1946 - 1948 (#180 - 209)

Featured
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#209 - Louisiana Story (1948)

Louisiana Story (1948) is a 78-minute black-and-white American film. Although the events and characters depicted are fictional and the film was commissioned by the Standard Oil Company to promote its drilling ventures in the Louisiana bayoux, it is often misidentified as a documentary film, when in fact, it is a docufiction. The script was written by Frances H. Flaherty and Robert J. Flaherty, directed by Robert J. Flaherty.

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#208 - The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is a 1948 American dramatic adventurous neo-western written and directed by John Huston. It is an adaptation of B. Traven's 1927 novel of the same name, set in the 1920s, in which, driven by their desperate economic plight, two young men, Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt), join old-timer Howard (Walter Huston, the director's father) in Mexico to prospect for gold. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was one of the first Hollywood productions to be shot on location outside the United States (in the state of Durango and street scenes in Tampico, Mexico), although many scenes were filmed back in the studio and elsewhere in the US. The movie is quite faithful to the source novel.

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#207 - The Red Shoes (1948)

The Red Shoes is a 1948 English drama film written, directed, and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known collectively as The Archers. The film is about a ballerina who joins an established ballet company and becomes the lead dancer in a new ballet called The Red Shoes, itself based on the fairy tale "The Red Shoes" by Hans Christian Andersen. The film stars Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, and Marius Goring, and features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla Tchérina, renowned dancers from the ballet world, as well as Esmond Knight and Albert Bassermann. It has original music by Brian Easdale and cinematography by Jack Cardiff, and is well regarded for its creative use of Technicolor. At the 21st Academy Awards, The Red Shoes won awards for Best Original Score and Best Art Direction. It also had nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Today, it is regarded as one of the best films of Powell and Pressburger's partnership, and in 1999, it was voted the 9th greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute.

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#206 - Rope (1948)

Rope is a 1948 American psychological crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, based on the 1929 play of the same name by Patrick Hamilton. The film was adapted by Hume Cronyn with a screenplay by Arthur Laurents. The film was produced by Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions. Starring James Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger, this is the first of Hitchcock's Technicolor films, and is notable for taking place in real time and being edited so as to appear as a single continuous shot through the use of long takes. It is the second of Hitchcock's "limited setting" films, the first being Lifeboat. The original play was said to be inspired by the real-life murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks in 1924 by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.

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#205 - The Lady from Shanghai (1948)

The Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King. Although The Lady from Shanghai initially received mixed reviews, it has grown in stature over the years, and many critics have praised its set designs and camerawork.

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#204 - The Snake Pit (1948)

The Snake Pit is a 1948 American film noir directed by Anatole Litvak and stars Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick. Based on Mary Jane Ward's 1946 semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, the film tells the story of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there.

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#203 - The Paleface

The Paleface is a 1948 Technicolor comedy Western film directed by Norman Z. McLeod starring Bob Hope as "Painless Potter" and Jane Russell as Calamity Jane. In the film, Hope sings the song "Buttons and Bows" (by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans). The song won the Academy Award for Best Song that year.

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#202 - Red River (1948)

Red River is a 1948 American western film directed and produced by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, giving a fictional account of the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. The dramatic tension stems from a growing feud over the management of the drive, between the Texas rancher who initiated it (Wayne) and his adopted adult son (Clift). The film's supporting cast features Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey, John Ireland, Hank Worden, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey Jr. and Paul Fix. Borden Chase and Charles Schnee wrote the screenplay, based on Chase's original story (which was first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in 1946 as "Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail").

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#201 - Spring in a Small Town (1948)

Spring in a Small Town is a Chinese film released in 1948 and directed by Fei Mu. The film was based on a short story by Li Tianji and was produced by the Wenhua Film Company. Though its reputation suffered after 1949 in mainland China after the Communist revolution, within the last 20 years it had become known as one of the greatest Chinese films ever made.
#200 - Force of Evil (1948)

Force of Evil is a 1948 American crime film noir directed by Abraham Polonsky who had already achieved a name for himself as a scriptwriter, most notably for the gritty boxing film Body and Soul (1947). Like Body and Soul, the film starred John Garfield. The film was adapted by Abraham Polonsky and Ira Wolfert from Wolfert's novel Tucker's People. The film marked the first on screen acting role of Beau Bridges.

