It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

 "Why don't you kiss her instead of talking her to death?"

Yes, I know. I should have seen this film long before the run-in to my forty-seventh Christmas. At least I've seen it now. It's awesome, obviously.

What's striking on a first viewing is how very late in the film we get the bit where aspiring angel Clarence shows George how awful his community would be without him. We get nearly two hours of George, a nice guy- well, by 1946 standards- having his dreams of travel and architectural glory slowly crushed as he stays in the same town, putting others before himself and living a modest, humble life. Some of the scenes are quite distressing, not least his and Mary's honeymoon being ruined by the Wall Street Crash.

What's also striking is that the film disapproves of capitalism red in tooth and claw and insists that community matters far more than money, an important point for any age. Bedford Falls is a nice place: Pottersville is an obvious inspiration for Biff's changed 1985 of Back to the Future Part II.

Jimmy Stewart is, of course, the perfect leading man, the cast is superb with Lionel Barrymore, especially, engaging in some truly splendid chewing of the scenery, and the entire thing looks perfect. I'll even forgive the film, as someonewho knows, for its rather amusing total failure of realism in depicting George's deafness. As anti-Dickensian riffs on A Christmas Carol go, this is pretty much cinematic perfection.

La Belle et la Bete (1946)

 "May the Devil himself splatter you with dung!"

I'm not kneejerk anti-Disney- I have a seven year old daughter; I'm not allowed to be- but there are Disney fairytales and there are real fairytales, invariably much darker, from an ahe when it was understood that tales for children needed a certain amount of darkness.

This is, basically, not the Disney version. Barring a few sensible adjudstments (Belle hasn't got eleven siblings, just a mere three), this is pretty much the original tale by (deep breath) Gabrielle-SuzanneBarbot de Villeneuve, no relation, I assume, to the Canadian racing drivers. She wrote the tale in 1740, but the costumes here reflect the reign of Henri IV, with the men all having very long hair, like mine, and stovepipe hats.

Story-wise, this is the proper fairy tale, with a couple of artistic twists towards the end. The acting is superb. But this is not the point: it's the 1940s. Realism rules.Yet Jean Cocteau, no slave to convention and apparently having a very proper appreciation of the Greek myths,is a bloodyt genius diredtor. The various disembodied hands within the Beast's home are magnificently weird, as are the moving statues. This is the type of fantasy cinema that would go on to influence much, including Pan's Labyrinth.The imagery, as well as the storytelling, are iconic, yes, but that ois insufficient praise. This is a mouls to be used by so much fantasy cinema, yet it's more than that. This is fairytale cinema done seriously and beautifully.

The Big Sleep (1946)

 "I don't slap so good around this time of the evening..."

I'm beginning, now I've seen enough 1940s film noirs to at least begin to have opinions about them, to bloody love them. Oh, some of the social attitudes of this film have dated a bit- see the quote. But the writing, the direction, the acting, the dialogue... these are real people, and the film feels somehow more modern and more grown-up than any modern film. Then again, William bloody Faulkner co-scripted.

I've read the original novel, but in another century. I remembered literally nothing so watched the film unspoiled, but loved all the Raymond Chandler tropes- the several femme fatales in this film; the witty dialogue; the fact that, should thinhgs be threatening tomfizzle out, a man with a gun will appear.

Yet the complex and very Chandleresque plot- at once intricate and probably improvised- comes across well on film. And the chemistry, and very unconventional romance, sort of, between Marlowe and Vivian Rutledge, is exquisite. But we know that Bogart and Bacall are always going to be sublime. It seems they were having an affair during filming. That's not surprising.

Martha Vickers deserves enormous praise too, though, as a decadent drug addicted spoiled little rich girl. She's extraordinatry. And so are the twists and turns of the plot. You can even forgive the film for featuring loads and loads of torrential rain.., in LA.

This film is superb. If you haven't seen it, do so. It really is that good.

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake

I’ve somehow reached the age of forty-four without, until very recently indeed,  reading a word of the Gormenghast trilogy. I was vaguely aware that it was set in a realm trapped in ossified tradition and that Steerpike is almost the archetype for insidious advancement.

What I’ve found over the last few days has been intoxicating, the literary equivalent to the sort of album you’d describe as a “soundscape”. The prose is thick, meandering, yet intoxicating. There is plenty of humour- indeed, the prose style is a clear influence on both Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett- but it is a dry, mirthless humour. The prose is thick with description, so much so that a novel in which relatively little happens can extend to five hundred pages. It can fairly be said that the novel takes a good while to grow on one, given the meandering style, but, once we get to know the characters and incidents start happening, the novel suddenly becomes difficult to put down, in equal measure because of its delightful gallery of grotesques and the prose which, having seemed impenetrable at the start, becomes intoxicating.

The novel ends with much, clearly, still to happen, but I fear I shall have to acquire the rest of the trilogy in order to continue. For now, however, I’m happy to have absorbed the unique mood of this unique novel.

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

 "Stupidity has saved many a mind from going mad."

This is certainly a contender for the finest film I've ever seen and although, at the time I blogged my first film in 2011 I felt myself slghtly uncultured when it came to cinema (if you grew up wearing hearing aids in an era of videotape, with no subtitles, reading books becomes a much lazier option) but I suspect I may have a broader perspective now, aged 44 in 2021. This may well be the film I currently believe to be the greatest ever made, flexible though such statements are. Ask me tomorrow.

What makes this film great isn't necessarily the superb direction by Powell and Pressburger- many films are well shot. Nor is it the charismatic performance from David Niven. It's impressive, but hardly the only excellent performance from a star that there ever was. It's well made, well acted, well-written and all the things one usually praises a film for. These things explain why it's good, but not why it's great.

No; what makes this possibly the greatest film ever made is... well, the wit, yes, but it's better than that. The opening line "Space. Big, isn't it?" seems to presage Douglas Adams in four words. The parallel between Peter's operation and his trial in the gloriously bureaucratic afterlife is exquisite and, in hindsight, much imitated. Kim Hunter is sexy. The use of poetry, and not just the usual F.R. Leavis-approved stuff, is glorious. One has to admire a film that, in 1946 and at the height of Sir Walter Scott's unfashionability, slips him in among the Marvells and a nicely obscure work from Ralegh.

The dialogue is lierature. The people are real. This is the greatest film ever made. Possibly.

Notorious (1946)

"I am married to an American agent!"

I'm not entirely sure why German spies should still be up to no good by April 1946 when the film takes place, but this is a justly celebrated classic with magnificent dialogue, splendid performances from Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant- whose chemistry is electric- genuine suspense, and some absolutely astounding directing, specially towards the end when the camera shows us just how disoriented Alicia is.

Behind all this, though, is a pleasingly progressive message: the superbly hard-drinking Alicia is brave and patriotic for infiltrating these dangerous Nazis as she does, making the sacrifice of even having regular sex with Sebastian, their leader, yet the men (all of them are men) who are "running" her simply dismiss her as a whore, with only Devlin to defend her honour. Such are the double standards applied so depressingly often to women even today, but Hitchcock is to be applauded for addressing this in 1946.

The plot is like clockwork, the final few minutes electric, and the conclusion deeply satisfying. This is a truly fine film.