When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1939, it gave its Best Picture award to an exercise in Old South nostalgia called Gone with the Wind. I can scrounge up some nice things to say about that one -- the stars are magnetic, the Technicolor photography is beautiful, and that shot of the wounded after the Battle of Atlanta is unforgettable -- but ultimately it's an overlong, overwrought epic with ugly racial politics. Yet it's always one of the first films mentioned when someone goes on about how great 1939 was, followed by such other dubious choices as Goodbye, Mr. Chips (sentimental and dull) and Dark Victory (a forgettable tearjerker). Those aren't the only overpraised pictures of the year: While I like Gunga Din and Love Affair and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the claims made on their behalf can get a little excessive.
Winnow out such undeserving efforts, and here's the list that's left:
1. The Wizard of Oz Directed by Victor Fleming Written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf, from a novel by L. Frank Baum
IMDb cites two additional uncredited directors and 12 additional uncredited writers. You might expect the results to have a too-many-cooks problem, but instead that collective produced the Great American Movie -- the one true masterpiece to come out of Hollywood in its alleged anno mirabilis.
2. The Rules of the Game Directed by Jean Renoir Written by Renoir and Carl Koch
The year's one true masterpiece that didn't come out of Hollywood.
3. Destry Rides Again Directed by George Marshall Written by Felix Jackson, Gertrude Purcell, Henry Myers, from a novel by Max Brand
In its way, this undermines the conventions of the western as thoroughly as Little Big Man or McCabe & Mrs. Miller would three decades later. But it's funnier.
4. Ninotchka Directed by Ernst Lubitsch Written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Melchior Lengyel, and Walter Reisch
The first great anti-Communist comedy of the sound era.
5. Stagecoach Directed by John Ford Written by Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht, from a story by Ernest Haycox
To make it feel as fresh as possible, don't think of it as a seminal western. Think of it as a tense thriller that happens to be set in the Old West.
6. Midnight Directed by Mitchell Leisen Written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, from story by Edwin Justus Mayer and Franz Schulz
Another home run for the Wilder/Brackett screenwriting team, three years before Wilder finally got a chance to start directing their scripts himself.
7. Only Angels Have Wings Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Jules Furthman, from a story by Hawks
Hawks insisted he knew pilots who really lived like this. I don't believe him.
8. It's a Wonderful World Directed by W.S. Van Dyke Written by Ben Hecht, from a story by Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz
Not to be confused with that other Jimmy Stewart movie with the phrase "It's a Wonderful" in the title. This picture is practically forgotten -- it never appears on those "1939 was the best year ever!" lists -- but I think it's one of the funniest screwball comedies of the '30s.
9. Daybreak Directed by Marcel Carné Written by Jacques Prévert, from a story by Jacques Viot
Like its villain, this movie talks too much. But when the characters are quiet and Carné's camera speaks, the film earns its exalted reputation.
10. Young Mr. Lincoln Directed by John Ford Written by Lamar Trotti
The flipside of Gone with the Wind: just as absurd an exercise in mythmaking, but pro-Lincoln rather than pro-Confederate. The difference is that it's a much more watchable movie, with a witty script and a charming performance by Henry Fonda as the future president. Hollywood history is a pack of lies, but here at least they lie with style.
Bubbling under: I don't have a full roster of honorable mentions for this year, but I'd like to give a shout-out to You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (one of the best W.C. Fields vehicles) and Son of Frankenstein (from which Mel Brooks lifted much material when he made a Frankenstein film of his own). Of the movies of 1939 that I haven't seen, the ones that interest me the most are The Stars Look Down and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums. And I suppose I should watch William Wyler's Wuthering Heights someday, though the chances that I'll like it as much as the Luis Buñuel version are vanishingly small.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1949, it gave its Best Picture award to All the King's Men, a thinly veiled account of the career of Huey Long. It's one of those "serious" Hollywood movies that doesn't live up to its pretentions, but I still couldn't help enjoying it -- I think Long is, hands down, the most interesting political figure in American history, and it's fascinating to watch Hollywood react to him when he was still a relatively fresh memory. Still, I don't respect it enough to give it a spot on the list.
