1940's Hall of Fame II

Thought you would love it, and I'm glad you did!

Very cool nom, I'm glad I saved it tell last.

Oh, I just added this paragraph to my review, I don't know if you seen it:I could have wrote a ton more about it. I didn't even say how much I liked Hugo (the bad guy) who actually seemed the most down to earth of all the characters. I thought he added a lot to the movie. Loved the idea of the hearing aid device and the loud tie too.



Oh and the femme fatale was nicely done by Andrea King. Damn she looked pretty hot too. Loved the BIG shoulder pads, ha.


And Pancho (Thomas Gomez) was the first Latino actor to receive a nomination for his role here. He was really good too.

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Ah, the acting quite surprised me. I know a lot of people didn't like Pila, but I enjoyed her in it too.

Pila was like the best part...Did you notice she kind of looked like a young Gene Tierney?

I started watching the movies a few days after this HoF started, and I just kept watching a few movies every day until I finished all of them. I would have posted about them earlier, (as I watched them), but I wasn't able to at the time.

Whenever I join a HoF, I usually try to watch all the noms as soon as possible so I can read the reviews as they're posted without worrying about spoilers. I don't always write about them right away, and I usually rewatch any movies that were first time watches again before I submit my list.

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I never got the feeling that Pila was mentally slow. I thought she was more of a young social outcast,

Liked this one.

Excellent black and white cinematography, all kinds of light and shadow, looks really good - especially the snow towards the end.

Fascinating how he gets weaker and weaker while the supporting characters come out of the woodwork and start becoming a bigger part of the film and exercising their strength over him, on his last journey into night

Interesting the different characters and their points of view. I was a bit dubious about the concept of the film when I read about it, I thought it would be difficult to muster up any sympathy for the IRA characters. But it’s not really about the rights or wrongs of the IRA, or even the murder, it’s about how people use this situation of the man on the run to their own advantage, or attempt to wash their hands of it. The priest wondering if there might be a little mercy, the man willing to sell him to the highest bidder, the cabbie, the publican, the would-be doctor.

The artist - a strange exaggerated performance, but it made me think of the film itself, which is more about the artistic value rather than taking a moral position.

On the surface it might be more like The Third Man than Oliver perhaps, but I think there were shades of Fagin, Sykes and Nancy in some of these characters.

Only didn’t like the bit towards the end when he quotes from the bible and there’s all the swelling music, that seemed a little heavy-handed, also I also felt it was a little bit longer than it really needed to be.

Right from the start the ominous music and the shadow of the cross in the background set the tone for the movie. The look on the face of the old woman at the start as you can start to hear the people chanting for death outside gave me chills.

The starkness of the black and white perfectly illuminate the starkness of the climate these people live in, but it illuminates the beauty too, of Anne (the light seems to follow her), of the moments of light in her growing love for Martin. Scenes are beautifully framed, and the slow pace allows time to appreciate them. The shadows are incredibly effective and it looks really clear.

It doesn’t shy away from the cruelty and suffering caused by the witch hunts with the haunting off-screen screams of Herlof’s Marte at her arrest cutting through the quiet stillness. We don’t see her torture in any graphic detail but the suggestion is enough, the winding of the rack - we see her hunched over and topless at her interrogation and it is shocking to see an old woman treated this way.

This is a film about religious intolerance and abuse of power (Absalon does have the power to save people from the stake as he did Anne’s mother, but he won’t). It’s about suspicion and life in a suspicious climate - one denunciation, of jealousy or revenge, is enough to condemn a person to death. In some ways it’s also a film about the powerlessness of women in this male-controlled society, but one of the people who wields the most power and cruelty is Anne’s mother in law. It’s this idea of complicity that makes it really interesting. But the most powerful thing about it for me is that this is so pervasive that Anne, guilty over her actions, actually comes to believe that she is a witch, that’s how deeply the idea of witchcraft has taken hold of this community.

There’s a lighter side to contrast with the witch hunt, Anne’s romance with Martin, although it’s clear from the start that this can’t end happily and the hopelessness of the forbidden romance adds a layer of tension. Right from the start when he wants to trick his father by hiding and gets her to help, you can see a sense of joy which they share but is missing from those around them. There are small moments of foreshadowing - like Absalon asking Martin to give his ‘mother’ a kiss. With the love story we get to see a contrast in scenery - outside in the sun in the fields, on the water as opposed to the dungeons in which Herlof’s Marte is tortured or the austere, loveless house in which Absalon and his mother live. Anne asking Absalon to hold her and him pushing her away is a kind of turning point - it’s also the time she starts imagining what it would be like to have the power to call the living and the dead as she believes her mother had. She starts to believe that she can have power and be happy, and in the environment she lives in that is a dangerous thing. Her sins of passion and witchcraft, real or imagined, are inextricably linked.


Particularly haunting moments include Anne watching Herlof’s Marte being dragged to the pyre from a window then when Martin finds her crying. The time that Anne laughs and Absalon says it is the first time he has heard her laugh. Martin kissing Anne’s hands in the boat. Anne and Martin outside after Absalon’s death.

