Author’s note: I apologize for the length of this diary. It is the longest diary I have ever written! I get very excited by this decade in film. I hope the clips will help offset the verbiage.
The 1940s began with the war in Europe and within two years of course the United States had been brought into the war with the rest of the world. Certainly the war dominated the decade, in film as well as life (remember, Britain rationed sugar up through 1953 and the final rationing ended in 1954). But there were also other things that went on in film throughout the decade – some of the greatest films ever made came from the 1940s.
People went to the movies during the decade. They were inexpensive and big entertainment. My father grew up in Boston during the 1930s and 1940s (he was born in 1926) and he kept a journal from 1939 to 1944. In addition to his worries about grades he got in Physics and notes about events in classes, good and bad jokes he has heard, commentary on Roosevelt and current events (he was poor growing up, and Jewish, so events in Washington and Europe were of exceeding interest to him), his experiences when he left school early to work in a shipyard during the war, he lists the books he read, and the plays and films he went to see. On March 21st, 1941, he wrote:
At the Liberty Theatre – perhaps as a dying gesture – a new policy: open only on Friday night, and continuous shows on Saturday and Sunday. Twenty cents matinee, twenty-eight cents at night. The movies are, of course, old. Current bill: Robin Hood and The Way of All Flesh.
Twenty cents in 1941 is the equivalent of $2.93 today. Apparently he more commonly paid 28 cents to see a movie in 1941, which works out to $4.10 today.
Those who had really big decades include Walt Disney, who began the decade with the great and ambitious Fantasia (1940). It had been only three years since the first of his films, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, had been released, and Fantasia, which had no plot and featured spectacular animation sequences that still are impressive, was really quite experimental. Also during the decade, Disney released Pinocchio (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), and the much more controversial Song of the South (1946).
Alfred Hitchcock started the decade with a bang, with a Best Picture win for 1940’s Rebecca (he didn’t get the award himself, actually, as he was not the producer, but it was his picture. He also managed some other successes, notably (for me) the 1941 film Suspicion, which featured Cary Grant in a very disturbing role as a charming sociopath. Do not pay any attention to the happy ending. That was not what Hitchcock wanted or the way the film was originally written. During the war Hitchcock directed Lifeboat (1943), which was his most confined film (using the smallest set for any film, according to its Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_%28film%29), about the survivors from a German torpedo attack. He edited the film the British army took when they liberated the concentration camps, a film which remained unreleased until 1985, when it was aired PBS’s Frontline. After the war he experimented with filmmaking, producing Spellbound (1945), which had a dream sequence conceived by Salvador Dalí, twenty minutes of which were filmed but only some of which made it into the final version. The full sequence apparently no longer exists. http://en.wikipedia.org/... . The decade also provided his first color film was Rope(1948), based on the Leopold and Loeb case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_and_Loeb) of 1924. Rope was also the first of four films James Stewart made with Hitchcock.
Gosh, I have not even gotten to the great films of the decade. 1940 provided us with Chaplin’s first full talking picture, The Great Dictator, which features Chaplin in a dual role as a Jewish barber and Adolph Hitler, and features the justly famous globe scene:
Also from 1940 comes the great Katherine Hepburn/ Cary Grant collaboration of The Philadelphia Story, which also features a fabulous Oscar-winning Best Actor performance by James Stewart.
1941’s big film was Citizen Kane. While occam’s hatchet rather dismissively describes it as "Collapses Under The Weight of Its Own Significance" it was a big deal when it was released. Made by a 25 year old genius (who never really achieved more than this, although he continued to make some significant films), Orson Welles’s story was strong, the acting impressive, and the deep shadows and emptiness of the long shots were breathtaking. I assume that you folks have seen this, haven’t you? If not, you really should. While it would not be in my top ten ever, it is in the top tens of many people who know far more about movies than I do! From my father’s journal:
5/16 (1941)
Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane opens at the Majestic on the 19th, and you would never learn about it from reading the Hearst papers, the American and the Record. This just makes me more interested in seeing the movie.
