MC Yearly Consensus - 1946

[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 thread is locked, 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]

Leaving for Georgia shortly. Going to post this now.

soitgoes, can you tabulate '66?

Llopin, can you tabulate '56?

I should be back home in time to do this one. I'll have internet access, but I won't want to be adding up points in Excel.

[Spinal]

1. Notorious
2. Great Expectations
3. Peter and the Wolf
4. My Darling Clementine
5. Beauty and the Beast

[soitgoes...]

Leaving for Georgia shortly. Going to post this now.

soitgoes, can you tabulate '66?

Llopin, can you tabulate '56?

I should be back home in time to do this one. I'll have internet access, but I won't want to be adding up points in Excel.
No problem.

[soitgoes...]

1. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sica)
3. Great Expectations (David Lean)
4. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
5. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
--------------------------------------------------
6. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
7. Green for Danger (Sidney Gilliat)
8. Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau)
9. A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
10. No Regrets for Our Youth (Akira Kurosawa)
11. Bedlam (Mark Robson)
12. Paisan (Roberto Rossellini)

Strongest year of the decade.

[origami_mustache]

It's A Wonderful Life
Paisan
Beauty And The Beast
The Best Years of Our Lives
The Murders Are Among Us

honorable mention:The Big Sleep

[ledfloyd]

1. The Big Sleep
2. Notorious
3. The Best Years of Our Lives
4. It's A Wonderful Life
5. The Killers

[Melville]

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. The Big Sleep
3. Ritual in Transfigured Time

[Russ]

1. Book Revue
2. Notorious
3. The Big Sleep
4. Gilda
5. Black Angel

[Raiders]

1. Shoeshine
2. Notorious
3. The Big Sleep
4. No Regrets for Our Youth
5. Great Expectations

[Qrazy]

1. Best Years of Our Lives
2. The Big Sleep
3. The Killers
4. Shoeshine
5. Matter of Life and Death

6. Beauty and the Beast
7. It's a Wonderful Life
8. My Darling Clementine
9. Notorious
10. Diary of a Chambermaid

Want to see: Cluny Brown, Duel in the Sun, Paisan, Postman Always Rings Twice, The Yearling

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Shoeshine
2. Notorious
3. The Killers
4. Black Angels
5. The Murderers Are Among Us

Probably deserve a rewatch: Beauty and the Beast, Paisan, Great Expectations

[Weeping_Guitar]

01. The Big Sleep
02. Notorious
03. It's a Wonderful Life
04. Green For Danger
05. A Matter of Life and Death
-------------------------------------

06. My Darling Clementine
07. The Best Years of Our Lives
08. Great Expectations
09. The Postman Always Rings Twice
10. The Stranger
11. Beauty and the Beast
12. The Killers
13. Gilda

My favorite cinematic year.

[Qrazy]

01. The Big Sleep
02. Notorious
03. It's a Wonderful Life
04. Green For Danger
05. Brief Encounter
-------------------------------------

06. A Matter of Life and Death
07. My Darling Clementine
08. The Best Years of Our Lives
09. Great Expectations
10. The Postman Always Rings Twice
11. Children of Paradise
12. The Stranger
13. Beauty and the Beast
14. The Killers
15. Gilda

My favorite cinematic year.

Children of Paradise was '45 I think, as is Brief Encounter.

[Ezee E]

1. It's A Wonderful Life
2. Notorious (SO TOUGH)
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. The Big Sleep
5. Brief Encounter

[Qrazy]

I thought we counted original release dates for these things... particularly for older films where there's less risk they haven't been released in our region yet.

[Yxklyx]

1. Beauty and the Beast (Jean Cocteau)
2. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
3. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
4. Stairway to Heaven (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
5. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)

6. The Killers (Robert Siodmak)
7. Bedlam (Mark Robson)
8. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
9. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett)
10. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone)

[Philosophe_rouge]

Probably my favourite year EVER... SO DAMN GOOD.

1. Cluny Brown
2. Notorious
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. The Big Sleep
5. A Matter of Life and Death
-------------------
6. The Best Years of Our Lives
7. La Belle et La Bete
8. The Killers
9. Great Expectations
10. Bedlam

[Derek]

1. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
4. Shoe-Shine (Vittorio De Sica)
5. La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau)
***************************
6. Paisan (Roberto Rossellini)
7. Great Expectations (David Lean)
8. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
9. Cluny Brown (Ernst Lubitsch)
10. My Darling Clementine (John Ford)

HM:The Killers (Robert Siodmak)

[Boner M]

1. It's a Wonderful Life
2. Beauty and the Beast
3. The Big Sleep
4. Notorious
5. My Darling Clementine

I haven't seen all these films in a while, though...

