seen shockingly few films from this year, but here goes:

The Lady from Shanghai - Welles
Black Narcissus - Powell/Pressburger
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir - Mankiewicz

Monsieur Verdoux - Chaplin
Record of a Tenement Gentleman - Ozu
Odd Man Out - Reed

[niminy-piminy]

DON QUIXOTE (Rafael Gil, 1947)

an aging man who likes changing nicknames...


and who is deliriously in love with a lady who likes garlic...


commits many embarrassing deeds.


occasionally, he tries to be serious...


to no avail.

[rischka]

that looks better than my current watch: green dolphin street



prestige drama of the heroic colonizers of new zealand. lots of good character actors so i'll probably finish it anyway



but it won't be appearing in my list. mild racism + extremely dumb romance plot



lana turner telling frontiersman van heflin to 'please stop the natives' horrible chanting.' to his credit he refuses



pretty good movie earthquake in this. apparently mud volcanoes are a thing

[Zynab]

green dolphin street

lolll i'm going to watch this soon too (maybe tonight). heroic colonzier films are fascinating to me from a historical standpoint but they can def be hard to stomach

watched brian desmond hurst's "the mark of cain" today. absolutely do not recommend. stuffy, tepid, faux-gothic british mess. i really don't get what the positive reviews on letterboxd see in this. almost always can get what others saw in a film but not this one. peak red-faced shouting british men type drama. worst movie from 1947 i've seen so far this month!

[niminy-piminy]

WIDDICOMBE FAIRE (unknown, 1947)

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare,
All along, down along, out along, lee,
For I want for to go to Widecombe Fair,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

"And when shall I see again my grey mare?"
All along, down along, out along, lee,
"By Friday soon, or Saturday noon,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

So they harnessed and bridled the old grey mare
All along, down along, out along, lee,
And off they drove to Widecombe fair,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

Then Friday came, and Saturday noon,
All along, down along, out along, lee,
But Tom Pearces old mare hath not trotted home,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

So Tom Pearce he got up to the top o' the hill
All along, down along, out along, lee,
And he seed his old mare
down a-making her will,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

So Tom Pearce's old mare, her took sick and died,
All along, down along, out along, lee,
And Tom he sat down on a stone, and he cried
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

But this isn't the end o' this shocking affair,
All along, down along, out along, lee,
Nor, though they be dead, of the horrid career
Of Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

When the wind whistles cold on the moor of the night
All along, down along, out along, lee,
Tom Pearce's old mare doth appear gashly white,
With Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all."

And all the long night he heard skirling and groans,
All along, down along, out along, lee,
From Tom Pearce's old mare in her rattling bones,
With Bill Brewer, Jan
Stewer, Peter Gurney,
Peter Davy, Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawke,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all,
Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

https://vimeo.com/39690726

https://youtu.be/DRWo91Jrem8

[sally]

the strike - karel steklý

this is the many-times-seen striking miners commie propaganda story, but OH! the cinematography.....straight out of a gorgeous silent movie....by the end i was totally oblivious to the plot lost in the inky delights of the rich black & white

[sally]

stuffy, tepid...........british mess.

but that's literally every british melodrama apart from hitch and the archers

[niminy-piminy]

besides the above-mentioned ↑↑↑ schematic plot and gorgeous cinematography, below ↓↓↓ a few additional side notes...

it's an adaptation of a novel by Marie Majerová

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Majerov%C3%A1

She was a member of the Czechoslovak Communist Party from its inception and was also involved in the feminist movement.

Her novel Siréna was the basis for the screenplay for the 1947 film of the same name with English title The Strike, directed by Karel Steklý. The 1947 film received a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

a tale of the elderly, bursting with revolutionary spirit...


and of the escapist youth.


the main villain is Gottfried Bacher.


he owned mines and, together with Karl Wittgenstein (father of philosophizing dandy Ludwig), he co-founded in Kladno (in 1899) the steel work factory called Poldi (a reference to Karl's wife and Ludwig's mom Leopoldine).
→ https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Bacher
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Wittgenstein
→ https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu%C5%A5_Poldi

film is based on a true story.
the most spectacular scene (of looting) is taking place in the Bacher's villa.

https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vila_Bachrovna_(Kladno)

It is one of the oldest buildings in Kladno, completed in 1854, after the establishment of the first Kladno mines, in the style of English Neo-Romanticism. In 1860, Prague Steel Company bought the house and used it for the accommodation of the managing directors. In 1887, it was expanded with a tower and a second floor. Central director Karl Wittgenstein's apartments were on the ground floor and Bacher's flat was on the first floor.

