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50s WATCHING THREAD


jaedmc

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SHADOWS (John Cassavetes) -- this was so different from what Hollywood were producing at the time that even it's low budget, occasional technical flaws, uneven acting and faulty improvised story give it an edge and rawness that make it a captivating watch. It's not Cassavetes' best film, but in the context of the decade it's like watching an early Brando performance when all you've been used to is the studio system star factory. Recommended.

 

WEDDINGS AND BABIES (Morris Engel) -- this is the third installment in Engel's trilogy of films. He's a guy who doesn't get enough credit for his pioneering work in independent cinema. History lazily refers to Cassavettes as the first independent filmmaker, but filmmakers like Engel began making independent films after the war and there was already an independent film culture in New York City by the time Cassavettes made Shadows. This was a charming, autobiographical account of a struggling photographer in New York City who is extremely reluctant to marry his girlfriend. It's a bit different from Engel's first two films where the central actors were kids, but highly enjoyable. Also the first film to use a hand-held 35 millimeter camera with simultaneous sound recording, so Engel has more freedom with his camera and direction.

 

BEAT THE DEVIL (John Huston) -- John Huston/Bogie money loser that's adopted an almost cult like status these days as though it's another Treasure of the Sierra Madre. It ain't, but it's a Bogie film, the script is reasonably witty and it's not that long. If you've got time to kill it's in the public domain and easy to find. 

 

BIGGER THAN LIFE (Nicholas Ray) -- What could be more 1950s than James Mason playing a school teacher who becomes addicted to cortisone? What could be more Nicholas Ray than that? This has the best Hollywood ending ever when:

Mason comes out of heavy sedation and his family are ecstatic that he's woken the right way from psychosis.

 

CARRY ON NURSE (Gerald Thomas) -- legendary British film series that's all about the Brit sense of humour really. I'm kind glad that I finally got to see one, but I preferred The Belles of St Trinian's more. This was fun though and good for some chuckles. The final set piece where the patients get drunk and try to perform an operation is amusing. 

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CARRY ON NURSE (Gerald Thomas) -- legendary British film series that's all about the Brit sense of humour really. I'm kind glad that I finally got to see one, but I preferred The Belles of St Trinian's more. This was fun though and good for some chuckles. The final set piece where the patients get drunk and try to perform an operation is amusing. 

If you've never seen any Carry On films then you should check out Carry On Screaming, it's a send up of British horror films -mostly Hammer- that's pretty much perfect in my opinion. It's a 60's movie though.

 

As for 50's stuff, I can't recommend Terror In A Texas Town enough. It's a Joseph H Lewis film, his last feature film I think. It's a beautiful, off-beat western that really stuck in my mind when I first saw it as a kid. Sterling Hayden is great too. The complete movie is on Youtube in good quality. If you like that, then also seek out Gun Crazy and The Big Combo by the same director.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Baron of Arizona (Fuller, 1950)

Samuel Fuller directs a movie about the guy who almost swindled the US government by forging papers that would make he and his wife sole owners of the Arizona territory - a true story. What's even better that Baron is played by VINCENT MUTHA FAHKIN PRICE. Rock solid movie with a perplexing finish where this guy who basically tried to fuck everyone over is some looked at as some one worthy of redemption. There's a great line where the people pissed at Price are ganging up on him and someone says "You can't just take people's land away from them!" LOL. America, Fuck Yeah. Such a fun movie and James Wong Howe did the cinematography so there's some pretty pictures too. WATCH IT!

 

The Seven Year Itch (Wilder, 1955)

This movie introduced a new concept I'd never heard of - "Summer Bachelors". The idea that all of these guys shipped their families off for the summer and were then stuck by themselves toiling in the heat - and free as a bird from their ordinary familial obligations - is really fascinating to me. This is mostly a good time - the best jokes come from Monroe - who at times plays into the stereo type and other's transcends it so as to mock it. The potato chips and champagne stuff cracked me up a lot. Not a great film, but it's certainly soemthing I wouldn't mind having on the TV if it's raining outside and I'm cleaning house.

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These are, apparently, the great films of the 59s you HAVEN'T seen:

1950s

1. The File on Thelma Jordon (1950)

In Robert Siodmak’s underrated noir melodrama, Barbara Stanwyck seduces and lures unsuspecting, desperate assistant D.A. and family man Wendell Corey into doing her bidding.

2. Battle Cry (1955)

Tough-guy director Raoul Walsh’s emotionally exhausting, earnest World War II epic, focusing on the Marines in the Pacific, is beautiful, almost Dickensian in its expansiveness.