[soitgoes...]

Some notes: Brief Encounter is indeed 1945. Also for the tallier, A Matter of Life and Death is the same film as Stairway to Heaven.

[Grouchy]

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Notorious
3. Gilda
4. A Night in Casablanca
5. My Darling Clementine

[Lazlo]

1. It’s a Wonderful Life
2. My Darling Clementine
3. Notorious
4. The Stranger

[baby doll]

So I assume we're not counting Ivan the Terrible, Part 2?

1. La Belle et le Bête (Jean Cocteau)
2. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
4. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
5. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)

[monolith94]

1. Beauty and the Beast
2. Shoeshine
3. It's a Wonderful Life
4. The Killers
5. The Stranger

Honorable mentions:

The Big Sleep
A Night In Casablanca

[Derek]

So I assume we're not counting Ivan the Terrible, Part 2?

Nope. It's 1958 on IMdB.

[Qrazy]

Nope. It's 1958 on IMdB.

Have you seen The Ascent yet? Not super related to Come and See... but both focus on war, are very good and Shepitko was married to Klimov... so that's something. I think you'll like it.

[Derek]

Have you seen The Ascent yet? Not super related to Come and See... but both focus on war, are very good and Shepitko was married to Klimov... so that's something. I think you'll like it.

Nope, but I have it. I'll try to get to it soon since I've been wanting to see more Russian films outside of Eisenstein and Tarkovsky. And don't worry, I'm gonna dl My Friend Ivan Lapshin soon enough.

[Qrazy]

Nope, but I have it. I'll try to get to it soon since I've been wanting to see more Russian films outside of Eisenstein and Tarkovsky. And don't worry, I'm gonna dl My Friend Ivan Lapshin soon enough.

Excellent.

[SirNewt]

1. La Belle et la Bette
2. The Best Years of Our Lives
3. Notorious
4.
5. The Big Sleep

A Night in Casablanca is a bad movie and worthy of no mention much less honorable.

[Kurosawa Fan]

1. Notorious
2. It's a Wonderful Life
3. The Stranger
4. Peter and the Wolf
5. The Big Sleep

[monolith94]

1. La Belle et la Bette
2. The Best Years of Our Lives
3. Notorious
4.
5. The Big Sleep

A Night in Casablanca is a bad movie and worthy of no mention much less honorable.
I'd dispute that. It's not the brothers' greatest, but it has some great stunts and comedic numbers, and Sig Ruman is absolutely great in it. The film is eminently quotable.

""Kurt! Kurt! What are you waiting for! Kill him!"

[monolith94]

I'd dispute that. It's not the brothers' greatest, but it has some great stunts and comedic numbers, and Sig Ruman is absolutely great in it. The film is eminently quotable.

""Kurt! Kurt! What are you waiting for! Kill him!"
Seriously, how can you not at least chuckle at an exchange like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tii-5OAKLbA

[monolith94]

"Would you like something to drink?"
"Oh yes, some champagne"

*groucho looks at the menu*

"Bring this lady a cheese sandwhich. And charge it to her."

[SirNewt]

Seriously, how can you not at least chuckle at an exchange like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tii-5OAKLbA

Sure it made me chuckle but it's still not that memorable.

[baby doll]

So I assume we're not counting Ivan the Terrible, Part 2?

1. La Belle et le Bête (Jean Cocteau)
2. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
4. It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
5. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)Since it's becoming increasingly obvious that It's a Wonderful Life is not only going to be on the list but take the top spot, I might as well throw some extra weight behind David Lean's Great Expectations.

1. La Belle et le Bête (Jean Cocteau)
2. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
4. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
5. Great Expectations (David Lean)

[Spinal]

One more day.

[koji]

1. Notorious (Hitchcock)
2. Murders Are Among Us (Staadt)
3. Gilda (Charles Vidor)
4. Decoy (Berhard)
5. The Killers (Robert Siodmark)
****************************** ***********
6. The Strange Loves of Martha Ivers (Milestein)
7. La Batallile du Rails (Rene Clement)
8. The Stranger (Welles).
9. No Regrets for Our Youth (Akira Kurosawa)
10. The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett)

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/lifedeath2shot1.jpg

A Matter of Life and Death

Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Country: UK

Returning to England from a bombing run in May 1945, flyer Peter Carter's plane is damaged and his parachute ripped to shreds. He jumps, preferring this to burning up with his plane. He wakes up in the surf. It was his time to die, but there was a mixup. Heaven agrees to a trial to decide his fate.

