Top 10 Films of 1945

1. "Les Enfants du paradis" (Marcel Carné, France)

2. "Yolanda And The Thief" (Vincente Minnelli, USA)

3. "The Woman In The Window" (Fritz Lang, USA)

4. "Detour" (Edgar G. Ulmer, USA)

5. "The Lost Weekend" (Billy Wilder, USA)


6. "Mildred Pierce" (Michael Curtiz, USA)


7. "And Then There Were None" (René Clair, USA)

8. "Open City" (Roberto Rossellini, Italy)

9. "The Southerner" (Jean Renoir, USA)

10. "The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail" (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

Other great films:

Anchors Aweigh
Blithe Spirit (UK)
The Body Snatcher
Brief Encounter (UK)
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (France)
Dead Of Night (UK)

Delightfully Dangerous

The Fuhrer Gives The Jews A City (Böhmen und Mähren)

The House On 92nd Street

I Know Where I'M Going (UK)
Kolberg (Germany)

My Name Is Julia Ross
National Velvet
Rhapsody In Blue
The Seventh Veil (UK)
State Fair
They Were Expendable
The Three Caballeros
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
The True Glory
The Turning Point (Soviet Union)

Tva manniskor (Sweden)
Ziegfeld Follies

Short Top 3:

1. "Le Retour" (Henri Cartier-Bresson, France)

2. "A Study In Choreography For Camera" (Maya Deren, USA)

3. "To The Shores Of Iwo Jima" (Rex Steele, USA)

Other great shorts:

The Art Of Love Or Your Sex Problems Solved

The Atom Strikes
Battle Of San Pietro
Budujemy Warszawe (Poland)
A Diary For Timothy
Diary Of A Sergeant
The Fight For The Sky

Hitler Lives
The Last Bomb

The Lovers

Svensk idrott i helg och socken (Sweden)

Top Commercial:

"Cleanliness Brings Health" (Walt Disney, Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs)

Other great commercials:

Three Blind Mice (Canada)
The Unseen Enemy

Cartoon Top 10

1. "Duck Pimples" (Jack Kinney, Disney)

2. "Gypsy Life" (Connie Rasinski, Terry)

3. "Hockey Homicide" (Jack Kinney, Disney)

4. "Donald's Crime" (Jack King, Disney)

5. "The Poet And Peasant" (Dick Lundy, Universal)

6. "Life with Feathers" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

7. "Draftee Daffy" (Robert Clampett, Warner)

8. "Wild And Woolfy" (Tex Avery, MGM)

9. "Swing Shift Cinderella" (Tex Avery, MGM)

10. "Quiet Please" (William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, MGM)

Other great cartoons:

Ain't That Ducky
Behind The Meat-Ball
Cured Duck
The Dippy Diplomat
The Eyes Have It
A Few Quick Facts About Fear
The Friendly Ghost
A Gruesome Twosome
Hare Tonic
Hare Trigger
In The Aleutians
It's Murder She Says
The Loose Nut
Mighty Mouse And The Pirates
Mouse In Manhattan
Nasty Quacks

No Buddy Atoll
No Sail
Odor-able Kitty
Peck Up Your Troubles
Post-War Inventions
The Screwy Truant
The Shooting Of Dan McGoo
Tiger Trouble
The Unruly Hare
The Unwelcome Guest
Woody Dines Out

Weak films of 1945:

The Bells Of St Mary's
Blood On The Sun
The Corn Is Green
Dillinger

Lady On A Train
Objective Burma
The Portrait Of Dorian Gray
Sanshiro Sugata: Part Two (Japan)
Scarlet Street
Spellbound
The Story Of G.I. Joe
Thunderbolt

The White Gorilla

Weak shorts:

The House I Live In

Weak cartoons:

African Diary
The Bashful Buzzard
Californy 'er Bust
Canine Casanova
Canine Patrol
Chew-Chew Baby
The Clock Watcher
Dog Watch
Fisherman's Luck
Flirty Birdy
Fresh Airdale
Hare Conditioned
Herr Meets Hare
Hot Spot
Jasper And The Beanstalk
Jerky Turkey
The Legend Of The Coyote Rock
The Mouse Comes to Dinner
Old Sequoia
Operation Snafu
Scrappily Married
A Tale Of Two Mice
Tee For Two
Trap Happy Porky
Wagon Heels

Top 3 Musicals of 1945

1. "Yolanda And The Thief" (Vincente Minnelli, MGM)

2. "Anchors Aweigh" (George Sidney, MGM)

3. "State Fair" (Walter Lang, 20th-Fox)

Les Enfants du paradis (1945) *****

A great classic of French cinema, directed by Marcel Carné. 

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1945) ***

Realistic drama about the life in Brooklyn in the early 20th century.

The Turning Point (1945) ***

Soviet war drama about the Battle of Stalingrad.

Delightfully Dangerous (1945) ***

Something of a rarity: a musical film with weak songs and dance numbers, but a rather charming and interesting story (co-written by Frank Tashlin). Jane Powell's second film.

My Name Is Julia Ross (1945) ***

Fine Hitchcockian thriller actually predates "Notorious" by one year.

They Were Expendable (1945) ***

Excellent war drama about PT boats during the Battle of the Philippines.

Blithe Spirit (1945) ***

Excellent British comedy about a couple haunted by the ghost of the husband's first wife.

