After stealing her pushover cousin’s fiancé, Margaret Lockwood finds her new married life in the country boring. Utilizing a convenient secret passageway in her house, she begins a secret career as a bandit to spice things up. It’s quite a bit of fun watching her devil may care attitude and her complete disregard for prescribed gender roles. Unfortunately everyone else in the film are a bunch of wet blankets and the Code favors them over someone who lives for herself. 
Richard Conte returns home to discover his father has lost his legs in a trucking accident perpetrated by Lee J. Cobb, an unscrupulous San Francisco produce dealer. Conte partners with the man who bought his father’s truck to get even with Cobb. I would never have thought there was such a thing as the dark underworld of fruit sellers, but here it is. Cobb plays a cunning and ruthlessly charismatic bad guy while Conte is a man who thinks he’s more in control than he is. As a noir, it even includes a femme fatale and the nice, good girl, but neither of them sticks to those simplistic roles. 
Unlike the other films in Rossellini’s war trilogy, this last one is set in Germany in the immediate aftermath of World War II. In war-ruined Berlin, twelve year old Edmund Moeschke lives with his sick father and two adult siblings in an assigned apartment house, all struggling to find their next meal and ways out of a desperate situation. A strong indictment on the wreckage left behind by war, the young Moeschke wanders the streets of the city, too young and innocent to be treated as an adult but old enough to experience the same hardships of the adults and make devastating choices because of it. 
The second of Rossellini’s war trilogy, this collection of six different episodes tell of a variety of experiences had during the Italian Campaign: an Italian woman agrees to guide American soldiers through a German minefield, a Neapolitan street urchin befriends a drunken Black soldier only to steal his boots after he falls asleep, a different American soldier meets an Italian prostitute only for her to realize they’ve met before, an American nurse and Italian man together risk their lives through battling areas to find news of loved ones, three American chaplains of different religious persuasions take refuge in an Italian Catholic monastery, and members of the OSS fight alongside Italian partisans in the Po delta. . The stories, each written by a different screenwriter, vary in strength but all focus in some way on the interactions between Italian citizens and Allied military members. Language barriers and suspicions of loyalty often get in the way of accomplishing goals and finding peace.
Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Story and Screenplay
During World War II, God-fearing Margaret O’Brien moves in with her pregnant, older sister June Allyson who lives with other female members of Jose Iturbi’s orchestra in a boarding house. The duo must keep Margaret hidden from the boarding house matron, contend with a surly band leader, and endure telegram-stealing housemates. I wouldn’t have cast O’Brien and Allyson as sisters based on looks, but they certainly are matched in their perky earnestness. The film tries to bite off too many pieces and would have been better just focusing on the sisters’ relationship. 
Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Original Screenplay
The first film in Roberto Rossellini’s war trilogy, this was secretly filmed during the Nazi occupation of Rome and follows a group of people coping with the occupation, most notably a Resistance fighter trying to find a way out of the city with the help of a Catholic priest. The realism of the film is sometimes difficult to watch. History has painted Italy during World War II with the broad brush of being an part of the Axis powers, but this film powerfully explores what happened afterward when they were subjected to the same atrocities the Nazis had been committing throughout Europe. Additionally there is an intriguing exploration on religion and faith and how one can hold on to such things while bearing witness to such atrocities.
Oscar Nomination: Best Writing, Screenplay
Jeanne Crain portrays the title character, a light-skinned Black woman sent to the North by her grandmother to attend nursing school where she managed to pass for white and fell in love with a doctor. Now returned to the South, she must come to terms with her heritage and the decisions she made. It’s very strange that a white actor was cast to play Pinky when there were multiple light-skinned Black actresses clamoring for the role, but even beyond that Pinky as a character feels completely removed from all parts of her background sans a loyalty to her dedicated grandmother Ethel Waters. Waters also remains a one-dimensional character; her kindheartedness, especially as shown to the white woman whose shadow she lives under, being her one overlying trait. Regardless the film does not offer a positive view of the South where a white woman is to be protected but a Black woman is to be attacked and disbelieved.
Oscar nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Actress in a Supporting Role (2)
Sent to live with his Scottish Protestant grandparents after the death of his mother, Irish orphan Dean Stockwell finds solace in the companionship of his kind great-grandfather Charles Coburn who encourages the lad in his dreams of becoming a doctor. I continue to be fascinated with how self-possessed and competent Stockwell was in his young roles. His struggles and relationship with Coburn in the first half of the film is the best part of the production. It unfortunately drags somewhat after the character grows up, but the film holds some interest whenever it comes back to Coburn’s clever Scotsman.
Oscar Nominations: Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Clarinetist Bing Crosby puts together a band so he can bring jazz music to the white masses of New Orleans. Bing is joined by Mary Martin and Brian Donlevy in a mild love triangle while Carolyn Lee provides some unnecessary child precociousness. Other than a few of the musical numbers, the film is quite unremarkable and isn’t a standout in any of the actors’ filmographies. 
Oscar Nomination: Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture
Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire again team up as friends who fall in love with the same woman. Here Astaire dances for the stage while Crosby is a night club owner who is never satisfied with the success he experiences. There are some highlights, especially Astaire’s Puttin’ on the Ritz performance, but it’s outclassed in all categories by the superior Holiday Inn. The narrative supposedly moves through decades of time, but the film doesn’t feel like it changes at all. The main love interest Joan Caulfield is serviceable, but even she is dull when compared to supporting player Olga San Juan.
Oscar Nominations: Best Music, Original Song; Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture