1950s Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[Scharphedin2]

Moving through 1953, I viewed a very diverse batch of films over the past week or so. Most of them were highly recommendable in their various ways. However, to start on a particularly low note for me personally, I found myself aborting the viewing of a film this past week. I cannot remember ever doing that before, and in a way I was being unfair to the film. However, after viewing a third of Vicki, I realized of course that it was a straight remake of I Wake Up Screaming, and as I did not find anything new or better in the casting, or execution of the story, I lost patience with it. It seemed in all ways inferior to the original. If someone has watched both films to the end, and have a very different impression, I would be interested to hear about it. I may just have to go back and do the film justice.

Next up was Plunder of the Sun; not a film I had great expectations for, but I have to say that after seeing it and His Kind Of Woman, I am basically ready to view anything out of John Farrow's quirky imagination. The eccentricity of the plot and characters involved in this tale of an American drifter (Glenn Ford), who comes into possession of clues that may lead to the recovery of an ancient Mexican treasure, almost rivals some of Huston's and Welles' noirs of the forties. Adding to the atmosphere of the film are the real Mexican streets, cantinas and ruins that serve as the backdrops for the story. This may rank as a minor pleasure, but a real pleasure nonetheless.

Like many people in the forum, I was impressed with Ida Lupino's The Hitch-Hiker. However, I was at least as impressed with The Bigamist, which she directed the same year. The subject of a man living a double life as husband to two different women, told with the sincerity that Lupino and her cast brought to this film, would be controversial even today. I am amazed that it would have been made in the early fifties. And then, there is the way that the story is told, only gradually revealing the kind of life that the Edmond O'Brien character is living. The scene about half an hour into the film, when an elderly agent from an adoption bureau turns up on O'Brien's doorstep at his alternate address is staged to perfection. Then there is the depiction of the loneliness of the traveling salesman (O'Brien), and the equally isolated Phyllis (played by Lupino herself), whom he meets by chance on one of his extended business trips – again, staged with real understanding and genuine sympathy. This is a very brave and noble film on an exceedingly difficult topic. I viewed the Alpha release of the film, and to be fair the disc is a mockery of the film, but how else will you ever get to see it?

And then, I viewed the absolutely wonderful Little Fugitive. This was made as a real independent film at the time, and apparently it served as a strong inspiration for several of the French new wave directors. What story there is concerns two young brothers (12 and 6 years old, I believe), who are left home alone for a day and a half. The older brother and his pals trick little Joey into thinking that he has shot and killed his brother. Being a real little cowboy, Joey at once realizes that he has no other option but to go on the lam, and so, with his six-shooter strapped to his waist and a couple of bucks in his jeans, Joey runs off to Coney Island. The rest of the film follows Joey's experiences at the boardwalk; there is hardly any dialogue, we just see how Joey passes his time trying out the various amusements, eating a wiener, buying candyfloss to discover that it is really just a bunch of fluff, trying his arm at hitting baseballs, knocking down cans, and riding ponies. Morris Engel and his crew truly got inside the head of this little boy, and captured this film almost as the boy's memory of the incident. Thanks to Schreck for pointing out this unique little film in the Kino Catalogue thread a while back!

Years ago, I went through a real ‘50s sci-fi binge, but somehow I never got around to Byron Haskin's War of the Worlds. I think, I figured that the story was so familiar to me that it could not be that exciting to view as a film. Seeing it now, the things that I probably enjoyed the most was the whole ‘50s vibe that the film has, and the Americana that creeps into the film at odd moments, like the square dancing early in the film, the almost “lover's laneâ€

[sevenarts]

Still going too. Anatomy of a Murder continues my Preminger binge, and I continue to be incredibly impressed. I'm sure this one is old news to almost everyone, but damn this film just sparkles. And that's not easy to accomplish in a nearly 3-hour courtroom drama about a man on trial for killing his wife's supposed rapist. But Stewart is absolutely amazing, totally relaxed in his role and able to perfectly handle the shifting tones of humor, mystery, and suspense. And the rest of the superstar cast is at a similarly high level too, even down to the bit players who could've otherwise been cliched, like the old alcoholic lawyer, who winds up a surprisingly nuanced and touching character. Preminger uses this material to explore the arbitrary nature of justice, and the disconnect between justice and the courtroom proceedings supposedly dedicated to reaching it, and the unsteady boundary between truth and lies, and the impossibility of truly knowing what is in another person's heart or mind. It's a remarkable film, and as I've come to expect as par for the course in Preminger, it hides a significant depth and complexity behind its surface entertainment and suspense.

