Roma, citta aperta (Open city) 1945 - A cinematic landmark that changed the pace of filmmaking

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Roberto Rossellini
Main Cast: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero, Harry Feist

"Roberto Rossellini's Roma, Città Aperta (known in English as Open City) was one of the landmark films of the 1940s on several levels. Aesthetically, it was one of the first major works of Italian neorealist filmmaking and perhaps the single most influential example of the style. Historically, it was among the first postwar European films to gain a significant audience in the United States, opening the door for a greater appreciation of international filmmaking in America. And politically, it was a work of tremendous bravery. The screenplay was written by Roberto Rossellini in association with Federico Fellini and Sergio Amidei while Rome was still occupied by German forces in 1943-44. Rossellini began filming in secret, using scavenged film stock without sound equipment, shortly before the city was liberated in June of 1944. Several key members of his creative team had been active in the Italian resistance movement. With its rough, documentary-style look, multi-layered narrative, and a cast that mixed amateurs with actors who didn't look like film stars, Roma, Città Aperta captured the harsh and unforgiving textures of real life as few movies of its time had dared. It set the pace for Italian Neorealism as an influential postwar film style that combined outdoor light and location shooting with non-actors, a focus on simple stories of everyday life, and a concern for the poor and for social problems. Roma, Città Aperta shows the lives of a group of people living in Rome during the Nazi occupation, after the Germans had declared it an 'open city'. Anna Magnani plays a woman in love with a member of a resistance group; in helping him, she risks not only her own life, but also that of her unborn child. Aldo Fabrizi plays a priest who aids the anti-Nazi cause and pays dearly for his activism. Marcello Pagliero is an outspoken communist who runs afoul of the Nazis. And Harry Feist plays a German officer who has taken an Italian lover, but whose affection for Romans does not run especially deep." - www.allmovie.com

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The way to the stars 1945 - Life around a British WWII air base

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Anthony Asquith
Main Cast: Michael Redgrave, John Mills, Rosamund John, Douglass Montgomery, Stanley Holloway

"Originally released in England as The Way to the Stars, Johnny in the Clouds is the story of how the Battle of Britain affected the lives of combatants and civilians alike. Terence Rattigan's screenplay concentrates on three groups of people: an American pilot and his wife, a doomed British officer with a wife and child, and a young couple who plan to marry despite the precariousness of wartime romances. Most of the action takes place at an air base and the neighboring village, where the private citizens react to rationing and other restrictions with various degrees of nobility and selfishness. The American title of this film is derived from the poem 'Johnny in the Clouds', recited in tribute to the decease British airman; the U.S. version, which was released after the war, includes a prologue set in the deserted air base, with the bulk of the film offered as a flashback." - www.allmovie.com

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I know where I'm going 1945 - The simple joys of life after the war

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Directors: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger
Main Cast: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Finlay Currie

"While awaiting access to England's Technicolor cameras for their upcoming super-production Stairway to Heaven, the producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger dashed off a delightful 'personal' project, I Know Where I'm Going. Young middle-class Englishwoman Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) is determined to have the finer things in life, and to that end she plans to marry Sir Robert Bellinger (Norman Shelley), a wealthy, middle-aged industrialist whom she does not love. En route to the Island of Mull, where her future husband resides, Joan is stranded in a colorful Scottish seacoast town. Inclement weather keeps her grounded for a week, during which time she falls in love with young, insouciant naval officer Torquil McNeil (Roger Livesey). Ignoring the dictates of her heart (not to mention common sense), Joan stubbornly insists upon heading out to sea towards her marriage of convenience, but the exigencies of Mother Nature finally convince her that her future resides on the Mainland. A winner all the way, I Know Where I'm Going is full of large and small delights, including a wonderful sense of regional detail and endearing, three-dimensional characterizations (even the mercenary heroine is a likeable character). The film is easily one of the best of the Powell-Pressburger films of the 1940s, and arguably the team's all-time best romantic drama." - www.allmovie.com

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Dead of night 1945 - Classic horror anthology

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer
Main Cast: Mervyn John, Roland Culver, Googie Withers, Michael Redgrave

"Considered the greatest horror anthology film, the classic British chiller Dead of Night features five stories of supernatural terror from four different directors, yet it ultimately feels like a unified whole. The framing device is simple but unsettling, as a group of strangers find themselves inexplicably gathered at an isolated country estate, uncertain why they have come. The topic of conversation soon turns to the world of dreams and nightmares, and each guest shares a frightening event from his/her own past. Many of these tales have become famous, including Basil Dearden's opening vignette about a ghostly driver with 'room for one more' in the back of his hearse. Equally eerie are Robert Hamer's look at a haunted antique mirror that gradually begins to possess its owner's soul, and Alberto Cavalcanti's ghost story about a mysterious young girl during a Christmas party. Legendary Ealing comedy director Charles Crichton lightens the mood with an amusing interlude about the spirit of a deceased golfer haunting his former partner, leaving viewers vulnerable to Cavalcanti's superb and much-imitated closing segment, about a ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) slowly driven mad when his dummy appears to come to life. Deservedly acclaimed and highly influential, Dead of Night's episodic structure inspired an entire genre of lesser imitators." - www.allmovie.com

