MC Yearly Consensus - 1944

[Spinal]

Submit your five favorite films from this year and in a week I will give you a top ten. IMDb dates will be used.

The point system is as follows

1st Place-5 points
2nd Place-4 points
3rd Place-3.5 points
4th Place-3 points
5th Place-2.5 points

There will be no restrictions on short films. A minimum of three films must be listed. You may edit your post freely up until the time that the voting is closed, which will be in about a week. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

You may begin now.

IMDB Power Search (http://www.imdb.com/list)

[Spinal]

1. Lifeboat
2. Henry V
3. Ivan the Terrible, Part One
4. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
5. Arsenic and Old Lace

[soitgoes...]

1. To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks)
2. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder)
3. The Children Are Watching Us (Vittorio De Sica)
4. At Land (Maya Deren)
5. The Miracle of Morgan Creek (Preston Sturges)
---------------------------------------------------------
6. A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
7. None Shall Escape (André De Toth)

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Double Indemnity
2. Laura
3. Gaslight
4. Murder My Sweet
5. The Children Are Watching Us

[ledfloyd]

1. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
2. Arsenic and Old Lace
3. To Have and Have Not
4. Murder, My Sweet
5. Double Indeminity

i'm missing some pretty big ones from this year. Laura, Gaslight, Meet Me in St. Louis among others.

[Yxklyx]

1. A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
2. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges)
3. Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk)
4. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder)
5. Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock)

6. Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra)
7. On Approval (Clive Brook)
8. Ivan the Terrible: Part I (Sergei M. Eisenstein)
9. The Private Life of a Cat (Alexander Hammid)
10. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli)

[Raiders]

1. None Shall Escape (De Toth)
2. Lifeboat (Hitchcock)
3. At Land (Deren)
3. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Sturges)
5. Laura (Preminger)


------------------------------------

6. Ministry of Fear (Lang)
7. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
8. To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
9. The Curse of the Cat People (Wise)
10. Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli)


I really wish more people had seen De Toth's film. Amazing film.

[Weeping_Guitar]

1. Double Indemnity
2. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek
3. To Have and Have Not
4. Arsenic and Old Lace
5. Lifeboat

[Russ]

1. Lifeboat
2. Double Indemnity
3. At Land
4. Arsenic and Old Lace

[Pop Trash]

1. At Land
2. Meet Me in St. Louis
3. Gaslight
4. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

[monolith94]

1. Lifeboat
2. A Canterbury Tale
3. At Land
4. Double Indemnity
5. Ivan the Terrible, Part One

[Philosophe_rouge]

1. Laura
2. Meet Me in St. Louis
3. A Canterbury Tale
4. To Have and Have Not
5. Gaslight

[origami_mustache]

1. The Miracle of Morgan Creek
2. The Children Are Watching Us
3. Hail The Conquering Hero
4. Double Indemnity
5. To Have and Have Not

[Ezee E]

Only seen two movies in this one.

[Boner M]

Hmm, guess I need to see Morgan's Creek again. I thought it was decent, but I prefer the other Sturges film from this year that's getting no love so far...

1. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
2. At Land (Deren)
3. Curse of the Cat People (Wise)
4. To Have and Have Not (Hawks)
5. Hail the Conquering Hero (Sturges)

[Grouchy]

1. Double Indemnity
2. Laura
3. Lifeboat

The other movie is To Have and Have Not, which kind of disappointed me. Definitively not bad, though, but since I can vote 3 movies...

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. Lifeboat
2. Double Indemnity
3. Laura
4. To Have and Have Not
5. Jane Eyre

[koji]

1. Double Indemnity (Wilder)
2. Laura (Preminger)
3. Ivan the Terrible. Pt I (Eisenstein)
4. The Woman in the Window (Lang)
5. The Children Are Watching Us (De Sica)
****************************** ***
6. Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra)
7. Hail the Conquering Hero (Struges)
8. Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (Struges)
9. Gaslight (John M. Stahl)
10. To Have and Have Not (Hawks)

[MacGuffin]

6. ****************************** ***


Yeah, that one's kickass, you should see *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* I almost like it more.

