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James Agee
Tomatometer-approved critic
(Photo Credit: John Springer Collection/Corbis Historical/Getty Images)
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
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Nightmare Alley (1947) |
This kind of wit and meanness is so rare in movies today that I had the added pleasure of thinking "Oh, no; they won't have the guts to do that." But they do; as long as they have any nerve at all, they have quite a lot. - The Nation
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| Posted Dec 03, 2021
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Sunset Boulevard (1950) |
It is Hollywood craftsmanship at its smartest and at just about its best, and it is hard to find better craftsmanship than that, at this time, in any art or country. - Sight & Sound
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| Posted Oct 11, 2021
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The Pearl (1947) |
An extremely sincere and high-minded effort and, in my opinion, perfectly lousy "art." - The Nation
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| Posted Jul 19, 2021
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L'Atalante (1934) |
It is very good, spasmodically great poetry applied to pretty good prose; a great talent trying, I judge, to apply itself so far as it can stand to, conventionally and commercially. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Great Expectations (1946) |
The film is almost never less than graceful, tasteful, and intelligent, and some of it is better than that. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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The Hucksters (1947) |
I dislike the movie as I disliked what little I could read of the book: for I find uniquely nauseating the spectacle of incurable corruption laboring under delusions of honesty. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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New Orleans (1947) |
The movie is a crime. Not only is it horribly inept and unimaginative in everything that does not center on jazz; the jazz itself is too often cut short, or smothered as background for pictures which fail to carry it out. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Zero for Conduct (1933) |
It is hard for me to imagine how anyone with a curious eye and intelligence can fail to be excited by it, for it is one of the most visually eloquent and adventurous movies I have seen. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Another Part of the Forest (1948) |
Ardently acted, and directed with sense and tension by Michael Gordon. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 28, 2021
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Roughly Speaking (1945) |
The whole thing depresses me beyond words. Jack Carson, however, is likable, as he always is. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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Objective, Burma! (1945) |
It makes this picture moving and good, for all its outright faults and sorry limitations. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) |
There is nothing brilliant about the picture, but it is perceptive, witty, and sweet-tempered, and it shows a continuous feeling for the charm and illuminating power of mannerism, speech, and gesture used semi-ritually, rather than purely realistically. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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The Clock (1945) |
It is strictly a romance, and in every -- essential respect a safe one, safely ae disappointing and angering in the thought of the great film it might have been. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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God Is My Co-Pilot (1945) |
The picture is not as bad, I must admit, as I'm making it sound; but it is not good enough to make me feel particularly sorry about that. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 24, 2021
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San Pietro (1945) |
No war film I have seen has been quite so attentive to the heaviness of casualties, and to the number of yards gained or lost, in such an action; none has so levelly watched and implied what it meant, in such full and complex terms. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 23, 2021
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It Happened at the Inn (1943) |
Some of the characters are as salient as those of comic strips; none lose truthfulness or depth through this; all are with tender, sober adroitness graded, controlled, and modulated between different levels of caricature and... realism. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 23, 2021
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Cornered (1945) |
Murder, My Sweet gave a Raymond Chandler story the combination of skinned knuckles and big-city sentience proper to it; Cornered, without losing much if any force as melodrama, is much more elaborate, self-assured, and ambitious. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 23, 2021
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Cluny Brown (1946) |
Lubitsch's direction -- always, at its best, so shrewd about protocol -- makes the film more amusing than there was any other reason to expect; and Richard Haydn's performance as a prissily bullying, mother-bound druggist is very nice caricature. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 23, 2021
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The Blue Dahlia (1946) |
It knows its own weight and size perfectly and carries them gracefully and without self-importance; it is, barring occasional victories and noble accidents, about as good a movie as can be expected from the big factories. - The Nation
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| Posted Jun 23, 2021
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Air Force (1943) |
I cannot be sure how I feel about Air Force. It is loud, loose, sincere, violently masculine, and at times quite exciting. - The Nation
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| Posted Feb 10, 2021
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The Hard Way (1942) |
There is a good deal in it to excite and to please. - The Nation
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| Posted Feb 10, 2021
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Saludos Amigos (1942) |
Saludos Amigos depresses me. Self-interested, belated ingratiation embarrasses me, and Disney's famous cuteness, however richly it may mirror national infantilism, is hard on my stomach. - The Nation
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| Posted Feb 10, 2021
