History Unlimited Films: 1945 to 1949

Post-war British Cinema

British cinema had been emotionally grounded in the 1930s attempt to replicate Hollywood — by the Rank Organisation, the Korda brothers, Alfred Hitchcock and others. But the war left the industry with a mature (and durable) generation of film professionals and from the 1940s the best of British film production began to take on a distinctive identity. Treatments ranged from stark realism to surrealistic fantasy, with the usual leavening of literary classics. And then there was Ealing …

Brief Encounter / David Lean

1945. BW. UK. 107 mins. DVD.

Passion amongst the middle classes, scripted by Noel Coward and based on his own stage play. Celia Johnson’s ordinary housewife stumbles into an unfulfilled love affair with a doctor, played by Trevor Howard. The emotional drama is superbly played out amongst the curling sandwiches of a down-at-heel railway station café and against a background of anonymous drizzly streets. David Lean moved on to larger canvasses but his technical and creative proficiency are here already mature. Rachmaninov provides the signature score. Regarded as a cinema highlight by most, but as a little too bleakly suburban by some.

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The True Glory / Carol Reed

1945. BW. UK/US. 269 mins. DVD.

An edited compilation of newsreel footage, produced by the British Ministry of Information and the US Office of War Information, and covering the period between D-Day and VE Day. Peter Ustinov is numbered among the writers. Brilliant reportage that leaves fictional treatments, however accomplished, miles behind.

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Black Narcissus / Powell & Pressburger

1946. Colour. UK. 96 mins. DVD.

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger embark on a darkly obsessive and visually stunning treatment of the novel by Rumer Godden. A group of nuns, led by Deborah Kerr, set up a school and hospital in an ex-harem in the Himalaya. The isolated community is disturbed by awakening sexuality and sexual frustration, leading finally to the derangement of one of their number. Kathleen Byron gives a disturbing performance as the rebellious and erotomanic sister.

Black Narcissus / Rumer Godden

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Charles Dickens Collection

Great Expectations / David Lean

A Tale of Two Cities / Ralph Thomas

Oliver Twist / David Lean

1946/1958/1948. BW. UK. 351 mins. DVD.

Great Expectations confirmed, if confirmation were necessary, David Lean’s mastery of the medium. John Mills plays Pip against Marita Hunt’s Miss Havisham, with Jean Simmons as the young and Valerie Hobson as the older Estella. Lean’s Oliver Twist is almost equally memorable, with a young Anthony Newley as The Artful Dodger. Alec Guinness lends solid support in both movies, especially as Fagin in the last. The inclusion of A Tale of Two Cities in this compilation is something of an anomaly. It was made much later than the David Lean films and without the benefit of his direction. Competent but somewhat plodding, it falls short of the Ronald Colman version (1936 qv) which was, in our view, a far, far better thing.

Great Expectations / Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities / Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist / Charles Dickens

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A Matter of Life and Death / Powell & Pressburger

1946. Colour. UK. 100 mins. DVD.

Exorbitant fantasy in which a brain-damaged pilot is stranded between this life and the next due to a failure of celestial administration. The issue is resolved, one the one hand, by a heavenly trial (in which Anglo-American historical conflicts and more recent co-operation are thrown into the scales); and on the other, by the more mundane application of surgical skill. The technically ambitious celestial sequences are shot in monochrome, the earth-bound scenes in colour, in a reversal of the usual convention. David Niven stars, with Roger Livesey and Raymond Massey in fine support. Bold, witty, stylish and innovative.

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Odd Man Out / Carol Reed

1946. BW. UK. 115 mins. DVD.

James Mason plays a wounded IRA gunman on the run in Belfast who is helped or obstructed as his life ebbs away. Carol Reed paves the way for The Fallen Idol and The Third Man (qv) in this portrait of a man confronting the consequences of his beliefs.

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Brighton Rock / John Boulting

1947. BW. UK. 88 mins. DVD.

Graham Greene and Terence Rattigan collaborated on the Boulting Brothers’ screen version of Greene’s story. The result is, unsurprisingly, a powerful piece of drama. Richard Attenborough is chilling as a psychopathic teenage member of a razor gang who uses a waitress to provide an alibi for a murder. An effective portrayal of the sinister underside of England, set against the deceptively brash and breezy seaside resort.

Brighton Rock / Graham Greene

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The Fallen Idol / Carol Reed

1948. BW. UK. 94 mins. DVD.

The small son of an ambassador believes his friend the butler, played by Ralph Richardson, has murdered his wife. He sets out to misdirect the police investigation, almost with tragic results. Graham Greene wrote the screenplay from his short story ‘The Basement Room’. Carol Reed directs the compact plot with economy, variety and pace.

