Category: The 40’s
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![A Movie for Each Decade [1920-2010]](https://tlkabtmovies.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/1.png?w=1024)
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5 Underappreciated Hitchcock Movies
Here’s another post that has been on my mind for a while. Quite often, I hear people mentioning “Vertigo”, “Rear Window” and “Psycho” as soon as we start talking about Alfred Hitchcock. But here’s a man that directed 57 movies over the course of 54 years. Having watched most of these movies, I’ve decided to…
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Germany Year Zero [1948] ★★★½
Roberto Rossellini’s “Germany Year Zero” is a frightening portrait of post-WWII Berlin, from the point of view of 12-year-old Edmund, who lives with his family in terrible conditions. The war may have ended, Hitler’s third Reich has fallen, but Berlin has never been more miserable. Edmund’s only concern is to provide food for his bedridden…
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Rome, Open City [1945] ★★★½
Italian filmmaker Roberto Rossellini kicked off his so-called “war trilogy” with “Rome, Open City”, a harrowing look at Rome during the Nazi occupation of 1944. Though the events that take place in the movie are strictly fictional, Rossellini knows exactly how to deliver an authentic experience. The main character here is Don Pietro, an Italian…
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White Heat [1949] ★★★★
I’ve fallen in love with gangster films made in the 1930’s. Actors like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart were in almost every gangster picture made in that era. And yet it took director Raoul Walsh years before making one of the best gangster films of all time. Cagney was an ageing star but his…
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Double Indemnity [1944] ★★★★
The quintessential film noir. No other film of the genre can match the brilliance of Billy Wilder’s haunting tale of greed, murder and betrayal. Driven by its masterful techniques and perfect narrative, “Double Indemnity” tells the story of an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) who falls for a beautiful but deadly oil tycoon’s wife (Barbara Stanwyck) and…
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Kind Hearts And Coronets [1949] ★★★★
I can’t begin to describe how funny this movie is. I haven’t recommended a classic movie in quite a while, but “Kind Hearts and Coronets” seemed like a good way to start again. Alec Guiness is brilliant playing not 1, not 2, but 8 characters (!) in this hugely entertaining black comedy about a poor, distant…
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Rebecca [1940] ★★★★
In 1940, Alfred Hitchcock came to Hollywood to direct what would become one of his greatest achievements. Yet it is somewhat surprising that despite his long career, only “Rebecca” earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture. Producer David O. Selznik, hot from the huge success of “Gone With The Wind” a year earlier, seized…
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Abbott And Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff [1949]
Like their earlier movie “Who Done It?”, Abbott and Costello find themselves once again investigating a murder. And despite the title being a bit misleading, this is among their finest work. No, Boris Karloff is not actually the killer here, as he is only a supporting character. I guess putting his name in the title…
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Citizen Kane [1941] ★★★★
I wasn’t surprised one bit when I read that many consider “Citizen Kane” as the best film ever made. Afterall, The American Film institute called it the greatest movie of all time back in 1998. “Citizen Kane” is indeed one of those ageless movies that get better with repeated viewings, and through the years, it has become one of…
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Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948]
Considered by many as one of the boys’s best movies, “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” is a wonderful blend of comedy and horror. The movie opens with a full moon rising in foggy London, where Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) is placing a panicked phone call to the States. He is the only one who…
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Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman [1943]
From the opening scene in the graveyard to the final battle between two of universal’s most famous monsters, “Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman” is considered a treat for horror fans. We follow the story of Larry Talbot (again played by Lon Chaney Jr.), the man who still wants nothing more than to be cured of his irrepressible…
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The Thief Of Bagdad [1940] ★★★★
To begin with a story: I remember watching “The Thief Of Bagdad” when I was very young with my grandfather (who taught me everything there is to know about films). It was probably the first movie I had ever seen, and I was fascinated by it. A couple of years ago, I learned that Criterion was releasing…
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The Stranger [1946]
Orson Welles’s least known film as a director also turned out to be one of his most fascinating. “The Stranger” was an immediate postwar thriller about tracking down Nazi war criminals (Hitchcock did the same with “Notorious”). Edward G. Robinson plays a government investigator tracking down charismatic Nazi Franz Kindler (Orson Welles) , the man who…
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The Wolf Man [1941]
Classic horror movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. as Lawrence Talbot, the man who wants nothing more than to be cured of his irrepressible (when the moon is full of course) lycanthropy. It all started when he was bitten by a werewolf (Bela Lugosi in a chilling role) . As the gypsy woman Maleva explains:”Even a…
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It’s A Wonderful Life [1946] ★★★★
Frank Capra’s classic movie has won the hearts of millions of viewers around the world. It’s certainly an ageless film that seems to get better and better with each passing year. James Stewart is perfectly cast as man who has worked all his life to make good in a small town. Thinking he has failed, the frustrated…
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Black Friday [1940]
When a professor becomes gravely ill, his friend who also happens to be a brain specialist (Boris Karloff) attempts to save him by transplating part of the brain from an injured gangster (Bela Lugosi). The operation proves deadly as the professor’s dual personalities transform him into a Jeckyl and Hyde. Under certain conditions, the gangster’s persona reemerges.…
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Rope [1948]
“We killed for the sake of danger and for the sake of killing.” Quite possibly one of Hitchcock’s best movies, telling the story of two young men who strangle their classmate, hide his body in their appartment, and throw a party for his friends and family in order to test the perfection of their crime.…
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The Third Man [1949] ★★★★
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock”. Terrific movie about a man (cottens) who arrives in…
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