The huge escalator linking this World with the Other, called Operation Ethel by the firm of engineers who constructed it, took three months to make. For the table tennis scene, Kim Hunter and Roger Livesey were trained by British champion Alan Brooke.

"Of all the films Powell and Pressburger made together, A Matter of Life and Death, ... was Powell's favorite. Playful and profound, witty and carefully crafted, it distills the greatest of Powell's artistic gifts and celebrates, with an occasional self-conscious wink, the possibilities of film." - Edward Guthmann

[Spinal]

#9

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sjff_01_img0337.jpg

My Darling Clementine

Director: John Ford

Country: USA

Wyatt Earp and his brothers Morgan and Virgil ride into Tombstone, leaving brother James in charge of the cattle herd. On their return, they find their cattle stolen and James dead. Wyatt takes on the job of town marshal and vows to stay in Tombstone until James' killers are found.

Ford, who in his youth had known the real Wyatt Earp, claimed the way the OK Corral gunfight was staged in this film was the way it was explained to him by Earp himself, with a few exceptions. Henry Fonda's first production after returning from U.S. Navy service in World War II.

"My Darling Clementine is a great western ... because of exactly what it delivers that westerns normally didn’t: a measure of emotional maturity, a sense of dread and cost in regards to violence, a notion of frontier life being difficult and soul-hardening, not breezy and schoolyard fun. Ford didn’t believe in this general perspective all the time ... but when he did, it made westerns in which a grown man could get lost." - Michael Atkinson

[Spinal]

#8

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/18755475.jpg

Great Expectations

Director: David Lean

Country: UK

When a good-natured orphan finds two hidden escaped galley convicts, he agrees under threat of death to bring the criminals food. Later he is invited to became the playmate of the adoptive daughter of a gloomy, filthy rich woman who intends to break the kind kid's heart.

Won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography (both in the black-and-white category). Also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. First film speaking role for Alec Guiness. The famous opening shot in the graveyard features a brooding church in the background which in reality was only 3 meters high.

"[Great Expectations] does what few movies based on great books can do: creates pictures on the screen that do not clash with the images already existing in our minds. Lean brings Dickens' classic set-pieces to life as if he'd been reading over our shoulder." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ehtk1.jpg

The Killers

Director: Robert Siodmak

Country: USA

Two professional killers invade a small town and kill a gas station attendant, an ex-prize fighter, who's expecting them. An insurance investigator pursues the case against the orders of his boss, who considers it trivial.

Nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Director, Best Editing, Best Screenplay and Best Original Score. The musical theme used whenever the killers appear was later used in expanded form as the theme music for the TV show Dragnet. Burt Lancaster trained for two months with a boxing champion.

"The story plays strictly by the crime-genre rules, including a $250,000 payroll caper, but Siodmak ... a director from the German Expressionist school, sustains a fatalistic tone with the atmospheric touches that define noir, favoring stark lighting effects that throw his post-war world into shadow." - Scott Tobias

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/sjff_01_img0054.jpg

The Best Years of Our Lives

Director: William Wyler

Country: USA

At the end of World War II, a soldier, a sailor and an airman return to their home town of Boone City and must re-adjust to the society they had left several years before. Each faces a crisis upon his arrival and each must struggle to move forward with his life.

Won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Frederic March), Best Supporting Actor (Harold Russell) and Best Screenplay. Russell also received an Honorary Award "for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans." Wyler was furious when he learned that Samuel Goldwyn had sent Russell for acting lessons. He preferred Russell's untrained, 'natural' acting.

"Seen more than six decades later, it feels surprisingly modern: lean, direct, honest about issues that Hollywood then studiously avoided. After the war years of patriotism and heroism in the movies, this was a sobering look at the problems veterans faced when they returned home." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/aimageshoeshineimage2906.jpg

Shoe Shine

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Country: Italy

Two boys have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride. In order to gain enough money, they agree to participate in a swindle that leads them to trouble with the law.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Also received an Honorary Award which stated, "The high quality of this Italian-made motion picture, brought to eloquent life in a country scarred by war, is proof to the world that the creative spirit can triumph over adversity." Franco Interlenghi, debuting in the role of Pasquale, would go on to become a leading Italian actor, rivaling Marcello Mastrioanni during the 50s and 60s as a top romantic star, though he never found international fame.

