This is an odd one. Grant plays a kind of mobster light — he only does gambling and doesn’t kill people, but he talks like he’s James Cagney, see, and it’s all very weird.

But the main point of this movie is that the US should support Europe against the Nazis. Which is a good point to make.

I’m not sure I knew who Laraine Day was, but she’s really good in this movie.

“Who me?!”

WHO ME!?

Yes, the most fun gag in this movie is Cary Grant learning how to knit.

But then his henchman picks it up, too, and he’s much better at it.

Yeah, I’m not sure about that hat, either.

There’s also this entire thing about him not tying his tie properly… that’s not a Windsor, see?

*gasp*

It’s just a very odd movie. I’m not sure it really works? It’s not screwy enough to be a screwball comedy, and it’s not touching enough to be a weepie… But still, it’s pretty entertaining.

Mr Lucky. H.C. Potter. 1943. ⚃

So this is another Elia Kazan movie where he’s trying desperately convince the FBI that he’s not a commie? It wasn’t enough to snitch on all his friends to the HUAC, or the previous movie which was all about how eeeevil communism is — now he’s doing a movie about how evil unions are?

(But it’s just one specific union, of course, which is all controlled by the mob; not that Kazan is making a more general point. He’s such a weasel.)

And that was a gambit that worked for Kazan:

It received twelve Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan.

Errr:

The film is widely considered to be Elia Kazan’s answer to those who criticized him for identifying eight Communists in the film industry before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1952.

And the answer was… “Fuck yeah! I’ll snitch on all of youse!”?

But as usual with Kazan’s movies, it really works. It’s totes gripping. I would have give it a ⚄, but the ending is so silly that I can’t.

On the Waterfront. Elia Kazan. 1954. ⚃

This is a movie about a Czech circus, and it kinda feels like it’s been financed by the CIA? Was it?

It also feels like Kazan was thinking “now I’m finally gonna make one of those European masterworks” — some scenes are like Herzog 20 years later, or Lang 20 years earlier.

But it’s let down by some really bad performances.

I mean really bad.

Interrogation…

TO THE MAX!!!

A knife thrower practising with his wife, of coures.

Such expressionism.

But then there’s the less fun parts, like this scene, where his bitchy wife is being bitchy, as usual, and he slaps her around, and she goes, Ooooh, you should have done that a long time ago, and then they fuck and live happily ever after.

(Well. SORT OF.)

Somebody’s getting suspicious!

It’s a super duper mega pandering propaganda movie — it was made after he snitched on all his friends to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and I’m guessing this was made to show them he’s really really really Un-Un-American — but the thing is, it works. It’s gross and manipulative, but that final scene is 100% gripping and moving. And the rest is pretty entertaining, too.

Man on a Tightrope. Elia Kazan. 1953. ⚄