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

[Wu.Qinghua]

Well, I actually thought about asking for an exception, especially after I found out that quite a few 60s and 70s Eastern films - like, as far as I remember, Chytilova's Daisies, for example - were listed on Imdb as early 90s productions. But when I checked again a few weeks later, all the cases I could remember, were corrected, so I thought I might as well leave things as they were. But of course, I wouldn't mind if swo would agree to make an exception in Sonnensucher's case, as it's been actually produced in 1958.

Edit: I've just seen that you'll make an exception, so I'll vote for Sonnensucher, of course! Thank you!

Oh, and talking about Defa cinema: Slatan Dudow's Hauptmann von Koeln/Captain from Cologne is actually the highest ranking German film on my list. It may not be a cinematic masterpiece and it may not be as groundbreaking as Kuhle Wampe, but it's a funny and fierce farce about the West German bourgeoisie and German militarism portraying the administrative and industrial elites in the Ruhr which was one of the centers of the German heavy and military industries and which was the home turf of then chancellor Adenauer. If you could imagine to fall for an early all-out Eastern comedian polemic against the post-fascist West German elites, you'll definitely want to have a look at it. Unfortunately there are, as far as I know, no English subtitles available.

[matrixschmatrix]

David Lean double feature!

The Bridge on the River Kwai

The movie I always cite as my favorite is Lawrence of Arabia, though I suspect it's as much for autobigraphical reasons as filmic ones- it was one of the first movies that ever really reached out and grabbed me, a way in which I connected to my father, the first classic movie I saw in a theater, etc etc. At any rate, I had managed never to see this, and I approached it with a mixture of anticipation that it would be another favorite and trepidation that it would not only disappoint me but show me flaws in Lawrence.

As it happened, I liked it quite a lot, though not as much as Lawrence- I think as both a specatacle and as a character study, the latter film works better. This one is sort of an interesting, if glib, cross cultural examination, a fairly early entrant in the war-as-meaningless-clusterfuck subgenre, and a showcase for a varied set of highly entertaining performances. I'm not sure how well it gelled for me, though- the whole central point never feels quite believable, as however fanatically dedicated to a project Guiness's Colonel becomes it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't immediately understand any actions of his own as being overridden and countermanded by the orders of others- though I am ready to believe that Holden would get himself killed after all his protestations of of disinterest (particularly as his death was the result as much of protecting a comrade and bloodlust more than it had anything to do with a larger goal.) In fact, I'm not sure that there's any other point where anyone acts in a way that doesn't feel perfectly in line with their characters. But the whole movie is building to Guiness's moment of madness, and somehow, I don't quite believe it.

Summertime

in contrast, never seems to slip from a close understanding of and identification with its protagonist's viewpoint, and the movie's as impossible not to love as Hepburn's character is. It's obviously a less ambitious movie in many ways, a more exotic version of one of Lean's small, British character studies (though clearly also a key work connecting those to his clash of cultures epics) that reminds me a bit of both Nights of Cabiria (particularly in the dreadful sense of inevitable heartbreak for our lovable lead) and Journey to Italy (in the feeling that the atmosphere itself, and the sense of historicity in Italy, is as much the catalyst for Hepburn's emotional renaissance as any specifics about people or events).

It's a lovely movie, one I'm anxious to see rereleased- there's some sort of horrid checkermark thing that happens to a lot of the textures- and delightfully pro-adultery, in a way that doesn't feel like naughty for the sake of naughty. I suppose it's possible to come up with a reading in which Hepburn's character is an imperialist tourist, there to buy and conquer and appropriate experiences without considering the lives she is knocking aside, but I can't make it happen, because she's so goddamned charming. I love the texture the movie gives to her body, too, studying the speckling on her hand, letting us luxuriate in the inappropriately aristocratic yodel in which Hepburn speaks, the disarmingly childlike way she movies. I love that it lets her have her romance and lets her be adult enough to leave before it goes wrong, when it will always be a memory with immense value for her. I love that it lets her move on past her provincialism without losing her individuality.

I think I'm talking myself into liking the movie more than I did even as I watched it.

