Year: 1946

Director: Robert Siodmack

Stars:

Burt Lancaster (Ole ‘Swede’ Andreson)

Ava Gardner (Kitty Collins)

Edmon O´Brien (Jim Riordan)

Albert Decker (Big Jim Colfax)

Awards:

Nominated to 4 Oscars in 1947 for Best Director, Best Writing, Best Film Editing and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. The film didn’t get any of these awards.

It did win the Edgar Allan Poe Award to Best Motion Picture in 1947

In 1946 won the Prize of the National Board of Review in the USA to the Top Ten Films.

The film also won the award from the National Film Preservation Board in the US.

Curiosities:

• It was the first movie of a very young Burt Lancaster who had been an acrobat for a circus until then.

• Burt Lancaster had to train for two months with a Boxing Champion to act in the scenes with boxing. Those scenes were shot with a real boxer joining Burt Lancaster. He happened to do it really well.

• The film is a Hemingway’s short novel adaptation.

The high quality film work is unquestionable, that’s probably why It’s considered by many like the best film within the “black movies” of all times. The 10 first minutes of the tape, when the plot is told are specially good.

The Director uses flashbacks to take us from the past to the present showing us the thread of the story. I love how the movie is directed. I like suspense and crime films and The Killers is one of the best I’ve ever seen.

If I should take out a scene, I’d choose the Burt Lancaster’s face the moment he sees the celestial and beautiful Ava Gardner. She is a Venus. This was the movie where she started building the character of a “femme fatale” that always was her most famous cinema feature.

Burt Lancaster is superb in his role as a boxer and a “white glove thief”. By the way, he was even more handsome than I could remember.

It’s not fair we only can admire the beauty in women in classic cinema… Sometimes actors are better in attraction!

If you like black movies, based on crime novels this film will be one of you favourite. I’m pretty sure!

Trailer:

IMAGES:

http://elcollardehampstead.blogspot.com.es.

http://www.filmoteca.cat.

http://uraniaenberlin.com.

http://johannes-esculpiendoeltiempo.blogspot.com.es.

NOTORIOUS

Year: 1946

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Stars:

Ingrid Bergmam (Alicia Huberman)

Cary Grant (Devlin)

Claude Rains (Alexander Sebastian)

Louise Calhern (Paul Prescott)

Leopoldine Konstantine (MneSebastian)

Awards:

Nominated back in 1947 to the Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Claude Rains) and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.

Bambi Awards in 1952 to Ingrid Bergman as the Best Actress – International.

Nominated in 1946 to the Grand Prize of the Cannes Film Festival (Alfred Hitchcock).

National Film Registry in 2006 at the National Film Preservation Board, USA.

Curiosities:

• The scenes where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman play to “kissing without kissing” were designed that way in order to avoid the Hayes code (a kiss shouldn’t last over 3 seconds).

• Hitchcock said once he was watched for 3 months after the release date since the movie showed uranium commerce.

• The actress who performed the role as Claude Rains’ mother only was 3 years older than the French actor.

• The scene over the balcony with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman was almost entirely improvised.

• The original screenplay showed Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) as a prostitute.

• David O. Selznick (producer) actually preferred Vivien Leigh in the role of Alicia (to be honest, it would have been great!).

• Alfred Hitchcock asked to the Nobel Prize in Physics how to make an atomic bomb. However, the winner didn’t want to answer. Although he did tell Hitchcock it could be kept in a bottle.

• Claude Rains did many shots over a box in order to look like as tall as Cary Grant. That fact was far from reality though. Claude Rains actually was 1,69 cm tall while Cary Grant was 1,87 and Ingrid Bergman was 1,75 cm tall.

• This one was the only performance in an American movie by Leopoldine Konstantine (Mme. Sebastian).

• You’ll find Hitchcock himself (who usually appears in all his movies) in a party celebrated in the house, holding a glass of champaign.

This week was time for Notorious, a Hitchcock’s film. I have to admit I couldn’t wait to see Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant together once again. I love them acting!

I can say it’s with no doubt one of the best Hitchcock’s movies. The “cursed director” never won an Oscar, even though he was considered the best director of thrillers in the history of cinema.

Within this story, you’ll enjoy the mix of love and intrigue, with Cary Grant performing an amazing role as an American spy. The actor knows exactly how to stop his feelings towards Ingrid Bergman, almost a prostitute who accepts being blackmailed in order to unmask the German spy (casted by Claude Rains).

Grant is smart and elegant along the entire movie. I loved those shots the director took of the actor’s back. His elegance invades the whole screen. I could say it’s the only film out of all I’ve already seen and share in our Film of the Week where the main actor rules most of the scenes, instead of the actress. He almost eclipses Bergman in some scenes!

Ingrid Bergman was fascinating over the second half of the film. Her performance as an obedient wife as well as spy is just sensational.

The Master of Thrillers shows once again how to keep watchers stuck to their seats. He succeeded with me at least!  He got my close attention all the time looking forward to the ending. I didn’t  move! I even got nervous in a few scenes.

I totally recommend it to you!

See the whole movie on YouTube:

Images:

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Release date: 1946

Director: Howard Hawks

Stars:

Humphrey Bogart (Phillip Marlowe)

Lauren Bacall (Vivien Rutledge)

John Ridgley (Eddie Mars)

Martha Vickers (Carmen Sternwood)

Awards:

National Film Preservation Board (1997)

Did you know?:

• It was the second film Bogart and Bacall performed together. After three months, they got married.

