1950s movies marathon – part 64

The Trouble With Harry (1955) – A certain enthusiasm

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The Trouble With Harry (1955, USA, Hitchcock)

It was easier to hate Hitchcock back in the early 50s, when his old formulas were getting stale, but something has changed. They’re all hits now. Hard as I try, I am unable to find an excuse to hate them. It’s very frustrating. I think I’ll have to become a .. *shudder* .. fan. Watched it all.

The McConnell Story (1955, USA)

This is the earliest war movie I’ve seen that is centered around the jet plane. The sound when they fight is terrifying. It’s the sound of war birds, roaming the skies to defend the free world and/or bomb the local peasants. It’s the sound of the second half of the 20th century. Watched 5 minutes.

Himmel ohne Sterne (1955) – They always say everyone is dead

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Himmel ohne Sterne (1955, West Germany)

All the German post-war movies I’ve come across so far have been East German. This is the earliest I’ve seen from the West, and it’s one of those honest, quiet movies countries sometimes make about their great tragedies. The characters stand between two traumas: The memory of friends and family lost in the War, and now the division of family and friends between East and West. Watched it all. It’s even more moving in retrospect: Decisions lightly made in the late 40s, were final.

Man Without a Star (1955, USA)

Kirk Douglas, the greatest rogue and/or asshole of his age. Watched: 14 minutes. All non-brilliant Westerns should open with a Frankie Laine song, to compensate.

1950s movies marathon – part 63

Phffft (1954) – I always cry at divorces

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Phffft (1954, USA)

A happily divorced couple try to rediscover the single life, which involves more alcohol, creepy strangers, annoying roommates and fear of dying alone than they remembered. Watched it all.  Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday aren’t great Hollywood lovers, they’re slightly pathetic people whose best shot at happiness is to tolerate each other’s flaws.

Lucky Me (1954, USA)

Doris Day has my favorite voice of the 1950s so far – it gives me goosebumps. In this movie she dresses like a civilized woman, but that doesn’t fool me for a second: I can tell there’s a singing, dancing, gun-toting (and arguably lesbian) Calamity Jane underneath. Watched: 14 minutes.

Dial M For Murder (1954, USA, Hitchcock)

I’m not a fan of murder mysteries, I’m skeptical of Hitchcock, and unconvinced of Grace Kelly, but even so, this is absolutely perfect. And I always did tolerate Columbo, which this is a precursor to, down to the “just one more question” routine. Damn you Hitchcock, why won’t you let me hate you? Watched it all before, and again now.

The Garden of Eden (1954, USA)

A city woman stumbles into a nudist colony where she learns that being naked is the most natural thing in the world, for both kids and adults.  Watched: The naughty bits, of which there is actually quite a lot. The “gosh, I guess clothing is just a social convention like any other” moments are like a badly written Heinlein novel. They should have gotten him to write this, he was a real life nudist.

1950s movies marathon – part 62

Dragnet (1954) – Wiretaps

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Dragnet, the movie (1954, USA)

This is just close enough to modern police procedurals to be recognizable as one, but different enough to be disturbingly alien. Where is the brilliant outsider with a Personal Flaw who for some unbelievable reason helps the police solve murders? And why doesn’t anyone arrive at the scene of the crime and say, “what’ve we got?” I feel lost, help! Watched it all. (Actually, it’s not so alien. I suddenly get all the Police Squad jokes now.)

Executive Suit (1954, USA)

The old tycoon is dead, and all the little vice tycoons start circling in the air, hungrily eyeing his carcass. Watched: 42 minutes. If forced to choose, I’ll take a 50s message movie over a modern one. They’re so earnest you can’t really hate them even when they start to preach.

Shetlands-gjengen (1954) – Fly om babord

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Shetlandsgjengen (1954, Norway)

While watching this movie about the boats that carried refugees and information from Nazi occupied Norway to the Shetland Islands, it struck me: To the list of heroic episodes in Norwegian history that involve sea transport, another entry was added at Utøya on July 22. Watched it all.

