'Letter From an Unknown Woman'

Notable only because it was directed by Max Ophüls, a German Jew who fled his homeland in 1933 as the Nazis started rattling the cage. He fled again, this time from France, in 1938 and finally landing in the United States. Letter from an Unknown Woman was the second of Ophüls’ Hollywood productions, one of four he completed in the United States before going back to France to finish his life.

Before Letter from an Unknown Woman, Ophüls’ was fired from the film Vendetta by Howard Hughes for either being a foreigner in Hollywood or his slow shooting pace. Or both. This firing came after four years of waiting to get a shot in the United States.

After returning to France in 1950, he never did another Hollywood film. And after leaving, he never filmed in Germany.

'Labyrinths' & 'Ficciones'

Got scared after reading Ficciones and starting Labyrinths and thinking I'd already read the first story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." In fact, I had. Labyrinths was just a collection of stories and essays published in Ficciones and Jorge Luis Borges' El Aleph. 

And "scared" because Borges is not the easiest of reads in the world. He writes fiction like nonfiction and it's hard -- in the shorter format of an essay -- to differentiate between the two. 

Borges was an interesting guy having been brought up in an highly educated household: Bilingual, reading Shakespeare at a young age, studying the philosophy in German as a teenager. 

By the time he was publishing his essays like Ficciones he had gone blind and captured international renown on lecture tours. He was anti-Communist and anti-Fascist. A native Argentinian, he was anti-Peron. Basically, he thought the people should rule and none of those political systems paid much attention to the people and more so on the ruler. 

He referred to the Falkland War as "a fight between two bald men over a comb."  

Clever guy. 

'Brideshead Revisited'

Hey guys, Evelyn Waugh is a guy!

And he married a woman named Evelyn.

Must've been hard for a guy to get something published in the 1940s so he wrote under a pseudonym.

'The Mortal Storm'

Sometimes you find a film with a little guts and no matter what you find yourself enjoying it more than you typically would. The Mortal Storm is one of those films.

It's not an alien story. A happy Bavarian family celebrate the birthday of their father, a noted university professor of science (chemistry or eugenics or something ... although it's intimated that he's also non-Aryan although they never call him a Jew). The next minute Adolf Hitler is elected German chancellor and their lives are thrown into tumult.

The two elder sons and the daughter's boyfriend quickly celebrate the Third Reich of the German empire by joining the Nazis. Meanwhile, family friend played by Jimmy Stewart, a farmer, fights assimilation as he foretells the policies of the Nazis including the annihilation of party opponents, intelligentsia and prejudices untold.

Soon relationships unravel as Stewart's character is bullied and the father is imprisoned and later dies under questionable circumstances. The remaining family attempts to leave the country via train. The youngest son and mother flee. The daughter is detained upon suspicion of being an enemy of the state.

She and Stewart's character attempt emigration by skis and she is murdered upon command of her former fiancé.

Why does any of this matter? What makes it any different than any other Nazi film?

This was released in 1940. A full year-and-a-half before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Here is Jimmy Stewart telling everyone what was going on and still we found ourselves shocked at the atrocities of the Nazis.

If the Nazis are banning your films, you are probably doing things right.

'Kind Hearts And Coronets'

Eddie Murphy has nothing on Alec Guinness. Fifty years before Murphy attempted to portray several different members of a family, Guinness would have eight different parts in Kind Hearts and Coronets.

He also was Obi-Wan Kenobi. So there's that.

Give the American film censors some credit in 1949. They had the word "nigger" changed to sailor. Real progressives over in the states.

'The Reckless Moment'

The Reckless Moment is a pretty run-of-the-mill film noir. Good and all, but nothing really to right home about outside of it being a Max Ophüls and also starring James Mason.

With that said, I’m willing to talk Mason. 

Mason was a British actor, who made as much of a name for himself in the states as he did in his homeland. By my count, he’s in six of the 1,001 films you should see before you die. 

Mason was in countless films working under  a range of directors  like Ophüls, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and others. 

He portrayed Brutus, Humbert Humbert, Captain Nemo, Gustave Flaubert, Joseph of Arimathea and Erwin Rommel (twice!). Quite the career to be perfectly honest. 

