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

[the preacher]

Doubling the Canon 2012 update, the fifties:

INS
Aventurera
Caged
Devil's Doorway
Il cammino della speranza (Path of Hope)
The Breaking Point
The Furies
The Lawless
The Sound of Fury
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Detective Story
Symphony in Slang
The Steel Helmet
Due soldi di speranza (Two Cents Worth of Hope)
Okaasan (Mother)
Bienvenido Mister Marshall (Welcome Mr. Marshall!)
Do Bigha Zamin (Two Acres of Land)
Run for Cover
Wichita
Akasen chitai (Street of Shame)
Baby Doll
Il ferroviere (The Railroad Man)
Slightly Scarlet
Bitter Victory
The Incredible Shrinking Man
The Fountain of Youth
Le chant du Styrène (The Song of the Styrene)

OUTS
The Happiest Days of Your Life
Sudden Fear
The Tell-Tale Heart
Human Desire
Riot in Cell Block 11
A Chairy Tale
Jazz on a Summer's Day

Contenders for my ballot: Path of Hope (with "The Facts of Murder" as alternative), The Lawless, Two Cents Worth of Hope, Welcome Mr. Marshall!, Slightly Scarlet (with "Tennessee's Partner" as alternative), The Incredible Shrinking Man. I love some of the others too, but I'm afraid there will not be room for all!

[thirtyframesasecond]

I saw a screening of Jiri Trnka's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' last night. it's really, really wonderful. I'd only ever seen 'The Hand' and well, that'll come in the next project. But this will feature very highly in my list, certainly one of the most impressive 'new' films in this project.

[puxzkkx]

What does sad comedy mean? I really do agree with Michael here that everything about Ozu is drastically different from the westerners he's compared to. Even in something like Tokyo Twilight the most purely dramatic film from him I've seen the style and personal outlook has more in common with classical Hollywood directors like Vidor or Borzage than Dreyer or Bresson. The only serious point of comparison I see is between Bresson with the dead pan acting style and even there I think it is being done for slightly different reasons.

When I first started watching Ozu I found the acting kind of deadpan, too, but recently I really dug deep into his 50s and 40s work and my view now is that a lot of the acting is dynamic, just subtly so. Of course there are cultural conventions to the characters' behaviour that we need to get used to.

The first two Ozu films I saw - Late Spring and Tokyo Story - I saw when I was 17 or 18. I found Setsuko Hara's perpetual grimacing and 'pulled-by-an-invisible-string' movement kind of tedious. Rewatching them she does very interesting things with expression - she's helped out by the editing too which often brings out fluctuations in physicality and expression at the beginnings and ends of shots. To me the key to her performing is in noticing the slips in her smile.

I'll join the chorus of Haruko Sugimura fans. She's one of the most consistently entertaining character actors I've seen from this period.

[swo17]

Spotlight

I just recently watched Give a Girl a Break and I can't stop applauding. This is an almost surreal take on the musical, with many of the numbers deliriously taking place inside the head of an aspiring performer or the production member championing her. The film pits three girls, equally talented in different musical traditions, against each other for a role of a lifetime that only one can win, and I was legitimately heartbroken at the prospect of any one of them not getting the part. (Is this why people watch So You Think You Can Dance?) But the real draw here is the dancing, a complete feast for the eyes and exhilarating to watch even before Donen sprinkles it with camera tricks that boost some of the numbers into the realm of the magical. I think the film also has a lot to say about the psychological toll of performance, which it largely manages to convey poetically through dance.

Reading more about the film online, it seems that not many have seen it, and a fair number of those that have have written it off as a minor trifle. Harumph. I'll grant that the film is too short to develop all of the characters satisfyingly, that the narrative structure (taking turns in revolving the plot around its three leads) occasionally feels a little awkward, and that the film is perhaps overly fond of the word 'palaver' (though let's be honest--it's a great word!) but to my mind, these are minor quibbles. In addition to being an utter delight, the film is democracy in action--an astounding achievement that, true to its title, relies not on starpower but on pure ensemble moxie to carry the show. It may not have an Astaire or Kelly at the helm, but (and nothing against either of those two) it's all the better for it.