3. The Sound of the Mountain (1954)

One of the great Japanese master Mikio Naruse’s most observant films, this look at the complex dynamics within a family where the parents are living under the same roof as their troubled son and his wife is slowly, subtly brutal.

4. The Baron of Arizona (1950)

Samuel Fuller made some of the oddest movies in history, and this pseudo-Western is one of his oddest, starring Vincent Price as a man who tries to forge and fake his way into owning Arizona. Based on a true story!

5. Stars in My Crown (1950)

Minister Joel McCrea preaches the Gospel in a small town and finds himself at odds with some in the populace. That description does no justice to Jacques Tourneur’s gently hallucinatory and deeply spiritual masterpiece.

Credit: www.vulture.com/m/2013/11/30-great-movies-you-probably-havent-seen.html
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Holy shit you guys, JOHNNY GUITAR(Ray, 1954) is so fucking cool. Mercedes McCambridge(who would later play the voice of the demon in The Exorcist) gives one of my favorite performances EVAR. And the dialogue is crackling with subtext. Get on that shit NOW. I demand it.

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EQUINOX FLOWER (Yasujiro Ozu) -- Ozu's first colour film. I usually find the most minor of Ozu's works enjoyable, but I think he made better comedies than this from Ohayo onwards. I especially love his early 60s comedies Late Autumn and The End of Summer. I wouldn't put Equinox Flower on their level, largely because it lacked the same pathos. There's still plenty to enjoy if you're an Ozu lover, particularly the performance of Ozu regular Shin Saburi, even if it is the weakest of his colour films.

 

TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN (Joseph H. Lewis)

 

This had such a cool poster:

 

Terror_in_a_Texas_Town.jpg

In truth, harpoon vs. six gun is only a minor part of the film. The rest is a better than average B western with some fantastic photography. The script was provided by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted at the time, thus giving the film High Noon parallels; and stars remorseful HUAC informant Sterling Hayden, who struggles with a Swedish accent but certainly looks the part. Nedrick Young adds a Bogie twist to the villainous gunslinger and the whole thing is basically a hodgepodge of B-grade goodness. 

THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN (Robert Siodmak) -- decent noir, but I prefer my noir a bit grittier and a bit more off beat. Barbara Stanwyck is always a pleasure to watch. She had such a wonderful voice. I reckon that voice might tempt me to commit a felony it was so alluring.

 

THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW (Douglas Sirk) -- Hey, there's Barbara Stanywck again! And Fred MacMurray! Haven't I seen them somewhere together? This was the last of the major Sirk films for this poll, but I might watch a couple of the minor ones as Sirk is one of the key guys of this decade, IMO. This was black and white, but every bit as gorgeous as his colour films and it delivered an absolute gut punch to the stomach for the Fred MacMurray character who is perhaps the personification of Sirk's belief that in tragedy the character always dies but in melodrama they keep on living in an unhappy happy ending. Unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to include the darker ending he had planned for the film, but the final shot of MacMurray still says it all. This was an excellent film and Sirk really was a giant of 50s cinema.

 

THE FURIES (Anthony Mann) -- Barbara Stanwyck! This was a great film. I've always loved Mann's Westerns with Jimmy Stewart, but this was equally good if not better. Why this isn't remembered as one of the best films of 1950, I don't know. Stanwyck and Walter Huston (in his final ever role) attack the material with such gusto that it's one of those rare films from the era where the attacking is even stronger than the photography, and there's plenty of excellent supporting roles as well. The script looses steam towards the end and lost me a bit at the end when

Stanwyck seemingly forgives her father for killing her best friend



but it's still an immense film. This will definitely make my list.

 

SENSO (Luchino Visconti) -- this was such a gorgeous film. Easily one of the most beautiful colour films of the decade. Visconti had such a beautiful eye for detail. The story is nothing you haven't seen a million times in costume dramas and literary adaptations, though the ending still packs a punch, but man is it lush. 

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THERE'S ALWAYS TOMORROW (Douglas Sirk) -- Hey, there's Barbara Stanywck again! And Fred MacMurray! Haven't I seen them somewhere together? This was the last of the major Sirk films for this poll, but I might watch a couple of the minor ones as Sirk is one of the key guys of this decade, IMO. This was black and white, but every bit as gorgeous as his colour films and it delivered an absolute gut punch to the stomach for the Fred MacMurray character who is perhaps the personification of Sirk's belief that in tragedy the character always dies but in melodrama they keep on living in an unhappy happy ending. Unfortunately, he wasn't allowed to include the darker ending he had planned for the film, but the final shot of MacMurray still says it all. This was an excellent film and Sirk really was a giant of 50s cinema.

