Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "The Red Shoes"

Before we begin, the beginning...

Is this not one of the cinema's most exquisite title cards? It's presentational, theatric, classic, colorful, and bears the distinct mark of handmade craftsmanship. That's all perfectly emblematic of the film itself, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's highly theatrical, deeply colorful look at obsessive artistry, possibly the greatest film of 1948, our Year of the Month (the Smackdown is Sunday)

Before we get to my choice, I'd like to share the others from around the web, since I was running late to my own series like some selfish prima ballerina whose 45 minutes late to rehearsal.

THE RED SHOES
Cinematography by Jack Cardiff
10 BEST SHOT(s)
As chosen by these participating blogs. Click on the photos for corresponding articles.

 Waves crashing on the shore of the stage. It's such a perfectly impressionistic moment...
-Dancin' Dan on Film

The film approaches this theme of obsession in some rather surprising ways...
-The Entertainment Junkie

 

Love and obsession are two sides of the same coin...
-Film Actually

 

If you haven't seen The Red Shoes, rest assured that it's the biggest gap in your film education, and you should make it a short-term priority...
-Antagony & Ecstasy

 

If you think about it, The Red Shoes,is just an incredibly artsy examination of the “Can women truly have it all?” question...
-Pop Culture Crazy

 

(Vicky. Her Relationship. Dancing). This love triangle of sorts dominates the latter half of the film... 
-Sorta That Guy

He holds them up to the camera...daring us to take them.
-Coco Hits NY 

Showcasing the cinematic artifice and especially the psychology. It's super overt, but why not?
-Movie Motorbreath

 

In a way watching her dance reminded me of the movie Ed Wood (I know strange comparison but hear me out).  He is so happy making his terrible movies.  The smile on his face never leaves."
-54 Reviews 

They're all great beauties and I considered some of them. My pick after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

We're looking back into 1948 ahead of this weekend's Smackdown. A world away from all of those women, though, John Huston was making one of cinema's most famous films about men. Here's David...

It was evident from the gilded treachery on display in The Maltese Falcon that John Huston was a filmmaker fully aware and largely in thrall to the darker side of human nature. World War II changed him, as it did millions of American men. An adaptation of B. Traven’s 1927 novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was the first feature Huston made following his time making war documentaries for the U.S. government, and while its setting and subject are quite estranged from the war – three men mining for gold in 1925 Mexico – it betrays the even grittier experiences Huston had witnessed abroad. If the film is about greed, as has long been celebrated, it just as much about the deep insecurities of masculinity.

More...

Click to read more ...

Meet the Panelists for 1948's Smackdown

The next supporting actress smackdown is just one week away. UPDATE 06/28: HERE IT IS.  The panelists are watching John Huston's Key Largo, the immigrant drama I Remember Mama, and best picture contenders Johnny Belinda and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet. 

MEET THE PANELISTS
Here's a little bit about our panel to prep you for our conversation as they finish up their screenings...

First Timers

ABDI NAZEMIAN (Screenwriter / Novelist)
Abdi Nazemian is the screenwriter of The Quiet, Beautiful Girl, Celeste in the City, and the short film Revolution. His first novel The Walk-In Closet recently received the Lambda Literary Award for Best Debut. He and his children live in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @Abdaddy.

What do you cherish about 1948?

In my 1948 fantasy, I am dancing at the Mocambo with Rita Hayworth to Ella Fitzgerald's How High the Moon, then going home to my private screening room to watch Ava Gardner in One Touch of Venus before retiring to bed (next to Gary Cooper, obviously) to read Truman Capote's debut novel on my Kindle. Wait, what year is it?".

CATHERINE STEBBINS (Film Blogger)
A librarian and professional film obsessive living in Providence, Catherine is best known for her in-depth Top Ten By Year project which can be found at her site Cinema Enthusiast (active since 2010). Contributor to Criterion Cast & Verite Magazine. Idols include Louise Brooks, Leonard Cohen, Joanna Newsom, Jim Henson, Isabelle Huppert, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns, and drag queens. 
[Follow Catherine on Twitter] 

What do you cherish about 1948?

To take the minute approach; little Bobby Henrey adorably saying 'Baines' and 'MacGregor' over and over in The Fallen Idol; varying degrees of homoeroticism in Rope and Red River; Joan Bennett narrating in the Freudian-laced Gothic melodrama Secret Beyond the Door... ("this is no time for me to talk of danger; this is my wedding day"); Laurence Olivier making a hot blonde Hamlet. And most of all, Letter from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophüls's unparalleled story of unrequited love, in which Joan Fontaine's Lisa reflects on her life through the romanticized facade of fate.'

Returning Panelists

JOE REID (Freelance)
Joe Reid never went to film school, unless you count the film school of hard knocks, which he also didn't go to. That hasn't stopped him from writing about movies (and TV, but don't think less of him) for places like The Atlantic, Grantland, Slate, and more. One day, he'll have written about his love for The Hours, Go, and Mermaids enough that he can finally close his laptop, satisfied that his work is done. You can experience the best (and worst) of him via his Twitter. 