• The scene where Bogart and Bacall chatted about horses was added after the film was edited, in order to introduce a slyness atmosphere. Howard had already done this previously in To have and have not.

• Lauren Bacall herself sings the song in one of the scenes. That is her voice, unlike some rumours that said it was doubled.

• Sternwood’s mansion is exactly the same one as in Mildred Pierce.

• The scene where Eddie Mars is murdered by his own men was reused by the director in his last western El Dorado.

• William Faulkner helped Hawks to write the plot. When the author of the book, Raymond Chandler was asked who murdered the driver, he didn’t know what to answer.

The movie was a success in theatres. However reviews said that it was an inmoral and violent film.

It’s full of contradictions, cynical talks, irony and hard men. The mystery starts the moment Marlowe chats with the General Sternwood in a dark and sad atmosphere, almost stifling where nobody gives anything away and everyone search their own benefit. It’s a pessimist and grey world.

The detective seems to know everything about the story. And the woman, even though she’s a secondary actress and the love story is also underground, makes the plot explode in sparks every time she has a scene with the main character. The scene at General’s house, where Vivien – Lauren Bacall – tries to find out why his father hired him is just brilliant. The following day, at Marlowe’s office, when they are laughing at the police on the phone is almost an icon to the comedy genre. Same happens with the unforgettable scene at the bar while they are talking about horses. Bogart and Bacall connect totally and seem to be an exceptional couple.

When the plot is about to be in depths of despair, Bogart and Bacall know what joke to tell in order to make you have some fun. It’s not that the plot is difficult to understand (although I have to admit I thought I missed something when it finished) but that I’m sure it’s a movie made exclusively for the two of the main characters.

Bogart makes a sensational performance and Lauren Bacall, with her inimitable voice and her seductive glance shows she has learnt all about the profession, even though she was only 20 years old by then.

The argument – although confusing sometimes – is brilliantly directed by Hawks. He makes viewers follow Marlowe wherever he goes. Public know no more than the main character himself. That way Hawks gets you totally into the plot.

Let me finish this review with this curious image for you to understand the mess there’s in the movie, and the amount of different character performing in it.

Don’t stop paying attention every second in the movie, I recommend.

Images:

2 Bp. Blogspot.com, Uraniaenberlin.com, Lo-bueno-si-breve, Ciclos-decine.blogspot.com.

Memorable scenes:

Year: 1946

Director: Charles Vidor.

Cast:

Rita Hayworth (Gilda Mundson Farrell)

Glenn Ford (Johnny Farrell)

George MacReady (Ballin Mundson)

“Gilda” is Rita Hayworth and Rita Hayworth is “Gilda”. Independently from the film’s plot, more or less attractively, Rita Hayworth completely absorbs and takes over the leading role.  The entire film revolves around her, and her ability to captivate men in the film filters through the big screen and leaves all of us in love with her beauty, her sensuality and her character.

“Gilda” is a melodrama with a masterful structure. It contains some bitter, cynical, and wonderful dialogues which make it an essential work piece in black and white cinema.

This masterpiece hasn’t lost anything over the years. It speaks to us of solitude, friendship, greed, love and violence.

Glenn Ford, who had us accustomed to his roles as a good, trustworthy and honest man, becomes a wild animal absorbed by jealousy.

Without a doubt, the most famous scene in the film is the “strip-tease”. This “strip-tease” is the scene in which Hayworth takes off her glove whilst performing the unforgettable song “Put the Blame on me Mame” which, incidentally, was not sung by her. This scene reminds us once again how Hollywood knew exactly how to create eroticism and sex, simply by showing a naked arm.

Although perhaps it isn’t one of the best films in history, Gilda is, without a doubt, an indispensable film in cinema’s history, and within the film, Rita Hayworth depicts one of the most beautiful and seductive women of all time.

It was awarded by the National Film Preservation Board in 2013.

Curious Facts:

• The truth is that when Rita Hayworth slapped Glenn Ford; she broke two of his teeth.  Glenn Ford did not move until he finished the scene.

• The photograph of Johnny Farrell as a child is, in reality, a photo of Glenn Ford’s son.

• Rita Hayworth had to wear a corset during the filming “Put the blame on Mame”, as she had just given birth to her first daughter.

• Rita Hayworth’s songs are dubbed. Unfortunately her voice seemed too weak, something that made the actress bitter for the rest of her life.

• Rita Hayworth’s strapless dress, designed by Jean Louis, is based on a dress in the painting of “Madame X” (a famous Parisian character from the nineteenth century), painted in 1884 by John Singer Sargent. It cost 60,000 dollars, a barbaric amount of money for the time. In April 2009 it was put in auction, but it was withdrawn due to a lack of bids. It mysteriously appeared on eBay in September in the same year at a starting price of 30,000 dollars. However, I am unable to tell you what happened to the painting.

• The famous glove scene from Gilda has been parodied in a number of films, highlighting above all the one of Jessica Rabbit in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”.

• The film participated in the first edition of the Cannes Film Festival together with “Notorious“, by Hitchcock which, curiously, has many similarities in the plot (South America, Nazis, a woman torn between two men).

GILDA, (THE ENTIRE FILM):

Memorable scenes:

Images:

Isabel MJ.Wordpress, Tiendas Fnac.es, Vipareaforcows.Blorgspot, Diario de una Cinefila. WordPress, Desvario Me Causa El Apetito.