Heartbreaking omissions
The Crucified Lovers - Mizoguchi
Floating Clouds - Naruse
The Idiot - Kurosawa
Lightning - Naruse
I can blame current unavailability for the exclusion of the 2 Naruse and one Mizoguchi masterpiece. And I guess that their was too much intra-mural rivalry on the Kurosawa front.
Sad exclusions
The Lower Depths - Kurosawa
Equinox Flower - Ozu
Where Chimneys Are Seen - Gosho
Nazarin - Bunuel
El - Bunuel
Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji - Uchida
East of Eden - Kazan
Story of Pure Love - Imai
Giants and Toys - Masumura
The best Imai film of the 50s I've seen is actually "Nigorie" -- which crushed "Tokyo Story and "Ugetsu" in the year of their release. While I love "Tokyo Story more", I actually see nothing crazy about the greater success of Imai's film. It's too bad that this masterpiece is currently "invisible" in the West.
Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (The Lists Project)
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Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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colinr0380
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- Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK
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Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
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- Location: New England
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Brian Oblivious
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Michael Kerpan
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Arcadean
- Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 9:33 am
Please excuse my poor/amateur, soundbite-like defenses of my favorite films of the 50s that didn't make it.
10. Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman)
Bergman at his most masochistic, but this is also my favorite of his entire work. The superb circus milieu may have influenced Fellini. This is very underrated Bergman.
13. Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller)
Forty Guns is by far my favorite of all of Samuel Fuller's work. On a narrative level, the film is confusing, but the film sustains itself on Fuller's fluid style, perverse symbolism (especially with phalluses and guns), muddled genres (musical, film noir, Western), and the relentless pursuit of his characters for something that lies beyond the CinemaScope frame. Though shot in less than a week for peanuts, the film is deliriously beautiful and a steal on DVD.
18. Chikamatsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Underrated perhaps because of its unavailability (as already stated), this film by Japanese master Kenji Mizoguchi is generally regarded as a lesser film when compared alongside other films of his late period such as Sansho the Bailiff, The Life of Oharu, and Ugetsu, but it's just as good or nearly better than those films. There are few directors who can create a world as rich and as the ones Mizoguchi made. Moving beyond the sheer exoticism depicted in most Jidai-geki films, Mizoguchi fashioned films that sustain deeper, more universal emotions and complexities. This is an enormously tragic film that I've always cherished and hope it places next time as its availability increases.
19. A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk)
This is also my favorite film of Sirk, a director I believe well regarded on this messageboard. The reason that I was the only one who voted for this might be because of its utter unavailability. Sirk's breathtaking CinemaScope and meticulous mise-en-scene bring to life Erich Maria Remarque's somewhat underrated novel about (paraphrasing Dave Kehr) searching for life and beauty in a world of death and destruction WWII era Germany. If any of you have Godard on Godard, you should read his lovely review of this film. This is masterful work from Sirk, full of dramatic ironies and heartbreaking sadness. As a side note, Sirk has sometimes been criticized for the unsubtle characterizations of his antagonists, but here, the over-the-top Nazis boasting about their atrocities seems right at home in the cinema. A Time to Love and a Time to Die's unavailability is utterly bewildering, considering the acclaim and availability of nearly all his films from this period.
24. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
Tashlin will always be underrated as people will always underrate comedies, especially full-blown satires like this film and The Girl Can't Help It. Rock Hunter is a film that lives completely in the business world of the 1950s, and most of its bite still survives today. Tashlin throws in the kitchen sink, satirizing celebrity pop culture, advertising, breast obsession, and business societies (the washroom bits are hilarious). Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a rich, dead-on portrait of the 1950s business world, free of the strained "seriousness" of Executive Suite or The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It's a gem of a film that everyone should watch.
25. Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner)
I never expected this one to survive the main list. It's unavailability and lack of auteur in Lerner (hardly as well known in the genre as Phil Karlson, who sadly did not make the list either with his masterpiece The Phenix City Story). What I loved most about Murder by Contract is its efficiency in telling the story; in the first 8 minutes of the film alone, Vince Edwards shaves, dresses, is hired as a hit man, kills several people in separate sequences, and betrays his employer (edit: I can't seem to remember if I have this correct, but suffice to say, a lot happens in the first few minutes). There is almost no fat in any of the scenes and all that remains is essential to the film to create a fluid narrative flow. Well worth checking out (if you can find it).
26. The Gunfighter (Henry King)
I had high hopes for this masterpiece by Henry King. Gregory Peck stars as a former gunfighter, Jimmy Ringo, whose fame follows him through every town. All the hot shot kids want to kill him so they can gain their own notoriety. What is Ringo to do? Let them shoot him? He bitterly shoots the kids if they draw first because he doesn't want to die and so the people call him a monster. It's a great premise and also one of the first anti-Westerns I can recall. Peck delivers a fantastic filmic performance.
27. Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray)
Bitter Victory is not as well loved as either Johnny Guitar or Rebel Without a Cause, but it deserves some reappraisal for its own merits. Like the two films mentioned, Bitter Victory has a lot to say about macho stoicism, but this time in military culture. Curd Jurgens and especially the gorgeous Richard Burton deliver fine performances, and Ruth Roman is not as bad as she was in Strangers on a Train (though more man-like here). One of Ray's best works that I hope more people will watch. I nearly placed this much higher on the list myself.
29. The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson)
Karlson was an expert in these kinds of sleazy city exposés. The Phenix City Story is probably his most violent, raw film that features shocking carnage (especially with an African-American child) and frank portraits of racism and politics in the South.
30. The Quiet Man (John Ford)
For Ford fans, this is a very satisfying and personal ode to Ireland. I'm somewhat shocked that this did not make the final list. I'm less surprised that The Sun Shines Bright and Wagon Master weren't included either. I was tempted to include The Long Gray Line on my own list, but the decade is so rich that I had to make some hard decisions. Certainly, there are still some underrated John Ford films out there. I hope we can do better with 7 Women in the next list.
Here are the others:
Lang is once again underrepresented. Moonfleet, his only foray into 'Scope, is a wonderful fantasy-like film that recalls some of his early work in Germany.
31. The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir)
32. The Sun Shines Bright (John Ford)
34. While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang)
35. Park Row (Samuel Fuller)
36. Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
40. Wagon Master (John Ford)
41. Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman)
42. Angel Face (Otto Preminger)
43. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks)
46. Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel)
10. Sawdust and Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman)
Bergman at his most masochistic, but this is also my favorite of his entire work. The superb circus milieu may have influenced Fellini. This is very underrated Bergman.
13. Forty Guns (Samuel Fuller)
Forty Guns is by far my favorite of all of Samuel Fuller's work. On a narrative level, the film is confusing, but the film sustains itself on Fuller's fluid style, perverse symbolism (especially with phalluses and guns), muddled genres (musical, film noir, Western), and the relentless pursuit of his characters for something that lies beyond the CinemaScope frame. Though shot in less than a week for peanuts, the film is deliriously beautiful and a steal on DVD.
18. Chikamatsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi)
Underrated perhaps because of its unavailability (as already stated), this film by Japanese master Kenji Mizoguchi is generally regarded as a lesser film when compared alongside other films of his late period such as Sansho the Bailiff, The Life of Oharu, and Ugetsu, but it's just as good or nearly better than those films. There are few directors who can create a world as rich and as the ones Mizoguchi made. Moving beyond the sheer exoticism depicted in most Jidai-geki films, Mizoguchi fashioned films that sustain deeper, more universal emotions and complexities. This is an enormously tragic film that I've always cherished and hope it places next time as its availability increases.
19. A Time to Love and a Time to Die (Douglas Sirk)
This is also my favorite film of Sirk, a director I believe well regarded on this messageboard. The reason that I was the only one who voted for this might be because of its utter unavailability. Sirk's breathtaking CinemaScope and meticulous mise-en-scene bring to life Erich Maria Remarque's somewhat underrated novel about (paraphrasing Dave Kehr) searching for life and beauty in a world of death and destruction WWII era Germany. If any of you have Godard on Godard, you should read his lovely review of this film. This is masterful work from Sirk, full of dramatic ironies and heartbreaking sadness. As a side note, Sirk has sometimes been criticized for the unsubtle characterizations of his antagonists, but here, the over-the-top Nazis boasting about their atrocities seems right at home in the cinema. A Time to Love and a Time to Die's unavailability is utterly bewildering, considering the acclaim and availability of nearly all his films from this period.
24. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
Tashlin will always be underrated as people will always underrate comedies, especially full-blown satires like this film and The Girl Can't Help It. Rock Hunter is a film that lives completely in the business world of the 1950s, and most of its bite still survives today. Tashlin throws in the kitchen sink, satirizing celebrity pop culture, advertising, breast obsession, and business societies (the washroom bits are hilarious). Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is a rich, dead-on portrait of the 1950s business world, free of the strained "seriousness" of Executive Suite or The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It's a gem of a film that everyone should watch.
25. Murder by Contract (Irving Lerner)
I never expected this one to survive the main list. It's unavailability and lack of auteur in Lerner (hardly as well known in the genre as Phil Karlson, who sadly did not make the list either with his masterpiece The Phenix City Story). What I loved most about Murder by Contract is its efficiency in telling the story; in the first 8 minutes of the film alone, Vince Edwards shaves, dresses, is hired as a hit man, kills several people in separate sequences, and betrays his employer (edit: I can't seem to remember if I have this correct, but suffice to say, a lot happens in the first few minutes). There is almost no fat in any of the scenes and all that remains is essential to the film to create a fluid narrative flow. Well worth checking out (if you can find it).
26. The Gunfighter (Henry King)
I had high hopes for this masterpiece by Henry King. Gregory Peck stars as a former gunfighter, Jimmy Ringo, whose fame follows him through every town. All the hot shot kids want to kill him so they can gain their own notoriety. What is Ringo to do? Let them shoot him? He bitterly shoots the kids if they draw first because he doesn't want to die and so the people call him a monster. It's a great premise and also one of the first anti-Westerns I can recall. Peck delivers a fantastic filmic performance.
27. Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray)
Bitter Victory is not as well loved as either Johnny Guitar or Rebel Without a Cause, but it deserves some reappraisal for its own merits. Like the two films mentioned, Bitter Victory has a lot to say about macho stoicism, but this time in military culture. Curd Jurgens and especially the gorgeous Richard Burton deliver fine performances, and Ruth Roman is not as bad as she was in Strangers on a Train (though more man-like here). One of Ray's best works that I hope more people will watch. I nearly placed this much higher on the list myself.
29. The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson)
Karlson was an expert in these kinds of sleazy city exposés. The Phenix City Story is probably his most violent, raw film that features shocking carnage (especially with an African-American child) and frank portraits of racism and politics in the South.
30. The Quiet Man (John Ford)
For Ford fans, this is a very satisfying and personal ode to Ireland. I'm somewhat shocked that this did not make the final list. I'm less surprised that The Sun Shines Bright and Wagon Master weren't included either. I was tempted to include The Long Gray Line on my own list, but the decade is so rich that I had to make some hard decisions. Certainly, there are still some underrated John Ford films out there. I hope we can do better with 7 Women in the next list.
Here are the others:
Lang is once again underrepresented. Moonfleet, his only foray into 'Scope, is a wonderful fantasy-like film that recalls some of his early work in Germany.
31. The Golden Coach (Jean Renoir)
32. The Sun Shines Bright (John Ford)
34. While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang)
35. Park Row (Samuel Fuller)
36. Moonfleet (Fritz Lang)
40. Wagon Master (John Ford)
41. Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman)
42. Angel Face (Otto Preminger)
43. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks)
46. Robinson Crusoe (Luis Bunuel)
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
My top 20 -
1. A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956) - Probably the greatest suspense film I'll ever see, with bonus spiritual transcendence (and not just for the characters).
2. Early Summer (Ozu, 1951) - This seemed to have a very strong, specific following, appearing near the top of many lists but nowhere at all on most others. A perfect film.
