Jack Cardiff

Cinematographer and director Jack Cardiff, one of the early masters of color cinematography, has died. He was 94.
Cardiff’s work as a cinematographer was quite eclectic, ranging from his partnership with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in the British-made Black Narcissus (1945) and The Red Shoes (1948) to prestigious international productions such as John Huston’s The African Queen (1951) and King Vidor’s War and Peace (1956), and to low-brow commercial fare such as Conan the Destroyer (1984) and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985).
I’ve never watched Conan or Rambo, but I have watched more than 20 of Cardiff’s 60 or so features, and I can testify that whether working in art-house or commercial fare, Cardiff’s cinematography was invariably one [...]

Best Films – 1945

Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter
FILM
Blithe Spirit
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward
Boule de suif / Angel and Sinner
d: Christian-Jaque; scr: Henri Jeanson
Brief Encounter
d: David Lean; scr: Noel Coward, Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame
Dead of Night
d: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer; scr: John Baines, Angus MacPhail
Les Enfants du paradis / Children of Paradise
d: Marcel Carné; scr: Jacques Prévert
Leave Her to Heaven
d: John M. Stahl; scr: Jo Swerling
Love Letters
d: William Dieterle; scr: Ayn Rand
Mildred Pierce
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Ranald McDougall, Catherine Turney
A Royal Scandal
d: Otto Preminger; scr: Edwin Justus Mayer
State Fair
d: Walter Lang; scr: Paul Green, Oscar Hammerstein II, Sonya Levien
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
d: Elia Kazan; scr: Tess Slesinger, Frank [...]