The film is (what?) only available on DVD in the Warner Archive. Make sure to get the remastered version.

[domino harvey]

Like I Love Melvin, it has a small but vocal cadre of fans pulling for it, but yes, it should be better known (though that'll never happen now thanks to its place in Archive Hell). There's just too many great musicals in the fifties for it to make my final list for this decade, but it's indeed worth anyone's time. I disagree that the film doesn't have "star power," though-- everyone here is a star, just a second-string one (at least at the time of production). What I assume you mean is they don't have to sort through the baggage that comes with a major star's persona becoming the film's focal point-- though I'd say Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse played the exact same sort of roles in all their movies of this period, not to mention the template for the Champions, so maybe I'm not quite getting it?

[HerrSchreck]

I wonder how many here have seen a very odd piece of late-1950’s German horror called—in Germany—DIE NACKTE UND DER SATAN (The Nude and Satan), and known in the US as simply THE HEAD.

An interesting piece of strangeness that is the conceptual forerunner to the far better known (at least in the US) THE BRAIN/HEAD THAT WOULDN’T DIE, NACKTE is the brainchild of Viktor Trivas, who wrote and directed. Concerned primarily with the surgical adventures of a certain—brilliant but hugely warped—Doctor Ood (sic), the film features, like its slightly later US cousin, decapitated mumbling (words in and out of focus like a radio tuned slightly off station) heads kept alive in pans via wires and fluid drips, lunatic doctors on the prowl for female bodies with sufficient t&a to keep those concerned happy all the way round (and in this film’s case this operation, never consummated in WOULDN’T DIE, is fully executed with erotic results. . . another eh stroke in this film’s favor), and the like.

I did a forum search on this thing and couldn’t get a single hit, so I’m guessing it hasn’t been much seen. It’s very worth it, and you might cram on it before duedate, if duedate hasn’t come. It has much to commend it, far beyond it’s existence to some as a mere curiosity from a vanished, transitory era in Germany. Contributing hugely to its charm is the production design of the magnificent Hermann Warm, he of CALIGARI, JOAN, SCHLOSS VOGELOD, PHANTOM, VAMPRY, DER MUDE TOD, DIE SPINNEN, and on and on and on for weeks. Increasingly rare to see him working at this point in his life (1959) but he did pop out for projects here and there. His design choices lend an air of desolate, gothic moodiness, a sinister world of shadows and twisted menace the cultivation of which he was of course second to none. In addition is the absolutely eerie performance given by Horst Frank in the role of the loco Dr. Ood. The academy award for the most subtly sinister eyebrows in the length and width of filmdom must go to this man. . . he glides through the film with a clenched but breezy malevolence that he seems to pull out of, well, the real Horst Frank, a scorpion of a man that draws menace from the most relaxed state of his being.

But topping it all is the presence of Michel Simon as the Head. THAT Michel Simon, indeed. . . Pere Jules, Boudou. . . PORT OF SHADOWS, axiom of French cinema, that Michel Simon. Michel plays—without wanting to give too much away—the good Professor Dr. Abel, who traverses the same field of transplant surgery that the slithering Dr. Ood does. One thing bleeds to another, and before you know it Ood is standing with a big smile before a rigamarole holding Simon’s muttering head, giggling as this piece of the once Doc Abel is begging to be put to death. The to and fro must be seen to be believed, as Dr. Ood rubs the fact that the head is just a powerless head into the head’s head; Ood has the power, whereas Abel cannot even turn a touch to the side. . . and Ood fully exploits this power via the ability to give and withhold. The rest of the unfoldings concern Ood getting the Abel head’s help in convincing this gorgeous but hunchbacked female lab assistant (echoes of HOUSE OF DRACULA), who is initially fearful of Ood, to submit to his knife, so he can plop her caput down onto a gorgeous stripper’s body and make a knockout out of her.