3. The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955) - This was similarly polarising.
4. Flowing (Naruse, 1956) - I think this fared worst of the three MoC Naruses, but it really stood out for me. Amazing orchestration of a large cast, but in a very different way than Ozu in Early Summer.
5. Man of the West (Mann, 1958) - Surely a contender for the greatest western ever made, but it appeared on only four lists (three in the top ten, though). Is this genuinely unseen, or are the four of us completely insane?
6. The Searchers (Ford, 1956) - The consensus 'greatest western ever made'. No complaints here, but Mann could do with Ford's press agent.
7. Eaux d'Artifice (Anger, 1953) - I was very pleased to see I wasn't alone in my love of this sublime, mysterious piece of eye candy, and surprised to see it make the final list.
8. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) - The most polarising film this time around - who'd have guessed? I still think this is the greatest action film ever made, and I wish more action directors would take its lessons on board. (No, those westerns above are not action films.)
9. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) - So does that make this the greatest inaction film ever made? Given the performance of the considerably less canonical, and more recently available, Late Spring last time around, this was a shoo-in for number 1.
10. Free Radicals (Lye, 1958) - My top desperate and dateless pick. The greatest 3D film of the 50s, and one that wasn't even made in 3D. A woeful absence of experimental film on the final list, despite the valiant, uncoordinated efforts of a handful of listmakers
11. The Band Wagon (Minnelli, 1953) - Michael, David et al.: we obviously have to keep spreading the good news. Given that this is routinely identified as one of the all-time great musicals (if not the all-time greatest musical), it's a shock that so few people voted for it. Everything that cinema does best, this does better.
12. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953) - Pipped by Sansho at the eleventh hour in the voting, but still my favourite 50s Mizoguchi.
13. Night and Fog (Resnais, 1955) - The voting this time around suggests that Resnais has by far the most impressive body of 50s work of any New Wave director. Only one feature, but still the eleventh most popular director, an even more impressive outcome given the general anti-shorts bias of the voting.
14. Blinkity Blank (McLaren, 1955) - Darling number two. Oh, the shame! One of the greatest animators the world has ever seen, and in the decade in which he's arguably at the height of his powers he gets only a single vote? I was prepared for vote splitting, but not abject neglect!
15. The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino, 1953) - Hands-down the greatest 50s noir (Night of the Hunter being beyond genre). As minimal as hell, and tenser than a piano-wire garotte. Drastically underappreciated, of course, and the available editions are ropey, but a must-see.
16. Les Enfants Terribles (Melville, 1950) - The low ranking of this masterpiece baffles me (I thought we loved Cocteau and Melville). Surely it's not just a case of everyone holding out for the Criterion. If so, that's rather disturbing.
17. Touchez pas au Grisbi (Becker, 1954) - A healthy portion of Becker love in the air, even extending in several cases to Le Trou (actually a 60s film).
18. The Lusty Men (Ray, 1952) - Barely scraped in, but by far my favourite Ray of the decade. Probably another victim of DVD availability.
19. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) - Works like clockwork every time.
20. Dom (Borowczyk / Lenica, 1958) - Darling number three. I was tempted to swap this for the similarly glorious Les Astronautes when I saw another vote for Borowczyk pop up, but I stayed true to my muse and we both lost out. Even combined, the two votes would have fallen far short of the threshold.
My other brides left standing looking stupid at the altar:
23. Yantra (Whitney, 1957) - Another lonely, mind-boggling abstract animation.
26. The Man from Laramie (Mann, 1955) - Gets my vote as the best of the Mann / Stewart westerns, a film with the same Shakespearean sweep as Man of the West. The voting suggests to me that this superb body of work is still drastically underappreciated. Even taking into account the vote splitting involved, their collective performance was miserable.
31. A Kiss Before Dying (Oswald, 1956) - This was not on my list when I first added it to the total, but it kept niggling at me. It's a weird, hokey film in many respects, but its mise en scene and use of the Cinemascope frame is so extraordinary that it forced its way onto my list towards the end of the voting, pushing The Trouble with Harry off the bottom. One of the most striking and atypical late noirs, but I'm not surprised that I was the lone voice in its favour.
32. Seven Men from Now (Boetticher, 1956) - Boetticher is probably second only to McLaren in the 'embarrassing voting oversights' stakes. There's little to choose between the Scott westerns, so I thought I was being strategic in selecting the only one that was readily available, but there were only two other votes in the offing (and one for The Tall T, which could equally handsomely fill this space).
33. Un Chant d'amour (Genet, 1950) - I'm glad I revisited this before the voting began. A creepy, beautiful, dreamlike film that had a couple of other supporters, but not quite enough to matter.
34. Le Chant de styrene (Resnais, 1958) - Probably my most idiosyncratic selection, a mesmerising documentary about plastics which is pretty much a bizarre technicolor rehearsal for Last Year at Marienbad. A wonderful example of form trumping content.
35. Aparajito (Ray, 1956) - Ouch! Satyajit Ray is clearly in need of some decent R1 releases. It's tough to pick a favourite part of the trilogy, and more people, quite reasonably, went for the self-contained Pather Panchali, but I prefer the shifting moods of part 2.
36. Daybreak Express (Pennebaker, 1953) - I was not quite alone in my love for this inspired amateur film. Pure joy on celluloid.
40. House of Bamboo (Fuller, 1955) - Lots of Fuller nominated, but the Criterion-anointed Pickup on South Street got the lion's share of votes. This, like a lot of Fuller, is in part awkward and in part inspired. On the inspired side of the ledger is one of Robert Ryan's best-ever performances (and just look at the competition) as a gay gangster. Robert Stack just doesn't get it, which is a large part of the fun.
41. The Singing Street (Norton Park Group, 1952) - My token Free Cinema selection, and the only Free Cinema film nominated, if I'm not mistaken. It's an eccentric choice, but this is one of the most evocative, poetic records of everyday life from the period.
43. El (Bunuel, 1953) - Considering the relative (un)availability of the films, there was a decent amount of interest in Bunuel's 50s films - probably his greatest body of work - but votes were well split. Choosing one representative film was something of a lottery for me. Last time it was Le mort en ce jardin, I believe, which fared even worse than this one.
44. Summer Stock (Walters, 1950) - Well, three of us like it, but obviously not enough to get it on the list.
45. Winchester '73 (Mann) - Not really a darling, as it made the final list, but it was a last-minute addition for me. I had consciously limited the Manns on my list, but when I revised it to add A Kiss before Dying it occurred to me that this film, for all its flaws, was considerably better than several titles I'd included, so I tossed it in, to the detriment of Duck Amuck.
46. Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955) - No Antonioni made the list (though this and Cronaca di un amore received multiple votes). My favourite pre-trilogy work of his. He's already a master filmmaker, but of a different kind.
47. Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950) - All of the Roberto / Ingrid films received votes (except for oddity Joan of Arc at the Stake). I think they're all seriously flawed, but each have their own strengths, and they're strengths that you couldn't easily find anywhere else that decade (the use of 'dead' time in Viaggio, Bergman's performance in Europa). This film has its brilliant use of the location and the stark open ending to set it apart.
48. The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (Rowland, 1953) - A definite contender for the wackiest Hollywood feature ever made. It's here for its art direction, but that's surely enough.
49. The Tin Star (Mann, 1957) - More Anthony Mann films were nominated for this list (eleven) than those by any other director. This was one of the many one-offs, an off-centre western that I love for the Fonda / Perkins relationship.
50. Deputy Droopy (Avery / Lah, 1955) - Glorious dada
1. A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956) - Probably the greatest suspense film I'll ever see, with bonus spiritual transcendence (and not just for the characters).
2. Early Summer (Ozu, 1951) - This seemed to have a very strong, specific following, appearing near the top of many lists but nowhere at all on most others. A perfect film.
3. The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, 1955) - This was similarly polarising.
4. Flowing (Naruse, 1956) - I think this fared worst of the three MoC Naruses, but it really stood out for me. Amazing orchestration of a large cast, but in a very different way than Ozu in Early Summer.
5. Man of the West (Mann, 1958) - Surely a contender for the greatest western ever made, but it appeared on only four lists (three in the top ten, though). Is this genuinely unseen, or are the four of us completely insane?
6. The Searchers (Ford, 1956) - The consensus 'greatest western ever made'. No complaints here, but Mann could do with Ford's press agent.
7. Eaux d'Artifice (Anger, 1953) - I was very pleased to see I wasn't alone in my love of this sublime, mysterious piece of eye candy, and surprised to see it make the final list.
8. Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, 1954) - The most polarising film this time around - who'd have guessed? I still think this is the greatest action film ever made, and I wish more action directors would take its lessons on board. (No, those westerns above are not action films.)
9. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953) - So does that make this the greatest inaction film ever made? Given the performance of the considerably less canonical, and more recently available, Late Spring last time around, this was a shoo-in for number 1.
10. Free Radicals (Lye, 1958) - My top desperate and dateless pick. The greatest 3D film of the 50s, and one that wasn't even made in 3D. A woeful absence of experimental film on the final list, despite the valiant, uncoordinated efforts of a handful of listmakers
11. The Band Wagon (Minnelli, 1953) - Michael, David et al.: we obviously have to keep spreading the good news. Given that this is routinely identified as one of the all-time great musicals (if not the all-time greatest musical), it's a shock that so few people voted for it. Everything that cinema does best, this does better.
12. Ugetsu Monogatari (Mizoguchi, 1953) - Pipped by Sansho at the eleventh hour in the voting, but still my favourite 50s Mizoguchi.
13. Night and Fog (Resnais, 1955) - The voting this time around suggests that Resnais has by far the most impressive body of 50s work of any New Wave director. Only one feature, but still the eleventh most popular director, an even more impressive outcome given the general anti-shorts bias of the voting.
14. Blinkity Blank (McLaren, 1955) - Darling number two. Oh, the shame! One of the greatest animators the world has ever seen, and in the decade in which he's arguably at the height of his powers he gets only a single vote? I was prepared for vote splitting, but not abject neglect!
15. The Hitch-Hiker (Lupino, 1953) - Hands-down the greatest 50s noir (Night of the Hunter being beyond genre). As minimal as hell, and tenser than a piano-wire garotte. Drastically underappreciated, of course, and the available editions are ropey, but a must-see.
16. Les Enfants Terribles (Melville, 1950) - The low ranking of this masterpiece baffles me (I thought we loved Cocteau and Melville). Surely it's not just a case of everyone holding out for the Criterion. If so, that's rather disturbing.
17. Touchez pas au Grisbi (Becker, 1954) - A healthy portion of Becker love in the air, even extending in several cases to Le Trou (actually a 60s film).
18. The Lusty Men (Ray, 1952) - Barely scraped in, but by far my favourite Ray of the decade. Probably another victim of DVD availability.
19. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) - Works like clockwork every time.
20. Dom (Borowczyk / Lenica, 1958) - Darling number three. I was tempted to swap this for the similarly glorious Les Astronautes when I saw another vote for Borowczyk pop up, but I stayed true to my muse and we both lost out. Even combined, the two votes would have fallen far short of the threshold.
My other brides left standing looking stupid at the altar:
23. Yantra (Whitney, 1957) - Another lonely, mind-boggling abstract animation.
26. The Man from Laramie (Mann, 1955) - Gets my vote as the best of the Mann / Stewart westerns, a film with the same Shakespearean sweep as Man of the West. The voting suggests to me that this superb body of work is still drastically underappreciated. Even taking into account the vote splitting involved, their collective performance was miserable.
31. A Kiss Before Dying (Oswald, 1956) - This was not on my list when I first added it to the total, but it kept niggling at me. It's a weird, hokey film in many respects, but its mise en scene and use of the Cinemascope frame is so extraordinary that it forced its way onto my list towards the end of the voting, pushing The Trouble with Harry off the bottom. One of the most striking and atypical late noirs, but I'm not surprised that I was the lone voice in its favour.
