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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 9, 2022 7:48:17 GMT -5
It looks like I missed a few! So here’s my favorite movies from 1952 to 1955:
1952 - Singin’ in the Rain
1953 - Stalag 17, Beat the Devil (There’s probably no other movie from the 1950s that I watch anywhere near as often as Beat the Devil. I watch it almost every year.)
1954 - La strada (I watch this one a lot too.)
1955 - Smiles of a Summer Night (My favorite Ingmar Bergman film.)
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 9, 2022 7:53:30 GMT -5
I should add Dial M for Murder to 1954. I made my IMDB list a few years ago, and since then, I’ve started watching Dial M for Murder on a regular basis. I saw it about 1990 and I liked it, but I didn’t think it was one of Hitchcock’s best. But I saw it again a few years ago and I’ve completely turned around in my opinion.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 9, 2022 8:11:58 GMT -5
I’ve been watching a lot of Japanese classics lately. And I saw a 1954 film called Twenty-Four Eyes that was really good. Not just really good, great. After I’ve seen it a few times, I might consider it as competition for La strada and Dial M for Murder.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 19, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5
Well it's definitely been a while...but on to 1956. So...there's just no need to be coy about 1956 because it has the one film that has occasionally rivaled Casablanca as being my favorite film of all time. And the thing is that there are at least three other films from 1956 that would be my favorite of the year in a whole lot of different years. But the choice is... The Searchers - This is John Ford's magnum opus. It is the pinnacle of the Hollywood western. In Ethan Edwards, Ford and John Wayne have crafted one of the best and most complex characters in either of their careers. While it is clearly Ford's film the contributions of cinematographer Winton Hoch and Max Steiner's music are not to be overlooked. In addition to Wayne (who gives one of his two best performances) this is probably the best performance ever by Ward Bond as Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnson Clayton. It's probably not without its faults. Hank Warden has no business in this film, nor does the broad humor displayed by the Swedish neighbors. But those minor missteps don't change the fact that this is one of the very best films of all time. Other films from 1956 of which I'm very fond. The Killing - While it was a box-office failure (largely because of poor distribution) this was the film that cemented Stanley Kubrick as a film-maker to watch as it garnered critical acclaim that was pretty astounding at the time for a movie that played so poorly. Noir master Jim Thompson and Kubrick build a taut and compelling script out of Lionel White's novel "Clean Break." Sterling Hayden gives arguably his best performance as veteran criminal Johnny Clay and Elisha Cook, Jr. is as compelling as ever. In an awful lot of years The Killing would be my favorite movie. Invasion of the Body Snatchers - And in all but a handful of years this one would be at the top of the list. Don Siegel turns Jack Finney's SF novel in to a brilliant allegory for creeping conformity. The allusions to McCarthyism were probably inevitable but weren't, according to Siegel, the point. They were aiming to make a great thriller while Siegel wanted to make a point about people simply drifting along with no feeling about cultural things, no feelings of pain or sorrow, simply listening to seductive authority. How little things have changed. Kevin McCarthy conveys genuine terror in the film that defined his career. One of the truly great SF/horror films. Forbidden Planet - Beyond being an excellent film this was a ground-breaking SF film. It was the first to depict humans traveling in their own faster-than-light spaceships, the first to be entirely set on an alien world and Robby was one of the first film robots with a distinct personality. Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis give good performances in a movie that just defines Saturday Matinee fun. Seven Men From Now - Bud Boetticher directing Randolph Scott and Lee Marvin? Yeah...just sign me up now. This was the first of a number of films that Boetticher would make with Scott and they are all excellent westerns that are well worth more than one watch. A number of films I either haven't seen or haven't seen in far too long and should remedy...Giant, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Night and Fog. 1956 in film for those who need a look. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 19, 2022 11:50:41 GMT -5
My Top 10 Of 1956
Baby Doll
Bad Seed
Forbidden Planet
Godzilla King Of The Monsters
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers
Killing
Man Who Knew Too Much
Searchers
Ten Commandments
Wrong Man
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 19, 2022 12:28:02 GMT -5
1956? That’s easy!