What do you cherish about 1948?

1948 brings back so many memories; the Marshall Plan, the London Olympics, the Alger Hiss hearings, the Costa Rican Civil War. What a time to be alive. Or so I've heard. In reality, it would be one more year before my father was born, and while if I ever have a kid, I'll be certain to make sure he watches Kramer vs. Kramer, the shameful reality is that before this Smackdown, I'd only seen one film released in 1948. Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. It's too bad that one isn't reflected in the Oscar nominations of 1948, but part of the reason I wanted to participate in this particular year was to beef up my 1940s film vocabulary. Maybe I can move on from Olivier's Hamlet to Welles' Macbeth....

TIM ROBEY (Film Critic)
Tim Robey has been reviewing films for the Daily Telegraph since 2000, alongside a few interviews, book reviews, and more or less whatever else they throw at him. He turns up periodically on Radio 4's The Film Programme and Front Row, Monocle FM radio, and BBC Film Twenty-Whatever, as long as he has a new jacket to wear on it. His writing is mostly here. His recommendations series is here. A picture of a half-grown labrador squishing a cat is here. 
[Follow him on Twitter] 

What do you cherish about 1948?

1948 is the year my mum, Wendy, was born, so I'm trying to imagine her early years in filmgoing and immediately skipping a decade. She told me once she used to be a great fan of Lee Remick, which makes sense, as this is ten years before her big breaks in movies; ditto James Garner, a favourite of her late sister Jill. They would have been right there for Mary Poppins and Darling and The Graduate, if they weren't out rocking the new Dusty Springfield look, with a strict curfew from my grandfather. I can't imagine them having an iota of time for Star Wars, the year before I was born – mum's always been allergic to science-fiction films, horror, or anything not set in a plausible version of the real world. These days, if we go to films together, it'll be for Milk, or a Christmas screener-viewing of Philomena. I think she started to watch Under the Skin on a holiday flight and practically had to call the attendants to come and switch it off. Here's to mum and our barely-overlapping movie tastes! Love her loads.

And your host...

NATHANIEL R (Host)
Nathaniel is the founder of The Film Experience, a reknowned Oscar pundit, and the web's actressexual ringleader. He fell in love with the movies for always at The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) but mostly blames Oscar night (in general) and the 80s filmographies of Kathleen Turner & Michelle Pfeiffer. Though he holds a BFA in Illustration, he found his true calling when he started writing about the movies. He blames Boogie Nights for the career change. [Follow him on Twitter]

What do you cherish about 1948?

True fact: I cannot live without Montgomery Clift in Red River. I did not exist before seeing it. Or, rather, him. '48 also marks the technicolor reunion of my two favorite musical stars (Judy Garland and Gene Kelly) in The Pirate. Finally, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and Vittoria de Sica's The Bicycle Thief were important discoveries on VHS when I was trying to learn about the movies as a teen cinephile. And now a shameful confession: I chose this year because it's the only one we've ever done, to my recollection, from which I'd previously seen none of the movies involved. No, not even Hamlet. Not sure how that happened but now my shame is public!

What does 1948 mean to you dear readers?

 Perhaps you have a favorite film or a movie you are ashamed to say you've never seen?

NOW PROCEED TO THE SMACKDOWN

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Please welcome Kyle Stevens to The Film Experience team. You've previously heard him on the podcast, you can pre-order his book on Mike Nichols, and you should follow him on twitter as he is delightful. - Editor

Adapted from the hit radio play by Lucille Fletcher (who also wrote the screenplay), Sorry, Wrong Number follows Leona Stevenson, a headstrong young heiress who aims to one day be the sharpest battleaxe in the armory. She is also an invalid, relegated to her bed. We discover Leona telephoning inquiries into her husband’s whereabouts when the line fatefully clicks. She overhears a conversation between two men plotting a murder that night. For me, the whole movie hangs on the image of her listening to this narrative catalyst. It hovers over the entire film. Its power lets us never forget that this is Leona’s story, even when we get elaborate flashbacks from others. We recall it later when we see Leona disheveled and shining from tears and anxious sweat. Its tightness contrasts with the way the camera later wanders in and around people, tracing the distances between them that the telephone extinguishes. 

The magic here is all down to Barbara Stanwyck, giving one her best performances (and receiving the last of her four Best Actress nominations). We see Leona’s selfishness ebb as she intelligently listens to the heavies on the line. That is, Stanwyck doesn’t play an inner monologue. Her bright brown eyes and horseshoe furrows do not propose “Oh no!” and “What should I do now?”, as though telling us what Leona wants to say. Rather, Leona, in this moment, and for a change, is not about herself at all. She just listens. This remains a thing of beauty, reminding us how much intelligence just listening can demand. I don’t know of a better demonstration of the cliché that listening is one of those feats accomplished by only the best actors.