 

Hey, I watched this as well (Well sorta watched and sorta ate breakfast and flipped to the hockey game and back and wandered around the house with the sound playing).  I liked it but not nearly as much as you.  I thought MacMurray's character was kind of an asshole to be honest, with the way he wanted to ditch his family because they didn't pay him enough attention, so the ending didn't have as much of an effect on me as it did you.  It was really fun, though, to see the morals/family behaviour of a bygone era, though.

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I just saw him as a regular guy having a midlife crisis. I dunno if we were supposed to sympathise with him, but what I liked about the ending was that instead of the usual saccharine Hollywood ending where he realises everything he ever wanted is right under his nose, he loses what he wants and has to suffer. The fact that he has the wife, the kids and the nice home only adds to the bitterness. Maybe he's an asshole, but he's frustrated and in the end crushed.

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  • 3 weeks later...

A Christmas Carol (Hurst, 1951)

It would take a real salty dog to not get moved by this story, and this is probably the definitive filmed version of this story. Alastair Sims has the perfect face to play Scrooge, very expressive with big eyes. It's never too late for anybody to change for the better, and I welled up a bit when he asked his nephew's wife for forgiveness. 

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Finished my walk through classic Bollywood with three films I'd strongly consider voting for.

 

AWAARA (Raj Kapoor)

Hugely successful film that was so popular abroad it may be a contender for one of the most successful movies of all-time. It was even nominated for the Grand Prize at Cannes, which is rare for a Hindi film. The film stars Kapoor as a poor, innocent tramp-like character, who unbeknownst to him is the son of a judge. A judge who's unwavering belief that the children of good parents become good and the children of criminals become criminals led to Kapoor's life of poverty and crime when an enemy of his father's took his revenge on the judge. Father and son's lives become intertwined throughout the film and the prerequisite love story is there, but it's the powerful, emotional acting and keen directing that make this a winner. There's one plot twist at the end that takes things a step far, but the rest is pitch perfect for a Hindi 50s melodrama. 
 
DO BIGHA ZAMIN (Bimal Roy)
 
Another Hindi melodrama with socialist leanings. This was inspired by Italian neo-realism and tells the story of a poor farmer trying to pay his debt and save his land. He travels to Calcutta to try and make the money and faces hardship after hardship. An early film in the Indian parallel cinema movement, the plot gets somewhat convoluted towards the end as misery piles upon misery, but the ending is powerful and the overall effect of the film is similar to Los Olvidados and other films of its ilk. 
 
DO AANKHEN BARAH HAATH (V. Shantaram)
 
The third and possibly best of the Hindi films. Stars a young jail warden who is convinced he can take a group of convicted killers and rehabilitate them through a farming project. The warden is a kindred spirit to Nakadai in The Human Condition and faces similar crises of faith. Strong musical numbers, a number of excellent scenes and a tremendous climax make this a raging success.
 
SOME CAME RUNNING (Vincente Minnelli) 
 
Probably the most surreal melodrama I've seen from the 1950s. It was an attempt to capitalize on the success of From Here to Eternity by adapting another James Jones novel, this time attacking small town virtues, the American dream, and so on. Much of the "dirtiness" of the characters' lives has to be peppered through the film as innuendo, but it's still an edgier film than you'd expect from this era of Hollywood. Sinatra was miscast as the lead, but he made a pretty decent fist of it. The star of the film is Shirley MacLaine, who gives one of the performances of the decade, while Dean Martin also chips in with an entertaining performance. The ending is this really beautiful cinemascope chase scene with the prettiest colours you can imagine and a hefty emotional punch, but it's really the grittiness of the novel beneath the melodramatic sheen of 50s Hollywood melodrama that makes this so surreal. I liked this a lot. 
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Auntie Mame (DaCosta, 1958)

I liked this more than I thought I would, but once I watch more I doubt this comes anywhere close to my ballot. This is a long, sometimes obnoxious story about one of those eccentric free thinkers, who really only gets to be an eccentric free thinker because they married into wealth. I think I'm really supposed to like the Mame character, but it's really hard to like somebody who just shops and throws parties and shows disgust for anybody who lives slightly different than she. The writing takes some awful leaps in the name of forced drama, but somehow Rosalind Russell actually delivers a fun, hammy performance in spite of the poor storytelling and extreme shallowness of her character. Their are some funny absurd farce moments, but any time the film tries to express any sort of meaningful message the film falls flat on its face. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

GUARDS AND THIEVES (Mario Monicelli)

 

Like most Commedia all'italiana, I thought this started off with a fantastic premise and lost a lot of steam when story demands took over. I guess I prefer sketch comedy to comedies that have an actual story, but this was still a great opportunity to see the famous comedian Toto and the cinematographer was Mario Bava for all you film geeks out there.