Louis Malle's Crazeologie. Well, that was stupid.

Sunset Boulevard is another of those classics I probably should have seen before now. Really great. Gloria Swanson was incredible, hamming it up and clearly having a ball. Her Nosferatu-like clawing and grasping movements and widened eyes are all she needs to evoke silent-era glories, and her early line about the movies getting small seems perfectly apt. She plays a woman way too big for her world, too grand and grandiose for both the world and the film she's in here, her powerful performance stealing every scene. She's sad and hilarious and silly and overblown all at once, and it's wonderful.

[Michael]

I'm having a hard time ranking the French noir gems of 1950s. The ones I've seen: Rififi, Bob le Flambeur and Touchez pas au grisbi. How would you rank them? I think I love Bob the most.

[colinr0380]

I'm having a hard time ranking the French noir gems of 1950s. The ones I've seen: Rififi, Bob le Flambeur and Touchez pas au grisbi. How would you rank them? I think I love Bob the most.

The same for me, although I've not yet seen Touchez Pas Au Grisbi. I'd put Bob Le Flambeur first then Rififi just behind.

[Michael Kerpan]

In just did a brief survey -- and decided I have well over 30 Japanese favorite films from the 50s. ;~}

My absolute essentials

Naruse's "Repast", "Flowing", "Sound of the Mountain", "Lightning", "Floating Clouds", "Late Chrysanthemums"

Ozu's "Early Summer", "Tokyo Story", "Tokyo Twilight", "Equinox Flower", "Floating Weeds"

Mizoguchi's "Life of O-Haru", "Crucified Lovers", "Gion Festival Music", "Street of Shame"

Uchida's "Bloody Spear at Mt. Fuji" (if you can read French at all -- please watch the French DVD of this woefully under-appreciated masterpiece)

Toyoda's "Gan" (Mistress / Wild Geese)

Kurosawa's "Idiot", "Lower Depths", "Throne of Blood", "Seven Samurai"

Gosho's "Where Chimneys Are Seen", "Banka"

Ichikawa's "Burmese Harp"

Imai's "Story of Pure Love"

An extraordinary outpouring of creativity (and genius).

[Michael]

Thanks for the very helpful survey, Michael.

Back to the French crime / noirs, I'd place Bob le Flambeur ahead of Rififi because Bob has such a beautifully designed array of lost souls that are so easy to love and embrace like best friends - not much different from PT Anderson's own family of characters. Bob - what a guy! I could watch him walking in silence for hours without getting tired. And Melville's women are something else - very strong, independent and luxuriously realized. Is it possible to forget the 16 year old Anne in the tallest stilettos I've ever seen? Or that bar owner - brief scenes but wonderfully memorable?

Rififi is great but it moralizes too much for my taste .. and also way too cruel with its characters.

[Scharphedin2]

Michael Kerpan -- I just viewed Twenty-Four Eyes last night, and was deeply moved. It was my first Kinoshita film, and I could not help sending you a thought and wondering what you think of the film, and this director's work in general.

I remember Donald Richie being very enthusiastic about Kinoshita in his book on Japanese film history, and I of course find it sad that this is more or less the only accessible film of his that is available to an English subtitle dependent audience.

[Michael Kerpan]

I have grown more and more disenchanted with Kinoshita's films the more I've seen. I think I've seen about 12 of his films by now, and have little interest in seeing any more of them.

On first viewing of "24 Eyes" and "Carmen Comes Home", I rather enjoyed them (and was moved by 24 Eyes). But they haven't worn well. I find Kinoshita too blatantly manipulative for my taste. And I don't think he has a very strong visual sensibility (lots of visual gimmickry in his later films). My favorite Kinoshita film is his war-time "Army" -- due to its great final sequence.

Kinoshita's socio-political heart was in the right place -- so I would like to enjoy his work. But I don't.

Takamine's performance in 24 Eyes is fine (so far as it goes), but is far less subtle than the work she did for Naruse. Similarly, Hara's one Kinoshita role (in Ojosan kampai) is much less distinctive than her work for Ozu, Naruse and Kurosawa). Sugimura is impressive in "Morning for the Osone Family", but the film itself seems pretty stagey (and dramatically a bit preposterous). I absolutely loathed his "Ballad of Narayama" -- which I felt wasted the talent of Kinuyo Tanaka.

Obviously lots of other people have liked Kinoshita's films -- but he is my least favorite (second) golden age director. I like Tadashi Imai and Hideo Oba's films more -- not to mention other better known peers like Ichikawa and Kurosawa (and elders like Ozu, Naruse, Mizoguchi and Gosho). And, I much prefer Yoji Yamada's more recent handling of sentimental and didactic material (a director Richie ignores in his book -- despite his immense and enduring popularity).

