1950s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

C'mon, Price's best performance is Dragonwyck

[knives]

I'll give you best monologue, but that's it.

[domino harvey]

For fun, here's all of the Top Tens from Cahiers du cinéma for the fifties:

1951
01 The River (Jean Renoir)
02 Diary Of A Country Priest (Robert Bresson)
03 Miracle In Milan (Vittorio DeSica)
04 Los Olvidados (Luis Bunuel)
05 All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
06 Miss Julie (Alf Sjoberg)
07 Cronica Di Un Amore (Michaelangelo Antonioni)
08 Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder)
09 Edouard et Caroline (Jacques Becker)
10 Francesco Giullare Di Dio (Roberto Rossellini)

1955
01 Voyage To Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
02 Ordet (Carl Dreyer)
03 The Big Knife (Robert Aldrich)
04 Lola Montes (Max Ophuls)
05 Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
06 Les Mauvais Recontres (Alexandre Astruc)
07 La Strada (Federico Fellini)
08 The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
09 Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
10 Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)

1956
01 A Man Escaped (Robert Bresson)
02 Elena And Her Men (Jean Renoir)
03 Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray)
04 Confidential Report (Orson Welles)
05 Senso (Luchino Visconti)
06 Smiles Of A Summer Night (Ingmar Bergman)
07 Il Bidone (Federico Fellini)
08 L'Amore (Roberto Rossellini)
09 Picnic (Joshua Logan)
10 La Paura (Roberto Rossellini)

1957
01 A King In New York (Charlie Chaplin)
02 Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Frank Tashlin)
03 Nights Of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)
04 The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock)
05 The Criminal Life Of Archibaldo De La Cruz (Luis Bunuel)
06 Sawdust And Tinsel (Ingmar Bergman)
07 Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray)
08 The Girl Can't Help It (Frank Tashlin)
09 Beyond A Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang)
10 Twelve Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

1958
01 Touch Of Evil (Orson Welles)
02 The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
03 White Nights (Luchino Visconti)
04 Il Grido (Michaelangelo Antonioni)
05 Bonjour Tristesse (Otto Preminger)
06 Journey Into Autumn (Ingmar Bergman)
07 Une Vie (Alexandre Astruc)
08 Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati)
09 The Quiet American (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
10 Summer Interlude (Ingmar Bergman)

1959
01 Ugetsu Monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi)
02 Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais)
03 Ivan The Terrible (Sergei Eisenstein)
04 Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
05 The 400 Blows (Francois Truffaut)
06 Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks)
07 Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman)
08 Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
09 Princess Yang Kwei Fei (Kenji Mizoguchi)
10 The Tiger Of Eschnapur (Fritz Lang)

[puxzkkx]

Interesting how almost all of those picks are still canon and still widely available.

[zedz]

I guess that's partly down to good taste but largely down to the pervasive influence of Cahiers auteurism.

[colinr0380]

Alexandre Astruc seems to be a little short changed in UK or US DVD releases however.

[domino harvey]

Try anywhere-- his fifties films were either only ever released in France on VHS or not at all. Truly an auteur who necessitates back-channels

[Siddon]

I think you're missing out on several of his works with this statement. Witchfinder General (which I'll vote for next decade) alone is very superior to his work here (though I still think it's a good effort).

C'mon, Price's best performance is Dragonwyck

Witchfinder General was good but if I were to rank his work I would go

1. House on Haunted Hill
2. Theater of Blood
3. Tales of Terror (Morella was his best performance of the trilogy in my eyes)
4. Witchfinder General
5. The Story of Mankind
6. Edward Scissorhands
7. Baron of Arizona
8. Tingler
9. House of Wax
10. Laura

Dragonwyck really let me down, it wasn't a poor film just so sadly forgettable.

[matrixschmatrix]

I guess that's partly down to good taste but largely down to the pervasive influence of Cahiers auteurism.

In some cases critical favor moved away for decades, and seems just recently to have swung back- I'm thinking mainly of the Tashlins, but it's my impression that things like Lang's Indian Epic and Welles' Confidential Report were fairly obscure until the last few years as well.

I'm surprised to see Sunset Blvd on there, I though Wilder was one of the directors the auteurists never liked.