[matrixschmatrix]

The River

It's hard not to be conflicted about this movie- on the one hand, it's gorgeous, and it creates the feeling of a lived in world that's difficult not to fall in love with. On the other hand, it's rife with Orientalism, it's got a prominent Tragic Mulatto archtype slapped on top of an otherwise interesting figure, and it's got a scene where the mother gives our lead what may be the worst intended-to-be-wordly-wise advice about womanhood and femininity that I've ever seen outside of a Twilight movie. Also, the dashing and romantic American captain is annoying, and looks like Ryan Reynolds if his head were an inflated balloon.

Nonetheless, I think I kind of love this movie. A big part of it, for me, is remembering that everything we're seeing is through the eyes of a romantic, teenaged English girl raised in India. As such, the movie doesn't reflect some of the worst facets of Exotic India that were in practically every movie about the country up to that point- the lack of tigers, Bengal lancers, and daring hunts on elephant back certainly make it a picture of India that feels like firsthand experience, and the matter of fact attitude about Hindu holidays (and, a favorite note, the fact that Harriet's little sister draws the captain with Indian-style eyeliner) reminds one that though these girls are culturally and ideologically English, they have lived in India probably for as long as they remember. Moreover, the American is as exoticized as much as the Indians are, so that the nerdy looking boor becomes a dashingly romantic figure- because, of course, he is exotic to our narrator.

That feeling, that the world we see is her world, as she remembers it and now recreates it, is I think a big part of the value of the movie for me. It reminds me a bit of An Angel at My Table, in that as much as the story of growing up it's the story of an artist's birth and growth, and the form that art would come to take. So it makes sense to me that her mother never seems pregnant, and the Captain never really seems to be missing a leg- that's how she would remember it. And the Indian people mostly recede into the background or taken on exotic, storybook roles, because everyone in her world is an exotic storybook character or an immediate family member.

I'd like to think there's enough access to more authentic portrayals of India now that the politics of an inauthentic portrayal can fade somewhat, allowing the other aspects of the movie to come through- and it's a movie with immense and powerful charms.

[HJackson]

I'm very late to this thread. I've seen quite a lot of 50s material so I'll see if I can contribute to the remaining discussion. I'll only present a list if I've managed to see a very sizable chunk of the spotlight titles (I've seen a few already and one - A KISS BEFORE DYING - is a sure thing if I do make a list).

The Cobweb (1955) doesn't even have the decency to be a fascinating mess, as this is yet another Hollywood film exploiting psychiatric unease for cheap melodrama. The biggest offense is the wasted cast, one of Minnelli's best, and one given nothing to do but whine about curtains for two hours.

Were we watching the same film? Firstly, I fail to see how the film is exploitative when very little of the drama actually comes from the residents of the psychiatric home. I also find the 'Drapes of Wrath' mockery a little strange, since the drapes (although admittedly a tad silly) act only as an instigator to the drama (but do serve a greater purpose than drama) - there is much more going on than a battle over which drapes will be hung. I found THE COBWEB magnificent. As compelling as Minnelli's other great melodramas from the period, it's also a rebuttal to the criticism that would emerge when critics looked back on Minnelli's work - that Minnelli was only interested in visual style. It starts with Gloria Grahame, the most vain and self-interested character of the piece, asking John Kerr 'why do flowers have to be for anything? Isn't it enough that they have colour and form and that they make you feel good?' For Minnelli it clearly isn't enough, and Grahame's attitude raises all manner of personal crises. For Minnelli, art is a means of self-expression as it is for John Kerr's character, but also a means to provoke unresolved conflicts. Just as there is more to the curtains than a pretty pattern, there is more to THE COBWEB - and Minnelli's work in general - than candy coloured surfaces and impressive lighting.

[swo17]

Friendly reminder: Lists are due one month from today. Feel free to send me your lists any time between now and then. A few reminders as you are preparing your lists...

Please do:
- Review the first post of this thread for important reminders, to make sure you are clear on the rules, and to catch up on any guides, spotlight titles, or other resources that you might have missed.
- Feel free to continue to nominate one or more spotlight titles out of the films that you have discovered during this project.
- Continue to post in this thread in defense of any films that you plan to include on your list that you fear may otherwise be neglected.