32. Seven Men from Now (Boetticher, 1956) - Boetticher is probably second only to McLaren in the 'embarrassing voting oversights' stakes. There's little to choose between the Scott westerns, so I thought I was being strategic in selecting the only one that was readily available, but there were only two other votes in the offing (and one for The Tall T, which could equally handsomely fill this space).
33. Un Chant d'amour (Genet, 1950) - I'm glad I revisited this before the voting began. A creepy, beautiful, dreamlike film that had a couple of other supporters, but not quite enough to matter.
34. Le Chant de styrene (Resnais, 1958) - Probably my most idiosyncratic selection, a mesmerising documentary about plastics which is pretty much a bizarre technicolor rehearsal for Last Year at Marienbad. A wonderful example of form trumping content.
35. Aparajito (Ray, 1956) - Ouch! Satyajit Ray is clearly in need of some decent R1 releases. It's tough to pick a favourite part of the trilogy, and more people, quite reasonably, went for the self-contained Pather Panchali, but I prefer the shifting moods of part 2.
36. Daybreak Express (Pennebaker, 1953) - I was not quite alone in my love for this inspired amateur film. Pure joy on celluloid.
40. House of Bamboo (Fuller, 1955) - Lots of Fuller nominated, but the Criterion-anointed Pickup on South Street got the lion's share of votes. This, like a lot of Fuller, is in part awkward and in part inspired. On the inspired side of the ledger is one of Robert Ryan's best-ever performances (and just look at the competition) as a gay gangster. Robert Stack just doesn't get it, which is a large part of the fun.
41. The Singing Street (Norton Park Group, 1952) - My token Free Cinema selection, and the only Free Cinema film nominated, if I'm not mistaken. It's an eccentric choice, but this is one of the most evocative, poetic records of everyday life from the period.
43. El (Bunuel, 1953) - Considering the relative (un)availability of the films, there was a decent amount of interest in Bunuel's 50s films - probably his greatest body of work - but votes were well split. Choosing one representative film was something of a lottery for me. Last time it was Le mort en ce jardin, I believe, which fared even worse than this one.
44. Summer Stock (Walters, 1950) - Well, three of us like it, but obviously not enough to get it on the list.
45. Winchester '73 (Mann) - Not really a darling, as it made the final list, but it was a last-minute addition for me. I had consciously limited the Manns on my list, but when I revised it to add A Kiss before Dying it occurred to me that this film, for all its flaws, was considerably better than several titles I'd included, so I tossed it in, to the detriment of Duck Amuck.
46. Le Amiche (Antonioni, 1955) - No Antonioni made the list (though this and Cronaca di un amore received multiple votes). My favourite pre-trilogy work of his. He's already a master filmmaker, but of a different kind.
47. Stromboli (Rossellini, 1950) - All of the Roberto / Ingrid films received votes (except for oddity Joan of Arc at the Stake). I think they're all seriously flawed, but each have their own strengths, and they're strengths that you couldn't easily find anywhere else that decade (the use of 'dead' time in Viaggio, Bergman's performance in Europa). This film has its brilliant use of the location and the stark open ending to set it apart.
48. The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (Rowland, 1953) - A definite contender for the wackiest Hollywood feature ever made. It's here for its art direction, but that's surely enough.
49. The Tin Star (Mann, 1957) - More Anthony Mann films were nominated for this list (eleven) than those by any other director. This was one of the many one-offs, an off-centre western that I love for the Fonda / Perkins relationship.
50. Deputy Droopy (Avery / Lah, 1955) - Glorious dada
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Michael
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 4:09 pm
Also very thrilled to see it make the final list. But Inauguration of the Pleasure didn't.7. Eaux d'Artifice (Anger, 1953) - I was very pleased to see I wasn't alone in my love of this sublime, mysterious piece of eye candy, and surprised to see it make the final list.
I can see how it can be a turn-off to some folks but no matter how many times I watch it, I still try to figure out how Anger layered and layered all those images and sounds together the way he did with this film. Truly mind-boggling. He IS the most revolutionary filmmaker of the modern cinema. It is impossible to believe that Eaux d'Artifice is more than 50 years old!No love for Delmar Davies? I voted for A Summer Place - a lush Technicolor epic of summer teen love. Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. Complete with the Frank Wright Lloyd house. And the gorgeous Max Steiner music whispering through the beach cypresses with scandalous love brewing behind them. And at the same time, magnifying the ugly, hypocritical 50s attitudes/mentality.. a perfect film to conclude the 50s era before free love splashed into the 60s.
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jonp72
- Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:44 pm
15. Statues Meurent Aussi a.k.a. Statues Also Die (1953, Chris Marker/Alain Resnais)
I saw this in three parts on Youtube, and I had to rely on translating a French transcript with Babelfish to understand it, but it is a brilliant essay-film that predates Night and Fog. It looks at African art in order to illuminate a provocoative thesis about how Third World art is only available to us in museums, because colonialism has contributed to death of indigenous civilizations. It also suggests that we should respect African artists (both ancient and modern) as real artists, not view them as exotic specimens who just happened to make statues.
22. The Wrong Man (1956, Alfred Hitchcock) Anyone who says that Hitchcock is a manipulator with no emotional depth must see this film, stat. Because of a series of coincidences, Henry Fonda is accused and jailed for a crime he didn't commit. In the course of trying to free himself, his wife (played by Vera Miles) goes through a breakdown due to the trauma. The performance of Vera Miles is emotionally devastating, even more so when you see Fonda crushed by the cruel hand of fate.
24. A Movie (1958, Bruce Conner) Rose Hobart predates A Movie as a "found footage" film, but nobody manipulated "found footage" with such zest or incisive wit until Conner did A Movie.
26. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin) Yes, the film is cartoonish, but Tashlin was a cartoonist. Unlike the cartoonish films of today, Tashlin's cartoonishness was the product of a man who made cartoons instead of merely passively consuming them. The film is an acerbic satire of 1950s advertising, filled with in-jokes, breaking the fourth wall, and the most brazen put-down of TV culture by a 50s filmmaker, except for Ozu's Good Morning.
27. Aventurera (1950, Alberto Gout) Call it campy if you will, but this Mexican "rumbera" has melodrama that out-Sirks Sirk in addition to elements borrowed from both musicals and film noir. And if you want social significance, you will find that the film does a good job of critiquing machismo, sexual double standards, and the moral hypocrisy of the Mexican upper class. Voted #4 on a list of the best Mexican films of all time, we need to be reminded again that not all great musicals came from Hollywood backlots.
28. The Crucified Lovers (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi) I just can't believe that Mizoguchi still had it in him to make a film this good and release it in the same year as my #1 choice, Sansho the Bailiff.
30. Awaara (1951, Raj Kapoor) This Bollywood musical is 3 hours long, but doesn't drag for a second. The main character is Chaplinesque, but the plot is Dickensian, and the camera angles are suitably Wellesian. You wouldn't believe that a musical could have as many low angle shots, depict the Indian caste system so unflinchingly, or have a dream sequence so unusual (the first ever in a Bollywood film). Read the IMDB comments about this film, and you'll see that it has rabid fans in both Eastern Europe and China too.
32. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951, Albert Lewin)
Pressburger/Powell color scheme + literary references + wet Ava Gardner = sensuous delight
34. The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954, Kenneth Anger) A fluorescent amalgamation of color, gender, sexuality, texture, moisture, and religious symbolism. A Day-Glo bomb detonated in the heart of 1950s sexual and Judeo-Christian conformism.
36. Un Chant d'Amour (1950, Jean Genet) What would have happened if Cocteau made a porn film?
40. Murder by Contract (1958, Irving Lerner) Ultra-minimalist noir with a hitman played with almost Zen-like coolness by Vince Edwards aka Dr. Ben Casey
41. El aka This Strange Passion (1953, Luis Bunuel) Like the Crucified Lovers, it's an excellent demonstration of how men's paranoia about the unfaithfulness of their mate can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
44. Baby Doll (1956, Elia Kazan) Old Lefties hate Kazan because he ratted people out to HUAC, but I sometimes wonder perversely if this film makes it all justifiable (just like Godard thought that the only justification for the Standard Oil Company was that they funded the Louisiana Story). It's as if Kazan had to be a fink in order to get away with a film with such warped sexuality in the 1950s. Aside from the many charms associated with the post-prepubescent Caroll Baker, the film features numerous satisfying shots of Southern black sharecroppers laughing at the misfortunes befalling the white characters, in addition to a great Kenyon Hopkins score that has a surprisingly R&B flavor by mid-50s soundtrack standards.
46. Science Friction (1959, Stan Van der Beek) Hardly anybody knows this film, but it's an animated short that was a big influence on Terry Gilliam, because of its usage of photos cut from newspapers and magazines. The film is like a Robert Rauschenberg painting about Cold War anxiety, but somehow magically springing to life.
48. The Man with the Golden Arm (1955, Otto Preminger) Aside from great fluid camerawork, it has a great jazz soundtrack, and what is possibly the first realistic treatment of the symptoms of drug withdrawal in a Hollywood film.
50. Elena and Her Men (1956, Jean Renoir) Like Lola Montes, but with a frothy sense of humor and a better female lead. Delightful.
I saw this in three parts on Youtube, and I had to rely on translating a French transcript with Babelfish to understand it, but it is a brilliant essay-film that predates Night and Fog. It looks at African art in order to illuminate a provocoative thesis about how Third World art is only available to us in museums, because colonialism has contributed to death of indigenous civilizations. It also suggests that we should respect African artists (both ancient and modern) as real artists, not view them as exotic specimens who just happened to make statues.
22. The Wrong Man (1956, Alfred Hitchcock) Anyone who says that Hitchcock is a manipulator with no emotional depth must see this film, stat. Because of a series of coincidences, Henry Fonda is accused and jailed for a crime he didn't commit. In the course of trying to free himself, his wife (played by Vera Miles) goes through a breakdown due to the trauma. The performance of Vera Miles is emotionally devastating, even more so when you see Fonda crushed by the cruel hand of fate.
24. A Movie (1958, Bruce Conner) Rose Hobart predates A Movie as a "found footage" film, but nobody manipulated "found footage" with such zest or incisive wit until Conner did A Movie.
26. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957, Frank Tashlin) Yes, the film is cartoonish, but Tashlin was a cartoonist. Unlike the cartoonish films of today, Tashlin's cartoonishness was the product of a man who made cartoons instead of merely passively consuming them. The film is an acerbic satire of 1950s advertising, filled with in-jokes, breaking the fourth wall, and the most brazen put-down of TV culture by a 50s filmmaker, except for Ozu's Good Morning.
27. Aventurera (1950, Alberto Gout) Call it campy if you will, but this Mexican "rumbera" has melodrama that out-Sirks Sirk in addition to elements borrowed from both musicals and film noir. And if you want social significance, you will find that the film does a good job of critiquing machismo, sexual double standards, and the moral hypocrisy of the Mexican upper class. Voted #4 on a list of the best Mexican films of all time, we need to be reminded again that not all great musicals came from Hollywood backlots.
28. The Crucified Lovers (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi) I just can't believe that Mizoguchi still had it in him to make a film this good and release it in the same year as my #1 choice, Sansho the Bailiff.
30. Awaara (1951, Raj Kapoor) This Bollywood musical is 3 hours long, but doesn't drag for a second. The main character is Chaplinesque, but the plot is Dickensian, and the camera angles are suitably Wellesian. You wouldn't believe that a musical could have as many low angle shots, depict the Indian caste system so unflinchingly, or have a dream sequence so unusual (the first ever in a Bollywood film). Read the IMDB comments about this film, and you'll see that it has rabid fans in both Eastern Europe and China too.
32. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951, Albert Lewin)
Pressburger/Powell color scheme + literary references + wet Ava Gardner = sensuous delight
34. The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954, Kenneth Anger) A fluorescent amalgamation of color, gender, sexuality, texture, moisture, and religious symbolism. A Day-Glo bomb detonated in the heart of 1950s sexual and Judeo-Christian conformism.
