With reviews! Scroll down!
Updated.
The Searchers (A)
How Green Was My Valley (A-)
Young Mr. Lincoln (B+)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (B+)
The Quiet Man (B+)
My Darling Clementine (B+)
Stagecoach (B)
The Horse Soldiers (B)
Fort Apache (B)
The Battle of Midway (B)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (B) - I need to revisit this one badly.
They Were Expendable (B-)
The Grapes of Wrath (B-)
Mogambo (C)
Three Godfathers (C)
The Wings of Eagles (D)
Soon I shall see more!
Updated. Added: Fort Apache, The Battle of Midway, & They Were Expendable.
Updated. My streak of loving/liking John Ford films has ended. Added: Three Godfathers and The Wings of Eagles.
The Quiet Man and The Horse Soldiers added. Ford vindicated!
Short thoughts on the two newly added:
My Darling Clementine - Slow, beautiful, meditative. I have realized that Henry Fonda is the complete opposite of John Wayne; a lot more introverted, soft spoken, incredibly perceptive. The film moves at such a leisurely pace that you often forget about the film's antagonists. I think it would serve the story well in other films (
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, for instance), but here where there is such a tension in the air, it feels aggravatingly too slow at times. Two notable things to talk about. #1- The presence of death lies on every frame. A beautiful scene early on has Wyatt giving a monologue to his dead brother's tombstone. It is painfully sad to watch. When they find the body of another brother later on in the film, the camera fades as they pose statuesque over the body. Heart-breaking. #2- Walter Brennan! Like pretty much everyone, I, too, found him annoying in Rio Bravo if only because I couldn't tell what the hell he was saying half the time. But here, he talks slower and is used as the villain. He makes an awesomely frightening villain, I just wished he was used more often.
Mogambo - Every man, at one point or many points in their lives, has this option: do I go for the fragile and easy gazelle or do I go for the fearsome and intimidating lioness? Most men go for the less aggressive one because it makes them feel even more manly because they are the domineering one. That men in this film is played by Clark Gable in, perhaps, his sleaziest role I've seen him in yet. He plays a total player who is the object of affection by two women: Grace Kelly, the safe gazelle, and Ava Gardener, the witty lioness. How coincidental that this story plays out with the African backdrop. To make matters complicated, Gardener wants Gable, but so does Kelly. Who wouldn't? He is the total man's man. Of course, Gable wants Kelly as well (he uses lies and snares to entrap her into his "heart"), but she is married to her fellow scientist husband. This is an expedition! Gable is the guide, Gardener is a tourist, and Kelly and her husband are anthropologists setting out to see gorillas. "They're a happy married couple" warns Gable's friend, but he goes for her anyway. If made today, Mogambo would be a Woody Allen film, but it would also be a lot funnier and a lot more straightforward. The lack of humor and the constant way the actors execute it makes the film over-dramatic. It is irksome. At first I didn't like Gardener's character or her acting, but once the expedition begins, you come to realize that her role is the only one that is funny and you cling to her for enjoyment. The rest is (almost) a melodramatic mess with a very anti-climatic and somewhat implausible ending.