[koji]

Yeah, that one's kickass, you should see *.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* I almost like it more.I forgot to delete the 6, of course. That should be quite obvious.

[Derek]

What a ridiculously top heavy year. I'd give **** to the top 8 films, yet after the HM's, there's a bunch of mediocrity. Also, if Arsenic & Old Lace gets close to placing, I'd like to use one of my votes for negative points against it.

1. Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder)
2. Ivan the Terrible, Part I (Sergei Eisenstein)
3. At Land (Maya Deren)
4. None Shall Escape (Andre DeToth)
5. Curse of the Cat People (Robert Wise)
****************************** ***
6. Miracle at Morgan's Creek (Preston Sturges)
7. Lifeboat (Alfred Hitchcock)
8. Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli)
9. Hail the Conquering Hero (Preston Sturges)
10. Laura (Otto Preminger)

HM: [SPOILER WARNING!]Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk), To Have and Have Not (Howard Hawks)

[MacGuffin]

I forgot to delete the 6, of course. That should be quite obvious.

Lacking sense of humor alert!

[koji]

Lacking sense of humor alert!Ok. Lacking a good joke-making-ability alert!

[Yxklyx]

...
8. Hail the Conquering Here (Struges)...

Is this a sequel to Woe the Surrendering There?

[Grouchy]

I forgot to delete the 6, of course. That should be quite obvious.
That's not obvious at all to me.

In fact, I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Derek]

Is this a sequel to Woe the Surrendering There?

Also directed by the great Perston Struges.

*awaits koji's exploding head*

[dreamdead]

1. Double Indemnity
2. Laura
3. Meet Me in St. Louis

[Spinal]

Last call.

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/20070426040239-canterbury-tale.jpg

A Canterbury Tale

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Country: UK

A 'Land Girl', an American GI, and a British soldier find themselves together in a small Kent town on the road to Canterbury. The town is being plagued by a mysterious "glue-man", who pours glue on the hair of girls dating soldiers after dark. The three attempt to track him down.

Because Canterbury Cathedral's windows had been taken out because of the air raids, the interior of the cathedral was rebuilt in Denham Studio. By 2004, the shop window overlooking the street from which John Sweet watches the parade in the film's final scene belonged to a Starbuck's.

"Is this the strangest film produced by (and about) an Allied nation during WWII? ... It's as berserk a MacGuffin as any in cinema, but also accompanies an unpredictable frankness, what with the discussion of sexual misconduct, premarital sexuality ... and glib reference to pot. This ultra-lyrical film never seems at odds with itself, and the final 25 minutes, when the pilgrims' odysseys come to their conclusive salvations, feel like a benediction." - Michael Atkinson

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/children.jpg

The Children are Watching Us

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Country: Italy

The film follows the anguish of the four-year-old, Prico, after his mother, Nina, leaves his father, Andrea, for her lover Roberto. Prico is sent to his aunt and then to his grandmother. Nina returns when Prico is sick and vows to give up Roberto, even though he persists in seeing her.

Marcello Mastroianni was an extra in this film. Young Luciano De Ambrosis continued on as an actor when he grew up, appearing in Sergio Martino's 1973 horror film, Torso.

"Culture vultures dismissed the film at the time of its release because of its protoneorealist sentimentality, but this is precisely what makes De Sica's work so special ... Osssessione may be recognized as the first neorealist film, but this is the first neorealist gesture, a sign that the Italian film was about to grow up." - Ed Gonzalez

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/18783509.jpg

Arsenic and Old Lace

Director: Frank Capra

Country: USA

Mortimer, a newspaperman and author known for his diatribes against marriage, has recently been married himself. Now all that is required is a quick trip home to tell his two maiden aunts. While trying to break the news, he finds out his aunts' unusual hobby.

Cary Grant donated his entire salary, $100,000, to the U.S. War Relief Fund. The film was made in 1941 but went unreleased for three years after it was completed, waiting for the Broadway play to finish its run. On stage, Boris Karloff played Raymond Massey's character, Jonathan Brewster, who "looks like Karloff."