36. Un Chant d'Amour (1950, Jean Genet) What would have happened if Cocteau made a porn film?
40. Murder by Contract (1958, Irving Lerner) Ultra-minimalist noir with a hitman played with almost Zen-like coolness by Vince Edwards aka Dr. Ben Casey
41. El aka This Strange Passion (1953, Luis Bunuel) Like the Crucified Lovers, it's an excellent demonstration of how men's paranoia about the unfaithfulness of their mate can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
44. Baby Doll (1956, Elia Kazan) Old Lefties hate Kazan because he ratted people out to HUAC, but I sometimes wonder perversely if this film makes it all justifiable (just like Godard thought that the only justification for the Standard Oil Company was that they funded the Louisiana Story). It's as if Kazan had to be a fink in order to get away with a film with such warped sexuality in the 1950s. Aside from the many charms associated with the post-prepubescent Caroll Baker, the film features numerous satisfying shots of Southern black sharecroppers laughing at the misfortunes befalling the white characters, in addition to a great Kenyon Hopkins score that has a surprisingly R&B flavor by mid-50s soundtrack standards.
46. Science Friction (1959, Stan Van der Beek) Hardly anybody knows this film, but it's an animated short that was a big influence on Terry Gilliam, because of its usage of photos cut from newspapers and magazines. The film is like a Robert Rauschenberg painting about Cold War anxiety, but somehow magically springing to life.
48. The Man with the Golden Arm (1955, Otto Preminger) Aside from great fluid camerawork, it has a great jazz soundtrack, and what is possibly the first realistic treatment of the symptoms of drug withdrawal in a Hollywood film.
50. Elena and Her Men (1956, Jean Renoir) Like Lola Montes, but with a frothy sense of humor and a better female lead. Delightful.
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
I saw this on your (apologies if it was somebody else's!) recommendation in the 50s viewing thread and agree that it's a hoot. Highly recommended, and as an added bonus, it helps put Bunuel's work of the period into an industry context. Actually, if he'd tackled this project we'd probably be recognising a lot of its outrageous deliriousness as "Bunuelian".jonp72 wrote:27. Aventurera (1950, Alberto Gout) Call it campy if you will, but this Mexican "rumbera" has melodrama that out-Sirks Sirk in addition to elements borrowed from both musicals and film noir. And if you want social significance, you will find that the film does a good job of critiquing machismo, sexual double standards, and the moral hypocrisy of the Mexican upper class. Voted #4 on a list of the best Mexican films of all time, we need to be reminded again that not all great musicals came from Hollywood backlots.
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Brian Oblivious
- Joined: Sat Nov 06, 2004 8:38 pm
- Location: 'Frisco
- Contact:
My votes that failed to make the final list:
2. The End (Christopher Maclaine)
"The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast..." Oh, that's actually from my #1, Vertigo. But this 1953 short, often labeled the first "beat" film, feels in some ways like a 5-year precursor to the Hitchcock masterwork, or at least an apocalyptic companion piece. Also set in San Francisco, it's the only film this proud S.F. native even briefly considered dislodging Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak's death dance from his top slot.
3. Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse)
Naruse's greatest achievement (that I've seen so far) needs no defense, just a DVD release with English subtitles. Or even better, a widespread theatrical booking like the one Rules of the Game recently got. They were banging down the doors at the Pacific Film Archive to get into the sole screening of Floating Clouds at the Naruse retro in Berkeley last year.
5. Day of the Outlaw (André De Toth)
My highest-ranked "official darling" with no other votes. It's another of Robert Ryan's best-ever performances, opposite a startlingly menacing Burl Ives, his bitter cohort, and the brutal Rocky Mountain winter. De Toth is severely underrated as a director, and this may be his best film.
6. a Movie (Bruce Conner)
I was sad to see this one drop off the list, leaving precious few short films behind. If you've only been exposed to this puppy in film class, you may tend to think of it as too schematic, but if you've seen it in a theatrefull of people enjoying it as their evening's entertainment, you'll almost certainly recognize that its humor and pleasure are equal to its structural innovation and cinematic subversion. No surprise that it was inspired by a sequence from Duck Soup.
8. Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones)
Speaking of ducks, I must cop to putting most of my classic cartoon eggs into a couple baskets this time around, but to no avail. This fell of the list. It's true that the more I learn about Termite Terrace in the 30s and 40s the less enamored I am of the 50s, for the most part, but I still think of Duck Amuck as undistilled genius.
16. M (Joseph Losey)
Looks like I was the lone voter here. It's rare enough that I've only had occasion to see it once, but every time I watch Lang's great version, it actually has trouble living up to the humanity and hostility of this film. Perhaps a case in which I'm fawning over my memory of a film and not the film itself, but I'll take it.
18. Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
I probably should not have been so surprised to see this one drop off the list, with other great films becoming available on Region 1 DVD so rapidly while it languishes. It's saturated in over-the-top color and dialogue that make it seem emblematic of its decade's greatest and worst excesses, but its director ensures that a great deal of human sadness and warmth are evident below the melodrama.
23. Venom and Eternity (Jean Isidore Isou)
Arriving between Joseph Cornell and Bruce Conner was Jean Isidore Isou's assault on cinematic traditionalism. Defacing, replacing, destroying, removing the image and putting in its place words and letters. Or more accurately: lettrism. It's surprising to see, and especially hear, stuff this radical that was getting out there (to Cannes, even) back in 1951; it makes the French New Wavers feel almost like a bunch of fuddy-duddies.
26. the Far Country (Anthony Mann)
Probably shouldn't have been my only horse picked from the Mann-Stewart stable of top-drawer, cynical Westerns. But it stands out as my favorite each time I run through the cycle, probably because its Alaskan setting is so memorable, its gold rush criticism so pertinent, and its villain Marshall Gannon so perfectly matched to Stewart's reluctant (and that's putting it mildly) hero.
27. Forty Guns (Sam Fuller)
What Arcadean said above. Though I'd also like to mention that Barbara Stanwyck nearly always adds extra points to anything she's in, and here she is, at 50, in one of her best, sexiest roles. Happy centennial year to Babs!
29. Wedlock House: an Intercourse (Stan Brakhage)
My favorite of Brakhage's more documentary-esque cine-poems but I was the only one to vote for it despite its wide availability to anyone aware of Criterion. The sixties and the arguable golden age of canonical experimental cinema are upon us and I would hope there would be better representation of the avant-garde this time around. Personally I like merging shorts and features in a single poll but if splitting is the best way to give the shorts more visibility, I'll go along.
31. Robot Monster (Phil Tucker)
Visionary ambition? check. Creativity? check. Thematic and artistic unity? check. So-called competence? Well, maybe not, but damn if this on-beyond-Zebra-grade sci-fi "thriller" featuring an extraterrestrial in a gorilla suit isn't one of the most singularly entertaining and visually interesting (in its way) films I've ever seen. And I didn't want to give it a "token" rank in a much lower slot, even if it takes some gymnastics to argue that it qualitatively ranks above most of what else I've got below.
34. the Tall Target (Anthony Mann)
I guess the fact that it stars the not-so-convincingly-hard-bitten Dick Powell (as a maverick cop aboard the Lincoln Train) has doomed this period noir to relative obscurity in the Mann filmography. But I really love it.
35. Seven Men From Now (Budd Boetticher)
I probably picked this terrific Boetticher-Scott Western not because I was being strategic, but because it's the one I most recently saw. I adore all I've seen of their collaborations (5 of 7, so far) but this one has engulfed some of the others in my memory, I think. Scott's white-hat cowboy is something of a mirror image to Ethan Edwards of the Searchers (made the same year, and my #21 vote in this poll): cool and self-critical, though just as obsessed with completing his mission.
36. le Beau Serge (Claude Chabrol)
Looks like I was the only voter to pick Chabrol's first film as his favorite of the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd during this decade. Relatively conventional for a "New Wave" film I suppose, but gets me in the gut every time.
38. Film No. 11 - Mirror Animations (Harry Smith)
I think I might have gotten the number wrong (it might be #10 I was thinking of) but I didn't want to let confusion get in the way of a vote for one of my favorite collage artist/animators. One day, when Smith's Early Abstractions are on DVD, we'll start to appreciate them more as distinct entities and not a chunk of films to play together while listening to the Beatles.
39. Country Hotel (R.D. Pestonji)
Danger, romance, and musical anarchy lurk around every surprising corner of this epic of limited-space filmmaking (every scene takes place in the same tiny two-room guesthouse/bar) that I'm sure David Lynch never watched, but it almost seems could have.
41. Blacktop (Eames & Eames)
When the Eameses took to filmmaking they were successful designers, not struggling artists, which I think is a big piece of why their work is sometimes undervalued (resented, in a way?) by pursuers of aesthetic purity. This short film, depicting water travelling over an asphalt play yard, is an entrancing, delightful motion study in the worthy tradition of Ralph Steiner.
42. Decision at Sundown (Budd Boetticher)
I like Rio Bravo, but I like Boetticher's close-quarters reaction piece to High Noon even better. The most unusual entry of the Boetticher-Scott "Ranown" cycle and a film that deserves a DVD release pronto.
43. Distant Journey (Alfred Radok)
I only just saw this, the first large-scale film about the Nazi Holocaust, a week ago, which is probably the only reason I didn't rate it any higher than here. It's a haunting, visionary piece of work, surely a major influence on the cinematic treatments of the last century's most notorious genocide (including Schindler's List. According to the imdb it was released in its native Czechoslovakia January 1, 1950, so it just barely qualifies for this list. All the more reason to be wowed by its artistry. It even uses a kind of split-screen montage technique I'd never seen before, and I thought I'd seen 'em all.
46. Golden Yeggs (Friz Freleng)
My other vote for classic animation this decade, and it's another Daffy Duck film. It's the first appearance of that great animated gangster duo, Rocky and Mugsy. It's also one of the best showcases for Freleng's anticipatory timing of gags. I thought long and hard about making room for UPA or MGM shorts (and Deputy Droopy would have been a serious contender, as would the cartoon it essentially remakes, Rock-a-Bye Bear) but I decided against it at the last minute. Perhaps swayed in part by a sense that I'd have been out on my own limb- wonder how many other cartoon fans worried about vote-splitting and the like had a similar reaction?
47. Schwechater (Peter Kubelka)
They gave Kubelka money to make a beer commercial and he turned in this anti-commercial. It's the sensory effect of the rapid-cutting that burned it into my brain though.
48. Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
I thought maybe now that this film had been dropped from the AFI 100, it might be safe to pick up here. I wonder if cinephile society is no longer really able to handle James Dean drenched in Nick Ray's overheated technicolor?
50. Mambo Girl (Yi Wen)
So this Hong Kong teenybop gets my "token" last rank; a very half-hearted stab at putting something on such a list. It's not a great film, but it's well-made for the genre, and essential viewing for any fans of the odder works of Tsai Ming-Liang (the Hole and the Wayward Cloud particularly).
2. The End (Christopher Maclaine)
"The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast..." Oh, that's actually from my #1, Vertigo. But this 1953 short, often labeled the first "beat" film, feels in some ways like a 5-year precursor to the Hitchcock masterwork, or at least an apocalyptic companion piece. Also set in San Francisco, it's the only film this proud S.F. native even briefly considered dislodging Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak's death dance from his top slot.
3. Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse)
Naruse's greatest achievement (that I've seen so far) needs no defense, just a DVD release with English subtitles. Or even better, a widespread theatrical booking like the one Rules of the Game recently got. They were banging down the doors at the Pacific Film Archive to get into the sole screening of Floating Clouds at the Naruse retro in Berkeley last year.
5. Day of the Outlaw (André De Toth)
My highest-ranked "official darling" with no other votes. It's another of Robert Ryan's best-ever performances, opposite a startlingly menacing Burl Ives, his bitter cohort, and the brutal Rocky Mountain winter. De Toth is severely underrated as a director, and this may be his best film.
6. a Movie (Bruce Conner)
I was sad to see this one drop off the list, leaving precious few short films behind. If you've only been exposed to this puppy in film class, you may tend to think of it as too schematic, but if you've seen it in a theatrefull of people enjoying it as their evening's entertainment, you'll almost certainly recognize that its humor and pleasure are equal to its structural innovation and cinematic subversion. No surprise that it was inspired by a sequence from Duck Soup.
8. Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones)
Speaking of ducks, I must cop to putting most of my classic cartoon eggs into a couple baskets this time around, but to no avail. This fell of the list. It's true that the more I learn about Termite Terrace in the 30s and 40s the less enamored I am of the 50s, for the most part, but I still think of Duck Amuck as undistilled genius.
16. M (Joseph Losey)
Looks like I was the lone voter here. It's rare enough that I've only had occasion to see it once, but every time I watch Lang's great version, it actually has trouble living up to the humanity and hostility of this film. Perhaps a case in which I'm fawning over my memory of a film and not the film itself, but I'll take it.
18. Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
I probably should not have been so surprised to see this one drop off the list, with other great films becoming available on Region 1 DVD so rapidly while it languishes. It's saturated in over-the-top color and dialogue that make it seem emblematic of its decade's greatest and worst excesses, but its director ensures that a great deal of human sadness and warmth are evident below the melodrama.
23. Venom and Eternity (Jean Isidore Isou)
Arriving between Joseph Cornell and Bruce Conner was Jean Isidore Isou's assault on cinematic traditionalism. Defacing, replacing, destroying, removing the image and putting in its place words and letters. Or more accurately: lettrism. It's surprising to see, and especially hear, stuff this radical that was getting out there (to Cannes, even) back in 1951; it makes the French New Wavers feel almost like a bunch of fuddy-duddies.
26. the Far Country (Anthony Mann)
Probably shouldn't have been my only horse picked from the Mann-Stewart stable of top-drawer, cynical Westerns. But it stands out as my favorite each time I run through the cycle, probably because its Alaskan setting is so memorable, its gold rush criticism so pertinent, and its villain Marshall Gannon so perfectly matched to Stewart's reluctant (and that's putting it mildly) hero.
27. Forty Guns (Sam Fuller)
What Arcadean said above. Though I'd also like to mention that Barbara Stanwyck nearly always adds extra points to anything she's in, and here she is, at 50, in one of her best, sexiest roles. Happy centennial year to Babs!
29. Wedlock House: an Intercourse (Stan Brakhage)
My favorite of Brakhage's more documentary-esque cine-poems but I was the only one to vote for it despite its wide availability to anyone aware of Criterion. The sixties and the arguable golden age of canonical experimental cinema are upon us and I would hope there would be better representation of the avant-garde this time around. Personally I like merging shorts and features in a single poll but if splitting is the best way to give the shorts more visibility, I'll go along.
31. Robot Monster (Phil Tucker)
Visionary ambition? check. Creativity? check. Thematic and artistic unity? check. So-called competence? Well, maybe not, but damn if this on-beyond-Zebra-grade sci-fi "thriller" featuring an extraterrestrial in a gorilla suit isn't one of the most singularly entertaining and visually interesting (in its way) films I've ever seen. And I didn't want to give it a "token" rank in a much lower slot, even if it takes some gymnastics to argue that it qualitatively ranks above most of what else I've got below.
34. the Tall Target (Anthony Mann)
I guess the fact that it stars the not-so-convincingly-hard-bitten Dick Powell (as a maverick cop aboard the Lincoln Train) has doomed this period noir to relative obscurity in the Mann filmography. But I really love it.
35. Seven Men From Now (Budd Boetticher)
I probably picked this terrific Boetticher-Scott Western not because I was being strategic, but because it's the one I most recently saw. I adore all I've seen of their collaborations (5 of 7, so far) but this one has engulfed some of the others in my memory, I think. Scott's white-hat cowboy is something of a mirror image to Ethan Edwards of the Searchers (made the same year, and my #21 vote in this poll): cool and self-critical, though just as obsessed with completing his mission.
36. le Beau Serge (Claude Chabrol)
Looks like I was the only voter to pick Chabrol's first film as his favorite of the Cahiers du Cinéma crowd during this decade. Relatively conventional for a "New Wave" film I suppose, but gets me in the gut every time.
38. Film No. 11 - Mirror Animations (Harry Smith)
I think I might have gotten the number wrong (it might be #10 I was thinking of) but I didn't want to let confusion get in the way of a vote for one of my favorite collage artist/animators. One day, when Smith's Early Abstractions are on DVD, we'll start to appreciate them more as distinct entities and not a chunk of films to play together while listening to the Beatles.
39. Country Hotel (R.D. Pestonji)
Danger, romance, and musical anarchy lurk around every surprising corner of this epic of limited-space filmmaking (every scene takes place in the same tiny two-room guesthouse/bar) that I'm sure David Lynch never watched, but it almost seems could have.
41. Blacktop (Eames & Eames)
When the Eameses took to filmmaking they were successful designers, not struggling artists, which I think is a big piece of why their work is sometimes undervalued (resented, in a way?) by pursuers of aesthetic purity. This short film, depicting water travelling over an asphalt play yard, is an entrancing, delightful motion study in the worthy tradition of Ralph Steiner.
42. Decision at Sundown (Budd Boetticher)
I like Rio Bravo, but I like Boetticher's close-quarters reaction piece to High Noon even better. The most unusual entry of the Boetticher-Scott "Ranown" cycle and a film that deserves a DVD release pronto.
43. Distant Journey (Alfred Radok)
I only just saw this, the first large-scale film about the Nazi Holocaust, a week ago, which is probably the only reason I didn't rate it any higher than here. It's a haunting, visionary piece of work, surely a major influence on the cinematic treatments of the last century's most notorious genocide (including Schindler's List. According to the imdb it was released in its native Czechoslovakia January 1, 1950, so it just barely qualifies for this list. All the more reason to be wowed by its artistry. It even uses a kind of split-screen montage technique I'd never seen before, and I thought I'd seen 'em all.
46. Golden Yeggs (Friz Freleng)
My other vote for classic animation this decade, and it's another Daffy Duck film. It's the first appearance of that great animated gangster duo, Rocky and Mugsy. It's also one of the best showcases for Freleng's anticipatory timing of gags. I thought long and hard about making room for UPA or MGM shorts (and Deputy Droopy would have been a serious contender, as would the cartoon it essentially remakes, Rock-a-Bye Bear) but I decided against it at the last minute. Perhaps swayed in part by a sense that I'd have been out on my own limb- wonder how many other cartoon fans worried about vote-splitting and the like had a similar reaction?
47. Schwechater (Peter Kubelka)
They gave Kubelka money to make a beer commercial and he turned in this anti-commercial. It's the sensory effect of the rapid-cutting that burned it into my brain though.
48. Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
I thought maybe now that this film had been dropped from the AFI 100, it might be safe to pick up here. I wonder if cinephile society is no longer really able to handle James Dean drenched in Nick Ray's overheated technicolor?
50. Mambo Girl (Yi Wen)
So this Hong Kong teenybop gets my "token" last rank; a very half-hearted stab at putting something on such a list. It's not a great film, but it's well-made for the genre, and essential viewing for any fans of the odder works of Tsai Ming-Liang (the Hole and the Wayward Cloud particularly).
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Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:20 pm
- Location: New England
- Contact:
So -- you'' really be surprised when you discover that he made a third remarkable (and totally different) film that same year (Uwasa no onna). Absolutely remarkable performances by Kinuyo Tanaka as mistress of a rather low-class geisha house and by Yoshiko Kuga as her (utterly "bummed out") daughter.jonp72 wrote:28. The Crucified Lovers (1954, Kenji Mizoguchi) I just can't believe that Mizoguchi still had it in him to make a film this good and release it in the same year as my #1 choice, Sansho the Bailiff.
.jonp72 wrote:30. Awaara (1951, Raj Kapoor) This Bollywood musical is 3 hours long, but doesn't drag for a second. The main character is Chaplinesque, but the plot is Dickensian, and the camera angles are suitably Wellesian. You wouldn't believe that a musical could have as many low angle shots, depict the Indian caste system so unflinchingly, or have a dream sequence so unusual (the first ever in a Bollywood film). Read the IMDB comments about this film, and you'll see that it has rabid fans in both Eastern Europe and China too
I hope I remembered to vote for this. If I didn't I apologize.
I'm shocked this was bounced off the list.jonp72 wrote:41. El aka This Strange Passion (1953, Luis Bunuel) Like the Crucified Lovers, it's an excellent demonstration of how men's paranoia about the unfaithfulness of their mate can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I can't pick a "greatest" Naruse film, there are too many contenders that have virtually equal merit in my eyes. But while "Repast" ranks as my honorary favorite and "Lightning" as the most "loveable", "Floating Clouds" is near the top of the list for both visual beauty (and imagination) and emotional impact.Brian Oblivious wrote:3. Floating Clouds (Mikio Naruse)
Naruse's greatest achievement (that I've seen so far) needs no defense, just a DVD release with English subtitles. Or even better, a widespread theatrical booking like the one Rules of the Game recently got. They were banging down the doors at the Pacific Film Archive to get into the sole screening of Floating Clouds at the Naruse retro in Berkeley last year.
I agree with everything else. ;~}
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scotty
- Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:04 am
Here are mine:
9. Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958): Where is the love for this one? The Criterion box, if I am not mistaken, postdates the last 1950s list and I was sure that Wajda would make a stronger showing. I saw this on the big screen and was blown away.
10. Black Orpheus (Camus, 1959): Yeah, it has a lot of problems, but the music and photography really shine.
11. High Noon (Zinnemann, 1952): It is no longer cool to like this movie, but Coop and the clocks do it for me every time. Plus it helped inspire the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West, for which I am grateful.
19. Elevator to the Gallows (Malle, 1958): A much debated film at the time of its Criterion release. I saw it in the theater and that always gets me. I'm really voting for Miles Davis and Jeanne Moreau here.
26. Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1956): From the careening sports car at the opening to the fondling of the model oil derrick at the end, this thing is just plain bonkers. Lurid and lovely.
29. The Asphalt Jungle (Huston, 1950): Several superb noirs in the list. I love the air of menace in this one.
35. A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1955) : Leonard Bernstein called the postwar period the "age of anxiety." This sweaty, humid feature conveys that notion pretty well. No a-bombs needed, just Blanche DuBois.
38. Summer with Monika (Bergman, 1953): Ingmar seems to be slipping a bit these days in critical estimation. This one presents one of his main themes, the living of life as an ideal fantasy, followed by the necessity of coming to terms with unforgiving truths. A lot of skin for 1953, too.
39. Rebel without a Cause (N. Ray, 1955)
40. Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1959): Preminger has a pretty impressive record during this period. One of my favorite James Stewart performances. Duke Ellington music, too.
44. Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger, 1958): As I was saying . . . Preminger dares to push the Hays Code with his subject matter. Jean Seberg's prototypical performance in preparation for Breathless.
45. Bread, Love, and Dreams (Comencini, 1954): This is really a Vittorio de Sica comedic vehicle--he "supervised" the direction, it appears, while starring as a lovable lecher. Comedy doesn't often score high with me, but this one worked. Anyone else seen it?
46. Shane (Stevens, 1953): I don't really love this movie, but I also can't divorce it from the time when I first began to study film. Some of the most beautiful location shooting around--the Tetons really stick in the mind. Lots of interesting ways of interpreting Alan Ladd's character, too. The kid annoys me.
47. The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957): Not an art film, but a harrowing and troubling experience anyway.
49. Ben-Hur (Wyler, 1959): I can't believe it either. I actually watched it again on a late-night channel and couldn't shake it. Heston has always been something of a joke, but there is a kind of majesty to his performance here. The chariot race is indeed a remarkable filmic event. And it is a very moving story, I have to admit. There is much with which to find fault, but this is grand old Hollywood movie-making, effective despite the necessary steps being taken by younger directors in America (Cassavetes--I had Shadows at #6) and Europe to revise, reject, parody, or puncture the system that produced it and the cinematic assumptions it makes.