"It is one of those rare works of art which seem to emerge from the welter of human experience without smoothing away the raw edges, or losing what most movies lose--the sense of confusion and accident in human affairs." - Pauline Kael

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/18828837.jpg

Beauty and the Beast

Director: Jean Cocteau

Country: France

One day, a merchant gets lost in the forest and enters a strange castle. He picks up a rose and the castle's owner appear. He is a monster, half-human, half-beast, and possesses magic powers. He sentences the merchant to death, unless he give up one of his daughters.

During the shooting of the film, Cocteau became very ill and had to be hospitalized. While he was recovering, René Clément served as director. The effect of the candles lighting themselves as the merchant passes was achieved by blowing them out and then running the film in reverse as he walked backward past them. The stream that the Beast tries to drink from when he is weak and dying is actually a sewage runoff behind the studio.

"Cocteau wanted to make a poem, wanted to appeal through images rather than words, and although the story takes the form of the familiar fable, its surface seems to be masking deeper and more disturbing currents. It is not a 'children's film.' Is it even suitable for children? ... Brighter and more curious children will be able to enjoy it very much, I suspect, although if they return as adults they may be amazed by how much more is there." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

Not going to be able to finish right now. Final three later today.

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/awlife09.jpg

It's a Wonderful Life

Director: Frank Capra

Country: USA

An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would have been like if he never existed.

Nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor (James Stewart). The scene on the bridge where Clarence saves George was filmed on a back lot on a day where the temperature was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Ranked as the #1 Most Powerful Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute.

"It's Stewart's emotional force that dries up the material's potential schmaltz, modulating from the romantic who offers to lasso the moon for his beloved to the disgruntled wreck who later asks her, 'Why did we have to have so many children?' Capra views the two facets with the same intensity, and films accordingly. Maybe it takes a filmmaker so fascinated with the American Dream to see how close it can be to a nightmare." - Fernando F. Croce

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/hcbig-sleep.jpg

The Big Sleep

Director: Howard Hawks

Country: USA

Summoned by the dying General Sternwood, Philip Marlowe is asked to deal with several problems that are troubling his family. Marlowe finds that each problem centers about the disappearance of Sternwood's favored employee who has left with a mobster's wife.

William Faulkner came out to Hollywood to work on this film, but found that being around the set didn't agree with him, so he asked Hawks if he could work "from home." Hawks agreed, assuming that Faulkner meant from his Hollywood apartment. Instead, Faulkner returned to his home in Mississippi. Due to Humphrey Bogart's affair with co-star Lauren Bacall, his marital problems escalated during filming, and his drinking often resulted in his being unable to work. Three months after the film was finished, Bacall and Bogart were married.

"Don’t try too hard to follow the story, just get swept away by the mood of the film. Revel in watching Bogie and Bacall (married by the time the additional scenes were shot) interact. Enjoy the stunning costumes, the crisp cinematography, the snappy script, the brilliant Max Steiner score." - Eric Brace

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/notorious-3.jpg

Notorious

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Country: USA

Following the conviction of her German father for treason against the U.S., Alicia takes to drink and men. She is approached by a government agent who asks her to spy on a group of her father's Nazi friends operating out of Rio de Janeiro.

Nominated for two Oscars: Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains) and Best Screenplay. The legendary on-again, off-again kiss between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was intended to flaunt then-current film code regulations that restricted the length of kisses to only a couple of seconds each. Both Grant and Bergman found the scene problematic because of the complicated blocking that needed to be remembered in the several long takes that it took to shoot it.

"Notorious is the most elegant expression of the master's visual style ... It contains some of the most effective camera shots in his--or anyone's--work, and they all lead to the great final passages in which two men find out how very wrong they both were. This is the film, with Casablanca, that assures Ingrid Bergman's immortality." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

1. Notorious (73.5)
2. The Big Sleep (53)
3. It’s a Wonderful Life (50)
4. Beauty and the Beast (41)
5. Shoeshine (24)
6. The Best Years of Our Lives (21.5)
7. The Killers (15)
8. Great Expectations (12.5)
9. My Darling Clementine (12)
10. A Matter of Life and Death (10.5)

Oh so close:
Gilda (10)