1. Orpheus Written and directed by Jean Cocteau
Dreams, death, mirrors, mysterious radio transmissions, and the underworld.
2. The Third Man Directed by Carol Reed Written by Graham Greene
"Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals."
3. Stray Dog Directed by Akira Kurosawa Written by Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima
Not just a riveting film noir, but a meditation on how much responsibility the ordinary Japanese citizen bears for the crimes of the militarist government. It has relevance beyond Japan.
4. White Heat Directed by Raoul Walsh Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, from a story by Virginia Kellogg
I never understood the Cagney cult until I saw this movie.
5. They Live By Night Directed by Nicholas Ray Written by Ray and Charles Schnee, from a novel by Edward Anderson
This planted the seed for virtually every other film about a couple on the lam, from Bonnie and Clyde to True Romance. It's based on the same novel that spawned Robert Altman's Thieves Like Us, and the two adaptations would make an interesting double feature.
6. Little Rural Riding Hood Directed by Tex Avery Written by Rich Hogan and Jack Cosgriff
The high point of Avery's Riding Hood cycle.
7. Kind Hearts and Coronets Directed by Robert Hamer Written by Hamer and John Dighton, from a novel by Roy Horniman
A dark comedy from Ealing Studios, which specialized in this sort of small, understatedly funny film.
8. Les Enfants Terribles Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville Written by Melville and Jean Cocteau, from a novel by Cocteau
More of a Cocteau movie than a Melville movie.
9. Passport to Pimlico Directed by Henry Cornelius Written by T.E.B. Clarke
Another Ealing effort. This one may be the most Chestertonian comedy I've ever seen. "We've always been English and we'll always be English; and it's precisely because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundians."
10. Thieves' Highway Directed by Jules Dassin
Truck-driving noir.
Honorable mentions:
11. The Set-Up (Robert Wise) 12. Bad Luck Blackie (Tex Avery) 13. Long-Haired Hare (Chuck Jones) 14. I Was a Male War Bride (Howard Hawks) 15. Blood of the Beasts (Georges Franju) 16. Señor Droopy (Tex Avery) 17. Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King) 18. Flamingo Road (Michael Curtiz) 19. The Heiress (William Wyler) 20. Begone Dull Care (Norman McLaren, Evelyn Lambart)
Of the films of 1949 that I haven't seen, the ones that interest me the most are Max Ophuls' The Reckless Moment, Thorold Dickinson's The Queen of Spades, Jacques Tati's Jour de Fête, and Alexander Mackendrick's Whisky Galore!
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1959, it gave its Best Picture award to Ben-Hur, a tedious epic containing exactly one good scene (the chariot race). Here are some better movies:
1. The Four Hundred Blows Directed by François Truffaut Written by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy
The high point of the French New Wave.
2. North by Northwest Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Ernest Lehman
Hitchcock's most paranoid picture, though Cary Grant's charm might distract you from absorbing just how conspiratorial its worldview is.
3. Some Like it Hot Directed by Billy Wilder Written by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, from a story by Robert Thoeren and Michael Logan
Of the other male stars of the period, only Bugs Bunny was this comfortable wearing women's clothes on camera.
4. Rio Bravo Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Jules Furthman and Leigh Brackett, from a story by B.H. McCampbell
You know a director is in control of his material when he can stick a Ricky Nelson/Dean Martin duet in the middle of an action-packed western and make it feel like the most natural thing in the world.
5. Warlock Directed by Edward Dmytryk Written by Robert Alan Aurthur, from a novel by Oakley Hall
"I ain't backin' him, because you're my brother, and I ain't backin' you, because you're wrong."
6. Nazarin Directed by Luis Buñuel Written by Buñuel, Julio Alejandro, and Emilio Carballido, from a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós
Buñuel had a knack for turning the liturgical drama on its head.
