Black Friday (Arthur Lubin, 1940)
Jun
13
Karloff as Dr. Ernest Sovac. DP: Elwood Bredell.
“Mr. Cadell got a bad leg in the war for his courage. And you've got your sleeve in the celery, Mr. Phillip.”
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Jun
9
A man in a dark suit has his clenched hand on top of a stack of fancy gilded dinner plates. He's holding a piece of rope, just an ordinary household article. DPs: William V. Skall & Joseph A. Valentine.
– Mrs. Wilson
El gran calavera [The Great Madcap] (Luis Buñuel, 1949)
May
31
Lobbycard. DP: Ezequiel Carrasco.
– You haven't forgotten us again, have you, Marion? – You know perfectly well I'm Julia Ross!
My Name Is Julia Ross (Joseph H. Lewis, 1945)
May
5
Nina Foch as Julia Ross… or is she… Julia's lying on a made bed, looking over her shoulder at two middle-aged men and an elderly woman standing in the doorway to her room. DP: Burnett Guffey.
“Dry your eyes, baby; it's out of character.”
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
Apr
24
Devlin (Cary Grant) and Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman). DP: Ted Tetzlaff.
And January 9.
– Devlin
“The madwoman has received your grace.”
L'amore (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
Apr
22
alms
Nannina (Anna Magnani) in “Il miracolo”, ascending a staircase while eating her alms. DP of this segment: Aldo Tonti; DPs “Una voce umana”: Robert Juillard & Otello Martelli.
– Nannina
“Another day, another ball of fire rising in the summer sky. The city is quiet now, but it will soon be pounding with activity. This time yesterday, Jean Dexter was just another pretty girl, but now she's the marmalade on 10,000 pieces of toast.”
The Naked City (Jules Dassin, 1948)
Feb
10
Popsicles
A New York precinct. Across the street an ice cream vendor. Several kids are standing around the man's cart while one of them – a chunky monkey – leans against the nearest fire hydrant. A scruffy man in fedora walks past holding a Popsicle. DP: William H. Daniels; still photographers: Bert Anderson & Arthur “Weegee” Fellig.
– narrator
“Roy, this is the land of milk and honey for the health racket. Every woman in California thinks she's either too fat or too thin or too something.”
High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1940)
Jan
19
Roy Earle (Bogart) pensively smoking an after-meal cigarette while Marie Garson (Lupino) looks on. DP: Tony Gaudio.
– 'Doc' Banton
“I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.”
Laura (Otto Preminger + Rouben Mamoulian, 1944)
Dec
11
Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) interrupts arsine newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (a delicious Clifton Webb) with her designs during his lunch. DPs: Joseph LaShelle & Lucien Ballard.
– Waldo Lydecker
“Inflammable desires dampened by day under the cold water of consciousness are ignited that night by the libertarian matches of sleep, and burst forth in showers of shimmering incandescence.”
Fireworks (Kenneth Anger, 1947)
Dec
8
National Christmas Tree Day
The Dreamer (Kenneth Anger) holding a tinsel-decked Christmas tree in front of his naked upper body. The scene appears to foreshadow Yvonne Marquis getting into her silver dress in Anger's Puce Moment (1949).
A Christmas tree for National Christmas Tree Day.
In August 1942, a Mexican-American man with a broken finger was found semiconscious near Sleepy Lagoon, Ca.. By association, a group of young Latinos was put on trial. This spark, mere months after Roosevelt sent thousands of Japanese Americans to concentration camps and fuelled by Cold War paranoia, eventually set off the Zoot Suit Riots.
Zoot Suiters or Pachucos and other “outsiders” like African, Italian and Filipino Americans, were viciously attacked by Anglo-American #sailors. Those suits, all that fabric, this colourful extravagance, they cried out, were hampering the war effort.
– The Dreamer
The Dreamer, Anger, dreams of a similar violent attack. The sadism is harrowing, filmed with such exquisite eye that it's impossible to look away. Blood finds its way out, pulsating and spurting. Ambiguous glances. A hand, no finger. A young man awakes, is born. The dreamer is still asleep.