[domino harvey]

I'm surprised to see Sunset Blvd on there, I though Wilder was one of the directors the auteurists never liked.

Well, that placement predates Auteurism, but you're right that Cahiers had a complicated (though not strictly negative) relationship with Wilder

[mteller]

This is how my list looks at the moment, though of course there may be revisions before the deadline (if I remember to submit my list, I rarely venture into this subforum). Not much here that's going to be a surprise to this crowd... in fact, half of them are Criterion (or future Criterion) releases. Maybe I'll get to some more obscure gems before September.

1 The Seventh Seal (1957)
2 Rear Window (1954)
3 Seven Samurai (1954)
4 Cairo Station (1958)
5 Pather Panchali (1955)
6 Vertigo (1958)
7 The Burglar (1957)
8 Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
9 Nights of Cabiria (1957)
10 The Girl Can't Help It (1956)
11 Singin' in the Rain (1952)
12 The World of Apu (1959)
13 Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
14 Fires on the Plain (1959)
15 The Night of the Hunter (1955)
16 The Lineup (1958)
17 The 400 Blows (1959)
18 Paths of Glory (1957)
19 Wild Strawberries (1957)
20 A Man Escaped (1956)
21 Murder by Contract (1958)
22 The Music Room (1958)
23 The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
24 Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
25 Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
26 Storm Fear (1955)
27 El (1953)
28 All That Heaven Allows (1955)
29 Jazz on a Summer's Day (1959)
30 The Phenix City Story (1955)
31 Sudden Fear (1952)
32 Dial M for Murder (1954)
33 The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
34 Kanal (1957)
35 The Browning Version (1951)
36 Aparajito (1956)
37 Ikiru (1952)
38 Rashomon (1950)
39 La Ronde (1950)
40 The Mystery of Picasso (1956)
41 The Furies (1950)
42 Night and the City (1950)
43 Human Desire (1954)
44 Nagarik (1952)
45 Plunder Road (1957)
46 The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
47 Miss Julie (1951)
48 One Way Street (1950)
49 A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
50 The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

[tarpilot]

I think you're missing out on several of his works with this statement. Witchfinder General (which I'll vote for next decade) alone is very superior to his work here (though I still think it's a good effort).

C'mon, Price's best performance is Dragonwyck

Witchfinder General was good but if I were to rank his work I would go

1. House on Haunted Hill
2. Theater of Blood
3. Tales of Terror (Morella was his best performance of the trilogy in my eyes)
4. Witchfinder General
5. The Story of Mankind
6. Edward Scissorhands
7. Baron of Arizona
8. Tingler
9. House of Wax
10. Laura

Dragonwyck really let me down, it wasn't a poor film just so sadly forgettable.

Has no one seen Confessions of an Opium Eater? No Price more essential

[knives]

I've been searching for it for a while, but only recently found a copy.

[starmanof51]

I just watched Park Row, and Ho. Ly. Hell.

Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing, and Fuller's hard-on for newspaperin' is expressed with such enthusiasm here that I can't help but reflect on how relatively rarely that's on display in all these movies we're whiling away the hours with. He loves it, loves it, loves it, and demands we do the same or take a punch in the mouth. After a dedication to AMERICAN JOURNALISM that's in, as the characters would likely put it, 120 point type, Fuller starts with a statue of Johannes Guttenberg, holding in his hand not his famous bible, but Sam Fuller's "Written , Directed, Produced" credit! The boldness hardly stops there - the occasional violence threatens to turn into war correspondence film at times, and the personification of two rival papers as a man and a woman who don't know whether to fight or screw or merge is just so crazy it has to work. It's a fairytale of New York as well as a fairytale of newspaper history, and the simple acknowledgement that it's fiction does nothing to reduce that Fuller clearly thinks he has the emotional history right. I can't decide if Phineas Mitchell is Sam Fuller's stand-in, or the man Sam would like to be, but I can't think of a character in any of his other films that could be any closer to Sam's heart.