Written by a woman and showcasing a female character who fights for what she wants, Sorry, Wrong Number would probably be received as a feminist statement were it released today. But in the moment in which Leona hears unheard, I am reminded that it is not just the film’s gender politics that remain relevant. Over the complex lines of a switchboard (where, according to Hollywood, women controlled the flow of information), the epigraph warns:

In the tangled networks of a great city, the telephone is the unseen link between a million lives… It is the servant of our common needs—the confidante of our inmost secrets…life and happiness wait upon its ring… and horror…and loneliness… and death.”

The technology behind our phones may have changed, but in an age where we’d rather text than talk, we seem to still fear verbal connections. We worry about who’s listening, and we know, deep down, that the voice can give too much away.

Previously
Vintage 1948 - Best of the Year 
Supporting Actress Smackdown - The Schedule 

The Year of the Month is... 1948

Lest you forget, we have two Smackdowns this month. The first, already published, was for 1979 and for the second half of the month our retrospective love will be devoted to 1948 when these five women were nominated for Best Supporting Actress

 

• Barbarba Bell Geddes, I Remember Mama
• Ellen Corby, I Remember Mama
• Agnes Moorhead, Johnny Belinda
• Jean Simmons, Hamlet
• Claire Trevor, Key Largo [winner]

Readers are the final panelist and your votes count (collectively) so between now and June 25th get your votes in with 1 (ouch) to 5 (total perfection) hearts for each. Please only vote on the performances you've seen (points are proportional so it doesn't affect the widely seen or the underseen).

To give you some context for the year, let's go over some high points of 1948...

Montgomery Clift becomes a superstar right out of the gate with his first two films: The Search and Red River

Great Big Box Office Hits: 1) The Red Shoes, 2) The Three Musketeers, 3) Red River, 4) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 5) When My Baby Smiles at Me 6) Easter Parade 7) Johnny Belinda 8) The Snake Pit 9) Ingrid Bergman as Joan of Arc and 10) Erroll Flynn in The Adventures of Don Juan

Oscar's Best Pictures: Johnny Belinda (12 noms / 1 win), Hamlet (7 noms/4 wins), The Snake Pit (6 noms / 1 win), The Red Shoes (5 noms / 2 wins), and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (4 noms / 3 wins). The Search starring Montgomery Clift probably just missed the cut-off with 4 major nominations, 1 win and a special Juvenile Oscar. Johnny Belinda and Sierra Madre shared the Golden Globe honors while Hamlet won Oscar's top prize

Happenings: Hollywood is still under the thumb of the HUAC hearings and many valuable players have already been blacklisted and/or jailed at this point; Post World War II anti-semitism is a mainstream topic which results in a Best Picture win early in the year for Gentleman's Agreement and then the banning of another film, David Lean's Oliver Twist, due to perceptions of anti-semitism in the character of Fagin (Alec Guiness); The US Supreme Court rules against religious instruction in public schools; Alfred Kinsey publishes "Sexual Behavior in the US Male"; Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated; a subway fare hike in Manhattan kicks it up to a whole dime.

Other Arts: Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms" and Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" are published, Pulitzer winners include James Michenere's "Tales of the South Pacific," Tennessee Williams "A Streetcar Named Desire", and W.H. Auden for "The Age of Anxiety," Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle both begin their historical television superstardom this year with the variety shows "Toast of the Town" and "Texaco Star Theater" both of which will be retitled to reflect their star's name; "Mister Roberts" wins the first Tony Award for Best Play and "Kiss Me Kate" premieres on Broadway and will win the next year's inaugural Best Musical category. 

Some Magazine Covers for Context
Various movie queens, a reference to Shirley Temple's baby (her first child was born in January of '48), hot topics like Alfred Kinsey and Mahatma Gandhi, and more... 

Mix Tape (Born in '48)
Olivia Newton-John, Stevie Nicks, Grace Jones, Kenny Loggins, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Donna Summer, Jackson Browe, and Steve Winwood 

Actors We  ♥♥♥♥  Hard at TFE that were born in '48
Bernadette Peters, Dianne Wiest, Barbara Hershey, Kathy Bates and Christopher Guest 

Other Key Showbiz Figures From '48's Fine Vintage
Joe Dallesandro, Samuel L Jackson, John Carpenter, Gérard Depardieu, Bonnie Bedelia, Margot Kidder, Bud Cort, Kate Jackson, Mercedes Reuhl, Phylicia Rashad, Linsday Crouse, Mimi Kennedy, Nathalie Baye, Nell Carter, George RR Martin (author), Ben Burtt (sound genius), Colleen Atwood (costume designer), Javier Aguierresarobe (cinematographer), Edward Lachman (cinematographer), Lindy Hemming (costume designer)

Showtune to Go: Nat King Cole's "Nature Boy" is released which will later play a key role in one our mutual favorite films of all time Moulin Rouge! (2001)