Aldri annet enn bråk (1954, Norway, Carlmar)

Meet Vigdis Røising, Norway’s first teenager! She’s quite obnoxious, but the future belongs to her and her kind. Watched: 20 minutes, then fast-forwarded through the rest, looking for scenes from Old Oslo. There are many, but I can never tell where they’re from.

1950s movies marathon – part 61

Them! (1954) – Proto-Ripley enters the ant lair

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Them! (1954, USA)

Hey, the giant mutant ants in this movie are almost actually genuinely creepy! And when, after descending into the underground lair of the ant queen, Joan Weldon orders her soldier friends to burn all the larva to death, you suddenly realize where the entire movie Aliens was stolen from. Watched it all. This is pretty much the perfect 50s monster movie, (incidentally featuring, drumroll, the recently invented Wilhelm Scream.)

Men of the Fighting Lady (1954, USA)

Contemporary American movies about the Korean war were all pretty awful, and I wonder why. Some of the best movies ever made about the Second World War were made during or right after the war itself, (contrary to the myth of mindless jingoism). But Korea, you barely notice it, and by now it’s all over, and there aren’t even any good stories to remember it by. Watched: 5 minutes.

Gog (1954, USA)

Here’s another movie that sets a template for later sci-fi, with the old “scientists stuck in high-tech underground facility where Everything Goes Wrong” trope. It must have been used hundreds of times – and that’s just counting Dr Who. Nice to meet you, welcome on board! Watched: 42 minutes. Oh, and Gog and Magog work well as early Daleks.

1950s movies marathon – part 60

Tiefland (1954) – Fighting the wolf

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Lowlands / Tiefland (1940s/1954, Germany, Riefenstahl)

When wolves threaten the sheeple, it is time for a great Shepherd to come down from the mountains and Lead them to freedom. Watched it all. People who are uncomfortable with Leni Riefenstahl, (or, more stupidly, claim she’s actually an anti-fascist), must be unaware of just how much fascism there is hidden away in all of our art, (including, probably, several of your favorite movies.) That’s where it belongs. The problem is when it escapes into real life. Anyway, this is a fantastic movie.  It was filmed during the war, and is a reminder of what Riefenstahl could have achieved after it if she hadn’t already done such a great job for Hitler.

Botostroj / Giant Shoe-Factory (?!)  (1954, Czechoslovakia)

Oh, you evil capitalists with your evil ways, you make me so mad! Watched: 21 minutes. You can always count on totalitarian movies for a certain intensity that normal movies lack. Everything that happens resonates with Destiny. But this is still pretty stupid.

A Star is Born (1954) – The dream isn’t big enough

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A Star is Born (1954, USA, Cukor)

This reconstructed version goes on and on and on forever. It’s been patched together using still photos in place of lost scenes and everything. Dear god, why?! The beginning is good, though, and Judy Garland has never sounded better. Watched it all, although with only half an eye for the last seven hours. (Oh, and, believe or not, it uses the Wilhelm scream. Twice!)

1950s movies marathon – part 59

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) – Bless Yore Beautiful Hide

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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954, USA, Donen)

I try to imagine how this movie was pitched. I think it went like this: All the MGM bigshots sit around a table discussing ideas, and one of them says, “I know what, let’s take that old Roman legend, you know, the one about the rape of the Sabine women, and make a bright, cheerful musical out of it!”  And everyone thinks it’s a brilliant idea.  Brilliant.  “But”, says one, “could we lose the rape angle? Some of our viewers are women, and may be a bit narrow-minded about that sort of thing.”  “Sure!  We’ll just pretend that when a gang of lonely men kidnap a group of women, and keep them locked up in their cabin over the winter, sex would be the furthest thing from their minds!  And they’ll all fall in love in the end, so it’s okay!”  (Actually, that was how the Romans spun the story too. As if!) And thus was born the most unintentionally disturbing musical ever made.  Watched it all before, and bits of it this time.

Casino Royale (1954, USA)

Ah yes, the famous quiz question: Who was the first James Bond? I’ll tell you: It was Barry Nelson. But I encourage you to register a protest with the quiz master, because this made for TV version of Ian Fleming’s first Bond novel has stripped away everything that is Bond about Bond. Watched: 15 minutes.