For all the punching and bombing and shouting that eventually comes out, Sam keeps the most obvious tearjerking moments fully offscreen:

Spoiler

An adolescent printer's devil has his legs intentionally snapped by rivals, and Fuller shows us none of it or the boy, keeping it purely verbal reportage when it could have been used to make our blood boil as much as it does Phineas'. Later, Davenport, the Jiminy Cricket-esque elder reporter and conscience of the piece, leaves his own obituary behind as he disappears without a word to die quietly offscreen.

If I do a 50s list, Fuller will score at least two if not three or four spots. This one will rank highest.

[knives]

Stalag 17 and The Spirit of St. Louis
so with these two I've seen all of Wilder's films from what seems like his best decade. While neither are representative of his best work they are still very good and above and beyond most. I was really surprised on Stalag 17 which sounded too close to the director to work properly, but aside from Preminger's off performance everything manages to come together darkly as an interesting condemnation of it all. Likewise the flying trip manages to be a whole lot better than it has any right to be. I don't think it would be possible to make a better film of this story in the Hollywood mold. That said it really has zero auteurist interest and could have been directed by anybody without notice.

Something of Value
The film is really and truly gorgeously shot with lovely shadows and a cool fearful atmosphere which nearly turns this into a Mann-esque horror show. That can only take a film so far though and this one's confused politics and mixed up performances sink anything the look has going for it. I'm assuming this was intended as some Kramer-ish liberal masturbation, but it just comes off as condemning toward the black characters and suggesting their culture as a negative. So while this one lives up to its name I suppose it is a small something.

Bad Day at Black Rock
Significantly better than I thought it would be with a chilling atmosphere and just the right sort of performance from everybody (than again with a cast this good it would be impossible to not make something entertaining). The politics too are staged pretty well lying low in the background at first and slowly coming forward to the western ending. A lot of these social problem pictures are awful because of the need to be one on the part of the crew, but Sturges laid back style really helps to defuse all of the potential for that nonsense to come forth.

Saddle the Wind
For a film with Rod Sterling, Elmer Bernstein, John Cassavetes, and Robert Taylor in it's back pocket the stand out element is Royal Dano's tour de force performance which just pushes this film to a whole other level. I don't know much of him as an actor, but he's been show stopping a lot of films I've seen lately (a good time to bring up Moby Dick again) and just seems like he should be better known. That said his part in the film isn't the only great one with the script being as smart and well crafted as should be expected of Serling. It does a lot of smart stuff to build up and destroy expectation while deepening the drama between the two brothers on the thematic level and just pure emotive plot. Several times it sells one type of western to trade on the other like giving us an apparent villain only to kill him off half way through to show how violence is a true wrecker. When the villain's apparent substitute does come he becomes an unlikely sign of the potential for good. The more this film sits with me the higher my opinion rises and I suspect on second watch I'll be finding it great.

[puxzkkx]

Making a list now - a non-strategic one - mine'd look like this:

1. Nights of Cabiria (1957)
2. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
3. A Man Escaped (1956)
4. Diary of a Country Priest (1951)
5. Floating Weeds (1959)
6. Tokyo Story (1953)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Flowing (1956)
9. The Cranes Are Flying (1957)
10. Touch of Evil (1958)
11. Vertigo (1958)
12. Sanshō the Bailiff (1954)
13. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
14. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
15. Pather Panchali (1955)
16. Pickup on South Street (1953)
17. Ugetsu monogatari (1953)
18. All About Eve (1950)
19. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
20. Older Brother, Younger Sister (1953)
21. Merry-Go-Round (1956)
22. Johnny Guitar (1954)
23. In a Lonely Place (1950)
24. Ordet (1955)
25. A Lesson in Love (1954)
26. Summer Interlude (1951)
27. Cairo Station (1958)
28. On Dangerous Ground (1952)
29. The World of Apu (1959)
30. Wild Strawberries (1957)
31. The Forbidden Christ (1951)
32. Rashōmon (1950)
33. Aparajito (1956)
34. Early Summer (1951)
35. East of Eden (1955)
36. Stage Fright (1950)
37. Sweet Anna (1958)
38. Yield to the Night (1956)
39. Room at the Top (1959)
40. Endless Desire (1958)
41. The White Reindeer (1952)
42. Hiroshima mon amour (1959)
43. Forbidden Games (1952)
44. Miracle in Milan (1951)
45. Manèges (1950)
46. The Heart (1955)
47. Dial M for Murder (1954)
48. The Red Inn (1951)
49. Los olvidados (1950)
50. Les diaboliques (1955)

[swo17]

I appreciate you guys being gung ho about putting your lists together already, but let's try and stick more to discussion at this point and save the particulars for the end of the project.

