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FFA Movie Poll: 1955 - 1959 Countdown Monday is here! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter KarmaPolice
- Start date
from the beginning. There is plans to do the 40s and 30s as well...
Ilov80s
Footballguy
TCM also has
7/7 4:00 pm The Searchers and 6:15 pm 12 Angry Men
7/9 2:15 pm Paths of Glory and 10:00 pm The Night of the Hunter
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I can't remember how I suggested it. 40s as a whole decade for sure. What I can't remember was if it was 30s as decade and then pre-30s, or if it was just pre-40s to include everything.No 1920s?
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Also, that's a bold statement, but the kid in me says that it isn't too far off. I just wish I could sprinkle in a couple from '85 and then I would be on board. Not to derail this thread on the first day (sorry, Krista), but I did glance at this year this morning to see if there was anything I actually need to watch and I was surprised at the mix of movies that the year has.
Anyway, back to the 50s...
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Everybody damn well better watch my favorite (along w NxNW), Marty, too
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Back to the future for a minute, 84 is super strong but I already know I am going to super angry where the clearly best film of the year ends up falling. Ok, now back into the Delorean for November 5, 1955.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Ok. I would be down for a separate pre-1930s (as I think there are plenty of good options to support separate polls), but I imagine tracking down some of the Weimar silents, for example, could be difficult.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I might need to rewatch it. I saw that when I was first kind of reinvestigating older movies and it was just ok to me. It seemed like the kind of movie that was really important historically because it almost laid the groundwork for independent cinema and small quirky dramas about average people. It just didn't resonate for me.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I have Marty queued up for one of the next couple nights. Forgot to list that one in the pile I have at home.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
North By Northwest is drastically overrated.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Lots of good pre-30s movies but how many lists would we get? How many people have seen more than a couple pre 30s films? I'm not so sure.
Don Quixote
Footballguy
I don't know. Maybe it could be done as a 5-10 over 100 pts, instead of 10-20 over 200 pts, kind of era.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
A couple I haven't seen, I posted that I don't think 10 Commandments holds up, and I dislike musicals.
NxNW is close, but I like Vertigo better, and I don't think it would grade higher than others at the top for me like Paths of Glory anyway.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Is that a top Hitch for you?
It was one of the first I saw and it got me into him, I do dig it, but as I watch more of his movies, it seems to slip down the rankings of his movies for me.
Eephus
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Here some short trailers for recommended 50s films. Most of them are films I have seen for the first time in the last few years and think hold up well. I hope most people give a couple a shot.
Anatomy of a Murder
Elevator to the Gallows
A Face in the Crowd
Anatomy of a Murder
Elevator to the Gallows
A Face in the Crowd
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
After going through my initial list - I think a bunch of really good movies are going to have to be left out of the top 20.
A bunch.
A bunch.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
The songs could be by Radiohead and I still wouldn't be interested.Songs are by Cole Porter
Eephus
Footballguy
The semi-obscurity I'm going to pimp this round is The Tarnished Angels, a 1957 drama from director Douglas Sirk.
Sirk made nine pictures for Universal between 1955-59. I haven't seen all of them but The Tarnished Angels is by far my favorite of the ones I've watched. Written on the Wind and the remake of Imitation of Life are more famous and easier to track down. The Tarnished Angels re-uses three of the stars from Written on the Wind (Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone) almost as archetypes, even though the down-on-their-luck air racers of the Tarnished Angels have little else in common with the rich oil family in the earlier film. The Tarnished Angels has an existential bleakness about it from its doomed characters, sordid Mardi Gras setting and dark black and white interiors.
The over the top melodrama, claustrophobia and stylized over-acting of Sirk's movies were imitated by later directors including Fassbinder, Almodovar and John Waters. But where they pushed it beyond the boundaries of camp and comedy, Sirk played it straight most of the time (I think).
Like The Go Between from the 1971 thread I realize I haven't done a good job of making a movie I love sound appealing to anyone else. The trailer linked above is total 50s schlock as well. So once again I'll turn to a Nobel laureate for some help. The Tarnished Angels is based on William Faulkner's 1935 novel Pylon, which is impenetrable even by Faulkner standards and generally regarded as one of his worst books. Faulkner regarded The Tarnished Angels as the best film adaptation of his work. That's not saying a lot, especially for movies made during Faulkner's lifetime but I'll take it.
Sirk made nine pictures for Universal between 1955-59. I haven't seen all of them but The Tarnished Angels is by far my favorite of the ones I've watched. Written on the Wind and the remake of Imitation of Life are more famous and easier to track down. The Tarnished Angels re-uses three of the stars from Written on the Wind (Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone) almost as archetypes, even though the down-on-their-luck air racers of the Tarnished Angels have little else in common with the rich oil family in the earlier film. The Tarnished Angels has an existential bleakness about it from its doomed characters, sordid Mardi Gras setting and dark black and white interiors.
The over the top melodrama, claustrophobia and stylized over-acting of Sirk's movies were imitated by later directors including Fassbinder, Almodovar and John Waters. But where they pushed it beyond the boundaries of camp and comedy, Sirk played it straight most of the time (I think).