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Hamlet / Laurence Olivier

1948. BW. UK. 155 mins. DVD.

The second of Laurence Olivier’s great Shakespearean trilogy, with the director in the role of the brooding Prince of Denmark. Inspired by the 1937 staging at the castle of Elsinore, the production is steeped in atmosphere and Olivier delivers the performance that you would expect from the most glamorous Hamlet of his generation. Some characters are lost in the process of adaptation to the screen, most notably Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Did this provoke Tom Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1991 qv), where the main action of Hamlet is only touched upon when these two appear?

Hamlet / William Shakespeare

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The Red Shoes / Powell & Pressburger

1948. Colour. UK. 136 mins. DVD.

The ultimate ballet movie, in the best Powell & Pressburger fantasy/realism vein. Moira Shearer is the dedicated young ballet dancer torn between her love for a composer and the demands of a Diaghilev-like impresario (Anton Walbrook). An innovative touch is the exposition of the plot in a long introductory dance segment that dissolves into a wild montage of impressionistic images. Verisimilitude was achieved throughout by the use of professional ballet dancers, including Robert Helpman (who choreographed) and Shearer herself , who was at the time gaining recognition with Sadler’s Wells. With a documentary feature.

The Red Shoes / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 24 Tracks.

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The Small Back Room / Powell & Pressburger

1949. BW. UK. 102 mins. DVD.

The combination of alcoholism with bomb disposal duties is a key plot device in this relatively subdued piece from the Powell & Pressburger canon. David Farrar plays the explosives expert alongside Kathleen Byron (of Black Narcissus qv) as his long-suffering girl friend. The fascinating back plot explores the world and rivalries of the boffins charged with weapons development.

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The Third Man / Carol Reed

1949. BW. UK. 99 mins. DVD.

This was surely Carol Reed’s greatest achievement. The pin-sharp photography and off-vertical camera angles are bleakly evocative of a post-war and war-ravaged Vienna riddled with black market corruption and political intrigue. Harry Lime emerges from the shadows in a script by Graham Greene from his own story, with good performances from Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard and Orson Welles and an unforgettable zither score by Anton Karas. The Third Man still stands high on any list of distinguished films.

The Third Man / Graham Greene

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Ealing Emerges

Established under Michael Balcon in 1939, between 1945 and 1955 Ealing Studios were to produce a series of very British comedies. Ealing was remarkable for its stable of great character actors; and the deceptively gentle tone often disguised subtle (or not so subtle) satire tinged with refreshing amorality.

Ealing Studios Collection

Champagne Charlie / Alberto Cavalcanti

The Maggie / Alexander Mackendrick

It Always Rains On Sunday / Robert Hamer

Whisky Galore / Alexander Mackendrick

1944/1953/1947/1948. BW. UK. 380 mins. DVD.

This compilation is worth buying for Whisky Galore alone, which established Ealing as a source of superior comedies. Compton Mackenzie wrote the screenplay from his novel in which a ship carrying whisky runs aground off a small Scottish island, to the delight of the natives and the consternation of the local excise man. The Maggie is another offering from Alexander Mackendrick. A rich American is conned into using a decrepit ship to carry his cargo to a Scottish island. Champagne Charlie is a rather slight period biopic about a Victorian music hall singer, starring Tommy Trinder. It Always Rains on Sunday was an influential slum drama in its day, but now seems a little dated. An escaped convict goes into hiding in the East End home of his married lover. Googie Withers and Jack Warner are amongst the British cinema stalwarts.

Whisky Galore / Compton Mackenzie

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Kind Hearts and Coronets / Robert Hamer

1949. BW. UK. 101 mins. DVD.

Alec Guinness astounds as eight members (male and female) of the D’Ascoyne clan who are eliminated one by one by Denis Price as he claws his way to the family inheritance. Valerie Hobson and a purring Joan Greenwood compete for the affections of the urbane serial killer. This blackest of comedies is literate, witty and cynical, with liberal helpings of irony. An Ealing classic.

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Passport to Pimlico / Henry Cornelius

1949. BW. UK. 80 mins. DVD.

Ealing Studios embark on their love affair with urban man and his eccentricities. The citizens of a London district discover that by ancient charter they are technically Burgundians. Their theoretical independence prompts them to dispense with post-war rationing, identity cards and licensing laws, to the dismay of civil servants. The whacky logic of the plot line is followed without constraint: the district is swamped by unsavoury black market traders; the situation attracts a claimant to the dukedom; the locals fight back against Whitehall opposition by setting up customs posts; and the bureaucracy responds by closing the borders and denying the inhabitants food and water. British character actors were made for this: Margaret Rutherford, Stanley Holloway, Hermione Baddeley, John Slater, Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford deliver the goods.