[domino harvey]

Auteur Guide, Volume Three. Same caveats as before. Recommended titles in RED


JOSEPH ANTHONY

the Rainmaker (1956) R1 Paramount (OOP)
the Matchmaker (1958) R1 Paramount (OOP)
Career (1959) No commercial release

Stage director turned sometimes film director Joseph Anthony has only five films to his name, three in the Fifties and one each for the following two decades. Anthony's work this decade serves as a compliment to fellow stage adaptation helmer Daniel Mann, as both draw from a similar stable of actors and types of adaptations. But whereas Daniel Mann's a skillful technician concerned with practical capture of performance, Anthony's a surprisingly visual director concerned with kinetic presentation of the entire mise en-scene by force if necessary. Anthony doesn't achieve this by aping the more visceral techniques of Welles or Fuller, but his films still have a bite. I'm not familiar with the play The Rainmaker (1956) is based on, but casting Burt Lancaster as a smooth-talking conman is such a no-brainer that it's a little surprising that the film spends over half the running time hiding him behind Katharine Hepburn's pining spinster-in-training. I don't quite like this one enough to red it, but there's a certain charm to it while it works. The Matchmaker (1958), however, is an easy sell, a wonderfully self-aware and charming adaptation of the same material used to float Hello, Dolly! onto screens a decade later. It's a great film even without context, but after seeing Daniel Mann run the Shirley Booth-as-victim machine this decade, it's a nice treat to see her totally prevail over all in her titular performance. Between this and the Teahouse of the August Moon, Paul Ford proves to be the decade's most valuable buffoon. Also, any film where this transpires can't be oversold:



Anthony loses the game with Career (1959), though, a rather tired retelling of the same rags to "riches" to rags Broadway story we've seen so many times before and since. Anthony wastes her here but bounces back by reteaming with Shirley MacLaine for a third time next decade with one of the greatest sex comedies of the genre, All in a Night's Work, so consider this a pre-emptive shout-out for the next decade's list, since I won't be doing an auteur guide for one film!


MELVIN FRANK AND NORMAN PANAMA

the Reformer and the Redhead (1950) No commercial release
Strictly Dishonorable (1951) No commercial release
Callaway Went Thataway (1951) No commercial release
Above and Beyond (1952) R1 Warners Archive
Knock on Wood (1954) R1 Olive
the Court Jester (1956) R1 Paramount (OOP)
That Certain Feeling (1956) No commercial release
the Jayhawkers! (Melvin Frank 1959) R1 Olive
the Trap (Norman Panama 1959) No commercial release
Li'l Abner (Melvin Frank 1959) R1 Paramount (OOP)

Screenwriters turned producer-directors Melvin Frank and Norman Panama specialize in adapting existing material to the specific needs of a given star persona. For a couple of guys responsible for a handful of Bob Hope comedies in the preceding decades, I will not hold skepticism against the unexposed, but it's worth mentioning that the pair is also responsible for scripting such comedic classics as Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House and It Had to Be You, the latter of which remains one of the most audacious films, comedy or otherwise, to ever come out of Hollywood. No such hyperbole is merited by the pair's first film as director (worth noting at this juncture that the two always had a hand in either penning or rewriting their scripts, and produced all of their films-- unquestionable auteurs at every stage of the game), the Reformer and the Redhead (1950), but this quaint comic vehicle for real life couple Dick Powell and June Allyson proves a real lowkey treat, with the best scene coming early in the action as Allyson fist-fights a young Kathleen Freeman and it's that Frank and Panama touch that has her play it real instead of for easy sexist laughs. Strictly Dishonorable (1951) adopts an old Preston Sturges sex comedy, sanitizes it, and casts Opera star Ezio Pinza opposite "Southern" neophyte Janet Leigh. It's a terribly quaint comedy, but it proved surprisingly entertaining despite its obvious detriments, and Millard Mitchell does a good job in a performance that consists entirely of exasperated reaction shots (Wynn Duffy's genetic ancestor?).