"Instead of black humour, Arsenic and Old Lace achieves more of a raucous farce of dottily absurd escalations. And as such the film is a likable amusement, contrasting the twittery sweetness of the old ladies with the business of murder ... On the whole, the plot sustains its manic level of energy, skittering along with nonsensical exuberance as proceedings become more and more farcical." - Richard Scheib

[Kurosawa Fan]

I was really hoping this wouldn't make the cut. I'm delusional, I know. At least it finished in last place.

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ivan.jpg

Ivan the Terrible, Part One

Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Country: Soviet Union

During the early part of his reign, Ivan the Terrible faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people.

The last of Eisenstein's films to be released during his lifetime. The second part was withheld by Soviet authorities until a decade after his death. A third film was also planned, but never finished. The footage from the third part was confiscated and most of it destroyed.

"Ivan the Terrible is not mere biography but an exposition on the trappings and corrupting influence of wielding complete state authority ... As Ivan's reign matures, we experience a Nixonian rise and fall. Tsar Ivan, like Nevsky, is not only a cinematic synecdoche for Stalin but Eisenstein as well, linking the power of cinema to shape and color reality to Ivan's interpretation of events." - Bill Schwartz

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Tohaveandhavenot3.jpg

To Have and Have Not

Director: Howard Hawks

Country: USA

Harry and his alcoholic sidekick are based on the island of Martinique and crew a boat available for hire during World War II. After a customer who owes them a large sum fails to pay, they are forced against their better judgment to violate their preferred neutrality and take a job for the resistance transporting a fugitive on the run.

The film debut of Lauren Bacall. Although the script was written by William Faulkner, based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway, the film's most famous scene ("You know how to whistle ...") was written by Hawks as a screen test, with no intention that it would eventually end up in the film.

"Bacall is the film's real star, delivering a stunner of a performance that threatens to make even Bogart recede into the woodwork altogether. As soon as she slithers into Bogart's room for the first time, uninvited and interrupting a frantic conversation concerning the Resistance fighters, she takes over the film with her sheer presence." - Ed Howard

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/deren_20.jpg

At Land

Director: Maya Deren

Country: USA

A 15-minute silent film with a dream-like narrative in which a woman is washed up on a beach and goes on a strange journey encountering other people and other versions of herself.

Deren once said that the film is about the struggle to maintain ones personal identity. Composer John Cage and poet/film critic Parker Tyler appear in the film, which was shot at Amagansett, Long Island.

"What one encounters in an evening of Maya Deren is an exploration of how everyday objects and movements can imprint on our psyches and float freely through a filter of imagination, dreaming, and emotion." - Marilyn Ferdinand

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/oom2_laura_preminger_site.jpg

Laura

Director: Otto Preminger

Country: USA

A detective investigates the killing of Laura, found dead on her apartment. He builds a mental picture of the dead girl from the suspects whom he interviews, helped by the striking painting of Laura hanging on her apartment wall. But who would have wanted to kill a girl with whom every man she met seemed to fall in love? To make matters worse, he finds himself falling under her spell too.

Won an Academy Award for Best Black-and-White Cinematography. Also nominated for four other Oscars, including Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Clifton Webb) and Best Screenplay. The film was begun by Rouben Mamoulian, but Preminger, who initiated the project as producer and took over the direction, brought on a new cameraman and scrapped all of Mamoulian's footage.

"At the cynical heart of Otto Preminger's Laura is a murder, yet labeling this elegant 1944 noir classic a whodunit is to ignore its masterfully complex—and frequently campy—portrait of all-consuming romantic self-delusion." - Nick Schager

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/creek_l.jpg

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Director: Preston Sturges

Country: USA

A small-town girl with a soft spot for American soldiers wakes up the morning after a wild farewell party for the troops to find that she married someone she can't remember--and she's pregnant. A local boy who's been in love with her for years tries to help her find a way out of her predicament.

Nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar. The character Gov. McGinty is Dan McGinty, from the 1940 Sturges film, The Great McGinty. Brian Donlevy played the character in both films.

