Gonna throw in a vote to The Woman in the Window, my favorite American Fritz Lang picture and favorite Edward G. Robinson performance.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 March 2024 13:56 (three months ago) link
I tend to only want to vote for Ivan the Terrible in its entirety, but even just half of it is the movie of the year, followed by Canterbury Tale and Curse of the Cat People (#5707, appallingly enough)
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 March 2024 14:01 (three months ago) link
Meet Me in St. Louis. This one is easier than 1954, though I suspect Ivan will win and that wouldn't be wrong.
― Josefa, Friday, 8 March 2024 14:24 (three months ago) link
This is one year when I'm happy to vote for the Hollywood picture over the international film; I could easily have picked Laura, Double Indemnity, Meet Me in St. Louis, the two Sturges joints, or A Canterbury Tale.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 March 2024 14:28 (three months ago) link
A Canterbury Tale v. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek for me (Hail is pretty astonishing thematically but less sustained fun iirc?). A hard choice, but a banner year for sexual perversity!
― rob, Friday, 8 March 2024 14:39 (three months ago) link
OPFERGANG (Veit Harlan; Germany) [#1678]
never heard of this, and Germany in 1944...?
― rob, Friday, 8 March 2024 14:40 (three months ago) link
It's crazy that only Double Indemnity out of all Hollywood ones was nominated for the BP Oscar. Meet Me in St. Louis won no Oscars at all, unless you count the Academy Juvenile Award won by Margaret O'Brian for all of her 1944 work.
Gaslight got a BP nomination this year, so maybe that's a clue.
― Josefa, Friday, 8 March 2024 14:57 (three months ago) link
I'm sure Meet Me would've been in the lineup if that weren't the first year they cut it down to just five nominees
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Friday, 8 March 2024 15:35 (three months ago) link
Eisenstein's a visual and conceptual genius whose films I find nearly unwatchable: they're not slow-paced, they're no-paced. Haven't seen any of Lang's American pictures.
On the strength of the theme song, Laura over Double Indemnity.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 8 March 2024 20:31 (three months ago) link
Voting for Maya Deren's experimental short, which is so far ahead of its time, I could watch it in a loop all day. (I usually watch it at least a couple of times in a row.)
MoMI (coincidentally?) screened Ivan parts I & II (in 35 too) when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. I hadn't seen them in years, but I thought it was a masterwork - watching it now, I was a lot more sensitive to the rhetoric that would never disappear, pointing the way to Putin's invasion. Powerful and chilling.
― birdistheword, Saturday, 9 March 2024 04:28 (three months ago) link
I like how Meet Me In St Louis shows an era where being in a mid rank American city could still be hopeful and upwardly mobile.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 9 March 2024 09:26 (three months ago) link
Archers
― UKXEPCTED TWITS (WmC), Saturday, 9 March 2024 14:43 (three months ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.
― System, Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:01 (two months ago) link
Double Indemnity is great, but Meet Me In St. Louis is such a captivating film, I have to vote for that
― Dan S, Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:09 (two months ago) link
"You ever been bit by a dead bee?" endures in my heart forever.
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:17 (two months ago) link
Ditto "I think you're swell--so long as I'm not your husband."
― clemenza, Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:25 (two months ago) link
Among the Hollywood productions, I would've gone with Meet Me in St. Louis - great film. But At Land gets my vote.
― birdistheword, Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:28 (two months ago) link
I love more of these than maybe in any other of these polls, but going with Meet Me in St. Louis because I think it’s so remarkable — one of the greatest Hollywood musicals, but also such a small, carefully observed story. You can fault it for being basically the quid/ags of the bourgeoisie circa 1900, but it’s so fully inhabited and felt. Nothing else like it.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:31 (two months ago) link
“Meet me in st louie, louie” makes me want to kick someone’s teeth in
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:33 (two months ago) link
I’m not a rewatcher but Meet Me in St Louis is good enough for the occasional rewatch.
― o. nate, Sunday, 14 April 2024 00:40 (two months ago) link
If only the filmmakers had got their first choice for opening song: "Stayin' Alive"
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 14 April 2024 02:14 (two months ago) link
These movies being 80 years old is crazy
― jmm, Sunday, 14 April 2024 02:50 (two months ago) link
I have voted for the Double Indemnity. :)
― Vintage, Sunday, 14 April 2024 04:03 (two months ago) link
Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.
― System, Monday, 15 April 2024 00:01 (two months ago) link
The Woman in the Window is fantastic, right up until the last 5 minutes or so...
― Zelda Zonk, Monday, 15 April 2024 00:04 (two months ago) link
A worthy victory for the Glue Man
― the scouse that roared (Matt #2), Monday, 15 April 2024 01:07 (two months ago) link
I used to dislike the ending of The Woman in the Window but I actually think it's pretty brilliant. (FWIW, Lang himself came up with it and knew what he was doing.) In its own way it's deceptively a happy ending and tragic in a different way - it's a manifestation of his own feelings of guilt, and no matter how dreary or boring he may find his home life, he will never allow himself to escape it and was unlikely to find more in life to begin with.
I voted for Deren's film, but it's still a well-deserved victory by the Archers.
― birdistheword, Monday, 15 April 2024 02:24 (two months ago) link