You can grab this film on DVD in the US via the English language cut via a terrible Alpha edition (if you check out the cover you can see poor Simon’s disembodied head in it’s platter). Don’t buy it. If you look carefully you can find fine original German and English cuts of the film.

Apparently Michel Simon took this job only because he suffered a partial paralysis just prior—he needed money, but didn’t want to be seen in his then-current condition. . . thus he hunted up what he thought would be a fast fading speck on the global pop-cultural radar. Do the project, rack up a few shekels, and watch it flop into oblivion….

Well, the gods had different plans—the film was a success, not only on the continent but on both sides of the atlantic. It toured in the US with success in 1963 on a double with the American cut of the great CITY OF THE DEAD, known then as HORROR HOTEL. Poor doc Abel, always making the wrong move, with catastrophic result.

[swo17]

they don't have to sort through the baggage that comes with a major star's persona becoming the film's focal point

This. Admittedly, this is the only film I've seen with the Champions, and Debbie Reynolds is a pretty big name, but like everyone else here, it just sort of seems like she's along for the ride (and she is no more likely to win the role in the show than the other two girls are). The cast has star power, certainly (that was poor wording on my part), but it really feels like they're trying to win you over throughout the film, as opposed to the presumptive entertainment of, say, An American in Paris, where you're there to see Gene Kelly and he knows it.

you might cram on it before duedate, if duedate hasn’t come.

There are still like 4 1/2 months until the deadline, ample time to fit in much more of anything you have to recommend.

[HerrSchreck]

Ah.. Thanks for the head's (THE HEAD's haw haw haw) up. Shows how outa the loop I am.

[swo17]

For your benefit, as well as that of any others who might be out of the loop, the first post of this thread provides answers to most of the mysteries of the universe.

[HerrSchreck]

Obliged.. It's just tough for me to repeat decades I already made lists for in the past. Admittedly time and morphing tastes and new viewings come into play. . I just would really need to push myself.

Happy to throw in and take some suggestions here and there for sure.

[swo17]

Well, while I'm plugging everything else, this is probably a good time to remind everyone that there is already a lot of valuable discussion contained in the prior '50s project thread from 2007. There was also a project before that in 2005 but the only discussion I can find of that was of the results.

[HerrSchreck]

There was a bit of info lost during a forum crash, so the discussion may have been non recoverable.I remember at one point the SILENT FILM ON DVD thread was lost and barely recovered.

[Mr Sausage]

Actually I think this subforum is limited to one page for some reason, so anything that gets pushed off the page is deleted. I think that's what happened to the older 50's thread. Someone ought to PM Chris about fixing that before we lose any valuable threads.

[matrixschmatrix]

I've just seen A Man Escaped for the first time it's an immediately, almost overwhelmingly a stunning movie. It's not hard to see now why Bresson gets listed with Dreyer as a transcendental filmmaker, as Escaped engenders a similar feeling that The Passion of Joan of Arc does- an admiration of human resilience, a feeling of shared humanity in an inhuman situation, and a sort of existential sense that freedom in some form can be achieved, that one can never be truly trapped (and though it's not quite on the level of the Dreyer in that respect, what is?)

The form of the film seems perfectly suited to the material, too- the pace here doesn't feel artificially slow, it feels focused and dedicated, appropriately taking the time to force the viewer to be in the cell with our hero, to appreciate that with all his luck and courage the primary thing that gets him through the ordeal is his dedication- which is somehow underlined by the way the movie also gives him the occasional moment of letting I dare not wait upon I would. He's human, and he never seems to be a machine built for escape- and the small framed, somewhat mousey looking actor stresses that feeling.