He was born in 1909, which would put him in his early 50s when he portrayed Humbert Humbert, which makes it even creepier that he was going after Dolores. It also made him 50 when he had his first cardiac issues in 1959, which he would later die of in 1984. 

I think most satisfying was the fact that he wrote and illustrated a book about he and his wife’s love for cats titled The Cats in Our Lives, which is one more singularly awesome details of his life. The drawings of the cats are honestly kind of neat looking. Good luck finding a copy. 

'Nineteen Eighty-Four'

I wonder how many people that describe things as “Orwellian” have ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four?

I’m being cynical because it’s fun. But more than likely a lot of people have read George Orwell’s most well-known novel set in a dystopian post-war totalitarian regime. 

It’s been translated into 65 languages and is commonly used in classrooms. My first read came in an English class in college. Although the professor was a Vonnegut guy (he wound up gifting me a copy of The Slaughter-House Five), he had us read Nineteen Eighty-Four. 

I think it’s used a lot because it’s a complexly simple novel. Yet, it’s deep and long and unforgiving. For anyone who read it in high school and college, it’s probably the darkest piece of pop culture that they’ve ingested. 

I strongly suggest reading more about Nineteen Eighty-Four. The way Orwell infused it with real tactics used in the Soviet Union and England makes you truly understand that the world of Oceania is closer and truer than we want to realize. 

As a side note, and I’ve never seen this in print or written about online, but a parallel literary universe to Orwell’s is the magic world in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. 

The classifications, the gigantic government always knowing when someone’s doing magic, the bureaucracy, the arbitrary decisions of rulers and even the language is so overbearing. I think Harry Potter is Orwellian. Which I can say because I’ve read the book. 

'Monsieur Verdoux'

Look up "dark comedy" in the dictionary and you'll see a movie poster for Monsieur Verdoux.

It's a fascinating film about a jobless banker, who romanticizes women only to grift them for their money and then kill them. Rumor has it that Orson Welles initially wrote the film and approached Charlie Chaplin to play the lead role.

Chaplin balked at the idea. Either he didn't want to be directed or the film wasn't completely written and didn't want to mess with an unfinished project. Either way, he bought the script from Welles and made his own money, giving Welles credit only for the idea.

It's a new world for Chaplin, who actually talks and doesn't take on his "Tramp" character that made him a highly recognizable movie star the previous 20 years. It's Chaplin like he's hardly been seen before.

The film did poorly bombing in the United States mostly due to the timing of its release (amid the tumult of World War II) and his extremely dark theme of casually murdering women, not thinking it murder because it was done for money and saying a few dead women was better than war.

Verdoux is based on the real-life Henri Désiré Landru. He killed 10 women after putting an ad in the looney-hearts section of the newspaper. He also killed one of the women's sons. He, like Verdoux, was caught when a victim's sister came snooping around and was executed.

I'm sure it wasn't nearly as funny as the film, though.

'Sergeant York'

Sergeant York was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning just two for film editing and a second for Best Actor going to Gary Cooper.

It was released in the summer of 1941. Obviously, it's based on the true story of Alvin York, a dumb sharpshooting hick from Tennessee, who finds God then finds himself drafted for service during World War I. Initially against killing due to his new-found religion, York winds up using his leadership and shooting skills to take something like 130 German prisoners and wound up being the most decorated veteran from the war.

Months after the film's release, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor prompting the United States to enter into war against them and the Germans. Not that most young men needed much of a prod to join the fight, Sergeant York didn't hurt. Of course, the war didn't hurt box-office numbers of the film. It was the highest grossing film of 1941. And young men often left the theater and went straight to the recruitment office. If war were only as easy as Cooper's York made it appear -- capturing hundreds with a pistol!

Cooper actually resisted attempts to play York. Probably as much as York resisted attempts to purchase the rights to his story. Once he relented, he demanded Cooper portray him on the big screen. It takes balls to make such a demand. Then again, it was his story and it's not like York was an ugly man. He was quite handsome.

'Ossessione'

Finally, one of the few times the Europeans have taken an American piece and turned it into something of their own (done three years before the American adaptation).