1950s movies marathon – part 58

Heat Wave (1954) – Too much money

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Heat Wave (1954, UK)

The first (and last?) Hammer film noir that’s any good, and it’s not even any good. But it does have a cynical author doing voiceovers while getting mixed up in a love triangle, which is a very traditional and proper thing for this sort of movie to do, and it makes you feel at home.  Watched it all.

The Mad Magician (1954, USA)

Vincent Price’s brilliant and potentially murderous inventions bring him no fame, just persecution and ridicule. But he’ll show them. He’ll show them all!  Ahem.  So, anyway, do you want fries with that?  Watched: 19 minutes, then fast-forwarded to see the gruesome deaths. There are only two, and they’re not that gruesome.

Det brenner i natt! (1954, Norway, Skouen)

The unbearable weight of his journalistic genius turns Claes Gill into a pyromaniac. Oh, will nobody in this cold, cruel world of ours show him a bit of compassion so he can overcome his disease?! Watched: 24 minutes. The scene where he stares longingly at a pack of matches stands out as the most unintentionally hilarious among many. Is this the moment when Serious Norwegian Filmmaking began to go wrong?

Troll i ord (1954, Norway)

The Norwegian mountains take the breath away of Danish girls, and make them vulnerable for decent proposals. Watched. 25 minutes.  Actually, the downhill ski flirt scene was used by Hollywood at least a decade earlier, with Sonia Henie.  Btw, hilarious mistranslation in the subtitles: “Å, da jeg spilte på kam?” => “When I threw up on the roast?”

1950s movies marathon – part 57

Nineteen Eighty-four (1954) – Tortured by the Party

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Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954, UK)

Well, it’s Nineteen eighty-four, and an excellent version too, featuring that guy who played a few scenes in Star Wars. But not only that, this is an early example of that huggable British form of sci-fi television where the sets look like cardboard, but the words are poetry.  Watched it all.

The Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954, USA)

Members of the French academic elite use the power of phrenology, Freudianism and other pseudosciences to pin the murders on the gorilla. It’s an outrage of justice!  Watched: 20 minutes, + lots of screaming and Karl Malden with a very sinister moustache.

Gojira – Godzilla (1954) – Godzilla attacks Tokyo

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Gojira / Godzilla (1954, Japan)

Yes, I guess Japan has made many contributions to the world of serious art, but what we really love them for is their outrageous sense of fun, isn’t it, and that all starts here. Watched it all. It’s pretty good for a stupid monster movie, and the Harryhausen-inspired stop motion effects are quite cute.

Carmen Jones (1954, USA)

After decades of segregation, there are not enough movie stars to fill this black version of Carmen with, only second raters. And the color line stands firm: No white actors at all, no mixing. It’s all or nothing. What a shame.  Watched: 10 minutes.  Now, Rita Hayworth, there was a Carmen who could lure disco donalds to a life of vice.

1950s movies marathon – part 56

Davy Crockett (1954) – Grinning down a bear

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Davy Crockett (1954, USA)

Davy, Daaaavy Crockett!  Was this the first good TV series ever made? It’s a silly children’s adventure story, but Disney Corp are great at silly children’s adventure stories, and, by 1954 production standards, this is HBO. Watched: 1 episode. This show launched a Crockett craze that reached Norway in the form of Danish author Karen Brunés’ books under the pseudonym Tom Hill, which I devoured in a reprint 30 years later. And here I am back at the beginning. Round, like a circle in a spiral / Like a wheel within a wheel / Never ending or beginning / On an ever spinning wheel.

Sansho the Bailiff (1954, Japan, Mizoguchi)

Until Japan discovered their sense of fun, (whenever that was, Godzilla?), there was only Kurosawa, and lots and lots of dull, serious historical dramas. This falls in the latter category.  Watched: 8 minutes.

Karius og Baktus (1954, Norway, Caprino)

Don’t brush your teeth, or you’ll kill the nice gay couple who lives in your mouth. Watched it all.

Un americano a Roma / An American in Rome (1954, Italy)

The young Italians have gone crazy over American culture.  They eat American, speak American, think American, sing American, dress American.  It’s so funny!  Although, if you ask me, it’s better than being, you know, fascists.  Watched: 17 minutes.