Note: "24 Eyes" is definitely worth seeing -- because of its cultural significance -- and because it is always worthwhile seeing Takamine at work.

[zedz]

In just did a brief survey -- and decided I have well over 30 Japanese favorite films from the 50s. ;~}

I agree with you on the strength of Japanese cinema in this decade (and wish I'd seen all the films you mention), but for me it's the sixties where this gets especially ridiculous. I could already put together a rock-solid '50 best' list for the decade without leaving Japan. Not only have you got the influx of New Wave geniuses (Oshima, Imamura, Hani et al), but you've got the tail end of the grandmasters (Ozu, Naruse) and continued high achievement by the generation in between (Kurosawa, Ichikawa, Shindo), plus various wild cards like Suzuki and Masumura doing their best work.

[Scharphedin2]

In just did a brief survey -- and decided I have well over 30 Japanese favorite films from the 50s. ;~}

I agree with you on the strength of Japanese cinema in this decade (and wish I'd seen all the films you mention), but for me it's the sixties where this gets especially ridiculous. I could already put together a rock-solid '50 best' list for the decade without leaving Japan. Not only have you got the influx of New Wave geniuses (Oshima, Imamura, Hani et al), but you've got the tail end of the grandmasters (Ozu, Naruse) and continued high achievement by the generation in between (Kurosawa, Ichikawa, Shindo), plus various wild cards like Suzuki and Masumura doing their best work.

Not to mention Masaki Kobayashi, who would certainly have 3 or 4 films on my all Japanese '60s list.

[zedz]

Not to mention Masaki Kobayashi, who would certainly have 3 or 4 films on my all Japanese '60s list.

And Teshigahara, and Shinoda. It's an incredibly rich period. It may partly be ignorance on my part, but there seems to be a really stark contrast with the 1970s, when so many of these filmmakers were drastically less active (or deceased). Actually, did any of the filmmakers mentioned maintain the same level and quality of output in the following decade?

Maybe we should leave this discussion until the 1960s List Suggestions thread starts up in June?

[Michael Kerpan]

As to the 60s, probably discussion can be deferred a bit.

As to 70s, do we need a new thread? ;~}

Short answer -- most giants of earlier years had died or retired -- or had retreated (or been pushed) into a lower level of activity. And the 70s films that were made have been relatively unavailable in the West.

[zedz]

As to 70s, do we need a new thread? ;~}

Your wish; my command.

[sevenarts]

More 50s viewing. The Hitch-hiker is a tense, stark, almost minimalist example of film noir, the kind of no-budget flick where its sheer simplicity is its greatest virtue. The opening text sums it up perfectly -- a guy, a gun, a car. And that's all it needs to craft this incredible thriller.

Clouzot's Mystery of Picasso basically couldn't fail, given its premise -- put Picasso in front of a camera and let him draw. It doesn't disappoint, at least not for those like me who are fascinated by watching the process of creation at work. It's mesmerizing just following the line and watching the drawings evolve and change, sometimes for the better, but surprisingly more often for the worse. In almost all the drawings I could pinpoint a moment when I wished it would just stop, that it was perfect, and yet Picasso would keep going, in search of something more than what was already there. It's a really interesting film. Some of the "drama" that Clouzot injects involving reels in danger of running out etc seems a little contrived, unnecessarily bringing the filmmaking process into what should've been a very straightforward documentary. But that's a pretty minor component in the film, thankfully, and all the real drama is provided simply by Picasso's lines and colors.

Preminger's Angel Face isn't one of his best 50s features, but it's still very enjoyable and psychologically complex. Mitchum gives a pitch-perfect performance as an emotionally cool, non-commital guy who's dragged into a world of rage and murder by a girl who he falls for in his casual way. He's not particularly engaged by anything, even this girl who he seems drawn to at least enough to cheat on his long-time present girlfriend. His casual manner and constant flip-flopping stands in stark contrast to Jean Simmons' ardent (and sociopathic) performance. It's a study in emotional extremes, the impossibility of understanding another person's mind or emotions, and the complex relationships we form with other people as a result. Preminger's direction is as dispassionate as Mitchum's performance, and the result is possibly the iciest study of passionate hatred ever committed to film.