The Bad Seed.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 19, 2022 16:08:19 GMT -5
Yeah, The Searchers. The close-up of Wayne when he sees the women rescued from captivity is a glimpse of a man in hell. Wayne is tortured, angry, a man whoa has to act because he's unable to put his feelings into words. He certainly was never better. The theme, btw, is by Stan Jones, of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" fame, and it's just perfect. That's the one Steiner wove into the score. Ford didn't like any of the lush themes Steiner was coming up with, and turned to Jones to find something "completely haunting," as he put it in his story notes. And Jones nailed it. Steiner and Ford clashed on the score. Ford hought Steiner was past his prime, that his style of melodramatic score was outdated. Steiner hated what Ford had him do, but it eventually worked. "The Man Who Knew Too Much" is excellent Hitchcock. Stewart brings some of his Anthony Mann persona to his depiction of the American doctor caught in a web of intrigue. "Seven Men from Now" is to Randolph Scott what "Winchester .73" was to Stewart. Those Boetticher-Scott Westerns are all near perfect. It’s amazing that “The Tall T,” from the same duo, came out in the same year. Often seen as the best of the Scott-Boetticher films, it features the always intriguing Richard Boone as Scott’s darker half. What a double feature! What a year for Westerns! "Giant" is pretty good as sprawling epics go. Just saw "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" and it holds up pretty nicely. Reminded me in some scenes of the pictures from the old "Mars Attacks" card set. Ray Bradbury wrote the script and John Huston directed "Moby Dick." saw it constantly on "Million Dollar Movie" when I was a kid. It's good, very good. "The Bad Seed," even with the tacked-on "make-it-all go-away" ending, is chilling and creepy. And so is "A Kiss Before Dying." Ira Levin wrote it, and Joanne Woodward and Robert Wagner crush this taut thriller about two sisters and the man who "loves" them. “The Harder They Fall" is late, world-weary Bogey in a film noir-ish boxing tale. SLEEPER AWARD: “Attack” is an unconventional, subversive, fatalistic World War Two film about the hypocrisies and CYA-behaviors of the officer class and the nature of true leadership. With Eddie Albert and Lee Marvin as officers, Jack Palance as the sergeant and a apck of strong character actors. Another excellent movie I saw over and over as a kid and hadn’t seen again till a few years ago.   |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 19, 2022 17:19:27 GMT -5
It’s amazing that “The Tall T,” from the same duo, came out in the same year. Often seen as the best of the Scott-Boetticher films, it features the always intriguing Richard Boone as Scott’s darker half. What a double feature! What a year for Westerns! Did it though? 99% of everything I can find says it came out in 1957. As far as I can tell IMDB is the only site that shows it as a 1956 film and it doesn't give a specific date in '56 for a premiere. So we shall likely see it again in 1957. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 19, 2022 17:36:45 GMT -5
It’s amazing that “The Tall T,” from the same duo, came out in the same year. Often seen as the best of the Scott-Boetticher films, it features the always intriguing Richard Boone as Scott’s darker half. What a double feature! What a year for Westerns! Did it though? 99% of everything I can find says it came out in 1957. As far as I can tell IMDB is the only site that shows it as a 1956 film and it doesn't give a specific date in '56 for a premiere. So we shall likely see it again in 1957. For what it's worth, Leonard Maltin's Guide for movies has it as 1957 as well |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Jul 19, 2022 17:58:07 GMT -5
Don't sell Forbidden Planet too short. While I wouldn't argue it was necessarily a better film than The Searchers, it made popular Science Fiction more believable, real-looking and intelligent than it ever had been before. Imagine adapting Shakespeare's The Tempest into a sci-fi adventure, adding a mystery with a solution that was both brilliant and meaningful, and getting kids and families to love it. Star Trek clearly went on to steal shamelessly from it; one has to wonder if popular science fiction would have had any future after the 1950s if it hadn't been for Forbidden Planet.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 19, 2022 18:15:16 GMT -5
It’s amazing that “The Tall T,” from the same duo, came out in the same year. Often seen as the best of the Scott-Boetticher films, it features the always intriguing Richard Boone as Scott’s darker half. What a double feature! What a year for Westerns! Did it though? 99% of everything I can find says it came out in 1957. As far as I can tell IMDB is the only site that shows it as a 1956 film and it doesn't give a specific date in '56 for a premiere. So we shall likely see it again in 1957. Well, that’ll teach me to trust that IMDB list without a cross-reference. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jul 19, 2022 18:21:58 GMT -5
Did it though? 99% of everything I can find says it came out in 1957. As far as I can tell IMDB is the only site that shows it as a 1956 film and it doesn't give a specific date in '56 for a premiere. So we shall likely see it again in 1957. Well, that’ll teach me to trust that IMDB list without a cross-reference. Assigning the correct year for a movie can be a nightmare. I normally just go with IMDB (although nothing is perfect) because many times it lists the month of the release and also it's the website that is peer reviewed by folks in the industry. I used to rely on what's written on a DVD box, but often i found those were mistaken. Then you have films that were completed and registered but sat on a shelf for a year or two before they were shown in theaters. As I said, a nightmare Oh-and then you have films released at different times in different parts of the world. Sometimes first in the U.S., sometimes not |
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Post by commond on Jul 19, 2022 18:55:48 GMT -5
I didn't realize it until now, but aside from The Searchers, there aren't a lot of heavyweight movies from 1956. As I mentioned last time, I don't like Aparajito as much as Pather Panchali. The other big foreign films from the year are Kon Ichikawa's Burmese Harp, Bresson's A Man Escaped and Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur, which I'd classify as excellent films not not personal favourites. Instead, I think it's a year where you can apply auteur theory to a lot of studio stuff -- Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, Nick Ray's Bigger Than Life, Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It. Robert Aldrich's Attack is brilliant. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is brilliant. The Bad Seed is brilliant. I quite like Gregory Peck and John Huston's Moby Dick as well, and Fritz Lang was still pumping out studio films. Quite an interesting year before the floodgates explode in '57.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 19, 2022 19:48:11 GMT -5
