2024 Summer Movie Talk – Part 13

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My Favorites from 1940 – 1949

I won’t make any claims other than these are the movies from the 1940’s that I like best.  And without trying I could add a whole bunch more (see the runners up list below).

It’s funny.  I have a much different feel about the movies in the ‘30s versus the ‘40s.  When I look at the movies from the ‘40s I feel like I’m more jaded or something.  I haven’t included a single monster movie.  Maybe I shifted to the fairy tales with Sabu like “The Thief of Bagdad” and the “Jungle Book.”

Well, as usual, have at it in the comments.

  1. The Bank Dick (1940)
  2. The Great McGinty (1940)
  3. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
  4. The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
  5. Our Town (1940)
  6. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
  7. Sergeant York (1941)
  8. Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
  9. Casablanca (1942)
  10. Jungle Book (1942)
  11. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
  12. Double Indemnity (1944)
  13. Gaslight (1944)
  14. Going My Way (1944)
  15. Henry V (1944)
  16. To Have and Have Not (1944)
  17. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
  18. Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)
  19. The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
  20. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
  21. The Big Sleep (1946)
  22. Notorious (1946)
  23. Life with Father (1947)
  24. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
  25. Hamlet (1948)
  26. Key Largo (1948)
  27. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
  28. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
  29. A Letter to Three Wives (1949)
  30. The Third Man (1949)

 

Runners-Up List

 

1940

Dr. Cyclops

Edison, the Man

Foreign Correspondent

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Dictator

His Girl Friday

The Letter

The Philadelphia Story

Rebecca

Road to Singapore

Swiss Family Robinson

The Westerner

Young Tom Edison

 

1941

Buck Privates

Citizen Kane

The Corsican Brothers

The Devil and Daniel Webster

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Dumbo

High Sierra

How Green Was My Valley

The Lady Eve

The Little Foxes

Meet John Doe

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Suspicion

They Died with Their Boots On

Tobacco Road

The Wolf Man

 

1942

George Washington Slept Here

The Glass Key

Kings Row

The Magnificent Ambersons

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Mrs. Miniver

Now, Voyager

The Pride of the Yankees

Saboteur

Tortilla Flat

Yankee Doodle Dandy

 

1943

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Human Comedy

The Ox-Bow Incident

The Song of Bernadette

 

1944

Arsenic and Old Lace

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Canterville Ghost

Hail the Conquering Hero

The Keys of the Kingdom

Lifeboat

The Lodger

National Velvet

Thirty Seconds over Tokyo

 

1945

The Body Snatcher

Brief Encounter

Our Vines Have Tender Grapes

Spellbound

The Story of G.I. Joe

They Were Expendable

 

1946

The Beast with Five Fingers

The Blue Dahlia

Gilda

It’s a Wonderful Life

The Killers

My Darling Clementine

The Postman Always Rings Twice

The Stranger

 

1947

The Bishop’s Wife

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

The Lady from Shanghai

Odd Man Out

Out of the Past

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Sinbad the Sailor

 

1948

3 Godfathers

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Fort Apache

I Remember Mama

Johnny Belinda

Macbeth

The Naked City

Oliver Twist

Red River

Rope

Sorry, Wrong Number

The Three Musketeers

 

 

1949

All the King’s Men

The Inspector General

Mighty Joe Young

Sands of Iwo Jima

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Twelve O’Clock High

White Heat

2024 Summer Movie Talk – Part 12

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, OCF, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , ,

My Favorites from 1930 – 1939

I won’t make any claims other than these are the movies from the 1930’s that I like best.  And without trying I could add a whole bunch more (see the runners up list below).  People say that 1939 was Hollywood’s greatest year.  Based on my tastes I’d say 1934 was the high point.

I’m sure opinions will differ.  Have at it.

  1. Dracula (1931)
  2. Frankenstein (1931)
  3. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
  4. The Mummy (1932)
  5. King Kong (1933)
  6. Babes in Toyland (1934)
  7. It Happened One Night (1934)
  8. It’s a Gift (1934)
  9. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
  10. The Thin Man (1934)
  11. Treasure Island (1934)
  12. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
  13. Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)
  14. Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
  15. A Night at the Opera (1935)
  16. Dead End (1937)
  17. The Good Earth (1937)
  18. Topper (1937)
  19. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
  20. A Christmas Carol (1938)
  21. Gunga Din (1939)
  22. Ninotchka (1939)
  23. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

 

Runners-Up List

1931

Little Caesar

City Lights

The Public Enemy

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1932

A Farewell to Arms,

Grand Hotel

Horse Feathers

Scarface

Tarzan the Ape Man

1933

42nd Street

Dinner at Eight

Duck Soup

The Invisible Man

The Private Life of Henry VIII

The Son of Kong

1935

The 39 Steps

Ah, Wilderness!

Captain Blood

The Glass Key

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Ruggles of Red Gap

Werewolf of London

1936

After the Thin Man

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

My Man Godfrey

Things to Come

1937

Captains Courageous

A Day at the Races

Heidi

Lost Horizon

The Prince and the Pauper

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

The Prisoner of Zenda 1

1938

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Angels with Dirty Faces

The Lady Vanishes

You Can’t Take It with You

1939

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Destry Rides Again

The Four Feathers

Gone with the Wind

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Of Mice and Men

Stagecoach

 

 1  Master Diver

Where’s Joe Biden’s Nobel Peace Prize?

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Okay, so maybe I’m pushing it.  Maybe it’s too soon.  But then again Obama got his preemptively and let’s face it, if we don’t get Joe to Oslo soon it might be kind of embarrassing during the presentation ceremony.  And messy.