I Know Where I'M Going (1945) ***

The House On 92nd Street (1945) ***

Realistic spy drama, based on a true story.

Kolberg (1945) ***

A Nazi epic propaganda film about the defense of Kolberg during the Napoleonic Wars. Directed by Veit Harlan. "Kolberg" isn't available on DVD, but it can be seen here on Google (in German with French subtitles).

Tva manniskor (1945) ***

Carl T. Dreyer has disowned this film. But unlike Stanley Kubrick, who correctly disowned "Fear And Desire", Dreyer was a bit too harsh on himself. Granted, it's his worst feature film, but it's still a minor masterpiece of the cinematic art.

The Fuhrer Gives The Jews A City (1945) ***

Notorious Nazi propaganda film made by Kurt Gerron in Theresienstadt. Only fragments survive.

The Men Who Tread On The Tiger's Tail (1945) ***

The True Glory (1945) ***

Documentary film about the Western Front during WWII, from D-Day to V-E Day.

Spellbound (1945) **

Hitchcock meets Freud and the results aren't pretty.

Objective Burma (1945) **

Effective but unexceptional jungle war movie, set in Burma during WWII.

The Bells Of St Mary's (1945) **

Ingrid Bergman certainly wished she didn't play a nun in this movie. Her public, unable to distinguish between her roles and her private life, couldn't forgive her for not being a nun in real life as well, and was profoundly shocked by her "sinful" life with Italian director Roberto Rosselini.

Dillinger (1945) **

Gangster film about the famous bank robber.

Lady On A Train (1945) **

Deanna Durbin witnesses a murder.

Blood On The Sun (1945) **

An American journalist in Tokyo discovers a Japanese government's plan for world domination. Based on a true story from the 1920's.

The Portrait Of Dorian Gray (1945) **

Conventional adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel.

The White Gorilla (1945) *

Ridiculous adventure film that seems to mostly consist of old silent footage framed by a narrator.

The Story Of G.I.Joe (1945) *

Probably the most boring of all Hollywood films about War World II. But also one of the most realistic ones. A few combat scenes, but mostly just soldiers waiting in trenches, mud and unbelievable boredom. Not deliberately an anti-war movie, but it definitely won't encourage anyone to enlist.

Sanshiro Sugata: Part Two (1945) *

Very disappointing sequel to Kurosawa's first film, and the last of his three movies that were filmed and released before Japan's capitulation.

Yolanda And The Thief (1945) *****

 

This is the most beautiful and sublime musical fantasy ever made. A flop when first released, this haunting, surrealistic fairy-tale features the most imaginative art direction and color cinematography in the history of Hollywood musicals. Directed by Vincente Minnelli, it stars Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer. Great musical numbers:

"This Is A Day For Love" **
"Angel" **
"Dream Ballet" ***
"Yolanda" **
"Coffee Time" ***

Svensk idrott i helg och socken (1945) ***

The Unseen Enemy (1945) ***

Disney commercial about microbes, bacterias and viruses.

To The Shores Of Iwo Jima (1945) ***

Oscar-nominated documentary about the Battle of Iwo Jima. It includes the iconic footage of Marines raising the American flag.

The Lovers (1945) ***

Hitler Lives (1945) ***

The Art Of Love Or Your Sex Problems Solved (1945) ***

The Fight For The Sky (1945) ***

A fascinating film about the battle for control of skies over Western Europe in 1943 and 1944. A lot of footage comes from so-called "gun camera films". Length: 41 minutes. A shorter, 20-minutes version of this film was narrated by Ronald Reagan,

A Study In Choreography For Camera (1945) ***

Very short film about the art of dancing. Maya Deren expertly matches every shot, often changing the angle and the shot size, to create a poetic and metaphysical film.

Battle Of San Pietro (1945) ***

Impressive documentary about a bloody battle during the Italian campaign in 1943. Narrated by director John Huston. Length: 32 min.

Le Retour (1945) ***

Poignant documentary about French prisoners returning home after the war. Directed by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Length: 34 min.

Diary Of A Sergeant (1945) ***

True story of Harold Russell, a soldier who lost both his hands in a training exercise in 1944. It's a warm, optimistic film. After seeing his documentary, director William Wyler cast Russell as a disabled war veteran in "The Best Years Of Our Lives" (1946).

A Diary For Timothy (1945) ***

For a child born in September 1944, the last few months of World War II would also be the first few month of his life. Beautiful documentary produced for the Crown Film Unit. Length: 40 min.

The Last Bomb (1945) ***

Documentary about the last bombing missions against Japan in the summer of 1945, culminating in the dropping of an atom bomb on Hiroshima. Length: 35 minutes, which allowed it to be nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

The Atom Strikes (1945) ***

A survey of the destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Produced immediately after the bombings.

Cleanliness Brings Health (1945) ***

Disney commercial about cleanliness. Unlike other films in Disney's "Health For The Americas" series (like "The Unseen Enemy" and "Planning For Good Eating"), this one is quite judgemental and paternalistic.

Budujemy Warszawe (1945) ***

Polish documentary about the rebuilding of Warsaw.

The House I Live In (1945) **

Frank Sinatra teaches some young kids about tolerance.

Brief Encounter (1945) ***

A very British melodrama, directed by David Lean.

Detour (1945) ****

A remarkable, truly memorable film noir directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.

The Lost Weekend (1945) ****

A weekend in the life of an alcoholic.