 

BELLISSIMA (Luchino Visconti)

 

As much as I admire Visconti's films, and as much as I love, love, love Anna Magnani, you don't watch a Visconti film to see a neorealistic comedy drama. I don't think it comes as much of as surprise that this isn't one of the finer examples of neorealism. 

 

EUROPA '51 (Roberto Rossellini)

 

This was kind of interesting. It almost struck me a Bergman-esque film with Ingrid Bergman playing the role of the Liv Ullmann muse. Obviously, it's not quite as heavy as Bergman, but the film deals with a woman's crisis of faith after the sudden death of her son, which is familiar waters for the Swedish director. It's a little uneven and not one of Rossellini's better films, but for 1951 it was ahead of its time in terms of dramatic content. And who am I to say it's Bergman-esque when it predates those Bergman films? Intriguing if nothing else.

 

THE BARON OF ARIZONA (Samuel Fuller) 

 

I can't help but enjoy a Fuller film as it's the type of maverick film making that you've got to respect. I don't think this is as good as some of his other 50s efforts, but it was plenty of fun. And Vincent Price could have carried the entire thing by himself even if it hadn't been a Samuel Fuller film.

 

STARS IN MY CROWN (Jacques Tourneur)

 

Ridiculously sentimental, but it worked for me. Hit just about every gooey sentimental moment possible in this type of narrative and hit 'em right on the mark. In other words, I kind of choked up despite myself, and everybody likes that feeling when watching a movie. Won't rate a mention in the final tally, but this quasi-Western is the kind of movies you love watching when you just want to watch a movie. 

 

THE WELL (Leo C. Popkin and Russell Rouse)

 

Admirable low budget film that takes a look at the growing race problem in the United States. The story focuses on a little black girl who falls into a well in a small American town. A white man is immediately suspected of having killed her, which sparks a series of race related attacks around the town. Just as the town is on the verge of mob violence, the little girl is discovered in the well and the last half hour is an incredibly detailed depiction of how you rescue a girl from a well that manages to be both tense and enlightening. Some of the acting is a bit rough (though it does feature Harry Morgan from M*A*S*H) and it's a bit jarring when you're expecting a huge mob violence set piece and then it's suddenly over, but the cinematography was excellent and I thought it was a really admirable attempt at producing a film on this topic. I liked it more than some of the other early race related films.

 

SOUND OF THE MOUNTAIN (Mikio Naruse)

 

This was almost like a warts and all version of an Ozu film. I'm not sure if it was intentional but it was set in one of Ozu's favourite locales (Kamakura) and featured Hara Setsuko in the lead role. Naruse wasn't a very talented visual director, which is sometimes a weakness in his films, but he wasn't afraid to acknowledge the existence of affairs and abortions in the fabric of everyday Japanese family life. In Ozu's defence, we've seen him do that too in some of his films, but Naruse was far more nihilistic. This wasn't a remarkable film, but I was glad to see some Naruse again.

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  • 4 weeks later...

THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE... (Max Ophuls) -- this may be Ophuls' best film of the decade, certainly the best looking one. As gorgeous a stylistic exercise as it was, the story works better as a novel than a film as is the case with most of Ophuls' material, but from a technical stand point his set-pieces were so amazing that I couldn't help but admire the filmmaking.

VOYAGE TO ITALY (Roberto Rossellini) -- is this the most boring couple in the history of cinema?

SAWDUST AND TINSEL (Ingmar Bergman) -- Bergman hadn't found his voice yet, but Sven Nykvist was well on the way. I thought this was a triumph of cinematography over directorial vision.

HOUSE OF WAX (Andre De Toth) -- you know what you're getting when you watch a film like this. Fun B-film. De Toth was a really competent B film director, and Price is entertaining as always. I loved the weird atmosphere of the cops sounding like they walked out of a 1950s hard boiled detective flick and everybody else running around like it was the 19th century.

WHITE MANE (Albert Lamorisse) -- I don't know if this qualifies as it's only 40 minutes, but it's a beautiful little film and I enjoyed it even more than The Red Balloon.

99 RIVER STREET (Phil Karlson) -- solid noir from the director of Kansas City Confidential. The acting was a bit patchy and the story won't knock your socks off, but the cinematography was top notch as you'd expect from the genre. Well worth watching if you're in the mood for a noir.

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  • 2 weeks later...

LET'S GO!