The duo's best film of the fifties, and not coincidentally one of their few wholly original scripts this decade, is Callaway Went Thataway (1951), a vicious takedown on the Western's early prominence in television reruns at the outset of the new technology's mass-adoptation. The film's tone is so skeptical of the Western and its stars (a genre I love, admittedly) that the film goes out of its way in the third act to lay the sugar on so sweet that no one could get too bothered by what came first. Or so you'd think! The picture ends with a final caveat title card, begging viewers not to get offended, which shows just how worried the studio must have been by this early satiric bite back at the studios and fans. Highly recommended, and proof that Howard Keel can do more than just sing and look handsome. The pair get serious on their next film, Above and Beyond (1952), coaxing an unusually good performance from Robert Taylor as Paul Tibbets, the pilot who dropped the atomic bomb in WWII, as he has to deal with the privacy of his mission and its impact on his relationship with his wife Eleanor Parker. A superior example of the many films made this decade attempting to make sense of the second word war.

I like Danny Kaye if prompted, but his two films with the pair this decade rank among their least interesting. Knock on Wood (1954) is definitely the weaker of the two, with a confusing spy plot distracting from the sporadic attempts at comedy-- a real shame given that there are some skillful bits of physical comedy including seatbelts and a ridiculous sequence that finds Kaye's busy hand roving all over a villain's leg. Probably the best-known Frank and Panama film (and Kaye film for that matter) is the Court Jester (1956), a gentle parody of Flynn's Robin Hood that features the iconic "Pestle" exchange. Another film that I like, but not quite enough to recommend.

For a duo who worked so closely with Bob Hope early in their career, it's somewhat surprising that they only ended up making one film with the gladhanding star. And it's for the best, since That Certain Feeling (1956) is rather dreadful. I'm biased in that I can't stand Bob Hope, but I would give the man his due if he were trapped within a film that worked otherwise. He's not and it doesn't. Has exactly one funny scene that lets all involved step out of the safe "Adult Film" genre: Hope enacts revenge on George Sanders' blowhard cartoonist by crafting a fake comic strip wherein Sanders' boy hero robs a bank and commits suicide and then sends the final product to the newspaper syndicate for publication. One of the editors reads the fatalistic strip in disbelief and responds dryly "But that makes him a juvenile delinquent!" No, it makes him dead, but there, now there's no need to sit through this.

Frank and Panama end the decade with a trio of films that replace the star as focal point with genre: a western (the Jayhawkers! (1959)), a noir (the Trap (1959)), and a musical (Li'l Abner (1959)). In addition to this shakeup, for the first time these films, while remaining co-produced and often co-authored, only credit one or the other as director. This strikes me as mere semantics, though, as these are the works of one of the few (only?) true co-directorial auteurships in film history. Of the three, the Western fares the worst by far: the pair proved their disdain for the genre already this decade, and they make no effort to understand or engage the rather lousy material (this, like many of their films, is a rewrite). But the noir and the musical are superb! The Trap is a great rarity indeed, a color noir that works, and the pair wisely eschew music at many of the film's more heightened moments. Worth seeking out if only for the unforgettable sight of Richard Widmark in a roadster playing chicken with a airplane on the runway! And Li'l Abner is of course a true masterpiece of the musical genre, one that returns the pair to their earlier satiric heights for a nice finish to the decade.


DANIEL MANN

Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) R1 Paramount (OOP)
About Mrs Leslie (1954) No commercial release
the Rose Tattoo (1955) R1 Paramount (OOP)
I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955) R1 Warners
the Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) R1 Warners
Hot Spell (1958) No commercial release
the Last Angry Man (1959) No commercial release