Ossessione, of course, is an adaptation of James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice, the well-known story of the tramp that has an affair with a restaurateur's wife and the pair connive to kill the husband to not only run away with each other but also collect on his life insurance.

The film was almost not seen by anyone outside of anyone that saw it upon its release in 1943. Director Luchino Visconti had sneaked the film beyond the Fascist censors and upon its released it outraged everyone. The Fascists burned the film.

Visconti, thankfully, kept a duplicate negative. Even still, the film was never distributed outside of Italy until 1976

'High Sierra'

If the woman doesn't get you killed, the dog will.

Humphrey Bogart's Mad Dog Earle is killed during a shoot out with police on a mountain after he attempts to retrieve his dog, Pard (which was Bogart's actual dog, Zero, which is an awesome name for a pet), and is shot in the back. Just like Jesse James.

Women played a huge part in this little escapade, too. There was Velma, the club-footed hillbilly that Earle paid to get her foot fixed only to find out she was spoken for. Earle was probably wondering why the boyfriend didn't get her foot fixed, but he realized we are all pawns in this chess game of life. He was a pawn, used to set up Velma's next move. Hussy.

So he jumps to Marie, played by the extremely average Ida Lupino, who's been all over him the entire film but to no avail. He winds up getting treed up a mountain and shot in the back trying to get his sticking dog. It was all Marie's fault.

'Cat People' & 'The Seventh Victim'

Cat People was the unofficial prequel to The Seventh Victim made just two years before. A prequel only in that it was produced by the same guy and both co-starred Tom Conway as Dr. Louis Judd.

The odd thing is that it is intimated that Dr. Judd is killed by the cat woman in Cat People. Then he shows back up in The Seventh Victim, up to his ambiguously old tricks where you can't quite figure out of if he's a good guy or not. I tend to think not.

I find these films very interesting because them much like The Masque of Red Death deal with some very dark themes including Satanism. Maybe these evils seemed all too real in what we would consider a pretty straight-laced society. In the 1940s, a real evil existed in the Soviet Union and Germany. They had to seem other worldly and extreme much like the characters and demons existing in these films.

Simone Simon starred as the cat lady in Cat People. She was established in France and at the age of 24 she was signed to a contract by an American production company. Each attempt failed in the United States. Cat People is her biggest hit in the States. She made one film past 1956. She's 94 and hasn't done a film since 1973. Fallen totally off the radar.

It is notable that Simon had an affair with George Gershwin and Dusko Popov. Gershwin we know. Popov we don't. The relationship with Popov got the attention of the FBI as he was a double agent for the Germans and the British, apparently he was more of a teammate for the British than he was for the Germans.

Anyway, Popov had another acquaintance: Ian Fleming, who would allegedly use Popov, a ladies man, was the inspiration for James Bond.

Fun facts.

'Whiskey Galore!'

This is a film about an island in the Outer Hebrides that has run out of whiskey considering the rationing during World War II and embragoes on shipping and whatnot.

Desperate, the island finds hope after a ship off the coasts wrecks and the contents -- whiskey -- are looting by the island's inhabitants and the adventure in keeping the contents from military and police officials.

It is based on real life: The SS Politician shipwrecked off an island in the Outer Hebrides and the inhabitants abscond with the spirited contents.

Watching these films and reading these books, you get to learn about places from all over the world. I try to research the settings as much as possible because I would think there are some meaning in how the author or director set his characters in a specific place and time.

The Outer Hebrides are a group of islands located northwest of Scotland. There are 15 inhabited islands in the Outer Hebrides. The islands were actually inhabited before the Romans came through, mostly by Norse invaders and the island was handed over to Scotland in the 13th century. Some structures on the islands, including the Callanish Stones, date back to 2900 BC.

Most of the 26,000 inhabitants speak Scottish Gaelic. On the island if Eriskay, the wreck site of the SS Politician, there are currently 133 residents. It should be noted that 28,000 cases of malt whiskey was made away with.

'Children Of Paradise'

An interesting film because it was voted as the greatest French film of all time in 1995. Since I've seen this film and about two dozen others from the 1950s and 1960s, I find this hard to believe.