After the Feast of Corpus Christi on June 20, 1889, there was a skirmish between the people and gendarmes at the town hall, in a tense time when the events were also preceded by the first big miners' strike on May 25. The windows of the town hall and other houses were broken and shops were looted. After that, around lunchtime, the agitated crowd surrounded Bacher's villa, and subsequently, the gendarmes' warning shots hit three children in the opposite field who succumbed to their injuries. The villa was looted and burned, then the mayor's house on the square was ransacked. Troops also arrived in the city by train from Prague in the evening (11th regiment: two battalions of infantry and one battalion of hunters). A hundred people were arrested in the square. These events are commemorated by the novel Siréna by Maria Majerová and the film adaptation by Karel Steklý.

no wonder dandy Ludwig didn't want to touch the bloody money of his father!
unfortunately, i can't prove that the looting scenes from this film inspired similar scenes in Viridiana by Luis Bunuel (tho i am ready to devote years of research to prove this daring hypothesis).

[niminy-piminy]

https://letterboxd.com/film/the-lion-dream/

Teddy Weisengrund, a member of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society, recreates one of his dreams on film and analyzes it according to Freud’s theories.

https://vimeo.com/160815206

[brian d]

is that teddy wiesengrund theodor w(iesengrund) adorno? seems a bit coincidental, yet still...

[sally]

wikipedia says he moved from new york to california in 1941 but other than that i am going to be convinced that this is adorno, nice catch brian!

[sally]

song of the cornfields - istván szőts

your typical 'weak-willed woman goes crazy' misogyny aside, this is utterly gorgeous, and the prosaic acceptance and non-moralizing depiction of non-marital pregnancy is something you wouldn't see in hollywood for almost 1000 years....plus the very dry humour of the old couple was lovely...











#psycho-arborography

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

is that teddy wiesengrund theodor w(iesengrund) adorno? seems a bit coincidental, yet still...

!!!!! I think you might be right !!!!!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Oh wait.... It's all a fake-real art project by Zoe Beloff. The movie isn't really from 1947.

https://hyperallergic.com/314819/a-fict ... ey-island/

Apparently, this is a common response to Beloff’s richly imagined archive of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society. The project began seven years ago, when the director of the Coney Island Museum invited Beloff to stage an exhibition celebrating the centennial of Freud’s visit to the Dreamland Amusement Park in 1909. “Rather than simply illustrate Freud’s visit, I wanted to explore the unconscious of the people who lived, worked, and played in Coney Island [at the time],” Beloff told Hyperallergic. “The Society was a framework for this. The fact that I invented it was completely in tune with the setting. Everything in the Amusement Park is a crazy fiction — that is its charm.”

When the exhibition opened, many visitors were convinced the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society had really existed. Called Dreamland: The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle, 1926–1972, the show consisted of an archive of films, drawings, and photos supposedly made by members of this mysterious, previously unknown Freudian sect. “Sometimes people took my exhibition very literally and even remembered pictures I had created that they claimed they had seen in their childhood,” Beloff said. “Others realized it was a fiction. Sometimes arguments broke out.”

[sally]

[brian d]

haha i like that story even better

[niminy-piminy]

1947 looking ahead through plexiglas...

https://letterboxd.com/film/looking-ahe ... plexiglas/

Plastics industry makes the transition from military applications to peacetime futuristic designs.

https://youtu.be/HNaFlYP10Z0

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

The Pretender (Billy Wilder's brother, 1947)

Effective slow-burn chiller in which Albert Dekker embezzles Catherine Craig, hires Alan Carney to murder her fiancé, becomes her fiancé (whoops!), and slowly goes mad. Well-worth seeing thanks to the B noir photography by John Alton.

[sally]

Amateur Psychoanalytic Society

beware! - martin frič, paľo bielik

HEY how shall we convey the fact that our movie is about rebirth? how about literal birth canals???

....from the open, empty skies of native lands....





and the safe embrace of mother's beaver, sorry, bearskin...




to....horror.....pure icky horror....







...to transatlantic farce.....





....and castration?......




...and the eye of god watching over it all.....