50. Giant (Stevens, 1956): See a pattern here? Just when I was primed to produce an a critically acceptable list, films like this one kept popping up. This one is a mess in many ways, but I perhaps tend to give too many points for failed ambition. I don't think there's much to say about Giant. You have to strap yourself in for the ride, take the wildly fluctuating politics of it in stride, resist scratching your head over Dean's performance, and let go, or you just shouldn't bother at all.
9. Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958): Where is the love for this one? The Criterion box, if I am not mistaken, postdates the last 1950s list and I was sure that Wajda would make a stronger showing. I saw this on the big screen and was blown away.
10. Black Orpheus (Camus, 1959): Yeah, it has a lot of problems, but the music and photography really shine.
11. High Noon (Zinnemann, 1952): It is no longer cool to like this movie, but Coop and the clocks do it for me every time. Plus it helped inspire the opening sequence of Once Upon a Time in the West, for which I am grateful.
19. Elevator to the Gallows (Malle, 1958): A much debated film at the time of its Criterion release. I saw it in the theater and that always gets me. I'm really voting for Miles Davis and Jeanne Moreau here.
26. Written on the Wind (Sirk, 1956): From the careening sports car at the opening to the fondling of the model oil derrick at the end, this thing is just plain bonkers. Lurid and lovely.
29. The Asphalt Jungle (Huston, 1950): Several superb noirs in the list. I love the air of menace in this one.
35. A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1955) : Leonard Bernstein called the postwar period the "age of anxiety." This sweaty, humid feature conveys that notion pretty well. No a-bombs needed, just Blanche DuBois.
38. Summer with Monika (Bergman, 1953): Ingmar seems to be slipping a bit these days in critical estimation. This one presents one of his main themes, the living of life as an ideal fantasy, followed by the necessity of coming to terms with unforgiving truths. A lot of skin for 1953, too.
39. Rebel without a Cause (N. Ray, 1955)
40. Anatomy of a Murder (Preminger, 1959): Preminger has a pretty impressive record during this period. One of my favorite James Stewart performances. Duke Ellington music, too.
44. Bonjour Tristesse (Preminger, 1958): As I was saying . . . Preminger dares to push the Hays Code with his subject matter. Jean Seberg's prototypical performance in preparation for Breathless.
45. Bread, Love, and Dreams (Comencini, 1954): This is really a Vittorio de Sica comedic vehicle--he "supervised" the direction, it appears, while starring as a lovable lecher. Comedy doesn't often score high with me, but this one worked. Anyone else seen it?
46. Shane (Stevens, 1953): I don't really love this movie, but I also can't divorce it from the time when I first began to study film. Some of the most beautiful location shooting around--the Tetons really stick in the mind. Lots of interesting ways of interpreting Alan Ladd's character, too. The kid annoys me.
47. The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean, 1957): Not an art film, but a harrowing and troubling experience anyway.
49. Ben-Hur (Wyler, 1959): I can't believe it either. I actually watched it again on a late-night channel and couldn't shake it. Heston has always been something of a joke, but there is a kind of majesty to his performance here. The chariot race is indeed a remarkable filmic event. And it is a very moving story, I have to admit. There is much with which to find fault, but this is grand old Hollywood movie-making, effective despite the necessary steps being taken by younger directors in America (Cassavetes--I had Shadows at #6) and Europe to revise, reject, parody, or puncture the system that produced it and the cinematic assumptions it makes.
50. Giant (Stevens, 1956): See a pattern here? Just when I was primed to produce an a critically acceptable list, films like this one kept popping up. This one is a mess in many ways, but I perhaps tend to give too many points for failed ambition. I don't think there's much to say about Giant. You have to strap yourself in for the ride, take the wildly fluctuating politics of it in stride, resist scratching your head over Dean's performance, and let go, or you just shouldn't bother at all.
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Scharphedin2
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2006 11:37 am
- Location: Denmark/Sweden
First of all, I would like to thank everyone, who is taking the time to walk through their lists of pandas, orphans, sorrowful brides, and what not. These lists are a huge asset in further developing our cineliteracy for those os us in awe of the BrianOblivions, zedzs and Kerpans of the world. As usual, my final list and that of the forum were not all that far apart, meaning, I suppose, that I have not truly graduated from film school 101 yet. However, for what it is worth, here is my list of films not found in the top 100.
4. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (Masaki Kobayashi) – My top five consisted solely of Japanese films, and it could easily have been the top 10 or 15, but, as has often been discussed, the decade is so rich on masterful Japanese films that my solution became to restrict to 1 or max 2 films per director. This one by Kobayashi did not make many lists, I gather. Irrespective of the large number of great Japanese films, it (along with its two sequels) must surely be one of the most ambitious of films created in Japan. It has been almost ten years since I saw the trilogy, but it still stands as one of the most indignant and heartfelt outcries at man's inhumanity against his fellow men.
11. Shane (George Stevens) – George Stevens is one of my favourite American directors, and I admit that I originally had all three of his American trilogy films on my list. In the end I had to make a decision to keep only one. Shane is a very early film experience that I will never get over, and every time I have seen it since, it has taken on new meaning to me. It is enormously beautiful, and a really noble story (have we become so jaded that we can no longer appreciate that?)
14. The Little Fugitive (Errol Morris) – I picked this film up on the suggestion of HerrSchreck in the Kino thread last year. The film wonderfully captures the life and fun of Coney Island at this very particular moment in time. At the same time, it is a loving portrait of childhood, the lack of proportion, and the sense of possibility that evaporates as maturity sets in. I really felt like this film was shot through the gullible eyes of the little fugitive.
21. Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita) – (I know Kerpan is going to be upset with me, but in the final round of elimination, I let Crucified Lovers go, and kept this one in). I was deeply affected by this truly humane film, and wrote about it in the ‘50s discussion thread.
22. Story of a Love Affair (Michaelangelo Antonioni) – I saw this film for the first time a few months back, and wrote about it in the discussion thread. Mostly I was impressed with the control of the medium at this early stage in Antonioni's career. So much of what is admired in Antonioni is here – the way he employs the buildings/architecture -- those old facades side-by-side with modernist constructions, those rainwet streets, the fog of Ferrara, and just the general perfection of composition. It is one of the few films on my list that are included more for beauty of form than for content.
26. The Bigamist (Ida Lupino) – I share in the admiration of The Hitch-hiker, but this film -- made in the same year -- struck me deeper. The depiction of O'brien's loneliness on his evenings and weekends on business away from home were really heartfelt. The slowly developing affair between him and Luppino, and the later consequences, are so authentically and sincerely rendered… a very special film. I wish we could have a restored set of all of Lupinos films, she did not make that many, but if they measure up to this and The Hitch-hiker, I believe that such a release would bring to light a true American Master of Cinema.
28. The Forty-First (Grigori Chukrai) – A euphorically beautiful love story set against the desert and the sea. The otherness of this Russian film probably helps to push it up in my estimation. I do not think anyone else voted for it, which may either be due to relative obscurity, or my personal eccentricity. In a Russian poll, it would surely have made the Top 50.
35. Gone to Earth (Michael Powell) – This film is not one of Powell & Pressburger's highest esteemed films, and admittedly it is not on par with the great achievements of the ‘40s, but then again it is not that far a cry either. Even under the shiny veneer of Selznick's intervention, there is enough fairy dust here to make it a worthy entry in Powell & Pressburger's canon.
37. The Quiet Man (John Ford) – To me this is Wayne's greatest moment on film. Here's wishing that a restoration will be undertaken that will give us all that lush greenery of the Irish countryscape, and O'Hara's gorgeous red hair too, by the way.
39. The Big Sky (Howard Hawks) – I think I was the only one to include this film. Honestly, I think it is one of Hawks' most fun and endearing works – a great meandering voyage up river into Indian territory with a typically colourful cast of characters, and a wonderful sense of the great outdoors. The decrepit state of the film (on DVD) almost makes it feel as if it was really shot back in the mid-1800s.
41. “Topsâ€
4. The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (Masaki Kobayashi) – My top five consisted solely of Japanese films, and it could easily have been the top 10 or 15, but, as has often been discussed, the decade is so rich on masterful Japanese films that my solution became to restrict to 1 or max 2 films per director. This one by Kobayashi did not make many lists, I gather. Irrespective of the large number of great Japanese films, it (along with its two sequels) must surely be one of the most ambitious of films created in Japan. It has been almost ten years since I saw the trilogy, but it still stands as one of the most indignant and heartfelt outcries at man's inhumanity against his fellow men.
11. Shane (George Stevens) – George Stevens is one of my favourite American directors, and I admit that I originally had all three of his American trilogy films on my list. In the end I had to make a decision to keep only one. Shane is a very early film experience that I will never get over, and every time I have seen it since, it has taken on new meaning to me. It is enormously beautiful, and a really noble story (have we become so jaded that we can no longer appreciate that?)
14. The Little Fugitive (Errol Morris) – I picked this film up on the suggestion of HerrSchreck in the Kino thread last year. The film wonderfully captures the life and fun of Coney Island at this very particular moment in time. At the same time, it is a loving portrait of childhood, the lack of proportion, and the sense of possibility that evaporates as maturity sets in. I really felt like this film was shot through the gullible eyes of the little fugitive.
21. Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita) – (I know Kerpan is going to be upset with me, but in the final round of elimination, I let Crucified Lovers go, and kept this one in). I was deeply affected by this truly humane film, and wrote about it in the ‘50s discussion thread.
22. Story of a Love Affair (Michaelangelo Antonioni) – I saw this film for the first time a few months back, and wrote about it in the discussion thread. Mostly I was impressed with the control of the medium at this early stage in Antonioni's career. So much of what is admired in Antonioni is here – the way he employs the buildings/architecture -- those old facades side-by-side with modernist constructions, those rainwet streets, the fog of Ferrara, and just the general perfection of composition. It is one of the few films on my list that are included more for beauty of form than for content.
26. The Bigamist (Ida Lupino) – I share in the admiration of The Hitch-hiker, but this film -- made in the same year -- struck me deeper. The depiction of O'brien's loneliness on his evenings and weekends on business away from home were really heartfelt. The slowly developing affair between him and Luppino, and the later consequences, are so authentically and sincerely rendered… a very special film. I wish we could have a restored set of all of Lupinos films, she did not make that many, but if they measure up to this and The Hitch-hiker, I believe that such a release would bring to light a true American Master of Cinema.
28. The Forty-First (Grigori Chukrai) – A euphorically beautiful love story set against the desert and the sea. The otherness of this Russian film probably helps to push it up in my estimation. I do not think anyone else voted for it, which may either be due to relative obscurity, or my personal eccentricity. In a Russian poll, it would surely have made the Top 50.
35. Gone to Earth (Michael Powell) – This film is not one of Powell & Pressburger's highest esteemed films, and admittedly it is not on par with the great achievements of the ‘40s, but then again it is not that far a cry either. Even under the shiny veneer of Selznick's intervention, there is enough fairy dust here to make it a worthy entry in Powell & Pressburger's canon.
37. The Quiet Man (John Ford) – To me this is Wayne's greatest moment on film. Here's wishing that a restoration will be undertaken that will give us all that lush greenery of the Irish countryscape, and O'Hara's gorgeous red hair too, by the way.
39. The Big Sky (Howard Hawks) – I think I was the only one to include this film. Honestly, I think it is one of Hawks' most fun and endearing works – a great meandering voyage up river into Indian territory with a typically colourful cast of characters, and a wonderful sense of the great outdoors. The decrepit state of the film (on DVD) almost makes it feel as if it was really shot back in the mid-1800s.
