January 1948: The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre

Bogie! And… other people…

I thought this was going to be a western, but it’s contemporary and is something much more singular. It’s the kind of movie you (I mean, me) have no idea what direction it’s going to go in.

It’s by John Huston, so of course it’s good, and as usual with a Huston movie, it’s very homosocial: It’s all men talking to other men.

This won all the Oscars and bunch of other prizes, too.

Bogie’s transformation to wide-eyed lunatic is really convincing!

Oh, this is the movie with “we don’t need no steenkin badges”. It’s so weird recognising well-used samples in olden movies.

This is like an audience participation movie. The audience is going “DON”T BE AN ASSHOLE< BOGIE" and then we're constantly somewhat disappointed.

It's a really good movie. It's almost brilliant.

The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. John Huston. 1948.

I couldn’t find the DVD! I apparently ripped it in 2014, but it’s not… here…

Popular movies in January 1948 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
83116	8.3	The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
234	7.1	I Love Trouble
1443	7.1	I Walk Alone
1959	6.7	Anna Karenina
240	6.5	Vice Versa

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

December 1947: The Lady From Shanghai

*gasp* Orson Welles!

And Orson is dubbed into a comedy Irish dialect!? WTF?! His lips don’t match up to the audio all the time, at least, so I’m assuming it’s not Welles himself doing the awful impression…

This is such a weird movie! I love it! It makes no sense! I assume that Welles’ diet consisted of nothing but diet pills and coke around this time.

I’m not sure this is a good movie, but it’s absolutely brilliant.

Well. That was so weird that I have to google it.

Here’s Wikipedia:

Cohn strongly disliked Welles’s rough cut, particularly what he considered to be a confusing plot and lack of close-ups (Welles had deliberately avoided these, as a stylistic device), and was not in sympathy with Welles’s Brechtian use of irony and black comedy, especially in a farcical courtroom scene. He also objected to the appearance of the film—Welles had aimed for documentary-style authenticity by shooting one of the first major Hollywood pictures almost entirely on location (in Acapulco, Pie de la Cuesta, Sausalito and San Francisco) using long takes, and Cohn preferred the more tightly-controlled look of footage lit and shot in a studio. Release was delayed due to Cohn ordering extensive editing and reshoots.

Well, that explains it! All those weird, excessive close-ups: It’s like Welles went “YOU WANT CLOSE-UPS!? I”LL FUCKING GIVE YOU FUCKING CLOSE-FUCKING-UPS!”

Welles removed himself from the directorial credits of this movie, and we can only imagine what Welles’ original version looked like: “As with many of Welles’s films over which he did not have control over the final cut, the missing footage has not been found and is presumed to have been destroyed.”

The version we have now is absolutely bonkers, and is compulsive watching.

The Lady From Shanghai. Orson Welles. 1947.

Hey! I should have taken the balcony furniture inside, I guess…

Popular movies in December 1947 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
2007	7.9	Good News
20088	7.7	The Lady from Shanghai
10687	7.6	The Bishop’s Wife
4152	7.4	Brighton Rock
2547	7.3	Road to Rio
2180	7.1	A Double Life
2070	7.0	T-Men
942	6.9	High Wall
1318	6.9	Captain from Castile
395	6.8	The Voice of the Turtle

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

November 1947: Out of the Past

This is a film noir, but it starts off as like a 50s Tennessee Williams movie. But then you get all of the genre trappings: Flash-backs, gangsters, dames, beaches, repartee.

I’ve never realised how similar Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas are. They’re basically the same person. Mitchum is a bit more muscular, but otherwise they’re confusingly similar. I wonder whether that was the effect they were going for, or whether it’s the usual result of the casting director having a “type”.

This is a very well-regarded movie:

Out of the Past is considered one of the greatest of all films noir.[5][6][7] Robert Ottoson hailed the film as “the ne plus ultra of forties film noir”.[8]

I don’t quite get it. Nothing really sizzles here. I find myself being almost completely disinterested in Mitchum and his mysterious past. The cinematography isn’t particularly striking, and the dames aren’t compelling.

But I concede that I might be totally wrong about this one. It just didn’t hold my attention, so perhaps it’s really a masterpiece and I just kinda zoned out on the good bits? It’s possible.

Out of the Past. Jacques Tourneur. 1947.

Popular movies in November 1947 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
24312	8.1	Out of the Past
11481	7.4	Gentleman’s Agreement
889	7.4	It Always Rains on Sunday
523	7.1	Monsieur Vincent
618	7.0	The Lost Moment
236	6.9	Mine Own Executioner
251	6.8	Where There’s Life
1524	6.7	Daisy Kenyon
1571	6.5	The Fugitive
407	6.5	An Ideal Husband

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

October 1947: Green Dolphin Street

This has few votes on imdb so I assumed that it was a B movie. But this is an MGM high budget costume drama… with Lana Turner and Donna Reed.

And what costumes!

It was nominated for a handful of technical Oscars as well as Best Cinematography and was apparently quite popular upon release.

That it’s apparently mostly forgotten today isn’t very surprising. It’s… what’s the word… like totally lame?

There’s no rapport between the alleged lovers. Van Heflin is particularly problematic: When he first appeared I thought he was portraying a leering pervert of some sort, but then he turns out to be a hero or something?

The pace is glacial. It goes on for two and a half hours and seems to have enough drama for about half an hour. Were they going for a Gone is the Wind vibe?

I don’t know whether to admire or roll my eyes at the brazenness of the plot contrivance in the middle (involving a drunken letter).

The earthquake effects are really quite impressive.

This is a horrible movie, but I’ll up the dice on account of the earthquake scene. But beware!

Green Dolphin Street. Victor Saville. 1947.