Please don't:
- Post your lists in toto until after the deadline has passed.
- Bum everybody out by preparing some scathing attack to share on results day related to the inevitable canonicality of the final results.
- Watch Around the World in 80 Days.


Thanks to everyone for your participation so far!

[knives]

Please don't:

- Watch Around the World in 80 Days.

What if you like Around the World in 80 Days?

[swo17]

Then you will not find my joke the least bit funny.

[matrixschmatrix]

So, to put my two cents in about High Noon:

I seriously, literally don't understand what's 'liberal' about this movie. It's mostly the Dirty Harry setup- the laws don't work (a murderer goes free for no real reason, and he is so purely a murderer that there's no way to turn him from his task), violence is the only way to solve problems (and avoiding violence is self deception that inevitably must fall before the sight of True Evil), there's a sort of fascistic notion that talk is cheap and everything comes down to force and the rights derived from it, and anyone who displays physical cowardice is basically worthless and untrustworthy. And, of course, in the end, the good man can't be part of the forces of Law anymore, because Law doesn't solve the problems of violence and evil.

That's not to say there aren't elements I liked- I really enjoyed the way the title song was used as a leitmotif for Gary Cooper, I loved his performance (both the irritability and the underlying fear), the cinematography was often gorgeous, and I enjoyed every minute of Helen Ramirez. I didn't mind the editing much, though that's rarely something I'm consciously aware of; it was grating in the fistfight with the jerk deputy, but most everything else seemed fine. The movie seemed to think it was going to be tenser than it was- it's hard to feel really gut nervous when your lead is relaxed enough to hang out and get a shave- but I can live with that. The politics, though, just seemed kind of gross.

[knives]

Gary Cooper, the person not the performance, is the only thing I've found to really enjoy from the film as his real life actions to defend Carl Foreman is the bravest thing of the black listing era.

[knives]

Then you will not find my joke the least bit funny.

It's a possibility. Anyways with that message I feel obligated to point to a few must sees from my probably going to be final list that might otherwise be forgotten.

The Elephant Will Never Forget (Krish)
This is one of the most emotionally powerful films I've ever seen despite the rather nothing subject matter. Krish almost entirely through editing (there is a narration, but it doesn't amount to much) turns these dead train stations into a powerful, physical, symbol of the world destroying itself to bring about a new genesis. It is almost like late Antonioni (though I think far more effective). Amongst not just the best of this decade, but of the entire medium of film.

Les espions (Clouzot)
Many others will certainly favour the Crit certified films by him (and for good reason), but for my money this comic spy flick is Clouzot's finest hour. Taking every dark and dire turn he can Clouzot manages to wring laughs out of how meaningless these war games are. Practically going into full on nihilism this film posits there are no right ends, no right sides, and no right people. If you get close to figuring out the puzzle the universe will destroy you. All of this should be depressing as hell and it is terrifying, but it gives life to the chase, or possibly chase to life.

Rabbit of Seville (Jones)
While an argument could and should be made for Culhane's The Barber of Seville from last decade of the best Seville themed cartoon I'll always stick by this cartoon which has one of the most genius senses of music (arguably Jones' greatest virtue) you'll fine in any motion picture with a constantly inventive visual sense that doesn't need to go into all out abstraction to reach fantasy. Jones' and arguably Termite Terrace's finest moment.

The Little House (Jackson)
Another tale of urban alienation and encroaching modernity this time from the happy people at Disney. I'll admit right away I just have the softest spot for Wilfred Jackson who even more than Ub Iwerks I feel defined what it means to be a Disney film and this is his and possibly the studio's masterpiece. Accusations of sentimentality are understandable if misguided as the film isn't blindly nostalgic, but rather aware of how with the increasing ease of building the willingness to destroy and not care for the past also increases.

Three Little Bops (Freleng)
This is a pure aesthetic pleasure from Hawley Pratt's smooth layout to Shorty Rogers' amazing score and even Stan Frebergs' amazing and controversial job as actor. This is just one slick and modern film that is a virtue to all of the senses becoming almost like one of those pure animation pleasures by McLaren or Fischinger. Even beyond these base pleasures the film really plays with the expectations of the story giving the wolf something of a vindication. I get the feeling that here at least Freleng is some what looked down upon despite his overwhelming importance to the medium and all you need to do is look at this short to see he was the king of the mountain at one time.