41. “Topsâ€
Last edited by Scharphedin2 on Thu Jul 05, 2007 9:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Michael Kerpan
- Spelling Bee Champeen
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 5:20 pm
- Location: New England
- Contact:
Who am I to get mad at you. Contemporary Japanese critics would (mostly) have agreed with you. Kinoshita (and other 24 Eyes folks) cleaned up in the awards race for 1954 films, while Mizoguchi's films got comparatively little attention.Scharphedin2 wrote:21. Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita) – (I know Kerpan is going to be upset with me, but in the final round of elimination, I let Crucified Lovers go, and kept this one in). I was deeply affected by this truly humane film, and wrote about it in the ‘50s discussion thread.
Last edited by Michael Kerpan on Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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geoffcowgill
- Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:48 pm
I had five that apparently only I voted for.
47- Miracle in Milan (DeSica) - This is an amazing piece of cinematic magical realism and I can only assume that it didn't make the list because of the paucity of its availability right now. I haven't seen it for years, and maybe if it were fresher in my memory it would have ranked higher on my list, but what I remember of it is a kind of cross between the happy cynicism of Billy Wilder with mid-60s Fellini. Time for a Criterion disc, I think.
34- Le Trou (Becker) - Now this one is a Criterion disc, otherwise I probably never would have seen it. I rented it solely because of the Criterion stamp of approval. To say that this is the most involving, thrilling, and believable prison escape movie I've ever seen is hardly to do justice to it. It is maybe the most enthralling movie about a process I've ever seen. The relentlessness with which Becker shows us seemingly every scrape away at the hole should be tedious, but instead I felt myself holding my breath. Even if I didn't know about the casting of one of the real-life prison-breakers as more-or-less himself, the sense of reality couldn't have been greater.
30- Pat and Mike (Cukor) - Not as good as Adam's Rib, but the only other Tracy/Hepburn movie worthy of their chemistry and charisma. This movie is probably second only to Bringing Up Baby in showing Hepburn as an awesome force of nature, a dynamo of energy and strength rivalled in Hollywood at the time perhaps only by Gene Kelly. Some of the exaggerated visions of Pat's neuroses are a bit cheesy, but the film otherwise has a breezy charm that seemed to dry up in studio movies shortly afterward. In that sense, it's more like a '40s or even '30s film. A great deal of fun.
27- A Place in the Sun (Stevens) - I'm not typically impressed by Stevens' movies, but this really is a masterful piece of work. Its standing as acknowledged masterpiece has seemed to have fallen by the wayside for some reason. I think it's been cast in the retrospective memory of American pop culture as some lush romance, but in reality it is a stark, uncompromising and faithful adaptation of Dreiser. Stevens holds scenes and shots for just long enough to be uncomfortable and often positions the camera at a coldly clinical distance, even though the most iconic images of the movie are close-ups of Clift and Taylor. The result is that we are forced to watch suffering at an arm's length, where it is not glorified with a typical music swell and close-ups. The three leads (including Shelley Winters in the career-making, type-casting role of pathetic victim that she would return to in Lolita and Night of the Hunter) were probably never better, and that's saying especially a lot in Clift's case.
14 - The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick) - I'm frankly baffled that no one else mentioned this gem, likely the best film to ever come out of Ealing. Alec Guinness, always a great actor of course, is at his most likable and Joan Greenwood, with that voice, oh my god, that voice, is endearing beyond words. The satire is light but perfectly on target in this fable of progress and greed.
47- Miracle in Milan (DeSica) - This is an amazing piece of cinematic magical realism and I can only assume that it didn't make the list because of the paucity of its availability right now. I haven't seen it for years, and maybe if it were fresher in my memory it would have ranked higher on my list, but what I remember of it is a kind of cross between the happy cynicism of Billy Wilder with mid-60s Fellini. Time for a Criterion disc, I think.
34- Le Trou (Becker) - Now this one is a Criterion disc, otherwise I probably never would have seen it. I rented it solely because of the Criterion stamp of approval. To say that this is the most involving, thrilling, and believable prison escape movie I've ever seen is hardly to do justice to it. It is maybe the most enthralling movie about a process I've ever seen. The relentlessness with which Becker shows us seemingly every scrape away at the hole should be tedious, but instead I felt myself holding my breath. Even if I didn't know about the casting of one of the real-life prison-breakers as more-or-less himself, the sense of reality couldn't have been greater.
30- Pat and Mike (Cukor) - Not as good as Adam's Rib, but the only other Tracy/Hepburn movie worthy of their chemistry and charisma. This movie is probably second only to Bringing Up Baby in showing Hepburn as an awesome force of nature, a dynamo of energy and strength rivalled in Hollywood at the time perhaps only by Gene Kelly. Some of the exaggerated visions of Pat's neuroses are a bit cheesy, but the film otherwise has a breezy charm that seemed to dry up in studio movies shortly afterward. In that sense, it's more like a '40s or even '30s film. A great deal of fun.
27- A Place in the Sun (Stevens) - I'm not typically impressed by Stevens' movies, but this really is a masterful piece of work. Its standing as acknowledged masterpiece has seemed to have fallen by the wayside for some reason. I think it's been cast in the retrospective memory of American pop culture as some lush romance, but in reality it is a stark, uncompromising and faithful adaptation of Dreiser. Stevens holds scenes and shots for just long enough to be uncomfortable and often positions the camera at a coldly clinical distance, even though the most iconic images of the movie are close-ups of Clift and Taylor. The result is that we are forced to watch suffering at an arm's length, where it is not glorified with a typical music swell and close-ups. The three leads (including Shelley Winters in the career-making, type-casting role of pathetic victim that she would return to in Lolita and Night of the Hunter) were probably never better, and that's saying especially a lot in Clift's case.
14 - The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick) - I'm frankly baffled that no one else mentioned this gem, likely the best film to ever come out of Ealing. Alec Guinness, always a great actor of course, is at his most likable and Joan Greenwood, with that voice, oh my god, that voice, is endearing beyond words. The satire is light but perfectly on target in this fable of progress and greed.
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
I absolutely agree with you on the merits of Le Trou, and you weren't the only person to vote for it, but according to imdb it's a 60s film and not eligible until next time (when I'm sure it will do well: it will certainly be on my list). When early voters included ineligible films on their lists, I gave them the chance to revise the lists, but didn't do this with the last large batch of votes received, owing to time constraints. In these cases (the other one I remember was a vote for Cruel Story of Youth - a fantastic film, but 1960 according to imdb) I removed the offending title and bumped everything below it up a notch.geoffcowgill wrote:34- Le Trou (Becker) - Now this one is a Criterion disc, otherwise I probably never would have seen it. I rented it solely because of the Criterion stamp of approval. To say that this is the most involving, thrilling, and believable prison escape movie I've ever seen is hardly to do justice to it. It is maybe the most enthralling movie about a process I've ever seen. The relentlessness with which Becker shows us seemingly every scrape away at the hole should be tedious, but instead I felt myself holding my breath. Even if I didn't know about the casting of one of the real-life prison-breakers as more-or-less himself, the sense of reality couldn't have been greater.
I guess this is also the chance to mention another voting anomaly. Two early votes (adding up to 46 points) were received for Ivan the Terrible, Part II, which I'd ruled eligible for the 40s list (on the grounds of the "two-part films count as a single entity" rule of this game). Had further votes been received that put it across the threshold for list inclusion, I probably would have ruled it ineligible and asked the voters to revise their selection, but since this didn't happen (and since I knew that, in at least one instance the vote for Part II specifically excluded Part I) I let them lie. Hope that's OK with the folk involved!
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geoffcowgill
- Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 11:48 pm
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Awesome Welles
- Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:02 am
- Location: London
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Lemmy Caution
- Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 7:26 am
- Location: East of Shanghai
I contributed a 30's and 40's list, but never found time to complete more than a rough draft of a 50's list. I also felt that there were too many Japanese films, Westerns and noirs from the decade which I hadn't seen to really make an informed 1 to 50.
I'm pretty surprised by how much my preferences differ from the final list, as I'd probably only have 3 of the top 19 on my list at all. Which I guess is another way of saying that Hitchcock, Bresson and 50's Japanese films don't rate so highly in my estimation.
For me, the list really kicks into gear with Los Olvidados at #30.
Suprised that Nights of Cabiria and especially The White Shiek made the cut, while the amazing I Vitteloni missed.
I'd like to second some pandas which others mentioned:
Miracle in Milan
The Little Fugitive
Nazarin - Bunuel
The Wrong Man (my second favorite Hitchcock after Strangers on a Train)
Black Orpheus
Elevator to the Gallows
I'd also add:
The Silent World (Couteau, 1956)
which is a fascinating film, including surreal deep sea images, the primitive "modern" technology of the time, and the (by today's standards) rather underdeveloped ethics of the time. With Loius Malle camerawork to boot.
+
Ascent to Heaven (Mexican Bus Ride) - Bunuel
Anyway, great work by Zedz and kudos to everyone who participated.
I'm pretty surprised by how much my preferences differ from the final list, as I'd probably only have 3 of the top 19 on my list at all. Which I guess is another way of saying that Hitchcock, Bresson and 50's Japanese films don't rate so highly in my estimation.
For me, the list really kicks into gear with Los Olvidados at #30.
Suprised that Nights of Cabiria and especially The White Shiek made the cut, while the amazing I Vitteloni missed.
I'd like to second some pandas which others mentioned:
Miracle in Milan
The Little Fugitive
Nazarin - Bunuel
The Wrong Man (my second favorite Hitchcock after Strangers on a Train)
Black Orpheus
Elevator to the Gallows
I'd also add:
The Silent World (Couteau, 1956)
which is a fascinating film, including surreal deep sea images, the primitive "modern" technology of the time, and the (by today's standards) rather underdeveloped ethics of the time. With Loius Malle camerawork to boot.
+
Ascent to Heaven (Mexican Bus Ride) - Bunuel
Anyway, great work by Zedz and kudos to everyone who participated.
Last edited by Lemmy Caution on Thu Jul 05, 2007 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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vivahawks
- Joined: Thu Mar 29, 2007 12:48 am
- Location: hollywoodland, ca
Top Ten:
1. Early Summer (Ozu)
2. Man of the West (Mann)
3. A Man Escaped (Bresson)
4. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
5. Rio Bravo (Hawks)
6. Ordet (Dreyer)
7. Rear Window (Hitchcock)
8. Stromboli (Rossellini)
9. Singin' in the Rain (Donen / Kelly)
10. The Lavender Hill Mob (Crichton)
I'm proud I helped get "The Lusty Men", "The Naked Spur", and "The Lavender Hill Mob" on the list with high placements.
Darlings:
8) Stromboli (Rossellini) - When I think of the Rossellini-Bergman collaborations, what springs to mind first are her wanderings through the streets of a new hometown and the circling camera as she attempts to convince/seduce a priest. This is the most fully realized expression of the themes that pervade the Bergman movies and also has the most convincing of the climactic epiphanies Rossellini favored.
17) Wagonmaster (Ford) - A wonderful western/musical/romantic comedy. Compactly constructed, yet as free-form and relaxed as "Rio Bravo" or "The Strawberry Blonde", and like Hawks' and Walsh's masterpieces one of those completely unique films that represents some lost ideal for filmmaking and living.
19) Park Row (Fuller) - My pick for the most sheerly dynamic, exuberant nonmusical of the 50s. As in Minnelli's and Donen's musicals most of the energy is created by Fuller's virtuoso camera movement. Long, complex tracks and crane shots trace the rise and fall of newspaper empires and follow some of the best action scenes ever shot. Also you have to love any movie where circulation wars are settled by fistfights.
24) Men in War (Mann) - Mann's most formally abstract and pure film is also one of the greatest war movies. Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray both give great performances, but the real star is the landscape and the way it's used to chart psychological and physical action. The range and depth of Mann's achievement during the 50s never ceases to amaze me.
