Directed by John Ford • 1941 • United States
Starring Walter Pidgeon, Maureen O’Hara, Donald Crisp
John Ford’s majestically moving portrait of a Welsh coal-mining family unfolds from the perspective of its youngest son, Huw (Roddy McDowall), as he looks back on his hardscrabble Victorian-era childhood growing up in a time of immense social change. Famously beating out no less than CITIZEN KANE for the Academy Award for best picture, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY—which also won Oscars for best cinematography and best supporting actor (Donald Crisp)—beautifully balances heart-tugging sentiment with a poignant reflection on the passage of time and the vanishing of a traditional way of life.
Directed by Arthur Ripley • 1946 • United States
Starring Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran
The noir genre is known for its labyrinthine plots, but Arthur Ripley’s THE CHASE takes the “wrong man” premise to delirious extremes. Robert Cummings stars as Chuck Scott, a down-on-his-luck...
Directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger • 1948 • United Kingdom
Starring Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring
THE RED SHOES, the singular fantasia from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, is cinema’s quintessential backstage drama, as well as one of the most glorious Tech...
Directed by Abraham Polonsky • 1948 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor
In this expressively tough and terse noir classic, shady lawyer Joe Morse (John Garfield) joins forces with a ruthless gangster (Roy Roberts) to consolidate control of the numbers racket in Ne...