The sense of freedom at the end of the movie is intoxicating, too. It may be something strengthened by its resonance with my own life- where I've been feeling somewhat trapped in a meaningless job for months, now- it feels appropriate that the movie is also filled with religious references, as the salvation is so hard fought for, so difficult to achieve with the means at hand, that it's almost impossible to believe that it's not a sweet lie told to keep one fighting.

[puxzkkx]

Two 50s Japanese films...

Ozu's Equinox Flower which is as visually sumptuous as the rest of his colour work but a bit less focused, I guess, and a bit less emotionally rigorous. The first half has some beautiful moments, esp. a poignant conversation between Shin Saburi and Kinuyo Tanaka on a boardwalk. But it starts picking up some rather naff comic notes at the end that make its stab at a happy ending seem almost wilfully naïve. There is still a rich sociopolitical commentary regarding generational differences, values and Westernisation here, but I think it gets neutered a bit. Of course it is still a rewarding and worthwhile watch, like any Ozu of this period.

The sound is gorgeous here, and I noticed his use of 360-degree space is a bit more fragmented and dynamic here, approaching subjects from multiple angles and cutting between them to emulate camera movement.

I also saw Tomu Uchida's A Bloody Spear on Mount Fuji, a tragicomic, episodic Samurai 'road movie' that owes a lot to Renoir but with its shocking reversal in tone casts what at first seems like a benign kind of humanist comedy into new light. I read an interesting piece on the film that links its subversion of the chanbara with a commentary on cultural codes of social station, and brings up the film's deceptively diffident 'deferral of violence' as typical of its deconstruction. Uchida has a clever eye and ear and peppers the film with anachronistic sonic touches and a flair for character design with a cartoonish bent. A truly odd, rich, surprising, moving and ultimately quite bitter film that I'm surprised isn't better-known. Highly recommended.

[Michael Kerpan]

Bloody Spear does not "subvert" classic chambara, rather it is true to its roots (just as Yamanaka's films 20 years earlier). Yes, lots of junk history films were churned out, but the best stuff (going back at least to the 20s) always had subversive aspects (see, e.g., Orochi, 1925). That said, Bloody Spear is a superb film -- one which I prefer even to Kurosawa's work of this sort (and much more than Kobayashi's). Its continued unavailability mystifies and saddens me.

Equinox Flower provided a nice recovery for Ozu, after the universal rejection of his remarkable Tokyo Twilight. Ozu, that stubborn coot, decided to stick with the same basic theme the audience rejected -- Father does NOT know best -- but approached the topic in a good-natured (and very amusing) fashion. Kinuyo Tanaka, in her last Ozu role, is absolutely marvelous as the mother here -- I prefer her low-key (but rich) performance here to any of the more melodramatic (and showy) work she did in Mizoguchi films of this decade.

[knives]

I highly agree on the Ozu comments. Equinox Flower might very well be my favorite Ozu ever for how humourously he treats the venom of his language. It's for me the first truly great combination of all of his sides (not to say that he didn't make great films before that, but you'd hardly call A Hen in the Wind a comedy for instance). It also shows just how smart technically he was (same could be said for The Only Son) with just how expertly he uses colour without rubbing noses about it.

[Michael Kerpan]

The New Yorker video of Equinox Flower made the film look hideous, atrociousl color balancing AND huge yellow subtitles. I didn't really fully appreciate this until I got the Shochiku DVD. I never imagined just how visually gorgeous this actually was. The videos of Ozu's other color films luckily all fared much better.

[knives]

The BFI of Good Morning held the same revelation for me. It was such a good looking presentation that the colours alone gave me a strong emotional response. I can't explain why, but the look of that film has this sort of nostalgic power that fits the way with which Ozu plays with the community unit in that film. I'm pretty sure he used the same sort of Agfa stock on all of his colour films, but they all of this distinct look separate from the other which actually has helped me tell them apart in memory than any other aspect.