Like The Go Between from the 1971 thread I realize I haven't done a good job of making a movie I love sound appealing to anyone else. The trailer linked above is total 50s schlock as well. So once again I'll turn to a Nobel laureate for some help. The Tarnished Angels is based on William Faulkner's 1935 novel Pylon, which is impenetrable even by Faulkner standards and generally regarded as one of his worst books. Faulkner regarded The Tarnished Angels as the best film adaptation of his work. That's not saying a lot, especially for movies made during Faulkner's lifetime but I'll take it.
Eephus
Footballguy
randall146
Footballguy
I’ve seen very few of these movies, so ignore my list if it screws things up.
Some Like it Hot - 30 pts. An all time great movie
North by Northwest - 20
12 Angry Men - 17
Bridge over the River Kwai - 15
Some Like it Hot - 30 pts. An all time great movie
North by Northwest - 20
12 Angry Men - 17
Bridge over the River Kwai - 15
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
krista4 said:
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
I don't know if it's top Hitchcock for me, but I can't think of a bad thing to say about the movie at all. Some of the scenes and lines are so perfect as to make you think Hollywood could never do it better.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I haven't seen it either, and if I am honest, I will probably find a reason to avoid it in the next 3 weeks too.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I watched Marty last night and really liked it. The smallest gripe would be that they hammered home the "you're a dog, and I'm a fat schlub" dialogue a bit much. It just started to bug me since they obviously have great charisma and light up the screen whenever they are on. I don't think I have seen Betsy Blair in anything, but I found her to be mesmerizing. Great suggestion, @wikkidpissah
Not sure what I will watch tonight. The goal is to watch 10 new movies before the lists are due. I will burn out if I do 1/night I think and need to mix in a newer movie in there as well. Actually I think it will have to be Sweet Smell of Success b/c somebody else has a hold on it through the library and it's due in 2 days.
Not sure what I will watch tonight. The goal is to watch 10 new movies before the lists are due. I will burn out if I do 1/night I think and need to mix in a newer movie in there as well. Actually I think it will have to be Sweet Smell of Success b/c somebody else has a hold on it through the library and it's due in 2 days.
krista4
Footballguy
I realized that Mr. krista has TiVo'd about a billion classic movies over the past few years, so I scrolled through to see which 1955-59 ones we have. Figure I'll start with those I can watch on a bigger screen for free. First up, The Night of the Hunter.
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
The Night of the Hunter is a movie out of time. It must have jarring for audiences at the time because it's so dissimilar to other films of the era. The late 50s were a period where the industry was dealing with the challenge of television so a lot of movies were XXL size spectaculars that couldn't be duplicated in your living room.
Charles Laughton zagged in the opposite direction with an intimate, stagy production. I think it harkens back to the late silent era but also flashes forward to movies made during the 70s.
krista4
Footballguy
I'm 30 minutes in and he is terrifying, though he hasn't even done anything yet. Wow, this is a helluva performance.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
And the counter balance of Lillian Gish. It’s one of the great fairy tales ever filmed.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
The Wrong Man will not make my list.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Don Quixote
Footballguy
Going through the list of movies from this era reminded me of "Bus Stop." It is sometimes considered Marilyn Monroe's best acting performance, but it is pretty jarring how much dated that movie is. (Sorry for any spoilers that follow.) Plot centers a naive, "aw shucks" protagonist abducting Marilyn Monroe so he can marry her, although she is not too happy about being kidnapped and keeps trying to get away. But then they voluntarily get together after the bus driver forces him to apologize to her for kidnapping her.
Not the movie for the "me too" moment.
Not the movie for the "me too" moment.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
That was the best part for me. The cherry of the postwar gestalt, dramatically speaking, is that men & women could finally go outside their communities and across ethnicities & faiths to find their mates and that scramble - esp w the "you break it you buy it" rules still in place - was soooo rich in stories that never got explored except here.
One of those stories resulted in me existing. My mother was a fat, ugly woman driven to distraction by her spinster status and night upon night of Wallflower Hell at social occasions. She lived on tea & OJ for a year and lost 100 pounds and went on the prowl. Her bffs convinced her to go out to Fort Devens (90min out of Boston) to a USO dance (Korea). She arrived grumpy and green to the gills with bus sickness and was treating the ballroom to the Doyle stare (my favorite picture of my mother & i is a candid from a wedding in Ireland where our visages are resolved by the resting face of almost everyone in the pic being that of a rabid houndog). When up stepped a handsome, if a little round, man with a movie star moustache who said "You look terrible. Want to make it even worse by dancing with me?"
My father was a hound from rural Vermont who realized early on - probably from cousins in the woodpile - that ugly girls, wallflowers put out. The top half of Vermont had less than 100,000 people total but was littered with dance halls that Duke Ellington & Benny Goodman played because whole counties would show up when they did. Me Da was famous for logging serious car time with multiple uggos at these extravaganzas. Lare on, he became a little famous among fellow servicemen for lowering the bar in order to raise his.
