Prelude to War. 1942. USA. Directed and produced by Major Frank Capra

These notes accompany the screenings of Frank Capra’s Why We Fight WWII propaganda films on June 8, 9, and 10 in Theater 3.

Because everyone went to the movies during World War II, the American government found the film industry to be more helpful in propagandizing the populace than at any time before or since. Americans were movie-mad and generally believed whatever they saw at the local theater. Read more

Casablanca. 1942. USA. Directed by Michael Curtiz

These notes accompany the screenings of Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca on June 1, 2, and 3 in Theater 1.

In a recent Internet posting, the Writers Guild of America chose Casablanca as the greatest screenplay of all time. The list of 101 titles included only two foreign films—Renoir’s Grand Illusion and Fellini’s 8 1/2—worth including. I don’t know how people find time for such insipid silliness, but they do. Read more

The Lady Eve. 1941. USA. Written and directed by Preston Sturges

These notes accompany the screenings of Preston Sturges’s The Lady Eve on May 25, 26, and 27 in Theater 3.

Preston Sturges (1898–1959) was in that fraternity of Hollywood scriptwriters (along with Billy wilder, John Huston, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Blake Edwards, and Elaine May, to name just a few) who ultimately weren’t content to let someone else direct their scripts. Sturges’s own transition took a long time; he wrote part or all of 17 films between 1930 and his directorial debut a decade later. Read more

The Maltese Falcon. 1941. USA. Directed by John Huston

These notes accompany the screenings of John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon on May 18 (in Theater 2), 19 (Theater 3), and 20 (Theater 2).

John Huston (1906–1987) has always been something of an enigma to me. The director of The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, The Asphalt Jungle, The Red Badge of Courage, The African Queen, and late-career gems like The Man Who Would Be King, Prizzi’s Honor, and The Dead is too formidable to be dismissed out of hand. Yet there are too many instances where Huston seems to fail to be engaged or, over his two-decade-long middle period, seems blatantly frivolous. Read more

How Green Was My Valley. 1941. USA. Directed by John Ford

These notes accompany the screenings of John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley on May 11, 12, and 13 in Theater 3.

By 1941, John Ford (1894–1973) had attained the peak of the Hollywood studio system. Aside from a few of his later Westerns, How Green Was My Valley remains unchallenged as his best film. It beat out Citizen Kane for the Oscar (partially due to industry antipathy toward Orson Welles), but it also stands head-and-shoulders above any other film that Hollywood, in its collective wisdom, ever managed to choose for its top award. Read more

Citizen Kane. 1941. USA. Directed by Orson Welles

These notes accompany the screenings of Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane on May 4, 5, and 6 in Theater 3.

Orson Welles (1915–1985) would have been 96 this Friday. Like the other three greatest American-born directors (D. W. Griffith from La Grange, Kentucky; John Ford from Portland, Maine; and Howard Hawks from Goshen, Indiana), Welles (from Kenosha, Wisconsin) was a product of that essentially rural America which began to disappear with the coming of the Industrial Age. Read more

The Grapes of Wrath. 1940. USA. Directed by John Ford

These notes accompany the screenings of John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath on April 27, 28, and 29 in Theater 2.

Orson Welles once told Peter Bogdanovich, “John Ford knows what the earth is made of.” Although Welles probably did not intend this to be a cryptic observation, it does lend itself to several interpretations. It could have certain geologic connotations, referring perhaps to the Paleocene epoch, when complex life began to form. It could also refer to the even more complex development that came after—those troublesome bipeds that became us. If all this sounds a bit pompous for a director who spent much of his early career making mostly mindless two-reel westerns, so be it. Read more

Pinocchio. 1940. USA. Produced by Walt Disney

These notes accompany the screenings of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio on April 20, 21, and 22 in Theater 3.

As this is being written, the number one film at the box office for the second straight week is an animated work, Hop, about the picaresque adventures of the long-eared heir to a chocolate bunny factory. Hopping out to see Hop is not high on my agenda (hopping of any kind has not been on my agenda at all since the five-minute “Bunny Hop” craze over a half-century ago), but there has been a proud relationship between bunnies and the cinema for a long time, from John Bunny (the silent clown) to Bunny Lake (Otto Preminger’s abducted little girl). And of course, we can never lavish enough praise on that 14-carrot genius, Bugs. Read more

The Great Dictator. 1940. USA. Directed, produced, and written by Charles Chaplin

The Great Dictator presents unique problems for the historian trying to reconcile Bosley Crowther’s judgment in 1940 that Charles Chaplin’s movie was “perhaps the most significant film ever produced” with the film’s occasionally flawed execution of Chaplin’s grand and noble conception. Because Chaplin (1889–1977) was a universally recognized and beloved personality—whose famous moustache had been stolen by an equally well-known, but far less beloved, comedian-cum-tyrant—his film about Hitler became an event of worldwide consequence. Read more

Young Mr. Lincoln. 1939. USA. Directed by John Ford

These notes accompany the screenings of Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game on April 6, 7, and 8 in Theater 2.

John Ford (1894–1973) is the greatest film director America has ever had (or ever will), and is quite possibly the country’s greatest artist. His usual reaction to such views was that of a snarlingly sarcastic sonofabitch. He was also a man who could be quite cruel, evenly violently so, to people who loved him. Ford, like his predecessor Walt Whitman, was a poet of genius and contradictions. Read more