Kings Row - 1942

King's Row, Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Betty Field, Ronald Reagan on Midget Window Card, 1942 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.

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Starring: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Claude Rains, Nancy Coleman, Charles Coburn
Director: Sam Wood

A thought-provoking, emotional, melodramatic, 'Peyton Place'-like film with a turn-of-the-century, small-town setting that reveals evil, sadism, cruelty, and depravity. Directed by Sam Wood and with James Wong Howe's cinematography and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's magnificently rich score, the tragic Warner Bros. film presents a compelling, penetrating and difficult story with eloquence and power. Wood had previously directed two Marx Brothers films, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Our Town (1940), Kitty Foyle (1940), Raffles (1940), and The Devil and Miss Jones (1941). Its screenplay by Casey Robinson was based upon Henry Bellamann's widely-read, scandalous 1940 novel of small-town life at the turn of the century. The film's tagline commented on the nature of the town: "The town they talk of in whispers."

The film's main characters were originally five childhood friends, including an idealistic young doctor Parris Mitchell (Cummings), a pretty tomboyish working class girl Randy Monaghan (Sheridan), the neurotic sheltered daughter Cassie (Field) of the town's Dr. Alexander Tower (Rains), the daughter Louise Gordon (Coleman) of a sadistic, morally-righteous doctor (Coburn), and playboy Drake McHugh (Reagan in his best film role), with the unforgettable scene of his realization that his legs have been amputated and his exclamation: "Where's the rest of me?" -- this would become the title of 40th President Reagan's 1965 autobiography.

The Hays Code of 1934 required that much of the questionable, unfilmable content of the novel be modified - eliminating or seriously muting subjects such as illicit premarital sex, homosexuality, a sadistic and vengeful surgeon, and father-daughter incest leading to a murder-suicide. The wartime film's nominations all lost to William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver (1942).

Now, Voyager - 1942

Now, Voyager Framed Art Print
16 in. x 22 in.

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From the novel by Olive Higgins Prouty and enhanced by Max Steiner's score. A classic soap-operaish, melodramatic tearjerker from Hollywood's Golden Era. Repressed, middle-aged, frumpy, 'ugly duckling' spinster Charlotte Vale (Davis), from a wealthy Boston family, is controlled by her domineering, unloving mother (Cooper). During counseling at a sanitarium with a kindly, esteemed psychotherapist Dr. Jaquith (Rains), the frightened, frustrated, introverted woman is restored and transformed into a chic, more attractive, self-confident person. During a suggested South American cruise, she meets a handsome, suave unhappily-married architect Jerry Durrance (Henreid) and finds love through a bittersweet shipboard affair and a befriending of his shy and troubled, withdrawn daughter Tina (Wilson). Concludes with the famous line: "Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars" as the two share a cigarette smoke.

Notorious - 1946

Notorious Wall Mural
48 in. x 72 in.
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Notorious (1946) is a classic Hitchcockian post-war psychological suspense/thriller. The basis of the film came from the 1921 Saturday Evening Post two-part short story "The Song of the Dragon" by John Taintor Foote. The master of suspense created a compelling spy mission interwoven with a romantic love story. The dark, intricate film is thematically concerned with both political (and sexual) betrayal and issues of trust, friendship, and duty embodied in the characters' relationships. It was remade in 1992 as a TV-movie, with John Shea as Devlin, Jenny Robertson as Alicia, Jean-Pierre Cassel as Sebastian, and Marisa Berenson as Katarina.

Hitchcock tells the subtle tale of a beautiful but confused and agonized American spy (Ingrid Bergman) with a reputation for loose living as a playgirl (she is the American-born daughter of a convicted Nazi sympathizer) who unwillingly infiltrates an evil German cartel by marrying the Rio-based enemy leader living there incognito. A love triangle develops between three of the characters - the Nazi villain, a federal agent, and the woman. After seducing (and betraying) her loving husband, she begins to feel perilous menace from both the man she really loves - an icy, seemingly insensitive and cruel American intelligence agent (Cary Grant) on the assignment - and her husband (Claude Rains), a man who is fixated with and controlled by his overcritical, partly-jealous mother figure (Leopoldine Konstantin). In the film's twisted finale, Bergman is rescued before her untimely death from poisoning.