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#199 - Secret beyond the door (1948)

Secret Beyond the Door is a 1948 American film noir psychological thriller and a modern updating of the Bluebeard fairytale, directed by Fritz Lang, produced by Lang's Diana Productions, and released by Universal Pictures. The film stars Joan Bennett and was produced by her husband Walter Wanger. The black-and-white film noir drama is about a woman who suspects her new husband, an architect, plans to kill her.
#198 - Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)

Letter from an Unknown Woman is a 1948 American drama romance film directed by Max Ophüls. It was based on the novella of the same name by Stefan Zweig. The film stars Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians and Marcel Journet.
#197 - The Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Bicycle Thieves is a 1948 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film follows the story of a poor father searching post-World War II Rome for his stolen bicycle, without which he will lose the job which was to be the salvation of his young family. Adapted for the screen by Cesare Zavattini from a novel by Luigi Bartolini, and starring Lamberto Maggiorani as the desperate father and Enzo Staiola as his plucky young son, Bicycle Thieves is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Italian neorealism.

#196 - Odd Man Out (1947)

Odd Man Out is a 1947 British film noir directed by Carol Reed. Set in an unnamed Northern Irish city, it is based on the novel of the same name by F. L. Green and stars James Mason and Robert Newton. The film received the first BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Filmmaker Roman Polanski has repeatedly cited Odd Man Out as his favourite film.
#195 - Monsieur Verdoux (1947)

Monsieur Verdoux is a 1947 black comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin, who plays a bigamist wife killer inspired by serial killer Henri Désiré Landru. The supporting cast includes Martha Raye, William Frawley, and Marilyn Nash.
#194 - Out of the Past (1947)

Out of the Past is a 1947 film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. Film historians consider Out of the Past a superb example of film noir due to its complicated, dark storyline, dark cinematography and classic femme fatale. The film's cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca also shot Tourneur's Cat People.

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#193 - Black Narcissus (1946)

Black Narcissus is a 1947 NR Technicolor erotic film drama film by the British writer-producer-director team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the 1939 novel by Rumer Godden. It is a psychological drama about the emotional tensions of jealousy and lust within a convent of nuns in an isolated valley in the Himalayas. Black Narcissus achieved acclaim for its pioneering technical mastery with the cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, shooting in vibrant colour, winning an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and a Golden Globe Award for Best Cinematography, and Alfred Junge winning an Academy Award for Best Art Direction. According to film critic David Thomson, "Black Narcissus is that rare thing, an erotic English film about the fantasies of nuns, startling whenever Kathleen Byron is involved".
#192 - Notorious (1946)

Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation. Notorious is considered by critics and scholars to mark a watershed for Hitchcock artistically, and to represent a heightened thematic maturity. His biographer, Donald Spoto, writes that "Notorious is in fact Alfred Hitchcock's first attempt—at the age of forty-six—to bring his talents to the creation of a serious love story, and its story of two men in love with Ingrid Bergman could only have been made at this stage of his life." Two scenes in the film have been widely cited as among Hitchcock's best: in one, Hitchcock starts wide and high on a second floor balcony overlooking the great hall of a grand mansion. Slowly he tracks down and in on Ingrid Bergman, finally ending with a tight close-up of a key tucked in her hand. Hitchcock also devised a scene that circumvented the Production Code's ban on kisses longer than three seconds by having his actors disengage every three seconds, murmur and nuzzle each other, then start again. The two-and-a-half-minute kiss was described by biographer Paul Duncan as "perhaps his most intimate and erotic kiss".
#191 - My Darling Clementine (1946)

My Darling Clementine is a 1946 American Western film directed by John Ford and starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp during the period leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral. The ensemble cast also features Victor Mature (as Doc Holliday), Linda Darnell, Walter Brennan, Tim Holt, Cathy Downs and Ward Bond. The title of the movie is borrowed from the theme song "Oh My Darling, Clementine", sung in parts over the opening and closing credits. My Darling Clementine is regarded by many film critics as one of the best Westerns ever made.
#190 - Great Expectations (1946)

