’40s
Noah’s Barks pages covering things relating to the years 1940 to 1949, i.e. the ’40s.
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Shadow of a Doubt
Shadow of a Doubt possesses some of Alfred Hitchcock‘s heaviest themes. Moments of brilliance with slices of peaceful suburbia being rotted by the growing underbelly of malicious malaise and the death of its innocence. There’s an interesting dynamic as the movie has the audience’s suspicion develop opposite to Teresa Wright’s. Unlike his greatest work, the… (read more)
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Drunken Angel
Shockingly (or perhaps not), Toshirô Mifune delivers one of his best performances in his first Akira Kurosawa-directed film. Takashi Shimura is his equal here and seeing the two Kurosawa legends interact so closely at the top of their games is a real treat, not to mention their narrative relationship as the elder doctor Shimura bluntly… (read more)
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Stray Dog
Stray Dog may be one of Akira Kurosawa‘s earliest acclaimed movies, but it’s his style of writing down to the bone. This police procedural starts out very slow in his usual tempo but gradually builds as Kurosawa’s hefty dialogue expands upon the characters. His humanism comes through, but surprisingly there are suggestions of nihilism this… (read more)
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The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon succeeds as well as any mystery could by making nearly every single character a suspect. Anything could happen at any time, and everyone is involved in one large plot roped around one titular bird. Second-guessing every character’s personality and trying to read inbetween their lines becomes a sport that demands constant attention,… (read more)
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Rope
I’m astonished that, for a director valued for his sense of suspense, Rope is not seen as his peak in that regard. The real-time single room setting combined with the illusion of a single take brings the tension to life in a way few films are capable of achieving. The stakes are so high and… (read more)