[Michael Kerpan]

The HomeVision video of Good Morning looked considerably better color-wise than Criterions DVD (though this had some digital repairs that the video lacked, lah di doo dah) -- but was not nearly as nice as the Shochiku DVD -- and the new BFI version.

[puxzkkx]

Bloody Spear does not "subvert" classic chambara

In terms of violence quotient it does, no? And I haven't encountered any chanbara with this film's particular kind of picaresque structure.

I saw Yojimbo directly afterwards and would compare the two films in tone, although I much prefer the Uchida.

Equinox Flower provided a nice recovery for Ozu, after the universal rejection of his remarkable Tokyo Twilight. Ozu, that stubborn coot, decided to stick with the same basic theme the audience rejected -- Father does NOT know best -- but approached the topic in a good-natured (and very amusing) fashion. Kinuyo Tanaka, in her last Ozu role, is absolutely marvelous as the mother here -- I prefer her low-key (but rich) performance here to any of the more melodramatic (and showy) work she did in Mizoguchi films of this decade.

This film has a magnificent female cast - Kinuyo Tanaka's performance had a flat beginning for me but bloomed gorgeously as the film wore on, and Chieko Naniwa was never used quite often enough and is a tangy delight here. Fujiko Yamamoto is intriguing and Yoshiko Kuga shows a more rueful personality than was usual for her, too. Sad-eyed Ineko Arima may be my favourite of the girls, though, and she combines a really modern kind of emotion with that typical Ozu restraint. That being said, Shin Saburi's rich performance equals his excellent one in The Flavour of Green Tea... and is probably the standout for me here.

With this I have completed viewing of Ozu's colour films - bittersweet, as they are so deep and rich visually, emotionally and politically.

[Michael Kerpan]

Fujiko Yamamoto was on loan from Daiei-- and Shochiku wanted her to be the star. Ozu convinced her to play the comic co-star part, leaving the lead (young) actress part to Ineko Arima. Yet more proof of Ozu's brilliance in cast picking.

Shin Saburi specialized in playing somewhat short-tempered characters -- so Ozu was playing a bit of a meta-cinematic joke by casting him as the preternaturally gentle-natured lead in Green Tea. In Equinox Flower, Saburi is back to his more characteristic kind of part.

I would add that these color Ozu films are also very very funny (much of the time). The radio on-off "duet" between Tanaka and Saburi (with Tanaka's little solo coda) is brilliant.

[puxzkkx]

I would add that these color Ozu films are also very very funny (much of the time). The radio on-off "duet" between Tanaka and Saburi (with Tanaka's little solo coda) is brilliant.

This I saw as more poignant than funny, illustrative of their relationship and of the problems with omiai that the film outlines. In this scene you see the woman that Tanaka could have been had she grown up in a more relaxed time - and how her essence is continually stifled by this business partnership of a marriage. Her little mime of traditional dance points to a more positive manifestation of old customs, used for expression rather than control.

Interesting to see that he gives his young character the 'happy ending' of social-personal agency at the end, something he didn't exactly do again in quite the same way for the rest of his career. Floating Weeds lets love 'win' but at the price of losing generational connect and the rest of the colour films end on more melancholy or even bitter notes regarding the family/individual dynamic. This may have been the peak of his optimism for an accord between tradition and the new Western cultural influx of the 50s and 60s, you can see him becoming more disillusioned afterwards, culminating with An Autumn Afternoon's devastating coda.

[knives]

Can't it be both poignant and funny though? I doubt anyone would deny how beautifully that illustrates the whole of the film, but it is also a true gut buster.

[Michael Kerpan]

I think the later color films are, overall, even funnier than Equinox Flower (thiough they do have darker undertones now and then).

I agree with knives that Ozu can combine poignant and funny like no other director I know -- my chief exhibit the "proposal scene" in Early Summer -- which invariably makes me sniffle and giggle simultaneously (my favorite scene in all of Ozu -- maybe in all of cinema).