Notorious (1946, Alfred Hitchcock)

In catching up with lesser or minor Hitchcock it becomes easy to forget how fully and perfectly integrated and complete a film he could turn out, if allowed the (half-) chance. In Notorious, famously named by Francois Truffaut as the film in which Alf got the closest to delivering his original intentions exactly, a sigh …

Round-Up: Pollet, Guitry, Robson/Lewton, Mizoguchi

Mediterranee (1963, Jean-Daniel Pollet) If the endless circuit of repetitive simulations and duplications continues then we should at least attempt to find some ecstasy, some liberty and some echoes of what we have lost within it. Jean-Daniel Pollet’s essay film is an edifice (strong yet weak, monumental but crumbling, still just together but ready to …

Women of the Night (1948, Kenji Mizoguchi)

Here Mizoguchi treads the trails left by the neo-realists and if the result is not a masterpiece (it lacks the sureness and completeness of so many of his best films) it’s still a remarkable and scrappy work of art, a sort of howl of rage and despair so brutal and overpowering that its expresser later …

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946, Tay Garnett)

The Postman Always Rings Twice has been kicked so severely out of consideration as a top-drawer noir (in favour of more obviously auteurist works, or those with the stamp of approval from twenty-first century mannerists) that it is now probably somewhat underrated. Never mind all that because it’s a film rich with pleasures; from the …

Rendez-Vous de Juillet (1949, Jacques Becker)

Make no mistake: this is a beautiful film, beautiful for its modesty, its respectfulness, its clarity and piquancy of image both sundraped and nocturnal. Rendez-Vous de Juillet is a young film about young characters. It was not made by a young man, but it keeps its spirit and feeling of youthfulness because, like the young, …

The Spiral Staircase (1945, Robert Siodmak)

A thriller directed by the underrated Robert Siodmak and derived from the overrated David O Selznick’s company. Siodmak revels in silence in The Spiral Staircase, for it is when the dialogue, the cosy literariness familiar from the films Hitchcock made under Selznick’s eagle eye and controlling grasp, slips away that he can exercise himself. In …

Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne (1945, Robert Bresson)

If this is not where Bresson becomes the Bresson we recognise, stereotype and speak of the power of in hushed whispers, this is nonetheless where Bresson becomes a master. He is a melodramatist still at this point, supported by the timeless, literary dialogue of Jean Cocteau, but he is a melodramatist of pure grace and …