The Unicorn in the Garden (Hurtz)
Perfectly adapting James Thurber this darkly comic tale works due to the passivity of its lead who is something of a James Stewart in Harvey type. Had he a more active or sane role in the film the ending might come off as rather horrible, but instead is just a case of humorous irony. The way Thurber's style is attached onto that of UPA also is just wonderful with a strong sense of construction despite the visuals largely keeping to a barren norm.

[matrixschmatrix]

Gary Cooper, the person not the performance, is the only thing I've found to really enjoy from the film as his real life actions to defend Carl Foreman is the bravest thing of the black listing era.

Haha, that whole story makes Stanley Kramer look like such an unbelievably hypocritical two faced piece of shit. I can understand how the High Noon script makes sense specifically in terms of blacklisting- people weaseling out of doing what they know to be right because they're so desperate to cover their own asses- but there are any number of elements that come out of a stock Western or action movie and don't really fit into that one. Plus, to tell that story properly, Cooper should have gotten shot down, and maybe have the bad guys burn the whole town in a fit of nihilistic glee.

My ideal ending would have been for the big bad crook to show up and tell everyone that he, too, had enough of killing, and had decided to become a Quaker.

[knives]

He was such an unbelievably hypocritical two faced piece of shit. Limousine Liberal was developed just for him. Your ending would have certainly been more interesting and would have made the metaphor more complex.

[swo17]

Edith Carlmar’s The Wayward Girl is a 1959 film listed as 1960.

FYI, IMDb apparently changed the release date for this film recently. As a result, it is now eligible for the '50s list.

[the preacher]

I wonder if anyone has Zurlini on his mind. "Estate violenta (Violent Summer)" is a marvel of sensibility and good taste, as an Italian Naruse, and reinforced by Mario Nascimbene's brilliant score and Eleonora Rossi Drago's performance of a lifetime.

[swo17]

Anyone know of any African cinema from this decade?

So far, I have three films on my preliminary list, which may be labeled African, as there are Les maitres fous (1955) and, of course, Moi, un noir (1958), two of Jean Rouch's ethnographic films dealing with migration and colonialism...

Is Les Maîtres fous just a terrible earth-shattering masterpiece or what? It's a short documentary following a group of colonized African workers who fulfill their tasks merrily by day, but by night, have developed what the film describes as a coping mechanism in which they channel the spirits of their oppressors in...let's say, less than flattering ways. Sort of like the awkward moment where you walk into a room and realize that someone is doing an unsavory impression of you, only with more frothing at the mouth, self-inflicted violence, animal sacrifice, etc. And then back to work the next day, just like normal. This is shocking, horrifying material, and really says all there is to say about colonialism and class divisions without the need for words. Though the provided narration track is fittingly matter-of-fact, putting an ironic positive spin on it all.

This is only out in France without English subs for now, though Icarus should be putting it out in R1 eventually, and you can also find it kicking around the web.

[Mike_S]

One little film to get a heartfelt recommendation from me is The Picture, an episode from Three Cases of Murder (1954). It's directed by Wendy Toye and is one of the most imaginative, skin-crawlingly scary short films I've ever seen. The rest of the film is good - especially the Orson Welles episode - but this first story is little short of a masterpiece.

[Tommaso]

As we're about to reach the finale soon, here are strong recommendations for two little known films that will definitely make my list and which I'd like to make my two SPOTLIGHT films, if it's possible, even if I can't tell you here how to find them if you don't know anyway.

Wienerinnen (Kurt Steinwendner, 1952): this one was a really big surprise for me. In a time when the Austrian film industry was basically making slight and mostly forgettable nostalgic comedies, Wienerinnnen must have come as a total shock. While the film ironically starts off with typical images of 'nostalgic' Vienna, what follows is a highly abrasive portrait of young women in the city. Coming in four episodes, the stories contain jealousy, murder, sadism and so on. Stylistically, the film is a mixture of neo-realism and classical avantgarde/expressionism, and much of it is strongly reminiscent of silent cinema. A very intense, occasionally almost hysterical film with haunting images. Available on an unsubbed DVD from Austria. But I would even recommend those who don't understand German to check it out, on the strength of the images alone, and it's not a terribly dialogue-heavy film either.

