Tuesday, January 21, 2025

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1946


There is a prompt going around Bluesky (ahh remember harmless fun prompts on social media?) asking people to name a favorite movie of 1975 and it reminded me -- I still have a few entries in my "Siri Says" series left to do! It's been so long since I've done one of these posts (since November of 2022 for god's sake; time has absolutely no meaning anymore) let me remind you what the hell I'm talking about -- "Siri Says" began with me asking my phone to randomly choose a number between 1 and 100 and then whatever number it gave me I would pick my favorite movies of that year. For example the last time I did this all those many months ago I got the number "56" so I shared my favorite movies of 1956. 

The game has sort of changed over time though -- since I only have a handful of numbers left (less than ten) I wrote the remaining years down on pieces of paper and I blindly choose one (since otherwise it would take me a billion years to get Siri to narrow it down to a number I hadn't done before). Yadda yadda I was tired of doomscrolling social media this afternoon so I decided to spend some time on one of these posts (they eat up a surprising amount of effort) and here we are. Today I picked the year 1946. And so now I give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1946

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
-- released on September 6th, 1946 --

(dir. Frank Capra)
-- released on December 20th, 1946 --

(dir. Powell & Pressburger)
-- released on December 26th, 1946 --

(dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
-- released on April 19th, 1946 --

(dir. Jean Cocteau)
-- released on October 29th, 1946 --

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Runners-up: Gilda (dir. Charles Vidor), The Big Sleep (dir. Hawks), The Stranger (dir. Welles), The Spiral Staircase (dir. Robert Siodmak), The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Tay Garnett), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (dir. Lewis Milestone)

Never seen: The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. Wyler), The Killers (dir. Siodmak), The Yearling (dir. Clarence Brown), Paisan (dir. Roberto Rossellini), The Blue Dahlia (dir. George Marshall), Great Expectations (dir. David Lean)

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What are your favorite movies of 1946?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why not assign the remaining years ordinal numbers, say 1 through 10. Then you can have Siri give you a random number between 1 and 10 and each time subtract one until you get a random number between 1 and 1.

Anonymous said...

MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN ALIVE

Anonymous said...

Anna and the King of Siam: Irene Dunne is superb, as always, as Mrs. Anna
Big Sleep: Bogie and Bacall. What more do you need?
Cluny Brown: One of Lubitsch’s most delicious films.
The Dark Corner: Before she was Lucy, she did several film noirs, and this is the best one!
The Harvey Girls: Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury in the story of the Harvey House Restaurants.
Make Mine Music: A jazz version of Fantasia!
My Darling Clementine: A Western Classic.
Night and Day: A better bio of Cole Porter than DeLovely. Mary Martin’s My Heart Belongs to Daddy is a highlight!
A Night in Casablanca: Marvelous late Marx Bros. Groucho did his own stunts!
Song Of the South: A superb film that’s accused of racism, but it’s magical.
A Stolen Life: Bette Davis playing twin sisters the first time. Marvelous.
Strange Love of Martha Ivers: A smart, entertaining thriller starring Barbara Stanwyck
Three Little Girls in Blue: A little gem and pleasant surprise.
Beauty and the Beast: Magnificent! Best live action fairy tale of all time.
Children of Paradise (US Release): The best film ever to come out of France.
Great Expectations: The best adaptation of Dickens. Period!
Matter of life and Death: Greatest use of technicolor of all time.
To Each His Own: Olivia de Havilland won her first Oscar for this film, a lovely melodrama.

Anonymous said...

La Belle et la Bête
The Big Sleep
The Blue Dahlia
Blue Skies
The Dark Corner
The Dark Mirror
Deception
Gilda
It's a Wonderful Life
The Killers
Notorious
The Postman Always Rings Twice
A Stolen Life
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
The Stranger

Anonymous said...

A strong recommendation for The Best Years of Our Lives.

joel65913 said...

Oh YAY! Love these and you’re starting back out with one of my favorite years in film!! SO many great films, also one of the strongest for female performances.

Your top five is an interesting mix of genres:

“Notorious” is one of my top Hitchcocks too. Cary is terrific but I think this just might be both Ingrid and Claude’s best onscreen work. Both are wonderfully complex, and Madame Konstantin is a villainess worthy of mention right up there with Judith Anderson in “Rebecca.”

There was a point where I was burnt out on “It’s a Wonderful Life” when it was endlessly ubiquitous on the telly when the copyright had lapsed, but after taking about a decade break before watching it again its specialness became evident again. Jimmy Stewart is perfect and Donna Reed a goddess and they are surrounded by a perfectly cast ensemble. I’ve always had a soft spot for Todd Karnes as Harry Bailey!

Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast” is so magical, it’s roughness around the edges just adds to its charm.

I like but don’t love “Dragonwyck.” It has been many years since I last saw it so perhaps it is time for a re-watch. I remember it as being a bit draggy in parts though both Gene Tierney and especially Vincent Price were good in it.

“A Matter of Life and Death” is one I’ve never been able to warm to. It’s very well made but I just could not connect to it for some reason despite a couple of tries.

Of your runners-up “The Big Sleep” is another one that I never could quite get in tune with, however I adore Martha Vickers as Carmen! Now there is someone who should have had a bigger career. As Bogie & Betty movies go, I prefer “Dark Passage” much more.