7. Ride Lonesome Directed by Budd Boetticher Written by Burt Kennedy
It never really hit me til now that Rio Bravo, Warlock, and this all came out the same year. We may have just stumbled on a golden age of the Hollywood western.
8. The World of Apu Directed by Satyajit Ray Written by Ray, from a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
The last and arguably best entry in the Apu trilogy.
9. Anatomy of a Murder Directed by Otto Preminger Written by Wendell Mayes, from a novel by John D. Voelker
"Just answer the questions, Mr. Paquette. The attorneys will provide the wisecracks."
10. Science Friction Directed by Stan van der Beek
Mr. Gilliam, where do you get your ideas?
Honorable mentions:
11. A Bucket of Blood (Roger Corman) 12. Fires on the Plain (Kon Ichikawa) 13. Odds Against Tomorrow (Robert Wise) 14. Cat's Cradle (Stan Brakhage) 15. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Jiří Trnka) 16. Shadows (John Cassavetes) 17. Wedlock House (Stan Brakhage) 18. Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu) 19. Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Manckiewicz) 20. Plan 9 from Outer Space (Ed Wood)
Yes, Ed Wood. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may recall that Wood's Glen or Glenda finished first in my 1953 list, so there's precedent for the picture's presence. Plan 9 isn't as consistently mad as Glenda -- that one was an inadvertent outsider-art masterpiece, whereas this one merely has bursts of Bulldada brilliance. But those bursts are transfixing enough to guarantee the picture a spot on the list. Middlebrow critics may deride it as "the worst movie ever made," but I'll take it over Ben-Hur any day.
Anyway. Of the films of 1959 that I haven't seen, the one that interests me the most is Jean-Pierre Melville's Two Men in Manhattan.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1969, it gave its Best Picture award to Midnight Cowboy. I like that movie well enough, but it always seemed overpraised to me; it didn't find a home on my list.
1. The Wild Bunch Directed by Sam Peckinpah Written by Peckinpah and Walon Green, from a story by Green and Roy Sickner
Peckinpah's masterpiece.
2. Le Boucher Written and directed by Claude Chabrol
The director's debt to Hitchcock was never a secret, but it's especially obvious here. Still, this is more than mere imitation. If Hitch himself had made this movie, we'd be calling it Chabrolian.
3. The Passion of Anna Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman
"Has it ever occurred to you that the worse off people are, the less they complain? Finally, they're silent even if they're living creatures with nerves, eyes, and hands. Vast armies of victims and hangmen. The sun rises and falls, heavily."
4. The Honeymoon Killers Written and directed by Leonard Kastle
Yes, it's a low-budget exploitation flick about serial killers. It's also a bleak, tense, extremely artful film.
5. Goyokin Directed by Hideo Gosha Written by Gosha and Kei Tasaka
The ronin vs. the state.
6. The Milky Way Directed by Luis Buñuel Written by Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carrière
The Contra Haereses of road movies.
7. Take the Money and Run Directed by Woody Allen Written by Allen and Mickey Rose
Between this and Zelig, Woody Allen has to be acknowledged as a master of the mockumentary.
8. Easy Rider Directed by Dennis Hopper Written by Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Terry Southern
A Woodstock-era update of "The Pardoner's Tale." I like Bill Kauffman's reading of the movie: "The only characters that are depicted as unqualifiably virtuous are the homesteading family, living on their own acreage, raising their own food, teaching their own young....The hippies and the small-town southerners gathered in the diner; the small farmers and the shaggy communards: they were on the same side." The bikers "blew it" because they sneered instead of understanding.
9. Army of Shadows Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville Written by Melville, from a novel by Joseph Kessel
When it comes to films about the French resistance, this is Casablanca's cheerless cousin. There's no shortage of nobility here, but there is far more ruthlessness than romance.