Domenica d'Agosto (Luciano Emmer, 1950). For me, among the greatest discoveries in this list-making were the films by Italian director Luciano Emmer, and this one is probably the best of them all. The film almost feels like a modern take on "People on Sunday", depicting several people from Rome spending a day on the beach in Ostia. Various stories are interwoven, and while the film may feel deceptively light (like much of Emmer's work), there is a very touching emotionality in the going-ons here, with characters losing or finding love for the first or last time. Emmer had a beautiful way of depicting young women especially, and Anna Baldini here - who has got more or less the main role - is simply stunning in her combination of determination and fragility. Beautiful, beautiful film.

And if you liked that one, don't hesitate to check out Emmer's Parigi è sempre Parigi (a very funny comedy on Italian tourists in Paris) and Le ragazze di Piazza di Spagna (an episode film on the lives of three young women in Rome, and their hopes and dreams about life and love), too. Both of these feature the young Lucia Bosé in main parts, and that alone should be attractive enough to check them out. All three films (and a few other Emmers) are out in Italy on unsubbed discs, though in this case subbed versions are floating around.

[Wu.Qinghua]

I'd like to add three spotlights more; all the films will make my Top10:

Momma don't allow (Karel Reisz & Tony Richardson, UK 1956)
Lets say I'd like to nominate this short documentary as some kind of rival candidate to Krish's rather nostalgic tram documentary which Knives has already put in the spotlight (I hope this doesn't sound offensive; it's not meant to be). Maybe some members of the Jennings' crowd would like to give it a few points, too? In my eyes this is not only the one most outstanding Free Cinema film but also one of the best filmic takes on youth and youth culture in the 50s. (I could only come up with Masumura's Kisses and, with reservations, with Klein's Berlin. Ecke Schoenhauser as equally convincing 50s youth movies, but maybe someone could recommend some more films here?) Anyway, Momma don't allow is a very beautiful film poem about a jazz club in 50s London which is populated by working class youth, about leisure, popular transatlantic youth culture and class (i.e. the middle-class slumming party) and it makes a very strong counterpoint to all those annoying 50s youth movies focussing on deviance, criminality and 'rebels without causes'. You'll find it in the Free Cinema box and on Youtube, of course.
Edit: Atm, this beauty can also be streamed for free at docalliance, if you shouldn't know it already, which I take for granted, and if you hadn't bought a DVD with this one being included as an extra.

There's No Peace Under the Olive Tree (Giuseppe de Santis, Italy 1950)
This may be one of my major discoveries of the last months. It's the last part of de Santis' postwar trilogy dealing with everyday life, popular culture and social conflicts in late 1940s Italy and a somewhat hybrid example of late Neorealism, as it's not only star-driven (Raf Vallone and Lucia Bose play the main roles), but also aesthetically rather hybrid merging elements of Hollywood Westerns etc. with elements of Socialist Realism, and has already been somewhat dated when it came out, as it's obviously been made in anticipation of the victory of the Italian leftist movement, though premiered only after its electoral defeat. It's set in Ciociaria, a mountainous rural region in Central Italy, and portrays the landscapes as well as the customs and social conflicts between its inhabitants who mostly live from shepherding. If you have any interest in Neorealism or in the early works of the British historian Eric Hobsbawm you will definitely want to hunt this film down; there's only a non-subbed Italian disc available but subtitles seem to be floating around the web. Here's a little Youtube excerpt without subtitles which features a short conversation between two lovers, who according to de Santis follow local customs in their somewhat strange behaviour, and which gives a pretty good example of the film's aesthetic design.

Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman, USA 1953)
This is one of only a handful of American films (I guess On the Bowery won't need no spotlight given Milestone's recent release?) which will actually make my list, and I've been rather surprised that the movie got no votes in the last round although it has been released on DVD in the US. It may not be a masterpiece but it's rather questionable anyway if you can produce a flawless film if your main actress gets arrested and deported during the process of shooting the movie. The film deals with immigrant workers, gender relations and the Empire Zinc strike in New Mexico 1951 and was finished during the height of the McCarthy era „despite three fires, two sluggings, bullet holes in a car, property damage, the illegal arrest and detention of a leading Mexican actress and other acts of violence against the members of the production company by vigilantes“, as the Daily Worker reported back then. It's a melodramatic neorealist movie made with only a handful of professional actors which I love not only because of its story line, but also because of its focus on questions of gender and its strong aiming at empowering women. As I've already said it's not really a cinematic masterpiece, but I strongly resent contemporary reviews describing it as a simplistic morality play and therefore would be very happy if somebody else would join me in voting for this classic labour film. (You could stream or download it from archive.org, if you'd want to give it a try, but I suspect a DVD should be preferred.)

[matrixschmatrix]

Ikiru

This was an interesting companion piece to Toyko Story in certain ways- it's a bit more heightened, with Shimura's eyes bugging out all over the place, and a far more acrobatic shooting style- but in many ways they both feel like something of a weary critique of the world in which post-war Japan found itself, and meditations in part on people's hypocricy in the face of death. Kurosawa and Ozu both seem to have some contempt for the younger generation levened by a sense that the way they are is due directly to the actions and attitudes of the older one, and they both have younger people (both women, as it happens) that seem to give one back a glimmer of hope.

There are, obviously, major differences, too- Kurosawa's movie is focused more on workplace culture than strictly family, Kurosawa's girl who provides hope is very outgoing and westernized rather than a shy Setsuko Hara type, Kurosawa's family is reduced to his normal father/son relationship rather than a full multigenerational family, Kurosawa's lead finds solace in direction action and in changing the world while Ozu's characters rarely seem to change much internally or externally, etc. But I think the thing that strikes me most is a certain emotional continuity- Ikiru feels in some ways like Kurosawa doing an Ozu movie, and I think the lovely image of Shimura on the swing has an Ozu-esque quality of coming to peace with what is and what will be.

Ikiru held my attention throughout, but I think it came together for me in the wake scene with the flashbacks- it turned into almost a perverse sort of murder mystery, with the story coming together bit by bit to reach a conclusion we already knew (with the added fillip that the man died happy) in a way that elevated the movie for me to the point where its status as one of Kurosawa's masterpieces became understandable.

[matrixschmatrix]

Nightfall

This is one of those movies with any number of strong elements- beautifully shot (and widescreen black and white is maybe my favorite combination), suitably atmospheric, Out of the Past-esque story with a twisty backstory gradually unfolding, and a couple of really witty moments in the editing- somewhat undone by a lumpen lead with whom I just could not understand Anne Bancroft falling in love, except perhaps out of a sort of kinky interest in an almost murderer. Most of the other performances were great- Rudy Bond's giggling, moronic Red is well executed, and I liked the idea that he's so irritating that even his partner can barely handle him, and James Gregory had an appealing normal guy quality that suited someone on the outside of the noir world looking in- but I just found it difficult to get deeply involved in the plight of Beef Hardslab, the Whitest Man on Earth.

It may also be a problem of having seen similar ideas presented parodically elsewhere, but Red's death- which should have been pretty shocking and brutal for the era- just made me laugh. The snowplow was coming at him at about two miles an hour, it was maybe five feet away, and he just sits there and gets run over. The whole ending scene is full of unforced errors of that kind, but it's hard to recover when the big, cathartic final death makes me giggle.

[Tommaso]

On that note, I caught up with Josef von Sternberg’s grand finale this week. Not sure if Macao will make my list but I’m not ruling it out, either. The climactic chase down the alleys, over the docks, through the nets is pure Sternberg, though until then, the film does lack a bit of his typically rich atmosphere. Only Jane Russell has some ambivalence to her, everyone else neatly sorted on one side or the other (or in the case of Gloria Grahame, one side and then the other, but never ambiguously).

I completely agree, but still I'm blown away by this only half-Sternberg (as Nicholas Ray apparently took over halfway through). I have to admit that I hadn't seen any Sternberg post-"Crime and Punishment" before, so my greatest surprise about this film was how much it retained that 30s style and elegance. If anyone had told me that this had been made directly after "The Devil is a Woman" I'd have almost believed it. The plot may be slight, and the whole thing certainly less complex than Sternberg's great earlier masterpieces, but oh that style, that atmosphere, that fetishism: those gloves that Gloria Grahame wears in that dice-throwing scene... simply ultra-stunning (like the lady itself); I even was more captivated by her than by Jane Russell here. Well, perhaps I simply like "sphinxes" or "women made of stone" to an unhealthy degree.