Four of the other five (excluding “The Stranger”-a terrific film) contain some of the best work of their lead actresses. Barbara Stanwyck in “The Strange Love of Martha Ives” gives a performance that is right up there with her work in “Double Indemnity” but for some reason doesn’t get nearly the attention. Lana is electrifying in “Postman” (and John Garfield at his dreamiest!) Rita makes Gilda so wonderfully complicated. Dorothy McGuire gets plenty of competition from Ethel Barrymore (and to a lesser extent Elsa Lanchester, Sara Allgood and Rhonda Fleming) but she manages to hold focus in “The Spiral Staircase” with a very compelling performance.

As far as what you haven’t seen “The Killers” is an essential with both Burt Lancaster and particularly Ava Gardner white-hot.

Another essential would be “The Best Years of Our Lives” which I cannot recommend strongly enough! A compelling story masterfully directed and with fantastic performances across the board especially by Dana Andrews and the ever-brilliant Myrna Loy (neither of whom ever scored a single Oscar nomination…. madness!)

The pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake in “The Blue Dahlia” isn’t quite “This Gun for Hire” level but still very enjoyable and well worth seeing.

joel65913 said...

I cannot possibly stick to a top five for this year (that’s true for so many of these but particularly this time round!) so I’m going with a top 50 with still more runners-up!

Top 10:

“The Best Years of Our Lives”
“Notorious”
“Deadline at Dawn”-Criminally underknown noir with a tough as nails (initially) and gorgeous Susan Hayward.
“The Man I Love”-Ida Lupino gives an absolutely knockout performance in this, my favorite of her films.
“The Time of Their Lives”-Something different for Abbott & Costello and to me their best film.
“Beauty and the Beast”
“Nobody Lives Forever”-What a great year ’46 was for John Garfield with “Postman”, Humoresque and this film.
“Humoresque”-My favorite Joan Crawford performance.
“The Bachelor’s Daughters”-Reworking of “The Greeks Had a Word for Them” with an eye popper of a cast for actress lovers-Gail Russell (at the very peak of her beauty), Claire Trevor, Billie Burke, Jane Wyatt and Ann Dvorak!!
“The Spiral Staircase”

Top 11-20:

“It’s A Wonderful Life”
“Blue Skies” -Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire dancing and singing up a storm in Technicolor. What’s not to like?
“The Strange Love of Martha Ivers”
“My Darling Clementine”
“The Killers”
“The Verdict”
“The Chase”
“Paisan”
“Because of Him”
“Green for Danger”

30-50 alphabetically:

“Anna and the King of Siam,” “The Beast with Five Fingers,” “Black Angel,” “The Blue Dahlia,” “Canyon Passage,” “Crack-Up,” “Canyon Passage,” “The Dark Corner,” “Dead Reckoning,” “Deception,” “Easy to Wed,” “Gilda,” “The Harvey Girls,” “My Reputation,” “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “A Scandal in Paris,” “She Wrote the Book,” “The Strange Woman,” “The Stranger,” “The Walls Came Tumbling Down”

Runners-up alphabetically:

“Affairs of Geraldine,” “Alias Mr. Twilight,” “Caravan,” “Dangerous Business,” “The Dark Horse,” “Decoy,” “The Drunkard,” “Gallant Journey,” “The Green Years,” “A Guy Could Change,” “Her Kind of Man,” “I’ve Always Loved You” “The Imperfect Woman,” “Lady in the Lake,” “Larceny in Her Heart,” “Lover Come Back,” “The Madonna’s Secret,” “Martin Roumagnac,” “The Missing Lady,” “Never Say Goodbye,” “Night Boat to Dublin,” “One Way to Love,” “Perilous Holiday,” “Piccadilly Incident,” “School for Secrets,” “Sister Kenny,” “Song of the South,” “A Stolen Life,” “Suspense,” “Talk About a Lady,” “Three Strangers,” “The Thrill of Brazil,” “Till the End of Time,” “To Each His Own,” “Two Guys for Milwaukee,” “Two Sisters from Boston,” “Two Smart People,” “Wanted for Murder,” “The Well-Groomed Bride,” “White Tie and Tails,” “Without Reservations,” “The Years Between”

Jason Adams said...

Just need tos ay I LOVE YOU GUYS -- whenever I do these posts y'all are so generous with rhe replies, it makes me so happy! And always gives me a list of movies I need to catch up on.

As for The Killers -- I just saw the 1964 version a couple of weeks ago and LOVED it so the 1946 one is very high on my list now. I bought the Criterion disc this week that has both of them.

Whenever I watch Notorious I decide that Notorious is my FAVORITE Hitchcock, but then I do that for about ten different Hitchcock movies haha. But it's perfect, exquisite, I adore it. I have often called it the most romantic movie ever made and that I very much mean.

I went back and forth between putting Gilda on the list or Dragonwyck but Dragonwyck felt like it made the list have a broader range of movies so I went with that. Plus VINCENT AND GENE, how could I not

joel65913 said...

Hi Jason,

I'm just so glad the feature is back and I probably got carried away but 1946 was such a strong year!

I can relate to the difficulty with shifting preferences for so many Hitchcock films. Saboteur will always remain #1 for me, not even sure why there's just something about the film that works for me, but I'd be hard pressed between Rear Window, Notorious, Lifeboat, Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest and The Birds to choose a second!

Anonymous said...

My Top 10 Hitchcock (a moving target):
Vertigo
Notorious
Rebecca
Strangers on a Train
North by Northwest
Suspicion
Stage Fright
Psycho
Rope
To Catch a Thief
(Honorable Mention:
I Confess)