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Mildred Pierce 1945 - Miss Crawford's tour-de-force performance

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IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Michael Curtiz
Main Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, Bruce Bennett

"Joan Crawford won an Academy Award for her bravura portrayal of the titular heroine in Mildred Pierce. The original James M. Cain novel concerns a wife and mother who works her way to financial security to provide a rosy future for her beloved daughter, but encounters difficulties and tragedies along the way. Ranald McDougall's screenplay tones down the sexual content, enhancing its film noir value by adding a sordid murder. Under the direction of top Warner Bros. helmer Michael Curtiz, Crawford's glamorously fur-clad Mildred initially appears to be a femme fatale as she walks down a dark, rain-slicked pier after a murdered man dies uttering her name. Evenly lit flashbacks, however, reveal Mildred as an upwardly mobile working mother, bonding with wisecracking co-worker Ida and trying to make a good life for her daughters after her weak husband Bert cheats on her. Ace Warner cinematographer Ernest Haller's noir shadows and skewed angles begin to encroach on Mildred's story as her relationship with hellacious daughter Veda and effete second husband Monte approaches its fateful climax. Crawford's first film for Warners after the end of her MGM contract became her first hit in several years. The film was also nominated for Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actress for Eve Arden's scene-stealing Ida and Ann Blyth's sublimely witchy Veda." - www.allmovie.com

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A tree grows in Brooklyn 1945 - A deeply moving coming-of-age drama

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Elia Kazan
Main Cast: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, James Gleason, Ted Donaldson, Peggy Ann Garner

"Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. A tree grows in Brooklyn is a prototypical 'family values' film. Its coming-of-age motifs were perfectly suited for 1945 audiences looking for reassurance that American ideals would survive the tumult of World War II and the challenge of Communism.The performances are first-rate, particularly one-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn who won an Academy Award for his 'comeback' performance, and Peggy Ann Garner, who won a special Oscar as 'Most Promising Juvenile Performer'. Dorothy McGuire provides a steady centerpiece, and the film is also a splendid recreation of New York circa 1900. A Tree Grows From Brooklyn was remade for TV in 1974, and also served as the basis of a Broadway musical." - www.allmovie.com

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The lost weekend 1945 - Realistic look at the problem of alcoholism

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen

"Billy Wilder's searing portrait of an alcoholic features an Oscar-winning performance by Ray Milland as Don Birnam, a writer whose lust for booze consumes his career, his life, and his loves. Years before addiction became common currency in the movies (or in American life), Milland etched an indelible portrait of an alcoholic in denial, willing to lie to friends and family, steal from strangers, and give up his livelihood for a drink; Milland's pained and weary desperation as he searches for a pawnshop or the abject terror of his bout with DTs still ring horribly true. The Lost Weekend also manages the clever (and wholly appropriate) feat of making Milland's Don Birnam sympathetic without asking the audience to feel sorry for him or to ignore the deadly foolishness of his actions. Director Billy Wilder (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Charles M. Brackett) makes clear that Don is intelligent and not without talent; he's also weak-willed and a willing slave to the bottle, and while he knows what drink is doing to him, he's unable to stop himself until a final collapse grinds him to a halt. The Lost Weekend is also punctuated by bitter humor (Frank Faylen as the Bellevue alcoholic ward attendant is as funny as he is devoid of compassion) and a superb supporting cast, especially Howard Da Silva as Nat the bartender and Doris Dowling as the bar girl with a softer heart than we'd imagine; and Wilder seems to relish the unstated irony that the drug that's destroying Don Birnam is openly available and used readily by others all around him." - www.allmovie.com

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Brief encounter 1945 - The classic poignant love story

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: David Lean
Main Cast: Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Stanley Holloway, Cyril Raymond

"Based on Noel Coward's play 'Still Life', Brief Encounter is a romantic, bittersweet drama about two married people who meet by chance in a London railway station and carry on an intense love affair. A model of narrative restraint and emotional power, the movie won over post-war audiences with its fidelity to the ordinariness of its story and ambiance. Through subtle details of character, manner, expression (and a Rachmaninoff score), Lean reveals the profound impact of unexpected passion on the lives of his middle-class, middle-aged couple, despite the final restoration of routine. Praised for its feeling and its realism, including the lack of Hollywood-ized glamour of its stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard, Brief Encounter became a rare foreign import hit. Johnson won the New York Film Critics' Circle award for Best Actress, while the film garnered Oscar nominations for Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. It was Lean's first great film, and its intimate romanticism reveals the skill at portraying human relationships that would distinguish his later, spectacular epics, such as Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), Ryan's Daughter (1970), and A Passage to India (1984)." - www.allmovie.com

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