Top Ten 1947 American Movies (Part 1 of 2)

Ok, after working on it for like 2 years, here's my list on The absolute very Best 1947 American movies. 

Of course, you can disagree with it... but unless you've watched 200+ 1947 movies - as I have - , and I mean you need to tolerate movies like Gas Kids go West, Hi De Ho or The Fabulous Dorseys (Just to mention some crappy ones in the good list)... So, How could you feel entitled to?... No way! Antagonize me?, Ha! 

You are just a Film illiterate, and an internet whiner. 

I think I've been fair with the whole bunch, except perhaps with 

The Lady from Shanghai. For once that movie is an early example of disgusting Whitewashing practices. Oh Come one! Rita Hayworth wasn't fucking Asian, call it the Lady from the Sea or something... (though she had some Spanish blood in her... by the way, she was always ashamed on how Spanishy she looked.

So she fixed it... with bleach skin lightening and hair electrolysis, yikes!)

ALSO I hate Orson Welles. Don't get me wrong, he is a genius director... But I just hate to see that egotistical fucker in almost every piece of film he directed. There are better choices out there for the role you narcissistic fuck! so HA HA Orson Welles I made your master piece rank as low as I could.

I also would have made rank really high to Black Narcissus (1947, Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger), like maybe top 3?... But it is a British movie so (only Americana, dude...). 

So lets begin:

10. Gentleman's Agreement (1947, Elia Kazan) 
Drama: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield

The journalist Phillip Green (Greg Peck) is asked to write an article on antisemitism. He decides to adopt a false Jewish identity. Which kind of raises tension with his new love interest Kathy Lacey (Dorothy MacGuire); though she thinks herself as a liberal, she's really filled with prejudices against Jews... 

Here's the Oscar winner of 1947. It's 10 on the list of my preferences, but of course it is a very good movie. 

The reason why I made it rank so "low", is because I feel about it the same I felt for Crossfire (1947, Edward Dymitrik) which was a movie that also dealt with antisemitism (though the original novel was about homophobia: you can still see some glimpses of it in the movie) So yeah, we are tolerant, and we are preaching... but not THAT tolerant. It comes out just a tiny bit fake, it doesn't go all the way... But I guess that's always the case with first-timers and you know for a 1947 racism movie this is pretty much unique. 

Of course the director is the great Elia Kazan, and the movie just has to be excellent... and it is... But that's the other problem I have with it... Boomerang, also directed by him, also a 1947... Is not as good of a movie as this one (you can even call it just a regular movie), but at least there, the camera did some crazy interesting shit... You can see the hand of the director... here's just like good, you know? Just really good. In any case, as always he got the best from his actors and the movie is super fun and intense.  

9. The Other Love (1947. Andre DeToth) 
Drama: Barbara Stanwyck, David Niven, Richard Conte / MUS: Miklós Rózsa Enterprise Studios

One of the greatest novels you need to read is The Magic Mountain (1924, Der Zauberberg, Thomas Mann), though there's nothing magical about that shitty mountain... is about death and disease... I confess I could never finish it, for once is as big as the bible... and the reading is deeply personal, is just so disturbing! I must have tried it at least five times but had to leave it, had to.

I was close this year (to get to the end I mean) but a burglar... can you believe this?, a fucking burglar stole my book! (Who does that these days?! Leave it to me to get the only literate thief in the whole world. So, Mr. Burglar if you are reading this - you probably are because you like to read- Fuck You!)

Well anyway, this movie remind me of The Magic Mountain, I think it was influenced by Mann's work (At the very least the novel this was adapted from) Andre DeToth is a weird filmmaker for classic Hollywood, he's more like an atmosphere creator. A master of Noir (though he didn't call it that, for him it was gothic movies)

Concert pianist Karen Duncan (Barbara Stanwick) checks in a Switzerland sanitarium not knowing that her tuberculosis is terminal.

She'll fell for auto racer Paul Clermont (Richard Conte), so they'll "escape" to Monte Carlo to smoke, gamble and drink, that is: she will race the very few months she has left. 

8. Ride the Pink Horse (1947, Robert Montgomery) 
Film Noir / Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix.

Lucky Gagin (terrible name) arrives to the Mexican town of San Pablo during Fiesta seeking for mobster Frank Hugo to extort him. FBI agent Bill Retz is also in town for Hugo, and when he finds that Lucky has a telltale, he asks him for it. But Lucky has his own ideas for... revenge...

The third directorial effort of Robert Montgomery, who kind of grew to like it once during another production, They were Expendables (1945) when John Ford got ill and he took over.

And he's... kind of talented, for the Noir bug. 

Ride the Pink Horse has a surreal quality to it, at times it looks like a freaking nightmare. I think it helps that the photographer is non other than Russell Metty, a master in the light and shadows.

Lucky is a man consumed by revenge, but he finds peace surrounded by all these beautiful and kind Mexican people, and specially teenager Pilla (Wanda Hendrix); so yeah it's a story about how a man learns to overcome hate... I don't have much to say about it. Good Movie!

7. Brute Force (1947, Jules Dassin) 
/Drama Prison movie

Prisoner Joe Collins (Burt Lancaster) plots his escape together with fellow prisoner Gallagher (Charles Bickford)

The prison is ruled by the mean brute force guard Cpt Munsey (Hume Cronin) It's an example of a movie trying to depict the criminal's soul... Why they did what they did, It's trying to make you feel for the criminal but...

"I have no pity"

Cause you are a fucking criminal, right?

Is trying so hard to make you see victims and not criminals,  that really gets the opposite effect: Hey there's a reason why these fuckers are in jail... By the way, these all are romantic criminals! Because, all of them got into trouble because of some woman in the first place. For example an accountant commits fraud just to keep buying shit for the way-out-of-his-league waifu.   

As the sadist cell keeper you got the Cocoon old guy, it was nice to see him...

though he's not much of a sadist here in my opinion... I mean, movie guards these days are real nasty motherfuckers. 

Still, a great villain. I think in most Classical Hollywood movies you hate the villain just because...

I mean the message is great: prisons should rehabilitate and not just punish; and I might have agreed with that when I was in my 20s; but it's really hard to swallow this with our cynic middle age souls. Still, a very well directed movie, well paced, fun, great performances, great shots...

6. Ramrod (1947, Andre De Toth) 
Western noirish / Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Don De Fore /  ENTERPRISE STUDIOS

A sheep ranch owner Connie Dickason (Veronica Lake), loses her fiance at the hands of the local cattle owner Frank Ivey (Preston Foster). The stubborn woman decides to hire Dave Nash (Joel McCrea) as an overseer to help her raise her sheep and face the cowboy bully. 

It's just a Western, a good old Western. But what makes it really interesting for me is the performance of Veronica Lake, she would do anything to defend what is hers... The Italian title is way more suitable: La donna di Fuoco (The Lady of Fire). She seduces men to kill and die for her. There's so much lust in the dust in this film (it's 1947!), that I even remembered to be a Technicolor: it isn't, it's black and white... and just a harsh reminder of what men would do for some pussy.

La donna di fuoco, Connie Dickilove: she's gonna fuck them all! 

(The list continues on the next post...) (By pelida77)