4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 22, 2020

Cover Up is one of the dime a dozen noir titles you have to really dig around for. It’s actually not really a prototypical film noir at all. However, if you’re a fan of forgotten unadorned small-town whodunits, it might just grab you. Its main assets are in the script...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 17, 2020

Scanning the opening credits, I noticed two talents on the rise including Russell Metty and Robert Wise, but make no mistake; the focal point in the director’s chair is the criminally-forgotten Dorothy Arzner. In retrospect, she certainly is a primary drawto this picture because, with the dea   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 15, 2020

Bubbly is flowing, and the gaiety abounds. Alcohol is not an evil, just a tonic to loosen morals, tongues, and dour countenances. When Joan Prentice encounters Jerry Corbett for the first time at a party, she’s immediately taken with him. He’s a few drinks in and has let the merriment...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 10, 2020

What a harebrained movie this is in all the best ways. The origins of Merrily We Live themselves are a tad murky or, at the very least, convoluted. It’s purportedly based on the novel The Dark Chapter, which subsequently received a Broadway adaptation, They All Want Something. There was a...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 8, 2020

We know what kind of movie we’re in for upon meeting Cary Grant, whistling a merry tune, as he drives his fancy wheels with his feet. His wife — a quizzical platinum blonde played to perfection by Constance Bennett — stares up at him in amusement. They are a picture...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 3, 2020

“On a sub you have to operate in close quarters.” Operation Petticoat positions itself as an easy film to enjoy and a difficult one to love. It’s true Blake Edwards was capable of stirring up breezy even wacky entertainment, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s to The Pink Panther to   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on December 1, 2020

“We must never again let any force dedicated to a super-race or a super-idea, or super-anything become strong enough to impose itself upon a free world. We must be smart enough and tough enough in the beginning to put out the fire before it starts spreading.”  ~ Leon Ames as...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 28, 2020

“Lovely weather for a manhunt.” Childhood vacations to England have given me a lifelong cache of fond memories of the British Isles. Tea and scones conjure up only good things as do Cathedrals and cobblestone streets. Somehow even the daily drizzle, when it feels quintessentially Englis   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 26, 2020

Opening as it does with the cover of its source material, A Walk in The Sun makes itself out to be a bit grand and simultaneously undermines a certain amount of its ethos as a gritty war picture. Is it a fallacy to think a book can never capture all...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 24, 2020

It’s nearly ubiquitous for all the old war movies to open with an instructive title card supplying some context and placing us in the scenario at hand. While not the apex of visual storytelling, it does serve a concrete purpose. Objective Burma is, of course, about the Burma campaigns —   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 21, 2020

Unearthing Quai Des Orfevres is a glorious discovery of post-war French cinema. Because Henry-Georges Clouzot is always a man I heedlessly clump together with Jacques Becker when it comes to French film history. Not because of an immediate connection but, on the contrary, it’s the very thinne   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 19, 2020

Charles M. Schultz was one of the great memorializers of WWII in that he kept events like the D-Day invasion or the art of Bill Maudlin in the public forum for as long as Peanuts was syndicated. If I remember correctly, it was also through his strip I first became...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 17, 2020

“One-hundred and thirty-one days after December 7, 1941, a handful of young men, who had never dreamed of glory, struck the first blow at the heart of Japan. This is their true story we tell here.” It’s easy enough to lump Air Force and Destination Tokyo with this subsequent film   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 14, 2020

“Montmartre is both heaven and…hell.” While Melville would continue to cultivate his own unique canvass and pulp sensibilities, Bob Le Flambeur, as a slightly earlier work, shows its deep abiding debt to the American noir cycle. Because it was at this juncture in time where analo   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 12, 2020

The opening crawl of Zoltan Korda’s Sahara sets the scene, though contemporary audiences were probably already well aware of current events. This war film details the exploits of members of the Armored Corps of the Army Ground Forces. In June 1942 an American detachment joined British forces   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 10, 2020

For modern audiences especially, the movie’s opening crawl gives us a bit of helpful context. It’s June, 1942.  Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps was pounding the Brits back toward Cairo and the Suez Canal. His notoriety as a tactician and “The Desert Fox” is   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 7, 2020

On only two occasions have I had the pleasure of watching a Jacques Becker film, and I hold him in the highest esteem even based on this admittedly meager sample size. It seems a fitting observation to acknowledge how closely he was tied to one of France’s foremost titans, Jean...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 6, 2020

“This is sort of a blind date. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.” – Cary Grant as Captain Cassidy No pretense can be made to suggest Destination Tokyo functions as an original entry of a “men on a mission movie” from a couple decades later. For one th   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 4, 2020

At times, Air Force functions like a staged documentary. It feels both instructive and informed by Howard Hawks’ own passion for aviation. It has the simple task of making sure the folks at home can empathize with their boys up in the air. In fact, it falls short of being...   read more

4 Star Films Posted by 4 Star Film Fan on November 2, 2020

During WWII there’s no question John Garfield was integral to the war effort despite having never served in the military. He did yeoman’s work when it came to morale, through his pictures at Warner Bros, originating the famed Hollywood Canteen with Bette Davis, and going on war bond tou   read more