I didn't realize it until now, but aside from The Searchers, there aren't a lot of heavyweight movies from 1956. As I mentioned last time, I don't like Aparajito as much as Pather Panchali. The other big foreign films from the year are Kon Ichikawa's Burmese Harp, Bresson's A Man Escaped and Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le flambeur, which I'd classify as excellent films not not personal favourites. Instead, I think it's a year where you can apply auteur theory to a lot of studio stuff -- Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind, Nick Ray's Bigger Than Life, Frank Tashlin's The Girl Can't Help It. Robert Aldrich's Attack is brilliant. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is brilliant. The Bad Seed is brilliant. I quite like Gregory Peck and John Huston's Moby Dick as well, and Fritz Lang was still pumping out studio films. Quite an interesting year before the floodgates explode in '57. You’re not exactly proving your point. 😊 |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 2, 2022 16:28:49 GMT -5
And work continues to be insane so we seem to be on a two-week schedule. But on to 1957. And it's a super tough decision What's Opera Doc - This is 100% my choice for the best Warner Brothers short and is probably my pick for the best animated short ever. Everything about this film is absolute perfection. From the lampoon of both Wagner and Disney's Fantasia, to the incredibly subversive interaction between Bugs and Elmer, to the sheer chutzpah in getting it made. The film took six times the work and expense of typical Looney Tunes cartoon and it was only achieved by balancing that against cuts in other films (generally Road-Runner films were done on the cheap). It's been recognized as one of the great animated shorts...and rightly so. 12 Angry Men - Based on the teleplay this is one of the few legal movies that I can stand to watch. As an attorney I can only wish we could get the occasional Juror Number 8. Which is not to say that it's without problems. Honestly Juror 8's actions in bringing a similar knife in to the deliberation is certainly cause for a mistrial. The film has a ton of amazing performances, anchored by Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb, but also George Voskovec as the immigrant Juror 11 who wants so much to prove his love for the American legal system. Just a great movie. Paths of Glory - While it was certainly controversial at the time (and possibly since) it's clear now that this film showed that Stanley Kubrick was a going to be a genius film-maker. Vehemently anti-military (as opposed to anti-war) Kubrick and star Kirk Douglas (the film was produced by his production company) made a masterpiece in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. The script is grim. The U.S. was in an incredibly jingoistic period. Political pressure kept the film from playing in France and Germany. Beyond Kubrick's direction, the use of (and non-use of) sound in the film is excellent. A stark look at the low value given to human lives in the pursuit of...something. Bridge on the River Kwai - I find that a lot of "Epic" films don't live up to that tag. Bridge absolutely does. Beyond its scope and the beautiful photography, it succeeds in asking hard question and resisting easy answers. The interplay of the British class system with the Imperial Japanese view of their cultural and racial supremacy is incredibly interesting. Alec Guiness is a revelation for those used to his Ealing comedies (which is not to say that drama is harder than comedy, just that he's amazing at both). Epic in all the best ways. A Face in the Crowd - A few years back this would have made my list, but been a significant also-ran. Given the events of the last decade the film looks less like a excellent satire of the American media and more like a prescient look at the gullibility of the American public. If anything Kazan and Budd Schulberg underestimate what it would take to cause the downfall of an inexplicable demagogue. Andy Griffith is absolutely electrifying as "Lonesome" Rhodes and Patricia Neal is her usual wonderful self. It's sad to think that the film is, if anything, kind of naïve.
3:10 to Yuma - A very nice traditional western starring John Ford and Van Heflin. Heflin gives one of his best performances as a struggling rancher who agrees to accompany bad-man Ford to Contention City for the 3:10 train to Yuma. Just a solid old-school western with Ford appropriately menacing. If there's any issue with the film it's that the short story by Elmore Leonard, on which it's based, is, quite simply, one of the very best western stories ever written and any film will pale in comparison.
The Curse of Frankenstein - It's honestly been a long time since I've seen this one, but I feel like I'd be remiss to not specifically shout out to the first of the color Hammer Horror films. Terence Fisher, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is just a recipe for an incredible time and this is a highly influential work that informed almost every horror film to follow and was a huge influence on both Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. The Tall T - As I mentioned in 1956, the combo of Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott is a recipe for amazing westerns. Add in an amazing screenplay by Burt Kennedy based on one of Elmore Leonard's best short stories and it's just western magic. The film also gave Richard Boone one of his best roles and may have influenced him getting the part of Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel. One of the best westerns of the 50s. As usual, a number of films I either haven't seen, but should, or haven't seen in so long that my memory is incomplete. Including, The Seventh Seal; Witness For the Prosecution; Throne of Blood. So my favorite movie of 1957? It's not quite a runaway...but it's pretty clearly What's Opera, Doc? I can watch this movie over and over and am just in awe of what Chuck Jones, Michael Maltese and company were able to accomplish in 6 minutes and 53 seconds. A usual 1957 in film for those as need a look. |
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