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Casablanca (1942) |
Apparently Casablanca, which I must say I liked, is working up a rather serious reputation as a fine melodrama. Why? It is obviously an improvement on one of the world's worst plays; but it is not such an improvement that that is not obvious. - The Nation
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| Posted Feb 10, 2021
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Cabin in the Sky (1943) |
Like many star-filled pictures, this one never really shows off its crowded heavens. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Dec 16, 2020
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Casbah (1948) |
The older versions were slicker moviemaking but took this likable trash more seriously than it is worth. The new version has just about the right easygoing attitude. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Tawny Pipit (1944) |
Bernard Miles and Charles Saunders, who collaborated in writing and directing Pipit, are not quite equal to their idea; and Mr. Miles, who is too young to play the colonel, is not quite up to his role. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) |
Blandings may turn out to be too citified for small-town audiences, and incomprehensible abroad; but among those millions of Americans who have tried to feather a country nest with city greenbacks, it ought to hit the jackpot. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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I Remember Mama (1948) |
Above everything else, the picture has obviously been made with the lively affection and pleasure which are the life blood of good popular art. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Time of Your Life (1948) |
Those who made the picture have given it something very rare. It's obvious that they love the play and their work in it, and their affection and enjoyment are highly contagious. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) |
O'Neill is one of the finest theatrical craftsmen of his day, and Electra has a gnashing vitality. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Green Dolphin Street (1947) |
The moral of all this seems to be: if you want to be happy, be sure to marry someone you don't love. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Exile (1948) |
The script ... has a charming, blank-verse hauteur that just possibly may be a bit asinine-but the direction saves the day by insisting on a witty, natural reading. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Golden Earrings (1947) |
The general whimsicality of the picture is weary but Miss Dietrich does what she can with the laborious charade. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Christmas Eve (1947) |
[A] dead rat. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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One for the Book (1947) |
Since these characters have been deprived of their chief motives, their honesty, and their essential innocence, they are also deprived of most of their reality and all their charm. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Cass Timberlane (1947) |
Should refine the judgment of readers who did not like the Sinclair Lewis novel, but thought that it would make a good movie script, anyhow. It doesn't. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Variety Girl (1947) |
In its unpretentious, meandering way, Variety Girl is a likable show, mostly because its stars are allowed to do what they do best ... - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Upturned Glass (1947) |
In polite concern to grant the intelligence of moviegoers, Actor-Producer Mason has underplayed so drastically that his surgeon fails to exhibit enough intensity. As a result, the whole last reel of the film groans like a car trying to do 80 in low gear. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Lost Moment (1947) |
A puzzling screen version of Henry James's fine novelette, The Aspern Papers ... would doubtless-if it had James himself for a critic-be delicately strangled in the ineluctable tendrils of his famous final manner. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Where There's Life (1947) |
Where There's Life there is, naturally, Bob Hope. This movie has quite a lot of Hope, in fact, but rather less life than his admirers have reason to hope for. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Nightmare Alley (1947) |
Scripter Jules Furthman and Director Edmund Goulding have ... seldom forgotten that the original novel they were adapting is essentially intelligent trash; and they have never forgotten that on the screen pretty exciting things can be made of trash. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Unconquered (1947) |
Cecil Blount DeMille's florid, $5,000,000, Technicolored celebration of Gary Cooper's virility, Paulette Goddard's femininity and the American Frontier Spirit. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Forever Amber (1947) |
Linda Darnell ... makes a handsome but unexciting Amber. Cornel Wilde, as Amber's steady, Lord Bruce Carlton, uses both of his facial expressions frequently. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) |
The film's whimsy is a bit heavy-handed and it is short on wit, style and ingenuity. Yet most of it is pleasant enough fun, and pretty to watch. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Down to Earth (1947) |
The film may annoy those who do not thoroughly enjoy "swinging" everything in sight. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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The Web (1947) |
The story is no more than a fair excuse for the neat moviemaking which makes this picture entertaining. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Wild Harvest (1947) |
There is ... too much talking and face making. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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They Won't Believe Me (1947) |
Producer Joan Harrison & associates have brought the story to the screen with considerable skill. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Desert Fury (1947) |
If you could be sure that it was meant to be funny, you could relax and enjoy it thoroughly. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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Singapore (1947) |
A lot of technical competence, a certain amount of talent and a staggering amount of time and money have been marshaled into a quiet, polished frenzy about nothing whatever. - TIME Magazine
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| Posted Mar 02, 2018
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