Several people here have commented on the profound weirdness of John Parker's Dementia (maybe better known by its re-release title of Daughter of Horror?). This odd, unsettling little film, only an hour long, prefigures David Lynch while examining the fragmented dreamworld of a young woman beseiged by Freudian terrors and the aftermath of an abusive and violence-stained childhood. With no dialogue, the film glides along simply on the strength of its expressionistic, shadowy visuals and a dynamic, jarring soundtrack filled by an eerie score and only occasional naturalistic sound effects. Real strange stuff, it's no wonder it was so thoroughly suppressed and censored.

[jonp72]

Slowly but surely, I'm going through my cinematic choices for 1951. Here's my provisional top five for that year:

1. Diary of a Country Priest (Robert Bresson)
2. Ace in the Hole aka The Big Carnival (Billy Wilder)
3. Pandora & The Flying Dutchman (Albert Lewin)
4. Awaara (Raj Kapoor)
5. The River (Jean Renoir)

Contenders: The Lady of Musashino (Kenji Mizoguchi), Bellissima (Luchino Visconti), Miracle in Milan (Vittorio de Sica), The Tall Target (Anthony Mann)

Diary of Country Priest stood out above them all, because I felt that it was the film where Bresson really perfected his austere, minimalist style for the first time. The asceticism of the style also blended seamlessly with the content of the film--about how religious asceticism and "authentic" Christianity can be unsustainable in a modern world where people don't want their religious leaders to tell them they need moral improvement. Ace in the Hole gets my #2 vote, because it's the most laceratingly cynical film from Billy Wilder I've yet seen, but Wilder doesn't compromise by sweetening the cynicism with a romantic subplot. It is also simultaneously one of the most dark-hearted noirs and one of the most incisive media satires I've seen. (There is no legit release of Ace in the Hole on VHS or DVD yet, but it will get a legit release from Criterion this June.) I ranked Pandora & the Flying Dutchman at #3, because its sensuality and its oversaturated Technicolor remind me of some the Powell & Pressburger films I love. An IMDB review dismissed it as "talky surrealism," but that's precisely why I love it. The film is passionate enough to include as many visual hints of a wet, naked Ava Gardner as the Production Code will allow, yet literate enough to include references ranging from modern art to Gypsy tarot cards to the Rubaiyat. The Bollywood musical Awaara is at #4. Raj Kapoor made a three-hour musical epic that is simultaneously joyful to watch, yet almost Dickensian in dealing with the hard realities of caste and poverty. It also includes the first dream sequence included in a Bollywood musical, a sequence reminiscent of the black-and-white sections of A Matter of Life and Death. Finally, my #5 choice is another film set in India, Jean Renoir's The River. The Technicolor portrait of India is rapturous, and you can see how Renoir has the eye of a painter mapped into his genetic code. Although I ranked the film lower than I thought I would (I noticed that film seemed to be structurally similar to Renoir's The Southerner in how it seamlessly weaved through the stories of several members of an extended family of characters), the film has some of the most accurate depictions of thwarted female adolescent desire I have ever seen (at least based on my recollections of the rare times when I was the recipient of an awkward crush from a girl too young for me...I can't say I've ever been a teenage girl though...).

The Lady of Musashino is solid Mizoguchi if not necessarily the peak of his work I've seen so far (I reserve that for Sansho the Bailiff, but I still have more to see), although I appreciate it a great deal as Mizoguchi's first major attempt I'm aware of to grapple with realities of postwar Japan, including atomic bomb and how to deal with Japanese militarism. Early Summer is solid Ozu and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it; I just prefer the bookends of the "Noriko trilogy" (Late Spring and Tokyo Story) instead.

I saw the Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing, but I felt that neither really transcended the limitations of 1950s Hollywood sci-fi. Still, The Thing is the better film, because it doesn't have anything in it as pedantic as The Day The Earth Stood Still's antinuclear morality tale. The Well is a story about a town that nearly experiences a race riot when a black girl goes missing, but then joins together when the girl is found to have fallen down a well. I thought the film had some of the best, non-patronizing roles for black character actors in a 1950s American film, but I felt the film's depiction of race relations was a little unrealistic given the bloody history of race riots in the U.S. before the end of the Jim Crow era.

Bellissima and Miracle in Milan were both interesting experiments in branching out from the constraints of 1940s Italian neorealism. Bellissima is an extremely prescient satire of child actors and the lust of their parents for fame, which features Anna Magnani as a force-of-nature stage mother from hell. Miracle in Milan, on the other hand, could be viewed as an example of "magical neorealism" that dramatizes the plight of the homeless population in Milan in the guise of a storybook fantasy with capitalists in fur-lined coats, an anarcho-socialist paradise that spontaneously arises spontaneously from a squatter's colony in a junkyard, and a guardian angel with a magical dove.