 

The Ballad of Narayama (Kinoshite, 1958)
I think this was a spiritual experience to me. It's shot on some of the most beautiful sets you've ever seen, some of which were reminiscent of Jim Henson's Dark Crystal and Labyrinth. It's a story about a woman preparing for her death pilgramage to Narayama, and her family around her, told in a cinematic Kabuki style. Lights change colors, or spotlight people to create focus. Backdrops fall to change scenery, or sets split apart to move into new ones. The final shot of Orin, is transcendent and serene. Would probably make a good double bill with Tokyo Story This isn't just one of my favorite movies of the 50's, it's one of my favorite movies ever. WATCH THIS PLEASE.
 
La pointe-courte (Varda, 1955)
Agnes Varada is one of my favorite directors, and this is her first feature. Alan Resnais did the editing, and perhaps this film influenced him for Hiroshima mon amour and Last Year At Marienbad, because I saw many similarities. Ghost like tracking shots, characters seemingly existing outside of time and space. The film splits focus between a fishing town called Pointe-courte struggling to survive, and a couple vacationing there from Paris - it's the male's home town. Lots of creative shots and framing, that were so beautiful that I found myself not even reading the subtitles. I don't feel as though I lost anything though. This film also predates Bergman's overlapping face shot from Persona, Varda does it in this a couple of times. Certainly worth watching.
 
Forbidden Games (Clement, 1952)
The first 9 minutes of this feel so contemporary in the editing. It's a very intense sequence of events. After that the film settles into an interesting story about two kids, one an orphan, who start making a pet cemetery. The horrors of World War 2 lurk outside their town, while two families bitterly fight over who is the most bestest family. It's quite sweet in a morbid way, but also very heartbreaking.
 
Les enfants terribles (Melville, 1950)
Like Varda's first feature, this early Melville gets quite creative with its shots. It feels closer to Jean Cocteau's work, who wrote the film and picked Melville to direct, than Melville's peak work of the 60's and 70's. It's a solid film with interesting, if completely unlikable characters. They are terrible after all.
 
The Long Hot Summer (Ritt, 1958)
ORSON WELLES AND PAUL NEWMAN ARE IN THIS. AND LEE REMICK. AND JOANNE WOODWARD. It's pretty fun for the bulk of it, the ending felt way to quaint and wrapped up- like a Farrely Brother's ending. Everything preceding it, felt like it was going to get a little dark, but everything came up roses. Weird. But other than that you get Orson Welles being batshit and breaking a fucking table like a boss.
 
Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
Bergman don't fuck around y'all. A man looks back on his life, and realizes he ain't the hot shit he thought hew was. It's interesting how the way one remembers an event may not be how other people remember it, and this old man learns that the hard way. Some wild dream sequences. It's Bergman, you should already have this on the watch list, if you haven't already.
 
Untamed Youth (Koch, 1957)
Goofy as hell. I found out later that MST3K did an episode on this. I don't think I want to watch it, because nothing is as fun as just watching it clean. Some girls go skinny dipping. End up picking cotton with other delinquents. There's a scam going on between the judge and the cotton farm warden guy to trump up charges on kids for cheap labor. Times are hard. People die. But that doesn't mean these kids can't sing and dance their ass off at night. It's so ludicrous it's good, and I'd actually like to own this for rainy days.
 
Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1954)
You pretty much don't need to see another court room drama ever again after this. George C. Scott CRUSHES IT. Jimmy Stewart is Jimmy Stewart. Early Ben Gazzara! And LEE MOTHER F'N REMICK AGAIN. Great film, if a little long in the tooth. Worth your time, for sure.
 
I Will Buy You (Kobayashi, 1956)
Maybe my favorite film about sports. This kid is about to blow up huge in the majors, and this film shows the agents trying to sign him, and the people in his life who are taking advantage of him. Really damn good movie, where people seem one way but are ultimately revealed to be something else - both good and bad. What's really crazy is that this movie is so relevant today you'd think it was premiering this Friday. Really takes the task the perverse way professional sports treats its athletes. Definitely check this out.
 
Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
Two older people make a trip to see their kids who pretty much have no time to see them. I'll probably watch this every year and it will gain more and more power over me with every viewing. Ozu is on a whole other level. I don't even know where to begin talking about him.
 
The Earrings of Madame De…(Ophuls, 1953)
If you see one Ophuls, it's probably this one. It's technically impressive, and takes a pretty blase story, and shines it up into something engaging. Ophuls should be studied by more film students, so they learn how to rely on more techniques than rapid cuts to create movement and energy. There's a dance sequence here that is filmed and edited so fluidly it felt almost like one take. Brilliant.
 