Daniel Mann, the go-to guy for adaptations of hot properties, Broadway or otherwise, this decade is, as earlier stated, a master of capturing and encouraging great performances by his cast, and this is never any less evident than in his first film, Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), which led to an Oscar win for Best Actress by Shirley Booth for reprising her Broadway role in her film debut. It may have started Booth down the typecasting road that Mann himself would encourage this decade, but her harried housewife struggling with an abusive lout of a husband remains one of the decade's best and least-Hollywood perfs. The film also netted Terry Moore an Oscar nom for being a ttl qt / the unfortunate object of Burt Lancaster's amorous affections. Mann and Booth reteamed for their misguided followup, About Mrs. Leslie (1954), a confused and unnecessary mess of a film that romantically pairs Booth up with Robert Ryan (!) and then sticks her in a present-day parade of boarders who treat her like garbage to varying degrees. While the film is mostly worthless, there's some interest to be had in the film's presentation of one of the truly terrible teens I've ever seen (like, Ann Blyth in Mildred Pierce-level), and her treatment is made all the more interesting in that she receives no comeuppance or punishment from the film-- she's merely a reference-level example of the arrogance and bullheadedness of youth that exists for Booth to shake her head at occasionally.

Mann's next two films are his worst of the decade. The Rose Tattoo (1955) is a bad Sheba redux, which despite being a Tennessee Williams adaptation is almost comically identical in structure to Mann's first and superior film. Speaking of comic, I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955) allows Susan Hayward (in a rare actorly misstep for Mann) to run off the rails in one of the many, many bad drunk performances from this decade. If you can keep from laughing during her "Let's smash every prop on this set" sequence, you have a future as a straight-man in a vaudeville routine.

Mann comes back swinging by expertly handling the hot property of the Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) and the resultant film is one of the most seminal films of the decade. Indeed, like Pulp Fiction, one is tempted to grade it on a curve based on how many bad imitators it inspired in its wake! The film, like the play, slyly and warmly addresses the questions of how America dealt with the immense guilt and mixed emotions of the bombing of Japan. This was a tenuous first step towards accepting with humanity and humility our country's complicity in the actions of the war, and by dressing it up in a very warm and witty construction the pill goes down smooth-- but don't confuse lightness for lack of meaning. This is, underline, one of the three or four most important films of the decade for understanding the complex mindset of 1950s-era America.

Booth is back yet again in Hot Spell (1958), and in a decade where she was often kicked around, this is probably her cruelest treatment yet as she plays a pathetic homemaker who insists on babying her unfaithful husband (Anthony Quinn, in the Anthony Quinn Role) and grown children while denying that the very fabric of her self-delusion is stretched as far as it can go. It's a small film, but like Ritt's the Black Orchid (which would make for a nice double feature), it's a reminder that there's still small pleasures in small films. Mann ends the decade with the Last Angry Man (1959), a self-important farewell to a self-important actor, Paul Muni. I like Muni a lot, but this adaptation of a popular novel is so plainly calculated and baldly presented that it's hard to stomach. Tolerance for Muni's most indulgent actorly instincts will gauge enjoyment, I suspect.


OTTO PREMINGER

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) R1 Fox
the 13th Letter (1951) No commercial release
Angel Face (1952) R1 Warners (OOP)
the Moon is Blue (1953) R1 Warners Archive
River of No Return (1954) R1 Fox
Carmen Jones (1954) R1 Fox
the Man With the Golden Arm (1955) PD (R1 Warners best quality)
the Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) R1 Artisan (OOP)
Saint Joan (1957) R1 Warners Archive
Bonjour Tristesse (1958) R1 Sony (OOP)
Porgy and Bess (1959) No commercial release
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) R1 Criterion

Otto Preminger finishes cycling through his noir stage with Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), the 13th Letter (1951), and Angel Face (1952). Where the Sidewalk Ends is another pairing between Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney that ranks somewhere in the middle of their output, and as a noir the same could be said. Remaking Le corbeau was probably never a good idea, but The 13th Letter gives it a shot, though the Code makes the resultant mess virtually indecipherable. A strangely extended set-piece at a church shows Preminger's nascent interest in Catholicism that would later manifest itself in the Cardinal. The best of this tail-end cycle is Angel Face, that pitch-black pairing of Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons that grows in esteem proportional to one's ability to think back on it-- like many great films that sneak up you, this one is outwardly engaging but retrospectively masterful. The same could be said (to a lesser degree) for The Moon is Blue (1953), Preminger's last attempt at channeling Lubitsch (and who better, really, given he already literally did it twice!). The material isn't particularly funny, but even though he doesn't "open it up," Preminger's stylistic virtuosity makes the resultant Broadway adaptation anything but stage bound.

Preminger followed with two weak genre pics: River of No Return (1954), a Western, and Camern Jones (1954), a musical. Counter to his prowess in noir, Preminger never seems comfortable in these genres, and the boredom comes across. Boredom played a part in his next two films as well, but to better results. The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) is Preminger's cheeky take on a social problem pic, and Preminger treats the whole "serious" addiction track with constant bemusement. Preminger is just about the last person I'd expect to take a flag-waving stance, so his the Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) never threatens to become as ridiculous or self-important as it could. Indeed, Preminger's boredom with the material here works wonders, as he gets playful-- and cruel. Poor Gary Cooper flounders in Preminger's long takes and the early scenes in the film are particularly unflattering to the actor. Of course, an old hand like Charles Bickford takes these sequences in stride, and perhaps that's Preminger's point… An interesting (and preferable) dry-run for Anatomy of a Murder.

Before it inspired Billie Jean Davy to cut her hair and become a folk hero (if only all 80s movies featured extended sequences wherein the characters watched Preminger films-- I can see it now, Vernon wheels in a TV/VCR combo on a cart and makes the Breakfast Club watch Exodus), Saint Joan (1957) was an audacious publicity stunt that bit the director when no one liked his starlet. Time has been kinder to both Jean Seberg and the film, and indeed I think it's the best work of both this decade. Seberg is molded and moved with the expert's touch, and meanwhile a master like Richard Widmark uses the director's distraction to let his zaniest performance ever slip through undiluted-- I'm not sure I've ever used "zany" seriously, but if any role merited such distinction… Never one to admit defeat, Preminger defied the critics and public by casting Seberg in the lead of Bonjour Tristesse (1958), a youthful excursion into vanity and teenage romantic logic that hit the Cahiers crew very hard, even if it didn't do much here in the states.

As a holy grail film, Porgy and Bess (1959) was probably always bound to disappoint, but Preminger's vigorous disinterest here is perplexing: the entire film is shot in medium and long shot, but rather than recreating the Broadway experience, this traps the viewer in a muddled hell of bad sets and anonymous figures on the screen. The result universalizes what should be specified. And finally, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Preminger's epic courtroom tale that presents a contentious case with the cold detachment he's (unduly, perhaps) known best for-- this isn't Preminger's best work, but Preminger's visual dynamism as ever reigns large, and this too has grown to esteem by time.


Still to come: Frank Capra, John Huston, Fritz Lang, Anthony Mann, Delbert Mann, Vincente Minnelli, Mark Robson, Fred Zinnemann

[knives]

With the Hope hate you really need to see Happy Birthdaze. Someone tries to commit suicide over the comparison. Have you ever seen the German version of The Moon is Blue? I imagine it's meh, but I'm interested all the same.

[domino harvey]

Just watched Happy Birthdaze and I'm not sure Bing Crosby's any better! No, I haven't seen the German version (as far as I know there's not a copy in circulation), but I'd love to, of course

[knives]

Likely not. That one is my favorite Famous cartoon though so I like to get a mention in whenever I can. It's strange to see something spit so strongly against the code at its height. As for you recs, terrible shame that most of them especially from the obscurities are going for around $50. Everyone run to The Rainmaker I guess. Real shame for The Matchmaker too since if it's the film I'm thinking of it really is an amazing feat (at least in it's climax which is all I've seen from it). Actually just finished Bonjour Tristesse right before you posted and that has to be the book that Rohmer was writing from especially for films like La collectionneuse. I don't know who gave a more bugged performance, Niven or Seberg. I also agree that Saint Joan is probably his best of the decade (though I've got three missing).

[HerrSchreck]

Richard definitely isn't as cinematically inventive as Olivier's movies from the 40s, but I don't find the mise-en-scene poisonous or whatever Schreck's objections were, and the performances are absolutely goddamn delightful- and they feel like fully realized filmic performances, not stage ones that someone stuck a camera in...

I just read this....

