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La Belle et la Bête [Beauty and the Beast] (Jean Cocteau + René Clément, 1946)
Aug
15
a cornucopia of wonder
La Belle (Josette Day) at a fancy table stacked with good foods and nice wines. She's cleaning her fingernails with the silverware while a chagrined Bête (Jean Marais) looks on. As magical as the story are the production and set design by Christian Bérard, Lucien Carré, and René Moulaert. They breathed a soul into almost everything, including the candelabras. DP: Henri Alekan.
– Does he crawl on four legs? What does he eat and drink?
– I've given him water to drink on occasion. He would never eat me.
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Salón México (Emilio Fernández, 1949)
Aug
13
$120 cerveza
Mercedes (Marga López) sitting at a small round table at the salón. A waiter just came over to take her order. In the other room, meticulously dressed couples dance to live music. DP: Gabriel Figueroa.
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Canon City (Crane Wilbur, 1948)
Aug
1
Colorado Day
Counting the inmates. DP: John Alton.
They've been planning this for months, Canon City's Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility's toughest inmates. It's going to happen on December 30, and all men are ready to go.
“Nice guys.”
Fascinating about Canon City is the usage of some of the actual locations, ánd people, involved in the 1947 #prison break.
Also striking, unfortunately, is the unevenness of the affair. John Alton's cinematography, while wonderful, wanders between noir and stuck camera shutter. And that voice-over… well, lets not mention that at all.
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Canon City (Crane Wilbur, 1948)
Jul
31
grub
A close-up of two prisoners' hands. One is handling grub with a spoon from a stainless steel soup bowl. DP: John Alton.
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Black Narcissus (Michael Powell + Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
Jul
29
National Lipstick Day
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“Do you think it's a good thing to let her feel important?”
– Sister Clodagh
With Jack Cardiff's sweeping cinematography and #Technicolor splendour, Black Narcissus establishes a stark contrast between the Sisters dour piety, the luminance of the Himalayan landscape, and the spellbinding pull of worldly desire. The bewitching #lipstick scene, set in a dimly lit space, works as well as it does precisely because of the scene's photography. That red smear, like blood pulsating from a fresh wound, becomes a deeply unsettling, vulgar gesture.
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
Jun
30
campfire grub
Curtin (Tim Holt), Dobbs (Bogart), and Howard (Walter Huston) eating campfire grub. DP: Ted D. McCord.
“Say, mister. Will you stake a fellow American to a meal?”
– Dobbs
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston, 1948)
Jun
29
National Handshake Day
Fred (Humphrey Bogart) and Curtin (Tim Holt) shake hands witnessed by gruff prospector Howard (Walter Huston). DP: Ted D. McCord.
“I know what gold does to men's souls.”
– Howard
Seemingly character driven, Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an adventure moved by a relentless #landscape, the urge to drift, and #greed.
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La main du diable [The Devil's Hand / Carnival of Sinners] (Maurice Tourneur, 1943)
Jun
27
dinner (late)
A disgruntled man in a hotel restaurant. DP: Armand Thirard.
– Why so grumpy?
– I'm starved! Dinner is always late!
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Valahol Európában / It Happened in Europe] (Géza von Radványi, 1947)
May
20
National Band Directors Day
The old man (Artúr Somlay) at his grand piano. One of the children, in rags, sits on top of it. The children cast for the film were actual, aimless orphans, causing trouble on set. DP: Barnabás Hegyi.
In the children's film Valahol Európában, a gang of plundering feral orphans hiding out in a ruined castle find an old disillusioned pacifist conductor (Artúr Somlay) who's waiting out the war.
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A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell + Emeric Pressburger, 1944)
May
7
National Paste Up Day
Thomas Colpeper, JP (Eric Portman) and Alison (Sheila Sim), her hair still wet from washing out the glue, observing her in a tall mirror. DP: Erwin Hillier.
In a strange other #England – in the village of Chillingbourne to be precise – a train pulls into the station. On board are several people on their way to #Canterbury.
“You're not dreaming.”
– Thomas Colpeper, JP
When Alison disembarks, believing she arrived at the pilgrim's town, a stranger pours #glue in her hair. She's the eleventh, the policeman said. It's the glue man, the townsfolk know. Like the pilgrims of #Chaucer's poem, Alison and her fellow stranded travellers journey towards the closure of this mystifying case.