Notorious, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, 1946 Giclee Print
9 in. x 12 in.
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One of Hitchcock's best and most popular films, his ninth American film, it is most notable for its use of a realistic MacGuffin - something around which the film's plot revolves. In this film, the 'red herring' narrative device is a sample of uranium concealed in sand within wine bottles, a top-secret substance needed to manufacture an atomic weapon. The specific mention of uranium in Ben Hecht's screenplay was timely and prescient - the atom bomb had just been dropped on Japan a few months before shooting began on the film. Originally, the MacGuffin for this film was to have been diamonds.

Another subtle symbol in the film is a key, and a third major motif is the drinking of lethal substances (either alcohol or poison) - to either seek refuge from reality or to bring harm. The most celebrated segments in the film are a marathon, prolonged erotic kissing scene (that circumvented the 'three-second' censor's restrictions), a swooping camera crane shot down to an extreme closeup of the wine-cellar key held in Bergman's hand (posters for the film always included a key motif), the wine-cellar sequence, and the suspenseful final scene with masterful inter-cutting.

As with many Hitchcock films, it was not lauded by its contemporary critics, and received only two Academy Award nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains) and Best Original Screenplay (Ben Hecht). Stars Cary Grant (with his second of four appearances for Hitchcock) and Ingrid Bergman (with her second of three appearances), both at the height of their careers as a glamorous leading man and sultry beauty respectively, were denied nominations. The film's producer, David O. Selznick, had originally wanted Vivien Leigh for Ingrid Bergman's role.

Casablanca - 1942

Casablanca Art Print
Casaro, Renato
24.3 in. x 36.75 in.
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The classical and well-loved romantic melodrama Casablanca (1942), still on the top-ten lists of movies, is a masterful account of two men vying for the love of one woman in a love triangle. The story of political espionage and romantic backdrop of war conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. [The date given for the film is often given as 1942 and 1943. This is because its first was limited in 1942, but the movie does not play nationally, or in Los Angeles until 1943.]

With a rich atmosphere and smoke, propaganda anti-Nazi, Max Steiner score great music, suspense, characters unforgettable (supposedly 34 nationalities are included in its cast) and lines of memorable dialogue (eg, "Here's lookin 'at you, children, and misrepresentation of the city "Play It Again, Sam"), it is one of the most popular, magical (and flawless) films of all time - focused on themes of love lost, honor and duty, self-sacrifice and romance within a chaotic world.

Play It Again Woody Allen, Sam (1972) reverential tribute to the film, like the movies less Cabo Blanco (1981) and Barb Wire (1996), and Bugs Bunny animated short Carrotblanca (1995). The line "Play it again, Sam" appeared in the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946). References to films or videos have been used in Play It Again, Sam (1972), Brazil (1985), My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988) and When Harry Met Sally (1989).

The Adventures of Robin Hood - 1938

The Adventures of Robin Hood Masterprint
11 in. x 17 in.
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The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) is one of the largest, most colorful costume dramas, swashbucklers, adventure films and romantic tinged film history. After the restrictions placed on the ice film industry following the creation of the Production Code Administration (Breen Office) in the mid-1930s, Warner Bros. Studios has decided to find relief from censorship, leading a renaissance Film history adventure and fantasy, with swords, the sweeping action, and romantic charm.

The film skillfully tells the story of the heroic Robin Sherwood Forest and his followers, who saved England from the treachery of the king by the noble intrigues during the absence of the crusade and captured, ransomed King Richard the Lion Heart. And he tells the tale of chivalry nostalgic novel, the colorful pageantry, triumphant on the strength and simple justice ugly evil, and spectacular action.