1950s movies marathon – part 66

Richard III (1955) – Drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams

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Richard III (1955, UK, Olivier)

Evil is such a generic word. It is its more specific forms that appall me, such as the bitter, lonely failure who has only one spark of brilliance in him: The ability to destroy good people, in order to prove to history that he was there, that he really lived. Watched it all.

Simba (1955, UK)

The Empire never played a big role in British movies, it’s almost as if it isn’t there, and when it is, the movies are rarely any good, (except for The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp). In this one, British colonists in Kenya face the Mau-Mau rebellion. The more liberal-minded of them believe that if only they treated the black Africans more kindly, the rebellion would lose its support, and the movie seems to take their side. But an old hard-line character is closer to the truth: The real choice they face, he says, is between showing who’s boss – or getting out of Africa. Liberal colonialism is a contradiction. Watched: 18 minutes.

It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955) – Monster attacks Golden Gate bridge

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It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955, USA)

Ladies and gentlemen, watch American-Japanese cultural exchange in action: First Ray Harruhausen creates the original giant angry dinosaur for The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, then the Japanese reinvents it as Godzilla, and now here the Americans reimport and improve on the Godzilla formula. Voluntary cultural imperialism is such a beautiful thing to behold. Watched it all.

1950s movies marathon – part 65

The Man From Laramie (1955) – How to win friends and influence people

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The Man from Laramie (1955, USA, Mann)

If 100 year of western movies have taught us anything, it is that when you’re the boss of a sleepy, isolated town, and a dangerous-looking stranger arrives, you should not burn his wagons, shoot his mules, drag him through the dirt, and then return his gun to him and hope he leaves town peacefully. Watched it all.

Bride of the Monster (1955, USA, Wood)

This Ed Wood movie is almost competent. The way he goes straight to the fun part – evil scientist! monster! giant squid! – makes me wish he had the abilities to match his vision. Imagine what a genuinely good screwy sci-fi-horror filmmaker could have done with Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson. Watched 14 minutes.

Violent Saturday (1955) – Every dad wants to be a hero to his son

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Violent Saturday (1955, USA)

The kind of caper movie where the team Assembles in the first part, Executes in the second, and Fails Tragically in the third. I’ve seen this story before, and will see it again. But for some reason that I can’t explain, this particular version of it feels epic, like a long train building up speed. Watched it all.

A Generation (1955, Poland)

I love the scene in every Communist propaganda movie where the young girl stands before the crowd and holds a stirring speech about the People, the fire of truth burning in her eyes, and also the scene where the wise old worker explains his Marxist faith in simple, folksy terms, like a Communist Jesus. It makes me want to have myself put up against a wall and shot. Watched: 30 minutes.

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?”