So, how about it?  If proof is needed, we can list Afghanistan, Ukraine (kinda), COVID, January Sixth convictions (by proxy), Trump assassination attempt (by proxy), eleven plus million migrants living on the dole and the laughs we got from the debate, plus the gift of Kamala Harris.

That’s a lot.

What did Teddy Roosevelt have?  The Russo-Japanese War peace treaty?  Thin soup as far as I can see.  After all, are they really any closer to friendship now than they were a hundred odd years ago?  Hardly.

No.  History is crying out for a Peace Prize for Biden.  In fact, the whole thing should be renamed the Joe Biden Peace Prize.  And the award should be reworked so that it is a replica of Joe Biden’s head.  Smiling, maybe.  But I’ll have to think about that.  He did have that great look during the debate.  You know whenever Trump was mocking him.  Not just a confused look but a look of incredible effort like he was trying to remember how to make his mouth close.  So maybe that look.

And inscribed on his forehead it could say something like, “Never forget that I, uhhh, look, you know the drill, uhhh, the thing, uhhh, oh forget it.”

Next year, Kamala Harris can get hers; either for winning the election or for losing it.  After that either Greta Thunberg or those kids who defaced one of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings then super glued themselves to the wall.  That was world class.

But enough of this daydreaming.  Let’s get back to reality.  Even if they gave Joe the award tomorrow there’s a good chance, he won’t know what they’re saying or what it means.  So, we’ve got to break through the cognitive barrier.  What needs to be provided is a clear indication that he’s getting a lot of money.  No matter how far gone he is into imbecility he will still recognize and respond to a big pile of cash.

What makes sense is for the award money to be presented in one-dollar bills in a giant burlap bag with a dollar sign printed on the outside and the bills overflowing onto the floor.  I guess, in order to make it more familiar it should be presented to Joe by Hunter in his underwear smoking crack cocaine and surrounded by naked hookers.

And to round out the experience Doctor Jill and Barack Obama could be on either side of the stage clapping and telling him what a good boy he’s been for knowing all the words and eating all his ice cream and mostly not soiling himself.

Poor Alfred Nobel.  If only he could have lived long enough to see his award go to Barack Obama for his future contributions to world peace (which didn’t quite pan out).  And hopefully now to Joe Biden for his good sportsmanship in allowing himself without the need for violence to be forced to exit the Democratic presidential primary that he had already won and hand it over to someone even stupider than himself.  Now that’s what I call peace.

We Lost Joe!  Is Kamala Safe?

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America is coming unhinged.  Suddenly we’re told by the Media that Joe Biden must drop out of the race for president because, supposedly, he had a bad debate.  What bad debate?  His performance was masterful.  He was sharp as a tack.  And he came up with that winning slogan for the campaign, “We finally beat Medicaid.”  I mean, that was world class.  Sure, he had some small slips of the tongue about trillionaires and COVID instead of healthcare but that’s just because he was so excited to tell the American people the good news about Biden-omics and how they were actually making money every time they go to the grocery store or gas station.  I mean, he really does pass a cognitive test every day.  Well, most days anyway.

So some MAGA Republican shills like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama staged a coup and forced poor Scranton Joe to drop out just when he was really getting started.  That was hard to watch.  Very hard to watch.  And I’m not even sure it really happened.  Maybe that was a deep fake of Joe conceding the race.  It didn’t sound like him.  He said billionaires instead of trillionaires and he didn’t call Donald Trump his vice president.  The whole thing is very suspicious.

But we can’t undo the past.  Joe’s gone.  He’s probably consoled himself with so much ice cream at this point that he won’t be able to move or speak until October, so the election is gone for him.  What I’m worried about is the same thing happening to Kamala Harris.  What if they run a coup against her?  I don’t care how unburdened she is by the past, if Obama, Schumer and Pelosi show up at her front door in the middle of the night and tell her that she has to step down “for the good of the country,” that good-hearted gal Kamala will sacrifice herself.

But she shouldn’t!

They’ll tell her she’s not popular enough to be elected.  They’ll tell her that giving forty-minute speeches about yellow school buses isn’t a winning strategy.  They’ll tell her that long solipsistic discussions about obvious facts aren’t a winning strategy.  They’ll tell her that replying to a pointed accusation about her painfully long list of failures with a maniacal laugh isn’t a winning strategy.

Who are these people telling her these things.

Well, sure, they’re the election professionals that she’s paying to help her win.  But maybe they’re also MAGA Republican shills who work for Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama.  Don’t let them “biden” you, Kamala!  You’re better than that.

But even though you’re better than that, don’t let them talk you into a debate with Donald Trump.  Don’t do it.  Donald Trump doesn’t love yellow school buses.  He is completely burdened by what has been.  And he won’t be laughing.

He’s going to blame the border crisis on you.  Even though there is no border crisis.  He’s going to say that you were the “border czar” even though there’s no such thing.  And besides he’s Vladimir Putin’s friend and Putin really is the czar of all the Russias!

And Donald Trump is going to blame the urban crime on you because of the “defund the police” statements that you may (or may not) have made.

In other words, Donald Trump will be using disinformation against you if you agree to debate him.  So don’t you do it babe.  Your best bet is to stay put at the Vice-Presidential residence and don’t answer the door.  It could be a trick.  It could be Jake Tapper, Tucker Carlson or Donald Trump or it could be Pelosi, Schumer and Obama just waiting to catch you in a trap about dropping out for the good of the country.  Well, don’t fall for it.

So, if Kamala will just take my advice and stick to her basement until after COVID, I mean Election Day, she will be elected by a landslide and Donald Trump will stay in prison for a thousand years.  But stay away from the vanilla ice cream, Kamala.  I think it can rot your brain.  And you can’t afford it.