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Post by badwolf on Jun 2, 2022 17:44:45 GMT -5
Tied in my ratings for 1951 are Strangers on a Train, A Christmas Carol, and People Will Talk.
Just slightly behind: The African Queen and The Day the Earth Stood Still.
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Post by commond on Jun 2, 2022 18:34:35 GMT -5
I think my favorite film from 1951 is probably An American in Paris. I also love the classic Bollywood film, Awaara, by Raj Kapoor. It's been a long time since I saw Dairy of a Country Priest, and I don't remember it being my favorite Bresson, but checking through the film sites it is highly rated from this year. I'm a fan of Fueller's Steel Helmet, Ray's On Dangerous Ground, and Stevens' A Place in the Sun. Early Summer is another classic Ozu film, though not at the level of Late Spring and Tokyo Story. I was surprised that I haven't seen the Mizoguchi or Naruse films from this year. Love 50s Sci-fi films and Ealing comedies.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 2, 2022 18:42:21 GMT -5
Alice in Wonderland takes 1951 for me, it's my favorite classic Disney animated film of all time (with Fantasia a very close second).
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Post by badwolf on Jun 2, 2022 19:18:06 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure I've seen Alice in Wonderland, but not since I was little, so I haven't rated it.
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Post by commond on Jun 3, 2022 7:20:23 GMT -5
I forgot about Streetcar Named Desire. Classic Brando performance.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 3, 2022 12:05:14 GMT -5
I forgot about Streetcar Named Desire. Classic Brando performance. Me, too. Should have been on my list, too. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 3, 2022 12:22:29 GMT -5
I forgot about Streetcar Named Desire. Classic Brando performance. Me, too. Should have been on my list, too. I've not seen it. I'm a bad movie fan. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 3, 2022 13:02:56 GMT -5
Me, too. Should have been on my list, too. I've not seen it. I'm a bad movie fan. I love bad movies, too. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 4, 2022 8:40:34 GMT -5
It looks like I missed a few years. So I’ll just simply list the movies I have for each year on my IMDB “Favorite Movies by Year” list.
1948 - Key Largo
1949 - Too Late for Tears
1950 - Sunset Boulevard, All About Eve (But I watch Sunset Boulevard a lot more often than All About Eve. All About Eve is exhausting!)
1951 - The Day the Earth Stood Still
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,210 
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Post by Confessor on Jun 6, 2022 19:01:02 GMT -5
So, I'm playing catch-up again, as seems to be the norm in this thread... 1948Let me get the cinematic blaspheme out of the way first and say that I sat through Treasure of the Sierra Madre during the pandemic and it absolutely bored the pants off of me. I usually enjoy a bit of prime Bogey ( Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep etc), but I found this movie a real slog to get through. I think the problem is that I found the three central characters rather unengaging – Bogart in particular doesn't really play an unlikeable character terribly well, IMHO – and plus it's all a bit overly moralistic for me. Key Largo was a bit more my speed and is my favourite of the year. Again, this was a film I only watched about two years ago, during time spent at home during lockdown. I really liked the atmospheric, stormy backdrop to it all, and Bogart and Bacall are both in fine form (although I still think that The Big Sleep is their best cinematic outing). Edward G. Robinson is great as arch gangster Johnny Rocco too. Overall, I found Key Largo to be an enjoyably tense, sultry and claustrophobic movie that was a perfect fit for being shut at home during a balmy summer, while the world fell apart outside.  Honourable mention goes to Joan of Arc, starring Ingrid Bergman in the title role, which I watched about a decade ago. I recall it being rather slow and overly long, in all honesty, but with some sumptuous Technicolor set pieces and action sequences in it. 1949I'm pretty sure the only film I've seen from this year is Twelve O'Clock High, starring Gregory Peck. It's a rather touching film that deals with post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. 8th Air Force crewmen flying B-17 Flying Fortresses over Nazi Germany in World War 2. The film is told via a post-war flashback in which Peck's character takes command of a U.S. bomb group in East Anglia, England. The group are low on moral, after suffering from heavy losses, but predictably Peck turns things around and his men become a tight, disciplined fighting unit. Having been made four years after the end of the war, Twelve O'Clock High is much more than just a propaganda piece: it's a film that tries to say something profound about those brave American men who survived the air war in the European Theatre, but who came home with invisible, psychological scars. It's well worth a watch, if you've not seen it.  1950Pretty sure the only film I've ever seen from 1950 is Disney's Treasure Island, and I last saw that a long, long time ago. I recall liking it (though not loving it) as a child in the early 80s. It's a fairly faithful retelling of the book, as far as I recall (and I read the book a few times as a kid back then too), and Robert Newton's "Arrr-Jim lad" performance really set the standard for pirates for years to come. My wife loved this film as a kid, and we currently have it earmarked on our Disney+ watchlist, so I'm looking forward to seeing this again in the coming weeks. .jpg) 1951The African Queen would easily be my favourite film of 1951. This was yet again a film I only saw for the first time during the pandemic (what can I say, I was on a bit of a Bogey kick at the time). Bogart plays a boozy riverboat captain who shepherds Katharine Hepburn's chatterbox English spinster and missionary through German-held East Africa at the outbreak of the First World War. The film pivots and turns on the chemistry between Bogart and Hepburn, and its a total triumph from that point of view. Sure, it's a little soppy, as this mismatched duo slowly come to love one another, but that's also a totally believable plot development thanks to the first class performances of the two leads. The African scenery is pretty much the third central cast member and damn near steals the show.  Honourable mentions for 1951 would go to some hugely enjoyable sci-fi b*llocks, namely...
