1946: Original Story

How does one rate a story? Screenplay, you can judge the dialogue, the little details; and then, of course, the performers bring their own interpretation to a character, a scene, a moment. Story, you have to really just look at the broader chain of events, the structure - can you see the whole movie just by the blueprint? Can you judge such a thing objectively even if you only have the movie to go on?

Me, I honestly think to myself, "If they remade this today, would I go see it?" Which I know is still tough to go by, but I think it's usually sound. You know what you like. Would you see an evil twin whodunnit, a small-town corruption crime-romance, a Nazi-hunting thriller, a motherhood epic, a wartime rom-com? Are those stories strong enough to hold you today?

Here's where I wound up on that question:

1946: The Early Worms

The year is 1946, and things are getting interesting. Around the world, of course, the war that's kept all continents occupied since 1939 has finally ended. More wars will come in its wake, some direct responses to those "peace" treaties. In the movie world, long-delayed flicks are finally seeing the light of day, whether they be imports like the British drama Henry V or just long-held studio fare like the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle My Reputation - both filmed in 1944.

I watched 67 films from 1946, including the 36 Academy Award nominees. Traditionally, I've done an overview of those films and their respective categories over two weeks, then presented the rest of the films screened. This time around, I'll do something I haven't done in a while: this first week, I'm reviewing all the films - all but the five Best Picture nominees - in order of release, before deep-diving into their individual, nominated elements. Because, hell, just like any other year, these films' releases weren't separated by Oscar Time and Everything Else - winners came out alongside footnotes. We wanna see the full context, don't we?

Of course, because nationwide releases weren't quite a thing back then, that means some of the films of 1946 had their first US releases before 1946. How so? Well, remember, to get an Oscar nomination, you have to play a week in Los Angeles. You don't have to be released in Los Angeles first, though, and so New York, Chicago, Baltimore, they debuted many a film well before 1946. I'm beginning 1946 with nine such films, films with no known LA release date that I could find, but with initial US releases in 1945.

Beginning with....