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America

If British cinema was going through a sea change, Hollywood continued with familiar themes. The gangster/crime genre began, more and more, to take on the characteristic tints of film noir; Westerns increased in intelligence and complexity; slick comedies continued; and the occasional independent production signalled the first hairline crack in the studio system.

Humphrey Bogart Collection

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre / John Huston

To Have and Have Not / Howard Hawks

They Drive By Night / Raoul Walsh

1948/1945/1940. BW. USA. 312 mins. DVD.

The earliest film in this collection sees Humphrey Bogart playing second fiddle to George Raft as two brothers try to set up an independent trucking business. Ida Lupino adds complications as a scheming murderess and Anne Sheridan is a truck-stop waitress with an endless reservoir of patter. They Drive by Night is more than a little overpowered by the other two Bogart classics. To Have and Have Not is legendary as the first pairing of Bogart with Lauren Bacall. William Faulkner is one of the writers credited with this adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel, where a charter boat captain becomes involved with French resistance fighters in Vichy-controlled Martinique. The plot is reminiscent of Casablanca (qv). Bacall sizzles, Bogart whistles. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre John Huston directed father Walter to gain Best Writer/Director and Best Supporting Actor Oscars in a son-and-father coup. Tim Holt gives additional support to Bogart in the tale of three prospecting drifters who are torn apart by greed and suspicion after striking gold. Walter Huston survives the aftermath and steals the show. (Author B Traven spent some time in Mexico as secretary to Leon Trotsky. The autobiography Trotsky: My Life is available from our Bookshop.)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre / B Traven

To Have and Have Not / Ernest Hemingway

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The Big Sleep / Howard Hawks

1946. BW. USA. 110 mins. DVD.

Bogart and Bacall again, again with William Faulkner heading the writers’ credits. Bogart’s Philip Marlowe is hired by the father of socialite Bacall to protect her younger sister ("She tried to sit on my lap while I was standing up!") from the consequences of her indiscretions. Marlowe is drawn into a warren of gambling debts and multiple murder, all the while falling in love with the elder sister. Razor sharp dialogue underwrites the sex-laden atmosphere and drives forward a plot so inextricably complex that even Raymond Chandler, author of the original novel, claimed not to know who done it.

The Big Sleep / Raymond Chandler

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My Darling Clementine / John Ford

1946. BW. USA. 98 mins. DVD.

One of the very best John Ford Westerns. Henry Fonda stars as Wyatt Earp in this depiction of the gunfight at the OK Corral. A nostalgic, even poetic, view of the Old West through superb photography, memorable scenes and perfect characterisation. With Victor Mature, Walter Brennan and Linda Darnell.

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It's A Wonderful Life / Frank Capra

1946. BW. USA. 168 mins. DVD.

Welcome to Bedford Falls! James Stewart is the good guy stuck against his inclination in small-town USA who is brought to the brink of suicide by an impending scandal. An angel intervenes to take him back through his life and show him how his world would have been affected for the worse if he had not been born. Frank Capra reached his peak with this bittersweet comedy drama that shows him at his most typical.

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Force of Evil / Abraham Polonsky

1948. BW. USA. 78 mins. DVD.

Hypnotic and intelligent film noir, shot on the night-time streets of New York and in the seedy offices of the central characters. The lawyer of a numbers racketeer discovers that his boss has killed his brother and that his phone is being tapped. John Garfield stars.

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Key Largo / John Huston

1948. BW. USA. 97 mins. DVD.

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are hurricane-bound in a hotel on the Florida Keys with a psychopathic Edward G Robinson, an alcoholic (and Oscar-winning) Claire Trevor and Robinson’s murderous gang. Bogart triumphs in the end after the requisite amount of philosophising and moralising that seemed necessary ingredients in post-war Hollywood. A competent production in the vein of The Maltese Falcon (1941 qv), Casablanca (1942 qv) and To Have and Have Not (qv).

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The Naked City / Jules Dassin

1948. BW. USA. 96 mins. DVD.

‘There are eight million stories in the naked city.’ This is one of the best of them. Shot almost entirely on location on the crowded streets of New York in documentary style, a standard murder-hunt plot is lifted by authentic feel, humour and an impressive amount of detail. Barry Fitzgerald, Don Taylor, Howard Duff and Dorothy Hart.