High Noon (Zinnemann, 1952)
Feels like the perfect Korean War era Western. Man has to go back to take care of business on some bad guys, and people aren't as excited about it as they were the first time around. Pretty solid movie, but not among my favorite westerns.
 
Shadows (Cassavetes, 1959)
Like the French New Wave came to America. Probably one of the best films that looks at race and human beings struggle with identity. I really highly recommend it. It focus on a trio of siblings, on brother who is black, one sister who looks white, and one brother who is half and half. I think they handle the mixed son's animosity both towards racists and towards his own brother really well. It's not that he's against his brother's blackness, but that his brother's identity is solid. The mixed brother exists and both worlds, but feels apart of neither. As a mixed race person, myself, I really identified with that hardship. Anyway, it's really a more honest look at race in America than a lot of contemporary films that pretend to do the same. Check it out.
 
Ace in the Hole (Wilder, 1951)
BILLY WILDER AND NEWSPAPER MAN KIRK DOUGLAS. That's more than enough. Much like Kobayashi's I Will Buy You this feels like it could be made today. I've been of the mind lately, before I started this project really, that America has looped around to the 1950's all over again, but we just have cooler gizmos. But idealogically we're still going about the same issues the same way. Movies like this confirm it. It's a classic, you should have already seen it by now, and if you haven't it should be one of the next one's you get.
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GATE OF HELL (Teinosuke Kinugasa) -- Kinugasa was the director of the surreal and maddeningly incomprehensible silent film Page of Madness, whose missing reels make its plot impossible to understand. This was a decent samurai drama he made years later, but I was disappointed that it wasn't more daring or visually interesting.

 

THE TITFIELD THUNDERBOLT (Charles Crichton) -- Ealing comedy about a group of villagers who take over their local railroad when the government threatens to shut it down. Not as genius as the best Ealing comedies, but an enjoyable yarn and competently directed as ever by Charles Crichton. 

 

A GENERATION (Andrzej Wajda) -- solid feature debut. Not mindblowing or anything, and the next two installments in the trilogy are arguably better, but a solid script, well told. Particularly well handled were the obligatory action scenes in a wartime drama, which Kanal would take to another level.

 

BALLAD OF NARAYAMA (Keisuke Kinoshita) -- I was already familiar with the story from Shohei Imamura's 1980s remake, so the most interesting aspect of the film for me was Kinoshita's decision to film a highly stylised version using a studio set and kabuki style narration. This was particularly interesting since so many of his films were shot on location. It worked well, especially the lighting, but overall I think I enjoyed Imamura's coarser version more.

 

THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) -- dull, dull, dull. I wonder if Bogie got tired of having the same part written for him? And man do I hate the cut of his pants as he got older. The waist is way too high.

 

BAKUMATSU TAIYODEN (Yuzo Kawashima) -- this is considered one of the five greatest Japanese films ever made by Kinema Junpo magazine. I was somewhat skeptical of that praise until about 15 minutes into the film when it struck me how utterly brilliant it was. A comedy set inside a brothel near the end of the Tokugawa era, it's easily one of the wittiest and most amusing foreign comedies I've ever seen and an absolute delight to watch. Wonderful film with a beautifully written script and excellent comedic directing. Highly recommended.

 

VICTIMAS DEL PECADO (Emilio Fernandez) -- one of the few Mexican films I could find with subtitles, which is a shame as I'd love to dive headfirst into this era of Mexican cinema, but beggar's can't be choosers. This was a solid Mexican noir, and probably one of the better films of 1950. The ending comes a bit soon and there's an extended resolution tacked on that delivers the social message, but the bulk of the film is excellent and the mamba numbers are ungodly sexy.

 

A FLOWER IN HELL (Shin Sang-ok) -- this time it's Korean film noir. An interesting look at post Korean War life, a sexy femme fatale, and an impressive set piece ending make this a film well worth your time. The Korean Film Archive provides a great service on YouTube and people should take advantage of it.

 

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  • 1 month later...

No Time For Sergeants: So good.  Andy Griffith as a lovable hick drafted into the military who stumbles and bumbles his way into the air force, nearly destroying the life/career of everyone he runs into.  Just good, silly fun.  The last stretch was the worst part, but the first 2/3rds is so good, you forgive it.

 

All About Eve: Also awesome.  Just great acting, solid writing.  Really good.  Man, Marilyn Monroe really steals the scene in the tiny role she occupies.