Strangers on a Train was the biggest disappointment on re-viewing. It has so many bravura set pieces (the tennis match, the merry-go-round etc.), but it's hampered by Farley Granger's inability to seem convincing as a leading man. When compared to the chemistry created between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (or between John Dall and Farley Granger in Rope for that matter), Strangers on a Train is just lacking, despite Robert Walker's juicy portrayal as Bruno.

I saw Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet too, but I guess my affection for it isn't as much as the guys who grew up watching it on TV in the 1950s and 1960s. The film does some great work in showing how sudden and unexpected death is an unavoidable part of war, and I laud Fuller's vision to make a war movie that wasn't a "goddamn recruiting poster," but I would pick Park Row or Pickup on South Street as better examples of Sam Fuller's work from the 1950s. However, I was also pleasantly surprised by Anthony Mann's the Tall Target. Based on a story about an assassination plot against Abe Lincoln before his inauguration, it could be viewed as a Western or as a "period noir" in the style of Mann's The Black Book aka Reign of Terror. It makes the politics of the pre-Civil War U.S. come alive, in addition to featuring some great John Alton cinematography (at least, I think it's John Alton) and a performance by Ruby Dee as a slave. Ruby Dee's performance was especially good, because of how her expression changed, based on whether her character felt free enough to speak out of earshot of her master and mistress.

[jt]

visual hints of a wet, naked Ava Gardner

Well, that film has just jumped to the top of my 50's to-see list.

I thought my list would be mainly hollywood noir with a dozen or so japanese/french but after reading Michael Kerpen's list, I'm not sure if I'll have space for any non-japanese films at all...

[Michael Kerpan]

Japanese 1951 films I think are better than Mizoguchi's Lady of Musashino:

1. Naruse's Repast
2. Ozu's Early Spring
3. Kurosawa's Idiot
4. Mizoguchi's Miss Oyu
5. Naruse's Maihime (Dancing Girl)
6. Naruse's Ginza Cosmetics
7. Kinoshita's Carmen Comes Home

;~}

[mikeohhh]

visual hints of a wet, naked Ava Gardner

Well, that film has just jumped to the top of my 50's to-see list.

yup

I wish I had access to so many of those Japanese films. Can't we extend the due date for our lists until after Late Ozu is released? Good thing Sansho the Bailiff will squeak by the June cutoff (though I will see it tomorrow on the big screen... so pumped! Saw Life of Oharu on Tuesday and it's in my top 10). Not Japanese, but Ace in the Hole is another soon-to-be-released title that would fare better if we were submitting our lists later.

But I'm cool with June 1 as a deadline. I went into this project fully aware of how rich a decade the 50s were but the main thought in my mind each time I update my spreadsheet is how small a number 50 really is (did I really just bump off The Asphalt Jungle AND The Seventh Seal? And is Some Like It Hot's position really that precarious?)

I wish I had access to so many of those Japanese films. Can't we extend the due date for our lists until after Late Ozu is released? Good thing Sansho the Bailiff will squeak by the June cutoff (though I will see it tomorrow on the big screen... so pumped! Saw Life of Oharu on Tuesday and it's in my top 10). Not Japanese, but Ace in the Hole is another soon-to-be-released title that would fare better if we were submitting our lists later.

But I'm cool with June 1 as a deadline. I went into this project fully aware of how rich a decade the 50s were but the main thought in my mind each time I update my spreadsheet is how small a number 50 really is (did I really just bump off The Asphalt Jungle AND The Seventh Seal? And is Some Like It Hot's position really that precarious?)[/quote]

[zedz]

Can't we extend the due date for our lists until after Late Ozu is released?

The cut-off date is immaterial to me (and I'm actually going to be away at the time, so the compiling will be delayed anyway), so if there's support for this proposal I'm happy to go with it.

Late Ozu is due out on 12 June, so I'd suggest the end of the following weekend (24 June) as an alternative date. This should give non-US voters a chance as well.

I'll post this in the 'official' Lists Projects (admin) thread as well, so please direct any discussion there.

[Scharphedin2]

zedz, why not make a clean break of it, and say July 1st... that will give Ozu (I mean the non-US voters) an even better chance to participate.