Dude I don't mind that you've set me up here as your adversary against which you trumpet your strong love for the film... But if you're going to do so then at least quote me accurately. I have no idea what a generally "poisonous" mise en scene even is let alone claimed RICHARD III bore it.

What you're likely mutating are my comments about a specific moment in the film where I thought Olivier's directorial choice was awful. . .and I said I thought the effect was hideous.

My opinion of the film is atomic enough that you had no need to invent that oddity!

[matrixschmatrix]

That's fair, I was trying to summarize your arguments briefly and didn't do it well, and specifically I did miss that you were talking about a specific moment in the film and not the film as a whole with the mise-en-scene comment you did make. Penalty of trying to read a thread all at once in the middle of the night, I guess.

[knives]

The Black Orchid
As I watched this last night before bed my reaction became as if it was that this is the greatest film I've ever witnessed. Now clearly that's hyperbole, but the initial punch lasts so long that I feel confident saying it's at least a very great feature. It's biggest strength is how open and full the community is so that there are no real villains. The film flirts with an antagonist in the form of Quinn's daughter, but her reason's for acting the way she does is a horrid mix of tragedy and love that it becomes impossible to blame her for being so protective, or rather being so afraid, and reacting the way she does.

The film is a kindred spirit with Marty, A Day of Wine and Roses and all the other depressive self absorbed nonsense of the era, but smartly leaves that all to the fringes allowing it to naturally spill out so that this romance grounds the film. It's a problem picture with no problem! Most of these are one issue films that don't even know how to tackle the issue in any intelligent fashion, but this one takes on half a dozen at least and without ever commenting on them gives a fully realized presentation of what the problem is and how it affects those around it and possibly even causes other problems (i.e. the way that Loren's behavior feeds into Ralphie's). Fortunately the characters come first and any ax to grind is naturally borne from that.

It is also very fascinating how the film so much makes emphasis of the time and almost seems to want to date the film in an instant with all of these very strictly '50s immigrant culture being focused yet it, through what must be witchcraft, has this absolute timelessness through the characters every which one I know or am in real life. The utter sweetness of Loren fronted by the careful shouting; the need to be hard even when she's actually so kind and nervous is just like a mother. Even the little characters like Quinn's philosopher poker buddy have populated every town big and small I've lived in. What we see of their community is so fully realized it's easy to fill in the holes with one's own experiences.

Of course all of this well written stuff would still be nonsense without expert direction and acting and no question asked we get some of the best physical performances full of gestured punctuation around in edition to the best direction I've seen from Ritt who seems to work as perfectly in B&W as unevenly as he does in colour. This is easily Loren's best American performance with thought all over her face in the constant. From the first time she encounters Quinn 'til the end it becomes like she is not acting and is turning in a documentary performance. As for Quinn, well hopefully I don't need to expand on why his performance is great especially in this sort of role. Here's the real Marty, a man who can't tell when he's down so he never is, that manages to add so many layers to the already complex character that shows a wonderful longing and need for change that spits against the wind of his daughter. There's this moment where he confronts Ralphie as a real man that has to get a physical reaction out of the viewer his face tells it all ever as the script boils. The other actors give great performances too. The one playing the daughter especially deserves compliment given how impossible a role it becomes to play, yet she gives it all the uniqueness and complexity possible under the circumstances.

This is all benefited by the psychology of Ritt's direction usually a mix of medium shots and close-ups making some of the arty choices like a pair of zooms cut back and forth all the more powerful. He resists lingering upon the big Oscar moments like the daughter's room locking scene which prevents it from pushing down on the audience in a way that would turn this into comedy. No, we instead get enough to relay the experience fully.

Also while it's not relevant to the list the Curtiz it is paired with is pretty fun if totally minor.

[domino harvey]

It's a problem picture with no problem!

Ha, nicely put. I agree that the film's humanism is quite infectious-- though it sounds a bit like you're Typhoid Marying it-- I can't connect with it on as personal a level as you, but certainly there's something to be said as a viewer for the pleasure of spending time with characters you like (or are like, if the case may be) and the film doesn't insult them by placing them within the hackneyed plot construction and conveniences that the film always seems poised to teeter into but thankfully never quite does