 

Onionhead: Not so good.  It was another military comedy starring Andy Griffith to capitalize on 'No Time For Sergeants' but it wasn't that funny, save for a couple scenes, and its handling of more serious material felt...odd.  Also, the central plotline of Griffith romancing a woman who ends up marrying his friend gets dropped for no reason in the final stretch for a completely bizarre female deus ex machina.  Griffith is fun, and so is Walter Matthau (And this is the first time I've ever seen Matthau not look like an old man!) but this is not essential viewing by any means.

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SUZAKI PARADISE: RED LIGHT (Yuzo Kawashima) -- nowhere near as clever or brilliant as Bakumatsu Taiyoden, but a decent look at the "struggles and survival strategies of those living on the margins of post-war Japanese society" as a former working girl tries to resist the temptation to cross back over into her former line of work. Trouble is there were dozens of post-war films made about people on the fringes, so it's not that illuminating. Yukiko Todoroki gives an outstanding supporting performance as a bar owner raising her children alone after her husband abandoned them. One of the better performances I've seen in a while.

 

CALLE MAYOR (Juan Antonio Bardem) -- as with Mexican films, it's tough to find subtitles for classic Spanish films. This stars American actress Betsy Blair as a spinster who's tricked into believing she's going to marry by a bunch of local layabouts with nothing better to do than play pranks on folks. It starts off with way too much exposition, but once the plot kicks off it's rather compelling as you want to see whether the fiance (and chief culprit) will redeem himself. I wasn't overly satisfied with the ending, but it was an intriguing film.

 

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN (Tadashi Imai) -- the chances are you've never heard of Tadashi Imai, but his films won practically every Japanese film award during the 1950s. He was a social realist and in this particular film challenged the rationale behind the war in what was otherwise a fairly benign love story. Given that it was from 1950 it must have been one of the first films to do so, but it employed voice over narration for the lead protagonists' thoughts, which is ultra rare in Japanese cinema of the time (in fact, I don't recall ever seeing it before) and the effect was kind of hokey. Still, this was all right.

 

EL VAMPIRO (Fernando Mendez) -- hey, it's a Mexican vampire film, what more needs to be said? I actually thought this was better and more atmospheric than the Hammer films. Or maybe I'm biased because it's Mexican. 

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The Bad and the Beautiful: Looks amazing, I can see why Martin Scorsese would be such a huge fan, it's all shadows and light and stuff.  Acting and story were a little melodrama/over-the-top, but it was all right.  Kirk Douglas was actually fairly reigned-in except a couple scenes.  Gloria Grahame is no Southerner, though, that accent...ugh.

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  Gloria Grahame is no Southerner, though, that accent...ugh.

I'm on a sort of Gloria Grahame kick right now. Watched her in one of the Thin Man Movies then Macao with Robert Mitchum and now I've got her in the Big Heat. Looked her up on wikipedia to learn more and she did exactly what Woody Allen was accused of. She got caught by her husband NICHOLAS F'N  RAY in bed with his 13 year old son. They divorced and years later she married the son. Wacky.

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  Gloria Grahame is no Southerner, though, that accent...ugh.

I'm on a sort of Gloria Grahame kick right now. Watched her in one of the Thin Man Movies then Macao with Robert Mitchum and now I've got her in the Big Heat. Looked her up on wikipedia to learn more and she did exactly what Woody Allen was accused of. She got caught by her husband NICHOLAS F'N  RAY in bed with his 13 year old son. They divorced and years later she married the son. Wacky.

 

I had never heard the story.  She's fine in this, btw, just her accent feels...off.  It really feels like someone taking a random guess at a Southern accent after watching a couple Southern films or something.

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Dial M For Murder (That one Guy)

I love stuff that takes place in one setting and I love this weird meta-theme that Hitchcock and other writers around this era would explore of THE PERFECT MURDER, so this movie has that going for it. It's a solid Hitchcock and I like how they eventually use his mind against him to catch him, despite the whole phony trial being pretty absurd. As far as Hitchcock's filmography this probably ranks somewhere in the middle for me. 

 

Le plaisir (Ophuls, 1952)

Really digging Ophuls. His stories aren't exactly my favorite type of stories to watch, and yet he explores this with such whimsy and flare that I can't help but enjoy them. Talent like that should be respected. The story about the prostitutes has some of the coolest imagery I've seen.

 

The Colossus of New York (Lourié, 1958)

It's kind of corny 50's sci-fi horror, but the somewhat didactic speeches regarding science and responsibility are still applicable today.  

 

The Garden of Evil (Hathaway, 1954)

RICHARD WIDMARK ALL DAY. this is worth watching for some crazy stunt work. One dude took multiple back bumps into a camp fire. He's Hardcore! He's Hardcore! Some guy's accompany a woman to rescue her husband, but there's injuns and it's open season on pale skins. There's some misogynistic themes that are pretty striking. "This is all your fault because you're a WOMAN"  kind of stuff. But it's in Cinemascope! And Richard Widmark! 