It's also interesting -- and this may be why it received such a distinction -- point is that it was filmed during the Vichy regime or German occupation of France. It was released in 1945.

The film was a bit of a rebellion against the restrictions the government set out to make on French art at the time. A time limit was set for 90 minutes, so the film was split into two.

Many of the extras in the film were Resistance fighters needing daytime cover and having had to work elbow to elbow with Vichy sympathizers. Several of the production crew were Jewish.

After the Allied invasion of northern France, filming was suspended. Some think only (the film was done in the south of France) to have the film be released after liberation. Cans of film were hidden in case liberation did come before release (which sounds dirty).

Robert le Vigan portrayed a snitch in the film. Ironically, he was actually an informant for the Nazis and he was sentenced to death by the resistance. He was tried and convicted in 1946. Although one scene with le Vigan remains in the film, he was replaced by Jean Renoir's brother, Pierre.

Historically and nostalgically, this film is probably the greatest in France's history. But is context of release important to the film's total impact?

'A Matter Of Life And Death'

This is a fascinating film made by the filmmaking duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

The film starts on a cheery note. Peter, portrayed by the ostensibly British David Niven, is returning to England in a badly damaged bomber and about to jump out of the aircraft when he happens to contact June, an American radio operator.

The pair make a wireless connection in his supposed dying moments. He jumps, but due to a bad fog his ... death angel fails to collect him for the afterlife.

He happens to land near June, they meet and fall in love. Thus the quandary. He's supposed to be dead and the people in the "Other World" want to even the score.

The debate begins in the afterlife as to whether Peter should be let alone to live a life since he is in love and it wasn't his fault that they dropped the ball.

Suddenly, the film moves into the courtroom scene where a jury is chosen to decide whether Peter should stay alive or join them in heaven.

Initially, the jury is staked against Peter, the Britishman. It is filled with a colonial-era American, an Indian, a Chinaman and just about any other ethnic group that might be pissed off at the British.

Heaven, being fair, changes the jury. June, realizing the only way to save Peter is to take his place, she does and that does the trick. The jury rules in Peter's favor.

It's an interesting film because it deals so bluntly with the idea of death and kind of this ho-hum attitude about the whole thing, as if it weren't completely terrifying. And I guess it kind of was. But once you're existing in the afterlife, after some moments of clarity and understanding, I'm sure there is a high level of acceptance.

It's brilliantly made and highly worth a watch.

'Mildred Pierce'

Mildred Pierce is a sweet mother of two, who finds herself lacking money after her husband leaves her and the kids.

With a little hard work and elbow grease, she breaks into the restaurant business is a flying success. There she meets the shadiest of all millionaire financiers, a partner and real estate agent who doesn't know the meaning of "no means no" and begins to lose control of her eldest daughter (the youngest dies), Veda.

Veda because carousing, drinking, smoking and being relatively disinterested in her mother. One minute she is sweet as sugar and the next there is all kinds of bile emitting from her pie hole. She quickly fell out of favor in this film-watcher's opinion.

Director Michael Curtiz apparently did not want to work with Joan Crawford, who had a reputation for being difficult. That wasn't the case. You could even tell how hard she was working on this film.

Curtiz, a guy that I'd never heard of, had a brilliant career. His career began in his mid-20s during the silent era. His titles included The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels With Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Casablanca, White Christmas and King Creole.

How have I never heard of this guy?

'To Have And To Have Not'

An Ernest Hemingway novel adapted to the screen by William Faulkner. It's only the second time that two Nobel Prize winners were associated with the same film (interestingly, a lot of the dialogue was ad libbed by the cast).

A broke Faulkner was invited to Hollywood in the 1940s by director Howard Hawks (who directed To Have and to Have Not). It paid well and Faulkner needed the cash, so he went.

According to one story, Hawks took Faulkner and Clark Gable hunter. The actor and writer didn't know each other and conversation turned to writers. Gable asked Faulkner who his favorite writers were. He listed off some writers including himself.

Gable apparently responded, "Oh, do you write, Mr. Faulkner?" Faulkner replied, "Yes. And what do you do, Mr. Gable?"