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Macbeth / Orson Welles

1948. BW. USA. 103 mins. DVD.

Welles tried to capitalise on the success of his early directorial efforts by following his creative instincts as an independent. This led to a notorious series of films that were hamstrung by inadequate financing and by general production problems. Drawn frequently by the Shakespeare canon and tempted by self-confidence to tinker with the text, the results were always intriguing and even the worst were carried by the mesmeric performances of the director. Macbeth was his legendary low-budget attempt to film the Scottish play in a matter of weeks against a series of cut-price sets. The soundtrack quality is sometimes variable, even in the restored version. This does nothing to help the understanding of the bizarre Scots accents that have as much to do with Hibernia as hot dogs have with haggis. But for all that the film creates an atmosphere all of its own, and does it superbly.

Macbeth / William Shakespeare

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Adam's Rib / George Cukor

1949. BW. USA. 97 mins. DVD.

Early feminism meets old-fashioned male chauvinism. Husband and wife lawyers Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn battle it out at home and in the courtroom in this romantic comedy. The star vehicle played off an electric pairing with a snappy script, sharp direction and solid support from Aldo Ray and a young Judy Holliday. Tracy prosecutes and Hepburn defends Holliday, who is accused of the murder of her husband.

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DOA / Rudolph Mate

1949. BW. USA. 85 mins. DVD.

A murder movie with a twist. The protagonist is the still-living victim, dying from a slow acting poison. As the poison works through his system he tracks down his murderer through the convoluted plot, reaps his vengeance and confesses to the police. The tension is palpable. With Edmund O’Brien and Luther Adler.

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White Heat / Raoul Walsh

1949. BW. USA. 114 mins. DVD.

‘Top of the world, Ma!’ James Cagney returns to the gangster genre with a bullet. Cody Jarrett is a psychotic robber who is, nevertheless, very good to his mother. He escapes from prison with the help of an undercover government agent (Edmund O’Brien) who then infiltrates Jarrett’s old gang , leading to an explosive showdown in an oil refinery. Brutal and unglamorous underworld classic with Margaret Wycherly as the manipulative object of Cagney’s Oedipus complex and Virginia Mayo as his bored wife.

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Post-war European Cinema

Although it is not our intention to stray too far from English language cinema there have been, and continue to be, instances of major influences from the wider world. European cinema in the post-war years continued a strain of intellectualism that had frequently marched hand-in-hand with the avant-garde; and a new realism was far removed from the productions of the Hollywood mainstream.

La Belle et La Bete / Jean Cocteau

1946. BW. Fr. 89 mins. DVD.

The cinematic work of painter, poet, novelist, playwright, librettist, etc., etc., Jean Cocteau resists description; but an idea of what to expect can be had by a brief consideration of the circles in which he moved. Cocteau was totally immersed in the artistic and intellectual world of Paris through most of the first six decades of the Twentieth Century. He was the sometimes uneasy familiar of Proust, Gide, Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Satie, Picasso, Genet, Malraux and Sartre, among many others. Although not untainted with the self-indulgence and dilettantism of the French avant-garde, Cocteau made a distinctive contribution to the medium of film. La Belle et La Bete is a fantastical retelling of Beauty and the Beast, suffused with surrealistic images, sometimes whimsical, sometimes disturbing. Cocteau’s long time companion Jean Marais plays The Beast, The Prince and Beauty’s suitor Avenant. Beauty is played by Josette Day. The fairytale is familiar but the inimitable imagery raises the childhood story to mythic status.

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The Bicycle Thieves / Vittorio de Sica

1948. BW. Italy. 90 mins. DVD.

Neo-realism in post-war Italy, shot in the backstreets of Rome with a non-professional cast. An unemployed man is robbed of the bicycle he needs to take up a job. He sets out with his son to search the city for the missing machine. Drama is escalated to melodrama through compelling acting, authentic locations and passing insights into the lives of the ordinary people they pass in their quest.

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Orphee / Jean Cocteau

1949. BW. Fr. 95 mins. DVD.

The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice transplanted to post-war Paris. Beautiful, innovative and stylish cinematography provides a perfect platform for an allegory on creativity and death. The outstanding cast includes Jean Marais as Orpheus, Marie Dea as Eurydice, Maria Casares as the Princess of the Underworld, Francois Perier as the angel Heurtebise and Juliette Greco as Aglaonice. The elements of the myth are evoked with a number of mesmerising techniques including backward-running film, liquefied mirrors and mysterious coded messages transmitted to Orpheus via his car radio. Visually sensational, with multiple layers of meaning that reward frequent viewings.

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