 

The Music Room (Ray, 1958)

My first Satyajit Ray film doesn't disappoint. The music in this is so good and lulling that I wanted to fall asleep - not because the movie was bad or boring, but because I was just so fucking comfortable.

 

Umberto D.  (De Sica, 1952)

Getting lost in post-war Italy man. The two central performances are outstanding, and that feeling of despair and uselessness in a city that feels brimming with life is complex as it is powerful Great film.

 

Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958)

Another great movie that will probably be in the top half, maybe top quarter of my ballot. You have two guys who fuck up an assassination attempt and get a second chance. The problem is they're starting to question whether all this killing is worth it. This details a part of Polish history that I had zero idea about, taking place on the day WW2 ends. There's some great, fleshed out characters - and some wild acting. Really one of the best films I've seen for this project. thinking about it now, I could rank this pretty high.

 

Sapphire (Dearden, 1959)

Rock solid police procedural about a dead girl who looks white but turns out to be mixed race. Some really good racial commentary that comments not just one white vs. black, but black vs. black and whites & blacks vs. mixed race. I really recommend it if you can get a hold of it. 

The Greatest Show On Earth (DeMille, 1952)

 

Macao (Sternberg, 1952)

Really good noir with Mitchum being Mitchum. Jane Russell steals the show though, with some killer eye rolls and line deliveries. And somehow they managed to do a movie set in China and not be racist. Way to go guys.

 

The Flowers of St. Francis (Rossellini, 1950)

Vignettes of this St. Francis dude. I don't know him, but he kind of seems like a dick. One of his followers says, "Hey why did god choose you?" and Francis responds "...because I'm the most humble man in the world..." what a brilliant, ridiculous line. I love how the monks are pretty much a bunch of little boys. The movie is stolen by Ginapro though. He's totally dumb as shit, but totally awesome. 

 

Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957)

Kubrick. Kirk. World War 1. Some epic douchebaggery. Gallows humor. Good times.

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I'll see if I can get it. I definitely want to see more Ray.

 

The Greatest Show On Earth (DeMille, 1952)

SPECTACLE. Tremendous parades and costumes. Jimmy Stewart is a clown with a troubled past. Cornel Wilde has no shirt on. Charlton Heston talking. It's a fun picture, and it's real achievement is managing to translate the sense of anxiety of watching a high wire acts to film. It really shouldn't work because the thrill is being there live and knowing injury or death is in the same room as you. With film you lose it's easy to lose that anxiety because you can see the phony reality film is trying to sell you. But not here. My face all kinds of scrunched up watching these Betty Hutton and Wilde try to out do each other, knowing one of them had to fall eventually.

 

The Big Heat (Lang, 1953)

Holy crap this rocked my face. There was this very palpable uneasiness the whole time. Even during moments that are super-homey like the exchange between Bannion and his wife over dinner. The whole time I just felt this darkness in the mundane - a David Lynch kind of feelin'. The violence is hard and mean, the characters are post war traumatized into fatalism. Just get me money so I can forget how ugly my life is kind of stuff. And man Glenn Ford's performance is one of my favorite noir-hero performances ever. He goes from Leave it to Beaver to Punisher and it's totally believable. Oh and you get moar Gloria Grahame, Marlon Brando's sister, and a young-ish punk Lee Marvin.

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Underworld Beauty (Suzuki, 1958)

Seijun Suzuki all day mahthafahkas. There's some interesitng visual commentary about post-war Japanese youth not giving two shits about what the hell is going on around them. Someone dies...hey is that a handsome stranger that I should hang out with immediately? Some one breaks glass on the dance floor.... keep dancin' to that crazy beat maaaan. The story is mostly concerned with some diamonds and some people who want them. There's plenty of Suzuki badass visuals. Lots of cool framing and some familiar shots that he'd probably use again in Tokyo Drifter. I love Seijun Suzuki you guys. Like love love.

 

How to Marry a Millionaire (Negulesco, 1953)

There's some funny injokes, and I find Marilyn Monroe to be a very smart and funny persona. Also this has William Powell in it so it's not that bad. There's a lot of what feels like filler. I think the run time 90 minutes or so and 6 of those are taken up by an overature at the top and another couple by the credits that come AFTER the overature. And then it's kind of round and round we go. The trio of Grable/Bacall/Monroe are pretty kickass and have some chemistry early on. It's too bad the pesky men get in the way and split them up for the bulk of the run time.

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