Me Ma was taken with him, of course, but waaaay too Catholic to put out. She invited him into the city later though and, when my father saw that she ran the entire catalogue floor for the Boston Sears & Roebuck (equivalent to running an Amazon warehouse now), it was love. Me Da hadnt graduated HS til his early 20s because he'd run the family farm while older brothers were in WW2 and decided to use his being drafted for Korea to go to college on the GIBill and this young lady executive would be his meal ticket to matriculating without interference.
They were married before the year was out, i was a first-take baby, Sears indulged pregnant employees but not pregnant managers so vrooomp went the cushy job, me Ma gained back the 100 lbs she'd lost having me, so there was Da, doing his botany homework in the freezers of Sealtest Ice Cream where he worked full-time to support his Macy's balloon wife and soon-to-be ungrateful boy. Ah, the wages of sin!
Marty is the goldstrike of that gestalt, the one story told among millions, and will earn my top spot in this pole for doing so.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Ilov80s
Footballguy
krista4 said:
Just look at this thing- no CGI- just a brilliant director, expert cinematographer and mother nature.
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Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
The Searchers would have been much better without the completely unnecessary romance subplot.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
The Searchers did a cinematically masterful job of putting & keeping me in a bad mood for 2 & a half hours
Eephus
Footballguy
You know I love me some Westerns, so allow me to plug the genre. The 50s were the greatest decade for Westerns. Story lines were more innovative and characters were given greater complexity than in the 30s and 40s. The move to widescreen was beneficial to Westerns. Scenery like Monument Valley were made for Cinemascope and VistaVision even though sometimes there's a tendency to hold the establishing shot a little long by modern standards. Moreover, Westerns were still easy to shoot. Locations were near Hollywood and no elaborate sets were required.
Ford and Hawkes were less active in the genre during the 50s but others stepped into their place. Anthony Mann made a string of great ones with James Stewart. I started watching Man of the West, a movie Mann made starring Gary Cooper in 1958. My 30 min review is that it moseys along a bit. Director Budd Boetticher was a genre specialist who made a string of low budget, high quality Westerns in the 50s. I'll try to watch one of them during the judging period even though it's unlikely to earn points.
Right now, my Westen shortlist for voting is Rio Bravo, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Tin Star and Warlock. I started off replying about The Searchers. It's the "GOAT" Western but never one of my favorites and definitely not one I'd suggest introduce new viewers (or haters) to the classic American charms of Westerns.
Ford and Hawkes were less active in the genre during the 50s but others stepped into their place. Anthony Mann made a string of great ones with James Stewart. I started watching Man of the West, a movie Mann made starring Gary Cooper in 1958. My 30 min review is that it moseys along a bit. Director Budd Boetticher was a genre specialist who made a string of low budget, high quality Westerns in the 50s. I'll try to watch one of them during the judging period even though it's unlikely to earn points.
Right now, my Westen shortlist for voting is Rio Bravo, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Tin Star and Warlock. I started off replying about The Searchers. It's the "GOAT" Western but never one of my favorites and definitely not one I'd suggest introduce new viewers (or haters) to the classic American charms of Westerns.
krista4
Footballguy
Fantastic and fantastically disturbing. Such a sense of dread from almost the very beginning. I felt claustrophobic throughout. Actually even as I type this I still a bit creeped out.Ilov80s said:
By god, those shots. That one with the wife in the car at the bottom of the water, with her hair mirroring the seaweed...wow. It is held just longer than it should be, to where you are unbelievably uncomfortable. But ####### gorgeous, as are some of the other shots such as the one where Mitchum is shown as a shadow in the kids' room.
This movie seems not of its time at all. I guess I admire a film that is imbued in its time, but maybe in this case even more so one that isn't. How was this received at the time? It's hard to imagine that it fit. Making it the way they did seems bold.
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krista4
Footballguy
I also watched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof because it was on our TiVo. Ehhhh, I'd liked to hear from others who have read/seen the play. I felt like important components were left out, leaving the movie not hitting the themes as strongly as it should. Performances were good - and holy hell were there any two more beautiful people in the world than Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman - but some of the soul of the play was absent.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Awesome- glad you liked it. I agree there are so many memorable shots. I like the one where the kids are hiding out at night in the barn and hear singing, then the boy sees that beautiful shot of the silhouette of The Preacher riding his horse across the horizon. "Don't he ever sleep?"
Or the scene with the overhead shot of the kids boating down the river and they pass under a spiderweb which looks like them pulling right under a target from a bomber.
As for your question, it was not received well by critics or audiences. As you said, it didn't fit and people didn't know what to make of it. This was the first and only film ever directed by the famed actor Charles Laughton. I assume it's failure is the main reason he never got another chance to direct. A real loss for the art of film.
I've never seen the play but I agree the movie isn't all that good. I know Tennessee Williams was gay and I am pretty sure there is a storyline there about homosexuality that really got cut out for the film version. It's only really worthwhile purpose in 2018 is just to see Taylor and Newman on the screen together.
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