I'm not sure whether it's really great, but at the moment I think that this is extremely memorable in visual terms, and usually this is enough for me. I guess I'll have a hard time not to include this one somewhere on my list.

[knives]

I think it is actually really obvious where von Sternberg begins and Ray ends in the film because their styles are so different and Ray doesn't even seem to be bothering with continuity with the previously shot footage.

[matrixschmatrix]

Ride Lonesome

The first half of this movie pissed me off pretty badly- I'm not enough of a connoisseur of Westerns to be able to take casual racism towards Indians and patronizing misogyny in stride, and there's no real attempt to complicate or problematize either when they're running all over the place through the beginning, enough so that it's a lot more distracting than in something like Stagecoach. The Indians signing instead of talking, trying to buy a woman (with the requisite horror at the idea of a white woman with a Native man), being described as essentially untrustworthy (by analogy to a situation where a woman was untrustworthy, natch)- those, to me, seem worse than just having them as faceless, anonymous forces of danger. Likewise, the patronizing attitude towards the Karen Steele character seemed only to be justified and rewarded, with no sign that she's actually particularly tough or confident in her actions.

In the second half, though, those concerns stop being particularly relevant; the Indians disappear, and Karen Steele's role has settled down and apparently doesn't require endlessly humiliating her and slapping her down. And the important parts of movie come through, the themes of the bitterness of revenge, honor amongst bad men, and the really charming scene with Coburn's character finding out that Boone actually likes him- and the landscape of the movie, of course, and the texture. It looks like how I imagine a Western looking. I'm going to have to let it settle down a little to figure out how it comes out for me, but certainly I can understand the underlying appeal.

[stroszeck]

Here Comes The Groom

One of Frank Capra's final works, it stars Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. I'm going to make this one short and sweet. Lots of problems! A sappy, light story about Bing Crosby and some orphans and Jane Wyman. The main issue I had with this one was that like most Crosby pictures, it just created an excuse for a musical number. Hell, in the first 5 minutes alone there are 2! Dialogue scenes go on far too long, and gone is the....er....snappiness of Capra's direction. The final 10-15 minutes turn into a sort of zany comedy of errors, most of which falls flat. My next watch was going to be Pocketful of Miracles but thankfully I realized its 1961, and judging from the harsh reviews online, I probably will skip it altogether.

[zedz]

I've been trawling through my kevyip lately, watching a large number of Raoul Walsh films that had accumulated, and I found the fifties a pretty interesting decade in his career. From what I've seen, his output in those years was much more erratic than the incredible run he had from 1939 to 1949 (but then again, how many directors had a ten-year run to match that one?: The Roaring Twenties, They Drive by Night, High Sierra, The Strawberry Blonde, Gentleman Jim, Northern Pursuit, Objective, Burma!, The Man I Love, Pursued, Colorado Territory, White Heat).

When Walsh is working with a lead actor as strong and flexible as Cagney or Bogart (or Mitchum, or Lupino), the results bristle with confidence, but he also managed to do really good work using lead actors with a much more limited range. Look no further than his various Errol Flynn movies for evidence, though he also makes the most of Rock Hudson in 50s films like Sea Devils and Gun Fury (both 1953).

Gregory Peck, however, seems to have sunk him. I found Captain Horatio Hornblower, R.N. (1951) as stiff and dry as Peck himself, and the romantic entanglements that mechanically unfurled were, as a consequence, only engaging in the abstract (despite the best efforts of Virginia Mayo, who's another actor at her best under Walsh's direction). Plus, naval battles with lots of second unit footage in long shot don't really play to Walsh's strengths as a stager of action.

The World in His Arms (1952), another maritime Peck vehicle, is livelier, at least. Though Peck is still a dramatic black hole, this time he's up against Anthony Quinn romping around, chewing the scenery (and, when he's done with that, starting in on Peck). But again, it feels like Walsh never really gets on top of the material, and the character stuff seems very one-note.