[sevenarts]

Still more 50s viewing. I watched two of the Mann/Stewart westerns back to back in the last two days. The Far Country wound up being the slightly weaker of the two, but it's still a fascinating film and an excellent introduction to Mann for me. It features perhaps the most frustrating and iconoclastic screen "hero" ever shown in a Hollywood western, as Stewart's character systematically subverts every expectation for a western lead. He's steadfastly individualist, to the point of total selfishness -- he mistrusts all other people except his old friend (Walter Brennan) and believes in nothing but self-preservation. As such, it's a curious type of western where most of the film consists of the hero standing by passively and mostly allowing bad and unfair things to happen to good people. There's almost a masochistic element to it, a focus on suffering with very little of the release usually achieved through the hero fighting back. The complaint I have with it is that its message is delivered too obviously, partly because Stewart's selfishness is so exaggerated, and the reversal at the end so sudden. It's just not entirely satisfying in the end, though it's still a stylish and moody western in terms of pure atmosphere.

The other Mann/Stewart western I watched was The Man From Laramie, which certainly was entirely satisfying. In fact, it's a downright masterpiece. It shares some similarities with Far Country, especially in the suffering of the hero, who, though not nearly as passive as the other film, still suffers quite a bit from circumstances beyond his control, before Mann finally allows him to act decisively. Mann seems interested in how far a man can be pushed before he breaks and turns to violence -- this is obvious not just in Stewart's lead, but in the character of Vick, whose breakdown over the course of the film parallels and contrasts against Stewart's own arc of revenge. There's a surprising amount of psychological complexity on display here, and moreso in the peripheral characters than in Stewart's hero, who is pretty much just fixated on his mission. But Vick, Alec, and even Dave have a lot more going on, and Vick and Alec at least progress and develop through the course of the film. It's a stunning film, with gorgeous open vistas and some striking psychologically motivated tracking shots -- like the jaw-dropping one that pans from Dave's corpse up to Vick's face sitting next to it, then across an open space until Alec unexpectedly appears in the foreground. The only minor strike against it is that cheesy and entirely inappropriate theme song, which mars the opening titles and the otherwise perfect ending. Can't really blame Mann for that though, I'd guess.

The other Hollywood western I watched recently was Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. Lots of fun and incredibly intense, achieving a taut suspense narrative with just a minimum of actual violence and a maximum of buildup. The final shootout is incredibly staged, too. Dean Martin provides most of the character interest, and John Wayne proves himself entirely unbelievable in the romantic subplot despite a very sexy Angie Dickenson. But finally all that really matters is Wayne's casual drawl and the constant threat of violence that overhangs the film.

I gather that The Trouble With Harry is a widely unloved Hitchcock, but I thought it was wonderful, only slightly below my favorite Hitch film, Rear Window. That means, along with North By Northwest, my three favorite Hitchcocks fall in the 50s. As a comedy, it's incredibly subtle, even dry and deadpan, with a distinctly British flavor despite the American cast and setting. It's also gorgeously shot, possibly the best evocation of autumn ever filmed, with its luscious oranges and golds everywhere. And the sunny tone of the images provides a nice contrast to the gallows humor as poor Harry's dead body gets shuffled back and forth. As a satire of American priorities and the modern attitude towards death, it's an utter masterpiece. I also loved the constant sexual witticisms, some of which were just shockingly bold for the Production Code era -- in particular, I remember the exchange about being the first man to cross Miss Gravely's "threshhold." Heh.

As for other 50s Hitch, I also watched The Man Who Knew Too Much. More great color cinematography, and some stunning set pieces like the rightfully legendary Albert Hall sequence and the chase scene and murder in Marrakesh, but the whole somehow didn't quite add up. It also bothered me a bit that the whole last sequence depended on the characters not taking the most logical course, which would've been to simply tell the ambassador the whole story while they had him on the phone. Hitch's plots are usually so tight and logical that such holes stick out even more than they do in other thrillers. Anyway, enjoyable but minor Hitchcock.

My first exposure to Yasuzo Masumura came with Giants and Toys, and it's great stuff. A really harsh and bitter satire, sweetened somewhat by the over-the-top visuals and the breakneck pacing. The film really pulls you into its absurd world, amping up its image of corporate Japan to insane levels where execs vomit blood and companies resort to giving away live squirrels just to sell candy. It's a lunatic film in the best sense, and its characters fully inhabit and rarely question the warped logic that dominates their lives.

[zedz]

Thanks sevenarts. I'm with you on the comparative merits of the two Manns. If these are your first Mann westerns, gobble the rest of the available ones up. Man of the West is sorely in need of a better release, but it's an incredible film, and The Tin Star shouldn't be overlooked either.

I gather that The Trouble With Harry is a widely unloved Hitchcock

Not with me. For a long time this was my favourite Hitchcock film, and it still surges in my estimation when I resee it. It's a pitch-perfect black comedy that really shows off his versatility.