10. Burn! Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo Written by Franco Solinas and Giorgio Arlorio
Very much a product of the '60s, this anti-imperialist saga is as soaked in the politics of the New Left as Easy Rider is drenched with the ambience of the counterculture. Marlon Brando is excellent as William Walker -- here transformed from a Tennessean filibuster to a British covert agent -- and Ennio Morricone contributes one of his finest scores.
Honorable mentions:
11. Z (Constantin Costa-Gavras) 12. La Femme Infidèle (Claude Chabrol) 13. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill) 14. The Sun's Gonna Shine (Les Blank, Skip Gerson) 15. My Night at Maud's (Eric Rohmer) 16. That Cold Day in the Park (Robert Altman) 17. Invocation of My Demon Brother (Kenneth Anger) 18. The Adding Machine (Jerome Epstein) 19. The Cow (Dariush Mehrjui) 20. Bambi Meets Godzilla (Marv Newland)
Of the films of 1969 that I haven't seen, the one that interests me the most is Jacques Rivette's L'amour Fou.
Also, February's print edition of Reason is now on its way to subscribers and newsstands. It includes my review of Shane Hamilton's book Trucking Country.
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1979, it gave its Best Picture award to Kramer vs. Kramer. That isn't a bad movie, but it's a tad too earnest for me. I prefer these:
1. Being There Directed by Hal Ashby Written by Jerzy Kosinski and Robert C. Jones, from a novel by Kosinski
Hal Ashby may be the most undersung American filmmaker of the '70s, and this satire, released in the final year of the decade, is his crowning achievement. After this the hammer came down, the New Hollywood era ended, and he spent the last few years of his life snorting cocaine and directing crap like Let's Spend the Night Together and 8 million ways to die. RIP.
2. Manhattan Directed by Woody Allen Written by Allen and Marshall Brickman
Watching this today, the Allen character's romantic entanglement with a teen might seem too uncomfortably close to the auteur's later life. If you can get past that, though, you'll find the best effort in his C.V.
3. Life of Brian Directed by Terry Jones Written by Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin
"Yes, we're all individuals!"
4. Apocalypse Now Directed by Francis Ford Coppola Written by Coppola, John Miluis, and Michael Herr, from a novel by Joseph Conrad
When the New Hollywood died, Coppola did a better job of surviving than Ashby did. But as with Being There, there's a line separating the movies he directed up through this one from all the pictures that came afterwards.
5. Wise Blood Directed by John Huston Written by Benedict and Michael Fitzgerald, from a novel by Flannery O'Connor
The book is too good for any adaptation to equal it, but this one comes much closer than anyone had a right to expect.
6. The Third Generation Written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Experiments with overlapping sound, a large cast with no clear protagonist, withering satire that doesn't spare anyone -- if Robert Altman made a movie about German terrorists, it would look like this.
7. Winter Kills Directed by William Richert Written by Richert, from a novel by Richard Condon
JFK with a sense of humor.
8. Escape from Alcatraz Directed by Don Siegel Written by Richard Tuggle
Number Six is the new Number Two.
9. Murder by Decree Directed by Bob Clark Written by John Hopkins
The Sherlock Holmes adventure as '70s conspiracy thriller.
10. All That Jazz Directed by Bob Fosse Written by Fosse and Robert Alan Aurthur
I've seen artists attack themselves before, but I had no idea a musical could be so self-lacerating.
Honorable mentions:
11. The Great Santini (Lewis John Carlino) 12. The Tin Drum (Volker Schlöndorff) 13. Alien (Ridley Scott) 14. Bye Bye Brazil (Carlos Diegues) 15. The Marriage of Maria Braun (Rainer Werner Fassbinder) 16. The Brood (David Cronenberg) 17. Scum (Alan Clarke) 18. Going in Style (Martin Brent) 19. A Perfect Couple (Robert Altman) 20. The Muppet Movie (James Frawley)
Of the films of 1979 that I haven't seen, the two that interest me the most are Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre and Joan Micklin Silver's Chilly Scenes of Winter.