"Truly! It's hard to imagine how [Sturges] ever got away with such a thing, how he ever persuaded the Hays boys that he wasn't trying to undermine all morals. Not only does he boldly make mad Christmas over a fact of approaching maternity but he frankly satirizes the sort of marriage that is significantly featured by a shotgun ... Our only explanation of how he did it is a simple, disarming one: he made the film so innocently amusing, so full of candor, that no one could take offense." - Bosley Crowther (1944)

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Lifeboatpic3.jpg

Lifeboat

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Country: USA

In the Atlantic during WWII, a ship and a German U-boat are involved in a battle and both are sunk. The survivors from the ship gather in one of the boats. Trouble starts when they pull a man out of the water who turns out to be from the U-boat.

Nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Director, Best Original Story and Best Black-and-White Cinematography. Tallulah Bankhead was named Best Actress by the New York Film Critics Circle. During filming, several of the crew members noted that Bankhead was not wearing underwear. When advised of this situation, Hitchcock observed, "I don't know if this is a matter for the costume department, makeup, or hairdressing."

"The roots of reality TV can be found here, but unlike most reality TV, Hitchcock shows a genuine (though characteristically distant) interest in people. While he carefully chooses his cross-section of humanity, he refuses to reduce them to types ... Lifeboat is a film in which people's capacity for kindness and cruelty go hand in hand, particularly when they find themselves removed from their usual environments." - Keith Phipps

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/doubleindemnity460.jpg

Double Indemnity

Director: Billy Wilder

Country: USA

Smooth talking insurance salesman Walter Neff meets attractive Phyllis Dietrichson when he calls to renew her husband's automobile policy. The couple are immediately drawn to each other and an affair begins. They cook up a scheme to murder Mr. Dietrichson for life insurance money with a double indemnity clause. Unfortunately, all does not go according to plan.

Nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Barbara Stanwyck). However, it won none. In the first scene in which Walter first kisses Phyllis, we see a wedding ring on Walter's hand. Fred MacMurray was married and the ring was not noticed until post-production.

"A lot of people laugh at 1944's hard-boiled proto-noir classic Double Indemnity the first time they see it, and it's hard to imagine that director Billy Wilder would've disapproved. Wilder made his reputation with comedy, and though Double Indemnity, his first great film, was based on a James M. Cain crime novella ... the movie doesn't try to hide its slightly ridiculous nature ... People do get killed, and the movie is suffused with the fatalism that would become noir's predominant theme, but when Fred MacMurray gazes hungrily into Barbara Stanwyck's eyes and coos, 'Shut up, baby,' surely it's supposed to be funny." - Noel Murray

[Spinal]

1. Double Indemnity (58.5)
2. Lifeboat (32.5)
3. The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (29.5)
4. Laura (27)
5. At Land (26)
6. To Have and Have Not (23.5)
7. Ivan the Terrible, Part One (13.5)
8t. Arsenic and Old Lace (12.5)
8t. The Children are Watching Us (12.5)
8t. A Canterbury Tale (12.5)

Not quite:
Meet Me in St. Louis (11.5)

[Duncan]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/doubleindemnity460.jpg

Double Indemnity"A lot of people laugh at 1944's hard-boiled proto-noir classic Double Indemnity the first time they see it, and it's hard to imagine that director Billy Wilder would've disapproved. Wilder made his reputation with comedy, and though Double Indemnity, his first great film, was based on a James M. Cain crime novella ... the movie doesn't try to hide its slightly ridiculous nature ... People do get killed, and the movie is suffused with the fatalism that would become noir's predominant theme, but when Fred MacMurray gazes hungrily into Barbara Stanwyck's eyes and coos, 'Shut up, baby,' surely it's supposed to be funny." - Noel Murray
Interesting. I got the vibe that it wasn't supposed to be funny, and so was taking itself much too seriously...I could give it a rewatch.

[Melville]

Interesting. I got the vibe that it wasn't supposed to be funny, and so was taking itself much too seriously...I could give it a rewatch.
I remember it being straight-up funny. You should definitely see it again.