Shadow of a Doubt

With the police closing in on him, the Merry Widow Murderer (Joseph Cotten) travels cross country to his family home in Santa Rosa, California and the company of his adoring niece (Teresa Wright) who slowly begins to unravel the unsavory truth about her cagey and mysterious uncle. Alfred Hitchcock’s self-proclaimed favorite film is an ingeniously crafted, creatively detailed, and slyly subversive work with Wright assuredly carrying the film, Cotton making a sinister villain, and Hume Cronyn hysterically funny in his film debut as the next door neighbor with a predilection for the macabre.

**** out of ****

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte's gothic Victorian novel Jane Eyre is one of the most adaptable books in film history, most recently rendered earlier this year in a wonderful adaptation by Cary Fukunaga. When most people reference the best version though, they often point to this 1943 version starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles and directed by Robert Stevenson. "Jane Eyre" tells the story of a young orphan brought up by her nasty aunt who sends her to an abusive girls school run by a tyrannical zealot. After suffering and surviving the abuses their, Jane is summoned to be the governess to the ward of Edward Rochester, a rich and cagey young man. However, Jane's manner begins to soften the lord and the two begin to fall in love, which is only to be stifled by Rochester's dark secret. "Jane Eyre" is a darkly beautiful film, with Rochester's castle brilliantly captured in all its shadows and angles. Fontaine is ideal as Jane, with her beauty shining through her plain facade. Welles is great as the brooding Rochester, and as always when he stars in a film he is not credited with directing, questions of authorship arise. "Jane Eyre" is a great adaptation of a wonderful story that never fails to be moving with its superbly realized and tragic characters.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

An aged British officer (Roger Livesey) and member of the Home Guard as World War II breaks out in Europe, is the victim of an insensitive prank by a junior officer. After berating the young lad, he flashes back to his distinguished military career spanning both the Boer War and the First Great War, as well as his personal involvements with a German soldier and friend (Anton Walbrook) and his three great loves (all played by Deborah Kerr). Filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger adapted the popular 1930s Colonel Blimp comic strip which, according to the Wikipedia entry, depicted a "pompous, irascible, jingoistic, and stereotypically British" type, and crafted a deeply felt, sympathetic character, played with gusto by Livesey, in an impeccably made film. Walbrook and Kerr contribute greatly and some exciting, innovative filmmaking, including some quick cutting montages, make this the essence of The Archer's considerable work.

Five Graves to Cairo

After his tank division has been shelled in North Africa, a soul surviving British officer stumbles his way across the desert into an abandoned hotel in a bombed out city inhabited only by its manager and a female member of the staff. When General Rommel, the Desert Fox, takes up residence with his unit in the inn, the officer assumes the identity of a deceased server, which puts him in a unique position due to the fact that this waiter was also a German spy! Now, with access to the secret location of five arms bases, the officer now has the ability to turn the tide of the war in Britain's favor! "Five Graves to Cairo" is an early war yarn from master writer/director Billy Wilder. It is not funny in the typical Wilder sense, but it is still a tense, pointed, and well constructed film. Franchot Tone is excellent as the dry hero and Akim Tamiroff, Anne Baxter, and Peter van Eyck have fine supporting roles as the hotel manager, the staff member, and the German officer she is trying to seduce to return for her POW brother's release. Erich von Stroheim is also a lot of fun as an idiosyncratic Rommel. With "Five Graves of Cairo", Wilder demonstrates his dexterity and his certified skills as one of our great auteurs.

49th Parallel

The crew of a German U-boat is stranded in Hudson Bay and begins to terrorize its way to the still neutral U.S.A. From fur trappers, to a Hutterite commune, to a camping intellectual, to a discouraged AWOL soldier, the Nazis only reinforce Canadian solidarity as the members of their group begin to dwindle. "49th Parallel" was a WWII propaganda film from the inimitable directing and writing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and shows the cruel and brutal actions of the brainwashed Germans against the colorful Canadian inhabitants, played by the likes of greats such as Laurence Olivier, Anton Walbrook, Leslie Howard, and Raymond Massey. "49th Parallel" serves dual purposes in being both a rousing and formidable entertainment.

The Criterion DVD features another propaganda film made for the war by the directing duo called "The Volunteer and made in 1943 to stir recruitment. It stars Ralph Richardson, currently performing Othello in London and follows his dresser as he becomes a war hero. Also featuring Olivier, this is a slight but not uninteresting relic from a great directing team.