Popular movies in October 1947 according to IMDB:

Votes	Rating	Movie
5367	7.8	Nightmare Alley
860	7.3	The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap
1624	7.2	The Unsuspected
1030	6.9	Green Dolphin Street
764	6.8	Song of Love
341	6.7	The Exile
890	6.7	Forever Amber
244	6.6	Bowery Buckaroos
1059	6.5	Magic Town
269	6.5	Merton of the Movies

This blog post is part of the Decade series.

4AD 1990

Listen to 4AD 1990 on Spotify.

4AD head Ivo Watts-Russell has later said that he was going to shut down 4AD after ten years, but he didn’t because he felt an obligation to the bands. So instead 1990 turned into one of the busiest years ever, with 17 releases, and some of the biggest commercial successes in 4AD’s history.

Dead Can Dance released Aion, a release that I think converted anybody sceptical about them into fans. Pixies released Bossanova, which was very popular and the first release on 4AD I didn’t like since 1984. But Kim Deal from Pixies joined up with Tanya Donnelly from Throwing Muses and Josephine Wiggs and went into the studio with “producer” Steve Albini and came up with the Pod album, which I think is better than everything Pixies did ever combined.

And we got the first album from His Name Is Alive, which did much to ensure people sceptical of the other newcomers that 4AD was still spiffy.

And then there’s Cocteau Twins. Heaven or Las Vegas was their most commercial release ever, and sold a buttload of copies, and was also well-liked by old fans. Imagine that. But: During interviews Robin Guthrie had been saying increasingly dismissive things about Ivo, and he finally got fed up and released them from their contract out of the blue.

As was part of the pattern, after leaving 4AD they didn’t really do anything much worthwhile. People are still coming clean about whether they tolerated Four-Calendar Cafe or not.

Watts-Russell would start withdrawing from day-to-day running of the label (and the artists) after this. He had been very hands-on, from doing the A&R thing to signing bands to visiting them in the studio to overseeing the manufacturing, and that ended around this time. Perceived cohesion would start to dissolve over the next few years as other people at 4AD would start bringing in bands. The “4AD fan” thing would start to become a thing of the past. Which is perhaps a good thing? Or kinda melancholic. Take your pick.

1990

	CAD0002 Pale Saints — The Comforts Of Madness Way The World Is, You Tear The World In Two, Sea Of Sound, True Coming Dream, Little Hammer, Insubstantial, A Deep Sleep For Steven, Language Of Flowers, Fell From The Sun, Sight Of You (remix), Time Thief
	BAD0003 Lush — Mad Love De-Luxe, Leaves Me Cold, Downer, Thoughtforms (remix)
	BAD0004 Ultra Vivid Scene — Staring At The Sun Staring At The Sun, Three Stars (*** version), Crash (remix), Something Better
	CAD0005 Ultra Vivid Scene — Joy 1967-1990 It Happens Every Time, Staring At The Sun, Three Stars (remix), Special One, Grey Turns White, Poison, Guilty Pleasure, Extra Ordinary, Beauty #2, The Kindest Cut, Praise The Low, Lightning
	CAD0006 The Breeders — Pod Glorious, Doe, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Oh!, Hellbound, When I Was A Painter, Fortunately Gone, Iris, Opened, Only In 3’s, Lime House, Metal Man
	CAD0007 Dead Can Dance — Aion The Arrival And The Reunion, Saltarello, Mephisto, The Song Of The Sybil, Fortune Presents Gifts Not According To The Book, As The Bell Rings The Maypole Spins, The End Of Words, Black Sun, Wilderness, The Promised Womb, The Garden Of Zephirus, Radharc
	CAD0008 His Name Is Alive — Livonia As We Could Ever, e-nicolle, If July, Some and I, fossil, E-Nicolle, Caroline’s Supposed Demon, Fossil, reincarnation, You And I Have Seizures, How Ghosts Affect Relationships, Darkest Dreams
	BAD0009 Pixies — Velouria Velouria, I’ve Been Waiting For You, Make Believe, The Thing (The Happening)
	CAD0010 Pixies — Bossanova Cecilia Ann, Rock Music, Velouria, Allison, Is She Weird, Ana, All Over The World, Dig For Fire, Down To The Well (remix), The Happening, Blown Away, Hang Wire, Stormy Weather, Havalina
	BAD0011 Cocteau Twins — Iceblink Luck Iceblink Luck, Mizake The Mizan, Watchlar
	CAD0012 Cocteau Twins — Heaven Or Las Vegas Cherry-Coloured Funk, Pitch The Baby, Iceblink Luck, Fifty-Fifty Clown, Heaven Or Las Vegas, I Wear Your Ring, Fotzepolitic, Wolf In The Breast, Road River And Rail, Frou-Frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires
	BAD0013 Lush — Sweetness And Light Sweetness And Light, Breeze, Sunbathing
	BAD0014 Pixies — Dig For Fire Dig For Fire (single), Winterlong, Velvety Instrumental Version, Santo
	BAD0015 Pale Saints — Half-Life Half-Life Remembered, Babymaker, Two Sick Sisters, A Revelation, The Colour Of The Sky
	BAD0016 Ultra Vivid Scene — Special One Special One, Lightning (72 b.p.m / 4 a.m.), Kind Of A Drag, A Smile And A Death Wish
	CAD0017 Lush — Gala Baby Talk, Thoughtforms, Scarlet, Bitter, Second Sight, Etheriel, De-Luxe, Leaves Me Cold, Downer, Thoughtforms (remix), Sweetness And Light, Breeze, Sunbathing, Hey Hey Helen, Scarlet (version two)

This post is part of the chronological look at all 4AD releases, year by year.

*) Missing from Spotify.