Top 10 Films of 1944

1. "A Canterbury Tale" (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, UK)

2. "Meet Me In St.Louis" (Vincente Minnelli, USA)

3. "Laura" (Otto Preminger, USA)

4. "Double Indemnity" (Billy Wilder, USA)

5. "The Uninvited" (Lewis Allen, USA)

6. "Ivan The Terrible Part I" (Sergei Eisenstein, Soviet Union)

7. "Torment" (Alf Sjöberg, Sweden)

8. "The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek" (Preston Sturges, USA)

9. "Hail The Conquering Hero" (Preston Sturges, USA)

10. "Murder My Sweet" (Edward Dmytryk, USA)

Other great films:

Arsenic And Old Lace
Bathing Beauty
The Battle Of China
Boys On The River (Böhmen und Mähren)
Brazil
The Canterville Ghost
Cover Girl

Felicie Nanteuil (France)
The Fighting Lady

Going My Way
Henry V (UK)
Higher And Higher
Miyamoto Musashi (Japan)
On Approval (UK)

Opfergang (Germany)

Resisting Enemy Interrogation

Step Lively
The Scarlet Claw

To Have And Have Not
Up In Arms
Warszawa walczy (Poland)


Top 5 Guilty Pleasures of 1944:

1. "La Fornarina" (Enrico Guazzoni, Italy)

2. "Inspiration" (Eero Leväluoma, Erkki Uotila, Finland)

3. "Es lebe die Liebe" (Erich Engel, Germany)

4. "Belles Of The South Seas" (USA) - short

5. "Bohema" (Karel Baroch, Böhmen und Mähren) - short

Short Top 3:

1. "Jammin' The Blues" (Gjon Mili, USA)

2. "At Land" (Maya Deren, USA)

3. "Majdanek cmentarzysko Europy" (Aleksander Ford, Poland)

Other great shorts:

Filmavisen 5 juni 1944 (Norway)

Movie Pests

Target Japan
With The Marines At Tarawa

Top Commercial:

"Hell-Bent For Election" (Chuck Jones, United Auto Workers)

Cartoon Top 10

1. "The Silly Goose" (Hans Fischerkoesen, Germany)

2. "Fish Fry" (James Culhane, Universal)

3. "The Barber Of Seville" (James Culhane, Universal)

4. "Goldilocks And The Jivin' Bears" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

5. "Screwball Squirrel" (Tex Avery, MGM)

6. "Donald Duck And The Gorilla" (Jack King, Disney)

7. "And To Think I Saw It On Mulberry Street" (George Pal, Paramount)

8. "Ski For Two" (James Culhane, Universal)

9. "Bugs Bunny And The Three Bears" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

10. "Duck Soup To Nuts" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

Other great cartoons:

Batty Baseball
Big Heel-Watha
Birdy And The Beast
The Bodyguard
Brother Brat
Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips
Censored

C'est l'aviron (Canada)
The Chow Hound
Commando Duck
Dog Cat And Canary
Donald's Off Day
First Aiders
From Hand To Mouse
Gas
Going Home
The Gray Old Hare
Happy-Go-Nutty
How To Play Football
How To Play Golf
Innertube Antics

A Lecture On Camouflage

Little Red Riding Rabbit
Lost And Foundling
Mouse Trouble
My Boy Johnny
Outpost
Pay Day
Plane Daffy
Polar Pest

Private Snafu Vs Malaria Mike

Puttin' On The Dog
Russian Rhapsody
The Snowman (Germany)
Springtime For Pluto
Swooner Crooner

Target Snafu

The Tree Surgeon
What's Cookin' Doc ?
Wolf! Wolf!
The Zoot Cat

Weak films of 1944:

Delinquent Daughters

Excursao as nascentes do Xingu (Brazil)
Gaslight
Kato Hayabusa sento-tai (Japan)
Mist On The Moors (Czechoslovakia)
The Most Beautiful (Japan)
The Rainbow (Soviet Union)
Since You Went Away
The Thin Man Goes Home
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Wilson

Weak shorts:

A Few Quick Facts
Hawaiian Jungle Training
P-47's Come To Town

Scener fra Kalundborg og Koebenhavn (Denmark)
Stop That Dancin' Up There

Weak cartoons:

Angel Puss
The Beach Nut
Bear Raid Warden
Booby Hatched
Booby Traps
Buckaroo Bugs
Contrary Condor
A Few Quick Facts About Inflation
Hare Force
Hare Ribbin'
How To Be A Sailor
I Got Plenty Of Mutton
Jungle Jive
Lulu's Indoor Outing
Meatless Flyday
Million Dollar Cat
The Pelican And The Snipe
Snafuperman
Stage Door Cartoon
Stupid Cupid
Three Brothers
Tom Turk And Daffy
Trombone Trouble
The Weakly Reporter
We're On Our Way To Rio
The Wreck Of The Hesperus

Top 3 Musicals of 1944

1. "Meet Me In St Louis" (Vincente Minnelli, MGM)

2. "Cover Girl" (Charles Vidor, Columbia)

3. "Step Lively" (Tim Whelan, RKO)

Laura (1944) *****

A hauntingly beautiful film noir, expertly mixing melodrama and crime movie genres.

Meet Me In St.Louis (1944) *****

Resisting Enemy Interrogation (1944) ****

Fascinating wartime film, nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary, but actually a suspensful fiction film about American POWs interrogated by the Nazis. Very clever and very exciting.

Torment (1944) ****

Powerful Swedish drama written by Ingmar Bergman. He also directed the final scene of the movie.

Boys On The River (1944) ***

Inspiration (1944) ***

Original title: "Erehtyneet sydämet". The film is available here.

Ivan The Terrible Part I (1944) ****

Visually magnificent film about the notorious 16th century Russian tsar.

Henry V (1944) ***

Patriotic adaptation of William Shakespeare's play about the great English victory at Agincourt.

Opfergang (1944) ***

Es lebe die Liebe (1944) ***

An impressive musical comedy. It's available here.

Miyamoto Musashi (1944) ***

Far superior to Hiroshi Inagaki's "Samurai" trilogy, made 10 years later, on the same subject. Superbly directed by Kenji Mizoguchi.

Felicie Nanteuil (1944) ***

A sort of dry run before "Les Enfants du paradis" (1945).

Warszawa walczy (1944) ***

A unique historical document - three short documentaries filmed during the Warsaw Insurrection in August 1944 by the insurgents themselves, publicly presented at the Palladium Theatre in Warsaw during the insurrection, preserved intact, but suppressed by the Communists after the war, and finally edited together in 1989 after the fall of the Communist government.

La Fornarina (1944) ***

The Fighting Lady (1944) ***

Oscar-winning documentary that follows the exploits of the aircraft carrier USS "Yorktown" (unidentified in the film), from July 1943 to June 1944, from Marcus Island to Kwajalein, Truk and Tinian, and culminating with the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

Kato Hayabusa sento-tai (1944) **

Japanese propaganda movie movie about their brave fighter pilots during the early conquests of Malaysia, Singapore, Burma and Indonesia in the late 1941 and early 1942.

Since You Went Away (1944) **

World War II as seen from the point of view of the women at home. Ambitious melodrama, often touching, but nowhere near as good as other similar films from that period, like "Mrs Miniver" (1942) or "The Best Years Of Our Lives" (1946).

Mist On The Moors (1944) *

Czech drama.