For the last two years or so I’ve been lost in the films of the 1940’s. When watching older films it can be hard to see passed the wartime propaganda and sometimes your eyes hurt when they cut from a wide shot to a medium wide but it’s amazing to see how well so many of these films hold up over time. Take a look at the films currently playing at the movies, how many of those will film geeks still be talking about in sixty years? Not very many. When you get past Casablana(1942), Citizen Cane(1941) and a few Hitchcock movies you can get into some really good stuff that gets lost behind the iconic films of the decade. Pick any John Ford movie but start with The Grapes of Wrath (1940). If you haven’t see the Maltese Falcon (1941) catch that and see what film noir you can but don’t get lost in the darkness. There were many other films made in the forties worth looking out for. Here’s a short list:
Sullivan's Travels ( 1941)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
Gaslight (1944)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
Roma, Citta Aperta/Rome Open City (1945)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Key Largo (1948)
It’s almost time for me to jump forward to the 1950’s and get lost in the films of that decade but before I do there’s a few more films from the forties I have to track down. Then I’ll be moving to the 1950’s: Huston, Cukor, Kazan, Wilder, Fellini, Sirk, Kubrick, Lean and may others wait for me. I’ve started working on the list of films from the 1950’s. Who know’s how many years it’ll take to make it through the best films of the 1950’s.