BAMBI
*****
USA
The last of Disney’s first cycle of animated features, which produced most of the company’s – and cinema’s - great ones. This one probably has the least along the way of plot (and dialogue) out of any of them: in episodic, season-based segments, we follow a faun’s maturation into a stag. Yes, there is an overflow of kitsch - it’s uncomfortable to hear the animals speak once they hit adolescence - and the ideology of submissive mothers and absent, aggressive fathers is outdated. But in the early sequences, Walt and his crew pull off that sense of discovering the world for the first time through young eyes more wondrously than just about anyone else ever has. And the animation - a mix of impressionism and almost photographic realism - has never been surpassed for its liquidy gorgeousness.
dir: David Hand
voices of: Peter Behn, Paula Winslowe, Bobbie Stewart, Cammie King, Donnie Dunagan, Hardie Albright

THE BLACK SWAN
***½

CASABLANCA
****

CAT PEOPLE
*****

FOR ME AND MY GAL
***½

THE GLASS KEY
**½
USA
A politician is accused of murder and his right-hand-man attempts to clear him.
Quick and inferior re-teaming of a fresh star coupling, which rarely holds much interest. Though it has its fans.
dir: Stuart Heisler
cast: Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Bonita Granville, William Bendix, Richard Denning

IN WHICH WE SERVE
****½

IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PART I
*****

JOURNEY INTO FEAR
***½

KINGS ROW
***½

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
*****
USA
The story goes that after editing on his sophomore picture was finished Orson Welles disappeared off to South America, pursuing one of the many projects he was never to complete. Due to a poor response from test audiences, RKO then went on to drop 44 minutes from his picture, shuffle around the remainder and hire the future maker of “The Sound of Music” to film a new ending. This botched version is the only one that still survives, yet enough of Welles’ vision remains in it to hint at a greatness equalling – perhaps even surpassing that of the great great “Citizen Kane”.
   It’s a family saga as much as it is a poignant elegy to a lost age, dressed up very evocatively in Welles’ emblematic expressionistic lighting, fluid camera movement and aural ‘deep space’. The Ambersons start off the twentieth century towering over Indianapolis and pinning their hopes on a despicable little brat who is the sole heir to the estate. But as the brat matures into a screechy Tim Holt, the industrial age sends what remains of the ailing dynasty into bankruptcy. In the meantime we watch the dreaded Automobile evolve into a culturally shaping factor and the aristocrat devolve into a vassal at a dynamite factory.
   As Holt’s anguished mother, Dolores Costello is the image of faded elegance. Agnes Moorehead turns in a nervy tour de force of a performance as his spinster aunt and wise and wily Ray Collins is equally effective as his uncle. Perennial also-ran Joseph Cotten plays the automobile inventor and is repeatedly denied Costello’s love. A young and very intelligent Anne Baxter is his daughter. Welles himself doesn’t make an appearance, but he does put in the laconic, hypnotic, omnipresent voiceover, going so far as to recite the credits at the end rather than printing them on-screen.
wr/dir: Orson Welles
ph: Stanley Cortez
ed: Robert Wise
m: Bernard Herrmann
cast: Tim Holt, Dolores Costello, Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, Anne Baxter, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett, Orson Welles

MRS. MINIVER
**½

NOW, VOYAGER
***½

OSSESSIONE
***
Italy
Pretty, wooden Massimo Girotti is instantly attracted to the intensely mannered Clara Calamai and within hours, they are madly in love and plotting to get rid of her rich, obese husband. Visconti's directorial debut, this low-budget thriller was the first - though unofficial - adaptation of James M. Cain's much-adapted "The Postman Always Rings Twice". The picture's emphasis on squalor and location shooting gained it a reputation as a precursor to the neo-realist movement. Today you'd be likelier to mistake it for just cheap melodrama with an odd visual style. (It was barely released outside Italy until decades later, when Visconti had gone on to do much better things.)
dir: Luchino Visconti
ph: Aldo Tonti, Domenico Scala
cast: Massimo Girotti, Clara Calamai, Juan deLanda, Elio Marcuzzo, Dhia Cristani

THE PALM BEACH STORY
****½

RANDOM HARVEST
**½
USA
Your fondness of this amnesia-driven melodrama will probably depend on how hilariously apt you find its title in retrospect.

THE TALK OF THE TOWN
***½

THIS GUN FOR HIRE
****
USA
A hitman is double-crossed by a wealthy spy and seeks revenge while on the run from the police.
Involving, nicely photographed Hitchcockian espionage thriller, with a few stretches that perhaps needed the real Hitchcock. Satisfying all the same.
dir: Frank Tuttle
cast: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar

TO BE OR NOT TO BE
*****

LES VISITEURS DU SOIR
***
France
A medieval fantasy revolving around two envoys sent by the Devil to break up an engagement at a Baron's castle. (They fall in love with their targets - guess what conquers all in the end.) There's room for some tremendous comedy in the plotting, but Carné and co. were never known for their sense of humour. They were more interested in turning it into an allegory about the Nazi occupation of France. Ultimately, the picture generally comes off as a leaden, ponderous medieval drama.
dir: Marcel Carné
wr: Jacques Prévert, Pierre Laroche
cast: Alain Cuny, Arletty, Marie Déa, Fernand Ledoux, Jules Berry, Marcel Herrand, Gabriel Gabrio

WOMAN OF THE YEAR
***½

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
***