Much better is the dour western, Along the Great Divide (1951), with Kirk Douglas as a dour marshal forced to cross a desert with a ramshackle band of fellow lawmen and prisoners. It soon becomes a psychological drama in which the characters' and our alliegances shift and twist. Douglas is a bit of a scenery-chewer as well, but he gets the role's intensity right. Although it pales a little alongside another crossing-the-desert western, Yellow Sky, it's an excellent film nevertheless.

A Lion Is in the Streets (1953) is a weird one. Cagney's back, in a very challenging role, and this is an extremely ambitious film. In fact, in his final decade, Walsh seems to be deliberately grappling with Big Issues and moral complexity in a number of his films. Unfortunately, many of these films seem way too constrained by contemporary attitudes and Hollywood codes to actually deliver on their promise, but they do come off as fascinatingly murky. In this film, Cagney, the ostensible hero, plays a champion of the little guy who morphs into something much darker and more troubling. Thematically, and on the level of character, the film is facinating, but for me it was all too dramatically flimsy to actually deliver on that promise: key characters are underdeveloped; some key relationships seem muddled, possibly because of the Production Code (I'm specifically thinking of the relationship between Cagney and 'Flamingo'); and the climax / denouement relating to the election and its aftermath seems rushed and convenient. There's also far too little location work for a film that spends so much time outdoors (and which is in large part predicated on an urban / rural divide) - the studio facsimiles of swamps and rustic outposts are stagy and cramped, which makes it hard for Walsh to get much juice out of those scenes. Nevertheless, an interesting failure.

Band of Angels (1957) - I seem to recall somebody (probably domino) recommending this as a fascinatingly lurid curio, and they were right. Again, Walsh is biting off more than he can chew in terms of racial politics, and the residual 'message' is muddled, to say the least, but in many respects the film is more honest and honestly confrontational about historical American racism than most other Hollywood films, and certainly more so than the one it superficially resembles, Gone with the Wind. There's an awful lot of murky, dubious, sensationalized stuff floating around, but amongst it are very effective glimpses of insight, some of them even rather subtle. The ridiculous old saw about 'well-treated' slaves respecting and wanting to stay with their 'masters' is trotted out yet again, but in a context in which one of the film's strongest characters insists that good treatment is irrelevant: slavery can never not be an abomination. The film also (rather unsubtly) exposes the hypocrisy of the Northern 'liberators'. Just about every eye-rolling piece of special pleading (e.g. Sidney Poitier's vengeful former slave deciding to 'spare' his heart-of-gold former 'master') is complicated by some structural counterweight (the revelation in the same scene that his army colleagues still regard Poitier as a social inferior). This is all without mentioning the film's most conflicted and conflicting character, Yvonne de Carlo's 'white negress' - a character whose identity is entirely contingent, forever defined by other characters, most of whom want to rape her. On the downside, the story is pretty much as lurid as you'd imagine, and the script can get very clunky at times, but the seething, contradictory politics of the film are really interesting.

Not a 50s film, but in the same boat is Walsh's last film, A Distant Trumpet, which has a similarly conflicted attitude towards Native Americans (like a lot of late westerns by 'classical' Hollywood directors). In terms of the film's action, the Indians are presented as a traditional feral menace, but the film's few heroes nevertheless stand up for their rights, and the real villains of the piece are double-dealing white capitalists and politicians. There's also an unexpectedly mature relationship story in there: it's a damn good film.

Back to the 50s, and the best of the films I saw in this run, was Battle Cry (1955), a wonderfully unconventional WWII movie which spends most of its generous running time avoiding combat. Instead, it looks at the guys and their gals, refracting complicated relationships through a fine ensemble cast and reminding us that Walsh was cinema's first master of widescreen. Again, this is a film that tackles complex subjects - admittedly on a more modest scale than some of these others - but pulls it off very well indeed. In addition, it's got much stronger ensemble acting and lots of excellent location shooting and compositions in depth - just the kind of things that Walsh does best. Also, there's the sheer geeky delight of seeing L.Q. Jones making his film debut playing a character called. . . L.Q. Jones.