5/23 (1941)
Ed Sullivan says that Citizen Kane is in bad taste, and that it is doing very poorly at the box office.
9/3 (1941)
Saw Citizen Kane at the RKO Memorial. It was preceded by a lot of publicity (the Hearst newspapers tried not to recognize the fact of its existence), and in fact the main outlines of Hearst’s life are sketched here, including the famous telegram. "You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war" (or words to that effect). So there is little new biographically here, and the main pleasures derive from a first-rate script, acting, and great music and sound effects. The style is clinical and economical. The picture does not prove deeply into Kane’s personality (the Rosebud symbol doesn’t begin to explain why Kane does what he does during his long life).
Also on the bill was Scattergood Meets Broadway.
(I looked up Scattergood Meets Broadway on imdb. It seems to have been pretty well forgotten. But it was the third movie based on the long-running radio series "Scattergood Baines" so it must have had some sort of audience at the time.)
For your amusement, here is the trailer for the film:
Of course 1942 saw the glorious Casablanca, or as occam’s hatchet would have it, the "Best Movie Ever"! While I cannot say it is the greatest film ever (I find the flashbacks in Paris unnecessary; I think I might have to reserve "greatest film ever" accolades for Singin’ in the Rain), it does have the single greatest scene ever filmed:
Unfortunately all the YouTube clips cut off the coda to the scene, which is glorious in its own way:
1942 also saw the British home front and the Dunkirk rescue commemorated in Mrs. Miniver, the rather interesting and at times very funny To Be or Not To Be, with Jack Benny, and the ultimate ra-ra picture, James Cagney’s Yankee Doodle Dandy. It also saw the release of the little-known but very powerful Keeper of the Flame with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, about the dangers of blind hero-worship. Its tone is very serious, and much different than their usual battle-of-the-sexes films, and worth seeking out.
1943’s pickings are slimmer than those of previous years. Much of Hollywood was involved in the war effort. But there was still an impressive western made that year, The Ox-Bow Incident, with Henry Fonda in a story that warns of the danger of mob violence and summary judgment.
1944 had some greats as well, many that had little or nothing to do with the war: Arsenic and Old Lace, Double Indemnity, National Velvet, and Gaslight were all released that year. But the steamiest scenes on film were between Humphrey Bogart and his new leading lady Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not.
I will have to skim through the rest of the decade. Gosh, I get so excited talking about these years in film. There were great ones throughout the decade! Some of the notable films and performances from the last six years of the decade:
- Mildred Pierce
- Brief Encounter, The Best Years of Our Lives, Notorious, and the lesser It’s a Wonderful Life
- Miracle on 34th Street
- Hamlet, Key Largo (hurricane!), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Red Shoes
- On the Town, The Heiress, Adam’s Rib
In honour of my dad, who served in the navy during The War, here is my favourite clip from the last year of the decade:
I asked him for his memories of films from the decade, and he has written it. But it was put in the mail, and it has not yet arrived. I will post his comments in a separate diary when they come. Not political (or I don’t think it will be), but I think it might be of interest to people who hang out here.
My FNatM compatriots suggestions for the decade:
occam’s hatchet:
Best Movie Ever: Casablanca
Collapses Under The Weight of Its Own Significance: Citizen Kane
Most Innovative: Fantasia or Dumbo (forget for a moment its awful racist bits, and check out the "pink elephant" sequence - looks like it could've been lifted from a 1960s-vintage acid-tripping cartoon)
Land of Enchantment:
1940s? That's the war. Movies about the war came later. Movies to bolster the war effort were made. Anyhow, here's a few from the 40s...
Mrs. Miniver
Casablanca
Citizen Kane
Fantasia
Bambi
National Velvet
But I've said enough. If anything's to go in the dairy associated with me sending it in? Because laughter is good medicine
Sullivan's Travels, dir. Preston Sturges
Arsenic and Old Lace, w/Cary Grant
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. But some honkin’ great movies were made then. What are your favourites?