The end is almost thriller-like in its tension. There’s a certain amount of ambiguity.

The use of sound is great - the singing of ‘Day of Wrath’ - children practising to sing at a burning! - is haunting and terrible, and the chanting of the villagers and Anne’s singing to herself which arouses her mother-in-law’s suspicion and becomes a small act of defiance. The howling of the wind, too, while Absalon is out visiting the dying man, is ominous and adds to the idea of witchcraft.

In some ways I think this film has a timeless quality - I wouldn’t necessarily guess it was made in 1943 if I didn’t know - but it’s also interesting to see it in terms of the time it was made, with Denmark under Nazi occupation.


Altogether I just think this is a really, really great film. It’s bleak and chilling but I love it.

Two excellent reviews Thursday. That's one helluva fine analysis of Day of Wrath.

The opening scene is so ominous that I scarcely breathed. And the chanting as they burn her, damn powerful stuff. I don't even want to think of the realities of the witch burnings. How people could do that to other people is beyond me...and yet they did.


So true, we don't see the actual torture but we see more than enough for our own minds to fill in the details. The mind can make much more horrific images than any movie ever can. That scene was done to perfection.

Like you said, such a great use of sound (effects, score and song) to convey the emotions of the scene. The kids singing at the burning...that was powerful!

So many movies, IMO have a great start but a weaker ending. Day of Wrath starts strong and ends on a very though provoking note. It's an intelligent and well written ending. Heck it's an intelligent and well written movie!

I hope Day of Wrath makes the Top 40s Countdown. Enjoyed your review and your nom too

I was seeing a little bit of the more streetwise characters in Oliver! myself. Wasn't too sure if I was reading too much into it or not.
Kinda cool I wasn't the only one.

Gonna hold off reading the majority of your review of Days of Wrath until I see it, but rather enjoyed the first descriptive paragraph of the opening to the movie.

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Didn't have the time, but really enjoyed your review for Ride the Pink Horse, @Citizen Rules
Sounds like one I'm definitely going to enjoy!!

And yes, Hendicks DOES look like a young Teirney

@edarsenal have you seen Ride the Pink Horse yet?

Thank you to Mark for originally pointing it out, and I'm just reminding everyone that Mr. Lucky is on TCM this coming Saturday night.

If I only had TCM, do you guys who do have TCM save the movies until later? Or do you have to watch them as they play?

I think it depends on the service you have. With mine, it'll be On Demand for a while after it shows, but I'm recording it on the DVR anyway.

I always DVR movies on TCM so I can watch them later. (Up to about two weeks before they air, I can schedule them to record so I don't have to worry about missing them.)

I also record many of them to DVD-R discs so I can watch them again later without them taking up space on my DVR.

Haven't even HEARD of Ride The Pink Horse, @Citizen Rules before this, and skimming through some of the reviews, and even more so with your recent one, I'm pretty d@mn excited about seeing it. Been finding some truly great old films that I've completely missed out on with these 40's HoFs. So it seems I'm pretty excited about all of them, it seems and really enjoyed the ones I've seen so far. The only ones that are even complete re-watches are Double Indemnity and mine, The Sea Wolf.

As for TCM, I used to DVR them as well. It was was where I got a copy of The Young Girls of Rochefort. We'd ALWAYS have a couple of films from there on DVR, ready to go.
We recently got rid of our cable in place of streaming that last time they jacked up the price. SOOOO much cheaper lol

Anybody saving those DVR files onto your computer? I'm looking for a few movies that are only on TCM and could use some help.

I don't have a computer

I don't think she looks anything like her. I was watching it last night wondering who it was that I saw you mention and now I know it was her. I just don't see it.


I already had my Saturday night planned. It will consist of this:
Turn: Washington's Spies (8:00 - AMC)
Mr. Lucky (9:00 - TCM)
Ghost Adventures (11:00 - Travel Channel)
I will be set for the night. It should be a good one for me.

And in case anyone else needs to know, I Remember Mama will be on TCM next Monday night, July 3rd.


Well, I no longer have my VCR, and I don't have DVR, so I HAVE to watch them when they are shown. Sometimes they will be On Demand, but not always. I think it was with Casablanca where it happened to be on TCM when the HoF was happening, but I decided to NOT watch it (I don't remember why anymore), and I just assumed that they would put that On Demand, but they never did and I had to get the DVD from the library, anyway. So it is a case, at the moment, where I have to watch it when it is shown if I know I can't obtain the film another way.



Also, I know that I said that I'd considered nominating The Picture of Dorian Gray with the last 40's HoF. Even though I didn't with this one, I still recommend the movie to anyone who hasn't seen it. I found out today that it will be on TCM on Tuesday, July 18th and again on Wednesday, August 30th, if anyone is interested.

See, @Citizen Rules. We were just talking about it and now I can watch this movie that I have really been in the mood to watch again before the countdown. It made me very happy to find this out. Although, I know it is one of my biggest contenders for my list, I still want to watch it again just to watch it. It has been a very long time since I have seen it.

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