Another story -- possibly apocryphal -- had Faulkner struggling with writer's block at the studio. Faulkner told Hawks he'd like to write at home.

Days passed with no communication, Hawks calls Faulkner's hotel and the writer is gone, left for Mississippi. He literally wanted to go home.

This film is Lauren Bacall's screen debut. She was 19 years old. This is also when she fell in love with her future husband, Humphrey Bogart. He was 45 and 12 years away from dying due to throat cancer.

Bogie had been married three other times. Bacall would marry once more, to Jason Robards.

'Fires Were Started'

Fires Were Started was released in 1943 under the title I Was a Fireman.

It is a documentary featuring reconstructions of what firefighters faced in England during the Nazi bombing during World War II. Yes, they reconstructed actual events.

Any argument that this isn't a "documentary" because it is essentially fake has some validity. Of course, we must first define "documentary." Is what Ken Burns does a documentary? Does he recreate the Civil War, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge or the history of baseball?

He uses archive footage, photos and interviews to tell his story not unlike Humphrey Jennings getting real firefighters to recreate real bombing scenarios.

Jennings, incidentally, was one of the original purveyors of the Mass Observation movement in England.

It was a social research organization created before the war. It basically chronicled everyday people's everyday lives. People kept diaries or they filled out questionnaires.

Other investigators were paid to anonymously account for people's behaviors at work, at parties, at religious and sporting events.

Mass Observation stemmed from King Edward VIII's abdication from the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson. The researchers -- including Jennings -- sought to capture the mood of the country as one king left under dubious circumstances and another king (the dude behind The King's Speech), George VI, took control. The mood of the country was captured by collecting anecdotes, man-on-the-street reaction and overhead commentary.

Jennings died at age 43 after falling off a Greek cliff. So it goes.

'Gunfight At The OK Corral' & 'My Darling Clementine'

Got to give Americans credit. They know how to mythologize.

One-hundred and thirty years ago the police force of Tombstone, Ariz. got into a 30-second gunfight against a group of local ne'er-do-well cowboys.

The fight was relatively insignificant. Not until a biography of Wyatt Earp was released in 1931 did the gunfight gain noteriaty and then John Ford directed My Darling Clementine about 15 years later, 11 years before John Sturges directed Gunfight at the OK Corral, the film that gave the incident it's well-known name.

I highly suggest going into the history and background of the actual fight. Both films are not very factual. My Darling Clementine is probably the least factual of either one. Frankly, unless you wanted the films to be six hours long, you couldn't completely go into what was going on at the time and what led up to the gunfight.

Most notably, Doc Holliday was a pretty disreputable character and he and the Earp brothers were charged with the murder of Ike Clanton. They were exonerated, but in the Arizona territory in the 1880s, that didn't matter much. The gunfight happened. Then, in retaliation, Morgan Earp was murdered. Virgil Earp was seriously hurt. This led to the Earp Vendetta Ride, a 26-day manhunt by Wyatt and Co. a year after the gunfight.

There's a ton of information about all sorts of different aspects and cultural perspectives of the time. It's hard to imagine the United States being so lawless until until the 1900s, even after. Justice is like a fine wine. It takes time to perfect.

'Orpheus'

I never realized the breadth of Jean Cocteau's artistic output.

I knew he was a writer. His literary output was well known to me in addition to his criticism, poetry, screenwriting and plays.

He directed 11 films, including Orpheus in 1949. He even wrote ballets. He is listed as a designer and a boxing promoter on his Wikipedia page.

Cocteau was simply born at the right time in the right country. If nothing else, he was lucky and, yet, incredibly talented to put all of this together.

He was born in 1889 near Paris. By the time he was 20, he was living in the cultural epicenter of the world where art, literature, thought, creativity and everything in between was absolutely bursting at the seams. He collaborated with or simply hung out with Andre Gide, Pablo Picasso, Edith Piaf, Erik Satie, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Marcel Proust and dozens of other artists.

It's one thing to be talented. It's a completely different thing to be hobnobbing with some of the greatest artists that ever lived when boundaries were being demolished. What a time to live and work.