When Worlds Collide, a superbly hokey sci-fi B-movie in which a lucky few humans head to a distant alien planet on a rocket ship "arc", when a rogue planet crashes into and destroys the Earth.
The equally hokey The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which the enlightened alien Klaatu attempts to teach the inhabitants of the Earth that peace, love and understanding is the way to go, in what I view as a critique of then-prevalent Cold-War paranoia.
And Superman and the Mole Men, in which good ol' George Reeves once again dons the red cape to rid a small town radium mine of some underground humanoid critters, although he does so by more or less siding with the subterranean creatures against an angry mob of panicked townsfolk. |
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Post by commond on Jun 6, 2022 19:35:53 GMT -5
I'm the opposite. I love Treasure of the Sierra Madre and find Key Largo incredibly underwhelming. Which is weird because they're both directed by John Huston, whom I love. I've never been totally enamoured with Lauren Bacall, I guess.
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Post by tartanphantom on Jun 6, 2022 21:00:13 GMT -5
I'm the opposite. I love Treasure of the Sierra Madre and find Key Largo incredibly underwhelming. Which is weird because they're both directed by John Huston, whom I love. I've never been totally enamoured with Lauren Bacall, I guess.
I actually agree with you on Treasure vs. Largo. Nothing against Bacall, but just enjoyed the first film much more than the second.
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Post by berkley on Jun 7, 2022 0:16:46 GMT -5
I'm the opposite. I love Treasure of the Sierra Madre and find Key Largo incredibly underwhelming. Which is weird because they're both directed by John Huston, whom I love. I've never been totally enamoured with Lauren Bacall, I guess.
I actually agree with you on Treasure vs. Largo. Nothing against Bacall, but just enjoyed the first film much more than the second.
Yeah, love 'em both, but Treasure probably ranks a little higher for me. Maybe it's just that it's different for Hollywood - the setting, the lack of sympathetic characters, the general downbeat feeling. More like a European film, in some ways, or rather, a film that you could see being made in Europe but less likely from Hollywood. |
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Post by tartanphantom on Jun 7, 2022 0:53:03 GMT -5
It was only after seeing Treasure of the Sierra Madre in my teens, that I finally understood the reference in this Bugs Bunny cartoon--
Whereas, the real scene looks like this:
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 9, 2022 12:00:50 GMT -5
Heading on to 1952. I said it earlier, but in case you missed it, I HATE musicals. So chances of any musical showing up are slim to none. So if you're looking for Singing in the Rain...you're going to have to chime in. High Noon - Fred Zinneman, Carl Foreman and Stanley Kramer's classic western starring Gary Cooper in what has become his iconic role as reluctant town Marshall Will Kaine, who is forced by his sense of duty and morality to face a criminal gang alone among a populace with feet of clay. The film is a not particularly veiled allegory of the Hollywood blacklist Cooper is excellent as Kane and Katy Jurado stands out as Kane's ex-lover Helen Ramirez. One of the great westerns of, probably, the greatest decade for westerns, it's also incredibly influential. High Noon can be seen as, if not the first, then certainly the first important revisionist western. It was a polarizing film at the time and while it's almost universally lauded is still a highly political film. Lee Van Cleef makes his film debut in a very small role as a member of Frank Miller's gang. And the theme song is excellent. The Quiet Man - John Ford's ode to the myth of Ireland starring John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara and Victor McLaglin (in probably my favorite role of his). Sean "Trooper" Thornton comes home to his birthplace of Inisfree, Ireland to find an Irish town that appears to have come out of a picture postcard. He almost immediately falls for O'Hara while starting a rivalry with her brother McLaglin. Along the way we get most of the Ford stock company, with super fun roles for brothers Barry Fitzgerald and Arthur Shields. Ford gives us just a lovely fun romantic-comedy of the type that they don't seem to make any more. And more's the pity. Rabbit Seasoning - The second entry in the Chuck Jones "Hunting trilogy." For the most part this is just a variation on the theme set up in Rabbit Fire, but when the theme is that hilarious and the variations are that good it doesn't really matter. And those two words from Daffy "pronoun trouble" will never cease to make me guffaw. The Crimson Pirate - I'll not claim this is nearly in the league of the other films I cite. Or that it's even a particularly good film. But it's damn fun seeing Burt Lancaster in a lovely Technicolor pirate film. Acrobat and stuntman Nick Cravat gives a great physical performance. I discovered this when it was released on video when I was working at a video store during college and it was just a super fun movie and one that I could recommend to parents who were looking for something for boys who had moved beyond animated kid stuff but weren't quite ready for fully adult fare. Just a fun adventure film. There are a number of movies from 1952 that I remember liking but don't really remember. These include The Narrow Margin, Kansas City Confidential, Pat and Mike, and Bend of the River. So my favorite? For me, 1952 is a weakish year for movies. Part of that is probably memory fault and part that I either haven't seen (Ikiru, Umberto D) or don't like the genre of (Singing in the Rain) some of the biggest films. But the "Big Two" for me, High Noon and The Quiet Man almost make up for it. Ultimately, I think I like The Quiet Man a bit more. It's just such a lovely fun movie and I can start watching it at any point and still love it. But it's a close call because High Noon is that good. 1952 in film for reference. |
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