Great Expectations is a 1946 British film directed by David Lean, based on the novel by Charles Dickens and starring John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Jean Simmons, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness and Valerie Hobson. Guinness and Hunt reprised their roles in the film, but the film was not a strict adaptation of the stage version. The film was produced by Ronald Neame and photographed by Guy Green. It was the first of two films Lean directed based on Dickens' novels, the other being his 1948 adaptation of Oliver Twist.
#189 - A matter of life and death (1946)

A Matter of Life and Death is a 1946 British fantasy-romance film written, produced and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, and set in England during the Second World War. The film stars David Niven, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Kim Hunter and Marius Goring. The film was originally released in the United States under the title Stairway to Heaven, which derived from the film's most prominent special effect: a broad escalator linking Earth to the afterlife.

#188 - Gilda (1946)

Gilda is a 1946 American film noir directed by Charles Vidor and starring Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale and Glenn Ford as a young thug. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Maté's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis's wardrobe for Hayworth (particularly for the dance numbers), and choreographer Jack Cole's staging of "Put the Blame on Mame" and "Amado Mio", sung by Anita Ellis.
#187 - The Big Sleep (1946)

The Big Sleep is a 1946 film noir directed by Howard Hawks, the first film version of Raymond Chandler's 1939 novel of the same name. The film stars Humphrey Bogart as private detective Philip Marlowe and Lauren Bacall as Vivian Rutledge in a story about the "process of a criminal investigation, not its results." William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman co-wrote the screenplay.
#186 - It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas fantasy comedy-drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his dreams in order to help others, and whose imminent suicide on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers). Clarence shows George all the lives he has touched and how different life in his community of Bedford Falls would be if he had never been born. Despite initially performing poorly at the box office because of stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has become regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world. The film is considered one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season.

#185 - Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a 1946 French romantic fantasy film directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau. Starring Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais as the Beast, it is an adaptation of the 1757 story Beauty and the Beast, written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont and published as part of a fairy tale anthology. The plot of Cocteau's film revolves around Belle's father who is sentenced to death for picking a rose from Beast's garden. Belle offers to go back to the Beast in her father's place. Beast falls in love with her and proposes marriage on a nightly basis which she refuses. Belle eventually becomes more drawn to Beast, who tests her by letting her return home to her family and telling her that if she doesn't return to him within a week, he will die of grief.

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#184 - The Killers (1946)

The Killers [a.k.a. 'A Man Alone'] is a 1946 American film noir directed by Robert Siodmak and based in part on the 1927 short story of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Burt Lancaster in his film debut, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, and Sam Levene. The film also features William Conrad in his first credited role, as one of the killers referred to in the title. An uncredited John Huston and Richard Brooks co-wrote the screenplay, which was credited to Anthony Veiller.
#183 - The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 American film noir based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel features Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter. This version was the third filming of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but the first under the novel's original title and the first in English. Previously, the novel had been filmed as Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turning) in France in 1939 and as Ossessione (Obsession) in Italy in 1943.
#182 - The Best Years of our Lives (1946)

The Best Years of Our Lives (aka Glory for Me and Home Again) is a 1946 American drama film directed by William Wyler and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, and Harold Russell. The film is about three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life after coming home from World War II. Samuel Goldwyn was inspired to produce a film about veterans after reading an August 7, 1944, article in Time about the difficulties experienced by men returning to civilian life.

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#181 - Paisan (1946)

Paisan (Italian: Paisà) is a 1946 Italian neorealist war drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini, the second of a trilogy by Rossellini. It is divided into six episodes. They are set in the Italian Campaign during World War II when Nazi Germany was losing the war against the Allies. A major theme is communication problems due to language barriers.
#180 - Rome, Open City (1945)

Open City or Rome, Open City (Italian: Roma città aperta) is a 1945 Italian neorealist drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. The picture features Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero, and is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944. The title refers to Rome being declared an open city after 14 August 1943. The film won several awards at various film festivals, including the most prestigious Cannes' Grand Prize, and was also nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar at the 19th Academy Awards.