1949 Line-ups.

Alright, so I've finally finished the decade. May not have been the best decade for films, but it did offer a handful of fantastic films and some great directors and actors to look out for in the coming decades. This year alone introduced me to Jacques Tati, Nicholas Ray, and Jean-Pierre Melville - all of which I've heard great things of their work and I feel they can only get better from here on.

The Third Man easily took the cake for this year. It's just a perfect film noir with a fantastic cast, a pitch-perfect script, gorgeous cinematography, and wonderful direction. And I only appreciated it even more on this fifth viewing thanks to having seen everything that came before it.

That being said, the rest of the films range from good to alright. Kind Hearts is a nice little dry, dark comedy, but I guess I was hoping for more of Alec Guinness (whose still great in his various roles). Think it could have improved with that. Jour de Fete is a brilliantly directed film that feels like a bit like a glorified short film, but still fun nonetheless with some of the greatest visual and auditory gags I've ever witnessed. Le Silence de la Mer took a long while to get going, but by the end I was quite moved. And it's all in the hushed performance (ironic considering he's the only one who speaks) of Howard Vernon as a sympathetic Nazi commander.

The only "bad" ones of the bunch are the last two. Under Capricorn gets a rap as the worst Hitchcock film in his repertoire, but I actually thought aside from a painfully dull script (and plot in general), the acting, cinematography, and even Hitchcock's wonderful re-use of long take really helped elevate the experience even if it was hard to really salvage it from the beginning. On the Town is fun, but that's about it. It's nice to see Gene Kelly pre-Singin' in the Rain (which is probably the most widely praised film I've never seen...) and he really is the spark of the film. But the story and the added songs (not the ones from the original play) really bog it down as kind of lame and silly for what it was.

Overall, not a bad year to end with, but I can definitely say I'm ready to get onto the next decade. Oh and I'm pretty sure Joseph Cotten is my favorite actor of the decade. Kind of the same gruff thing in all his performances, but he's probably the first actor I've seen from this era of filmmaking that really thrives in the small subtleties of his performances. Can certainly tell this year alone.

Best Picture:
01. The Third Man.
02. Kind Hearts and Coronets.
03. They Live by Night.
04. Adam's Rib.
05. Le Silence de la Mer.
06. Jour de Fête.
07. Late Spring.
08. Stray Dog.
09. The Heiress.
10. All the King's Men.
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11. White Heat.
12. On the Town.
13. Under Capricorn.

Best Director:
01. Carol Reed - The Third Man.
02. Nicholas Ray - They Live by Night.
03. Jacques Tati - Jour de Fête.
04. Jean-Pierre Melville - Le Silence de la Mer.
05. Robert Hamer - Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Best Actor:
01. Howard Vernon - Le Silence de la Mer.
02. Broderick Crawford - All the King's Men.
03. Dennis Price - Kind Hearts and Coronets.
04. Joseph Cotten - The Third Man.
05. Farley Granger - They Live by Night.

Best Actress:
01. Olivia de Havilland - The Heiress.
02. Ingrid Bergman - Under Capricorn.
03. Katharine Hepburn - Adam's Rib.
04. Cathy O'Donnell - They Live by Night.
05. Setsuko Hara - Late Spring.

Best Supporting Actor:
01. Orson Welles - The Third Man.
02. Ralph Richardson - The Heiress.
03. Takashi Shimura - Stray Dog.
04. Joseph Cotten - Under Capricorn.
05. Alec Guinness - Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Best Supporting Actress:
01. Judy Holliday - Adam's Rib.
02. Margaret Leighton - Under Capricorn.
03. Margaret Wycherly - White Heat.
04. Mercedes McCambridge - All the King's Men.
05. Joan Greenwood - Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Best Original Screenplay:
01. The Third Man.
02. Adam's Rib.
03. Stray Dog.
04. Jour de Fête.
05. White Heat.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
01. Kind Hearts and Coronets.
02. They Live by Night.
03. Le Silence de la Mer.
04. The Heiress.
05. Late Spring.

Best Ensemble:
01. The Third Man.
02. Under Capricorn.
03. Kind Hearts and Coronets.
04. The Heiress.
05. They Live by Night.

Best Editing:
Jour de Fête.

Best Cinematography:
The Third Man.

Best Art Direction:
Under Capricorn.

Best Costume Design:
On the Town.

Best Makeup:
Kind Hearts and Coronets.

Best Visual Effects:
On the Town.

Best Sound Design:
Jour de Fête.

Best Original Score:
Anton Karas - The Third Man.

Best Original Song:
"Farewell, Amanda" - Adam's Rib.

Feel free to offer up your 1950 recommendations, and thoughts in general on 1949, but I'll be in the process of moving to Los Angeles in the coming weeks so I don't think I'll have the time to sit down and watch a 1950 film for at least a month or two. Hopefully once I get settled I can get back into it as I'm super excited to finally catch up on all the classics I've been waiting to see for so long. All the Kurosawa films, the Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock films I glossed over, Singin' in the Rain, Rebel Without a Cause, The Searchers, All About Eve, Ben-Hur, Bridge on the River Kwai, and so, so many more...

Oh, and keep a look out for my 1940s Decade Line-ups. I'll probably post that tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I finish them. Very excited to kind of pin down my favorites of the last ten years here.