If you liked Giants and Toys, do check out the other Fantoma Masumura releases. They're much darker in tone, but they share that characteristic of fearlessly pursuing their chosen subjects to their logical (or obsessively surreal) conclusions. Red Angel is one of the most uncompromising anti-war films you'll ever see.

As for my own viewing, I've been a little lax lately, but I've reviewed several experimental works. Genet's Un chant d'amour is even stronger than I recalled. The Fantoma Kenneth Anger release is stunning - easily a front-runner for release of the year - even Rabbit's Moon, one of my least favourite Angers, looks so jaw-droppingly gorgeous that it's now in contention for my 50s list. The sublime Eaux d'artifice remains solidly in my top ten.

I've revisited the few 50s films on the Criterion Brakhage set. Window Water Baby Moving remains my favourite, but as it's ineligible, I might have to make room for the spooky Wedlock House. It's been so long since I've seen various other Brakhage films from this period (Wonder Ring, Daybreak and Whiteye, Anticipation of the Night) that I don't feel confident in ranking them. Actually, imdb seems to have Anticipation misdated as 1962 anyway, so it's out of contention.

Plus I've picked up the surprisingly good Facets James Broughton set (thanks to whoever recommended it here - was it you, Scharph?), though I'm not especially taken with any of the whimsical 1950s works.

[Scharphedin2]

Plus I've picked up the surprisingly good Facets James Broughton set (thanks to whoever recommended it here - was it you, Scharph?), though I'm not especially taken with any of the whimsical 1950s works.

Not me, although I have been eyeing that particular set myself. And, by the way, thanks for the extension Commandante Zedz. Daylight savings time here in Scandinavia adds up to film viewing reduction time in my book. Throw the filmmakers' sub-forum and work commitments on top, and my progress through the fifties has slowed to something like a crawl in recent weeks. Still, at the end of 1953, and into the year of 1954, I came across the following odd bouquet of films…

Generally not considered one of Marcel Carné's best films, Thérèse Raquin has nonetheless remained vividly in my thoughts, since I saw it a couple of weeks ago. I am no longer certain that the alleged lack of chemistry between Raf Valone and Simone Signoret was in fact not intentional. Clearly, Signoret is a very beautiful young woman, who is trapped in a marriage to a dusty old man, with his imposing mother living under their roof. Having entered into this situation at a very young age, I think a case could be made that she, while she is discontent, she is also unable to envision any other kind of life. Valone steps into the picture, and, I think she (probably only half-consciously at first) sees him as a ticket out of her dreary existence. She is not in love with him, and the question is whether she is really even sexually attracted to him. Events soon begin to spin out of her control, leading through a maze of the kind of plot turns that Carné was so great at – stretching the fabric of the story into shapes that are all the closer to life, for being plausible both improbable – until the finale, which again takes a turn or two that are completely unexpected. In fact, I just love that ending. I also adore Signoret's feline performance – her demeanor, as she metes out her existence behind the counter of the store, amounts to so many soundless sighs, and the way that she is seen, always taking things in without comment, her eyes like little lanterns in the dark. There is an unforgettable moment, when Signoret carefully peeks through the blinds of her upstairs window down at the story's antagonist, parking his motorcycle across her window in the narrow street below, and casting a sly glance up at her. So, much of the story in this film is told through stolen glances, quiet observations, and things caught out of half closed eyes. The evocation of Lyon, and the domestic details are also wonderfully realized, almost as if Trauner had been on hand for the production design. The film is a clear sibling to Carné's masterpieces of the forties and fifties, and I think that any admirer of Quai des brume, Les enfants du Paradis and Le jour se leve will enjoy it.

I expected a very simple John Wayne picture, when I sat down to watch Island in the Sky, and of course that is basically what I got. However, somehow I am still happily able to be overtaken by just how nail-bitingly exciting a fairly simple formula picture like this can be. Wayne is a pilot, who crashes with his cargo plane over uncharted Canadian territory. In the excruciating arctic winter, the little group of men fight for survival, and, without fuel or electricity continue to send out distress signals for their friends at home base to be able to find them. Meanwhile a colorful group of other pilots are pushing themselves and their planes beyond the limit of endurance to keep up the search – having only a very vague idea of where the plane has actually gone down, the area to be covered is immense, and the search is literally for the needle in the haystack. Wild Bill Wellman directed the film, and he also directed Track of the Cat the following year. Again, the setting is a particularly remote Northern American mountain area in deep winter. Robert Mitchum is the rather nasty and domineering son of an old drunkard and a bitter old bible-thumping woman, with a cowardly older brother, a spinster sister, and a younger brother who has not yet stepped into character, and whose wife-to-be, Mitchum covets. Surprisingly – given Wellman's penchant for action – the film veers on the edge of being a real talk fest, even though Mitchum and his elder brother spend most of the film chasing the cat of the title in the snowclad mountains (albeit off-screen most of the time). Filmed in (sparse) color and cinemascope, the film often looked very good, but it never developed into the kind of adventure spectacle that Wellman excelled at, and which I probably expected it to be.