25) La Ronde (Ophuls) - Ophuls' American films and "Madame de..." may tap rawer emotions, but the sense of inevitability created by the intricate formal perfection here is no less devastating, and the often hilarious vignettes are only superficially superficial as General Charles Boyer might say. And if Anton Walbrook never made "Blimp", or "The Red Shoes", or "Lola Montes", I would still treasure him for his role here.
26) Elena et les hommes (Renoir) - The last screwball comedy, perhaps. A bit derivative of Renoir's 30s films, but it's so funny and so sharp that I can't resist it, just as Bergman can't resist Mel Ferrer.
28) It Should Happen to You (Cukor) - I was the only one to vote for this Jack Lemmon-Judy Holliday comedy, yet it's one of the best and funniest of the 50s media satires as well as one of the few that picked up on how media becomes a vehicle for personal communication--see Lemon's filmed letter. Cukor made several terrific films during the decade (this, "A Star is Born", the amazing "Bhowani Junction", and even arguably "Les Girls") but expect for Star, all are overlooked.
31) It's Always Fair Weather (Donen/Kelly) - The best Scope musical in my book ("Les demoiselles de Rochefort" being the other major contender). The games Donen plays with the widescreen frame put me in mind of Tashlin's films, though there are few other similarities between the two.
33) Some Came Running (Minnelli) - I'm suspicious of any 50s list without Minnelli melodramas. This is the best of them, thanks to a brilliant cast (including Arthur Kennedy) and terrific use of Scope, and the feelings of inadequacy and attempts to compensate that Minnelli's characters tend to struggle with are probed deeply but compassionately.
38) City of Fear (Lerner) - Already wrote a little about this noir in the suggestions thread. When people mention Irving Lerner, "Murder by Contract" usually comes up, but this is just as good and even more obscure. Hopefully more folks will have seen it by next time, and I won't be the only vote.
40) There's Always Tomorrow (Sirk) - Not the biggest Sirk fan, but this had me near tears by the end (and I've literally cried at 2 movies in my life). Starring Stanwyck, MacMurray, and even better b&w mise-en-scene than "The Tarnished Angels".
41) Fear/La paura (Rossellini) - Another single vote. Usually considered one of the weakest of the Bergman films, but I think this may actually be the greatest pure formal achievement of the series. It's one of those movies where every movement, cut, and composition is perfect, easily transcending the material's limitations (which are many, especially the ending). I watched it on a tiny screen in a booth with headphones, but when I was done someone watching something else asked me what I had been viewing; even though he could only see 30% of the screen from where he sat, he could tell it was something special.
42) I vitelloni (Fellini) - Very surprised this didn't make the list, given that 3 Fellinis made the list. I usually dislike Fellini, but this one blew me away.
43) Fixed Bayonets! (Fuller) - Chose this over "Run of the Arrow" because of the way Fuller explores the studio space (shades of More Cowbell here?). Like "Men in War" in its abstract approach to the war film, though Fuller's version is just as unique and personal.
44) The Magician (Bergman) - Surprisingly agile, it's sexier and funnier than "Smiles of a Summer Night" and creepier at the climax than "Seventh Seal" or Bergman's 60s films.
47) The Big Combo (Lewis) - Lewis's best film. Many have noted that the film's visual construction points towards modernist filmmakers like Antonioni, and I can only add that Lewis's use of sound (most obviously with the hearing aid) is equally audacious and original.
48) Devil's Doorway (Mann) - Also discussed in suggestions thread, and also an only vote. Mann had the most movies on my list with 5, and it took a long struggle to cut "The Man from Laramie" and "The Last Frontier". This is an almost completely overlooked gem.
49) Les cousins (Chabrol) - Surprised no one else voted for this, which is similar (and superior) to "Jules and Jim". Gerard Blain and the great Brialy are both terrific; this was only Chabrol's second film, but already he's in full control of his material.
50) Pete Kelly's Blues (Webb) - Jack Webb's rep as a poor-man's Fuller is more than borne out by this wonderful noir. The long takes and colorful compositions use Scope well, the cast is terrific, especially Peggy Lee as a broken-down moll (ironically Webb gives the only subpar performance here), and the jazz is wonderful. I was torn between this, Lang's "Moonfleet", and Losey's "The Prowler" for the last spot, but I couldn't leave out Ella Fitzgerald (in person here singing two songs).
Apologies for the long post.
1. Early Summer (Ozu)
2. Man of the West (Mann)
3. A Man Escaped (Bresson)
4. Tokyo Story (Ozu)
5. Rio Bravo (Hawks)
6. Ordet (Dreyer)
7. Rear Window (Hitchcock)
8. Stromboli (Rossellini)
9. Singin' in the Rain (Donen / Kelly)
10. The Lavender Hill Mob (Crichton)
I'm proud I helped get "The Lusty Men", "The Naked Spur", and "The Lavender Hill Mob" on the list with high placements.
Darlings:
8) Stromboli (Rossellini) - When I think of the Rossellini-Bergman collaborations, what springs to mind first are her wanderings through the streets of a new hometown and the circling camera as she attempts to convince/seduce a priest. This is the most fully realized expression of the themes that pervade the Bergman movies and also has the most convincing of the climactic epiphanies Rossellini favored.
17) Wagonmaster (Ford) - A wonderful western/musical/romantic comedy. Compactly constructed, yet as free-form and relaxed as "Rio Bravo" or "The Strawberry Blonde", and like Hawks' and Walsh's masterpieces one of those completely unique films that represents some lost ideal for filmmaking and living.
19) Park Row (Fuller) - My pick for the most sheerly dynamic, exuberant nonmusical of the 50s. As in Minnelli's and Donen's musicals most of the energy is created by Fuller's virtuoso camera movement. Long, complex tracks and crane shots trace the rise and fall of newspaper empires and follow some of the best action scenes ever shot. Also you have to love any movie where circulation wars are settled by fistfights.
24) Men in War (Mann) - Mann's most formally abstract and pure film is also one of the greatest war movies. Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray both give great performances, but the real star is the landscape and the way it's used to chart psychological and physical action. The range and depth of Mann's achievement during the 50s never ceases to amaze me.
25) La Ronde (Ophuls) - Ophuls' American films and "Madame de..." may tap rawer emotions, but the sense of inevitability created by the intricate formal perfection here is no less devastating, and the often hilarious vignettes are only superficially superficial as General Charles Boyer might say. And if Anton Walbrook never made "Blimp", or "The Red Shoes", or "Lola Montes", I would still treasure him for his role here.
26) Elena et les hommes (Renoir) - The last screwball comedy, perhaps. A bit derivative of Renoir's 30s films, but it's so funny and so sharp that I can't resist it, just as Bergman can't resist Mel Ferrer.
28) It Should Happen to You (Cukor) - I was the only one to vote for this Jack Lemmon-Judy Holliday comedy, yet it's one of the best and funniest of the 50s media satires as well as one of the few that picked up on how media becomes a vehicle for personal communication--see Lemon's filmed letter. Cukor made several terrific films during the decade (this, "A Star is Born", the amazing "Bhowani Junction", and even arguably "Les Girls") but expect for Star, all are overlooked.
31) It's Always Fair Weather (Donen/Kelly) - The best Scope musical in my book ("Les demoiselles de Rochefort" being the other major contender). The games Donen plays with the widescreen frame put me in mind of Tashlin's films, though there are few other similarities between the two.
33) Some Came Running (Minnelli) - I'm suspicious of any 50s list without Minnelli melodramas. This is the best of them, thanks to a brilliant cast (including Arthur Kennedy) and terrific use of Scope, and the feelings of inadequacy and attempts to compensate that Minnelli's characters tend to struggle with are probed deeply but compassionately.
38) City of Fear (Lerner) - Already wrote a little about this noir in the suggestions thread. When people mention Irving Lerner, "Murder by Contract" usually comes up, but this is just as good and even more obscure. Hopefully more folks will have seen it by next time, and I won't be the only vote.
40) There's Always Tomorrow (Sirk) - Not the biggest Sirk fan, but this had me near tears by the end (and I've literally cried at 2 movies in my life). Starring Stanwyck, MacMurray, and even better b&w mise-en-scene than "The Tarnished Angels".
41) Fear/La paura (Rossellini) - Another single vote. Usually considered one of the weakest of the Bergman films, but I think this may actually be the greatest pure formal achievement of the series. It's one of those movies where every movement, cut, and composition is perfect, easily transcending the material's limitations (which are many, especially the ending). I watched it on a tiny screen in a booth with headphones, but when I was done someone watching something else asked me what I had been viewing; even though he could only see 30% of the screen from where he sat, he could tell it was something special.
42) I vitelloni (Fellini) - Very surprised this didn't make the list, given that 3 Fellinis made the list. I usually dislike Fellini, but this one blew me away.
43) Fixed Bayonets! (Fuller) - Chose this over "Run of the Arrow" because of the way Fuller explores the studio space (shades of More Cowbell here?). Like "Men in War" in its abstract approach to the war film, though Fuller's version is just as unique and personal.
44) The Magician (Bergman) - Surprisingly agile, it's sexier and funnier than "Smiles of a Summer Night" and creepier at the climax than "Seventh Seal" or Bergman's 60s films.
47) The Big Combo (Lewis) - Lewis's best film. Many have noted that the film's visual construction points towards modernist filmmakers like Antonioni, and I can only add that Lewis's use of sound (most obviously with the hearing aid) is equally audacious and original.
48) Devil's Doorway (Mann) - Also discussed in suggestions thread, and also an only vote. Mann had the most movies on my list with 5, and it took a long struggle to cut "The Man from Laramie" and "The Last Frontier". This is an almost completely overlooked gem.
49) Les cousins (Chabrol) - Surprised no one else voted for this, which is similar (and superior) to "Jules and Jim". Gerard Blain and the great Brialy are both terrific; this was only Chabrol's second film, but already he's in full control of his material.
50) Pete Kelly's Blues (Webb) - Jack Webb's rep as a poor-man's Fuller is more than borne out by this wonderful noir. The long takes and colorful compositions use Scope well, the cast is terrific, especially Peggy Lee as a broken-down moll (ironically Webb gives the only subpar performance here), and the jazz is wonderful. I was torn between this, Lang's "Moonfleet", and Losey's "The Prowler" for the last spot, but I couldn't leave out Ella Fitzgerald (in person here singing two songs).
Apologies for the long post.
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zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 11:24 pm
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starmanof51
- Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 7:28 am
- Location: Seattleish
- Contact:
The clips from That's Entertainment III certainly look nice (I think it was the Debbie number you mentioned plus an alternate/cut staging of the same song). I too wait patiently to love the unexpurgated Melvin. David - Have you seen/formed an opinion on Weis' Affairs of Dobie Gillis?davidhare wrote:Not a sausage, and the TCM print (at least for SEAsia ) is weak, colorless and pasty. (which is not to say Warner doesnt have a perfect three strip/IB lying around in a vault somewhere.)
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yoshimori
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:03 am
- Location: LA CA
Of the seven potential orphans mentioned above, only Funeral Parade made the list (at number 86). I'm pretty surprised Satyricon didn't make, especially with another Fellini at number 1. And I'm stunned no Z.I (in the discussion thread) wrote:I would recommend a few films not mentioned already and second a couple others:
Two french films blew me away when I saw them at the Cinematheque a decade ago: Thomas, the Impostor (Franju from Cocteau's script; dreamy WWI tale) and Trans-Europ-Express (surgically precise Robbe-Grillet). Of course, there are no available transfers.
I'd "second" the Hani Inferno recs above. This is my probably 3rd favorite film of 1968, after 2001 and Petulia.
I'm not a big Polanski fan, but always found his Cul-de-sac to be hilarious. r2uk-able.
I'm afraid Fellini's Satyricon, 1969, will be neglected. A masterpiece of costume and production design and of extras casting.
1969 also yielded, besides Z and Passion of Anna and the like, two more great Japanese films: Funeral Procession of Roses (Matsumoto, available r2jp) and Shonen [Boy] (oop from japnewwaveclassics).