Another old Hollywood professional with a penchant for tough dramas was Henry Hathaway, and with Garden of Evil he had the cast to make a really tough western. Both Richard Widmark and Gary Cooper are present and very much live up to their established screen personas, and, as the elusive love interest, Susan Hayward is at hand. The film was shot in Technicolor and cinemascope, and being largely a travelogue, the film makes a lot of the South-Western locales that it travels through. In the story department, things do not run quite as smoothly. Initially, the premise of a lone woman coming into a saloon to hire a group of gunmen to help her through hostile Indian territory in order to rescue her husband from a collapsed mineshaft makes enough sense to get things moving. But then the film settles into a very long trek on which the trustworthiness and toughness of the different men in the group is tested again and again, and when we finally reach the mine, there are several developments and plot twists that just did not seem natural to me within the story. In the end, I felt that this was a film that was largely produced to capitalize on the novel spectacle of cinemascope, which admittedly it does well.

Much the same could be said about Jean Negulesco's Three Coins in the Fountain; a film that largely recycles How to Marry a Millionaire in the setting of Rome. It is a really pleasant and gorgeous looking picture, if one enters into its spirit. Aside from the lovely ladies, and their at turns funny and frustrating love adventures, Clifton Webb is at his curmudgeonly best, as an expatriate writer, and his brief appearances are of the kind that keeps you tucked into the film, waiting for his next entrance. I enjoy films like these for their place in film history, and for allowing me to drift back into the times of the fifties, and experience for a couple of hours, the dreams and imaginings of that day.

They Were So Young is another B/C-Noir that was released by VCI as part of their Forgotten Film Noir series, and it is a fast-moving exposé of what boils down to white slavery in Brazil. The location is established through a couple of aerial stock shots from above Rio de Janeiro, and the rest is fairly inventively shot in the studio and amongst the foliage of the studio's untended back lot (I presume). Raymond Burr rumbles around imposingly in a handful of scenes, and the film delivers a handsome amount of plot reversals and (insinuated) violence to keep things lively. Again, if one does not come to the film expecting the smoothness of an A-studio production with big stars, and instead rolls with the punches of what the film has to offer, this is a highly enjoyable little film.

And then, another wonderful VCI disc: The Cowboy by Elmo Williams. This is about an hour long documentary on “realâ€

[sevenarts]

Thanks sevenarts. I'm with you on the comparative merits of the two Manns. If these are your first Mann westerns, gobble the rest of the available ones up. Man of the West is sorely in need of a better release, but it's an incredible film, and The Tin Star shouldn't be overlooked either.

Yup, those were my first by Mann. As for other Mann, viewing those two was enough to make me immediately order The Tin Star, Winchester '73, The Last Frontier, and Bend of the River, and I've already got the non-Western Men In War in my to-view pile. I'm sure I'll be tracking down at least a few more Manns too, once I've seen those.

Definitely agreed with you about Eaux d'artifice, which will certainly be on my list representing Anger. My own Brakhage pick will be the sublime Cat's Cradle, and if I made room for more it would've been the IMDB-ineligible Window Water Baby Moving, though Wedlock House is a great little film too.

Tonight I watched Billy Wilder's Witness For the Prosecution, which seemed to foreshadow Preminger's very similar Anatomy of a Murder 2 years later. For me, Anatomy is the much better and deeper film, but Witness is a solid courtroom drama buoyed largely by Charles Laughton's comedic presence and timing. And of course, the ending with its litany of shocks is great fun, and totally unexpected to me.

[zedz]

As for other Mann, viewing those two was enough to make me immediately order The Tin Star, Winchester '73, The Last Frontier, and Bend of the River, and I've already got the non-Western Men In War in my to-view pile. I'm sure I'll be tracking down at least a few more Manns too, once I've seen those.

I didn't even realise that Men in War was out on DVD. And hey! It's $3.80 at DVD Pacific. I assume this is a pretty nasty edition, but who can argue with that price?