REVEALED-THE ILX TOP 75 FILMS OF THE 1950s

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8. North By Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock, 1959
POINTS: 194
VOTES: 8
#1s: 0

COMMENTS:

“There's so much that's fun or funny in North by Northwest: the
auction, the drunk scene at the police station, the
caught-with-a-knife assassination (pure slapstick), the
making-love-with-clothes-on. But what makes it work is Cary Grant
never once suggesting that being taken out of his comfort zone is fun, adventurous, liberating, exciting, or otherwise a natural extension of his professional abilities. He seems irritated, shaken, and finally scared and determined, which grounds his gentlemanliness in reality, and makes the chase on a plainly fake Mount Rushmore nail-biting.”

-Peter S. Scholtes

“you can't have too much of the score from 'north by northwest'.”

― That one guy that quit

BONUS FEATURE

(actually my fav LT is probably Bugs' showbiz retro, What's Up Doc? not the Bogdanovich)

xp

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7. The Seventh Seal
Ingmar Bergman, 1957
POINTS: 220
VOTES: 8
#1s: 1

COMMENTS:

“A corpse "most eloquent."”

--Dr. Morbius

“There's something about Death that makes him so compelling; how he appears as 'just' another human being. Death being one of us, someone like us. Like me.

“It still scares the shit out of me, everytime Death appears. Seemingly not unlike all of us, but in the end nothing more than a cheater. Death is a cheater. Like me. Like us all.”

--Le Bateau Ivre

“I love when he uses his morbidity or broodingness as a set up for a punch line--in Wild Strawberries (the kids having a fist fight over whether God is dead) and especially Seventh Seal (Mary responding to Joseph's recounting of the Dance of Death with an amused "Oh you and your visions"). Also, throughout Smiles of a Summer Night.

And OTM about his creation of a consistent world. When I first got into Bergman I gobbled down maybe a dozen of his movies in a month, and it got so whenever I'd see one of his regular actors it'd be like seeing an old friend.

RIP, maybe my all-time fave.”

― Martin Van Burne

BONUS FEATURE

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6. Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder, 1950
POINTS: 232
VOTES: 10
#1s: 1

COMMENTS:

“What can I say? There really is none higher.”

--Le Bateau Ivre

“Norma Desmond is a not-exactly-fictional character that could have been created by no one but Gloria Swanson, but it's still not a biography of Gloria Swanson; it's a performance. Her greatest. Her caricature of herself is one of the bravest things ever put on film, and sometimes one of the funniest. And to boot, the movie surrounding her is also great.”

―kenan

“Sunset is the most fun vampire film of its era.”

― Dr Morbius

BONUS FEATURE

ludicrously overrated by da gayz

Rear Window and Vertigo better both be higher than NxNW.

Love that you've got a blurb there, Morbs.

that Nancy Olsen character, ugh

xxp

If NxNW is the biggest top 10 bummer, this poll will have turned out pretty good.

lol, it's "screwball," right?

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5. Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa, 1954
POINTS: 239
VOTES: 8
#1s: 0

COMMENTS:

“A new translation of the subtitles vindicates the dialogue, I think,
and the dream still sweeps me up. I can't think of a moment in three hours where I'm not wanting to crunch popcorn, yet how many other movies this exciting are so completely opened up to outdoor atmosphere, beauty, and sound? The charged magic of the woods is my childhood link between A Midsummer Night's Dream at the outdoor American Players Theater and Star Wars , while those climactic fights to the death in the mud and bright rain are their own gripping cinema. Few Westerns managed as much kinetic action and gentle heroism, and I can't remember a moment from The Magnificent Seven, the Seven Samurai
remake.”

--Peter S. Scholtes

“I'm for the Seven Samurai, mainly because the peasants are so hardcore in it. Once they get the robust leadership of the Samurai they turn into killing machines, dishing out tasty bamboo tipped death to the evil bandits.“

― DV

BONUS FEATURE

^another Eric bummer?

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4. Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
POINTS: 240
VOTES: 10
#1s: 1

COMMENTS:

“How to catch a voyeur, by Grace Kelly.”

--Dr. Morbius

“The first time I saw this as a kid, the cityscape seemed too
artificial, its whiteness striking, and its '50s attitudes towards
marriage and Manhattan high society alien--plus the plot template had been imitated so much already. But learning to love Rear Window is a process of coming to appreciate limits, of learning to see your backyard as a community. I love its longing look at New York, its use of piano as source music from the nearby apartment with giant windows and cocktail parties, its street sounds in the distance, and its creation of a little world to explore from your chair. It's a great New York movie in spite of itself, and it's partly about why cities are desirable. None of which would mean squat if it didn't isolate film's basic appeal in an often humorous dramatic situation, with the kick that your voyeurism might suddenly turn on you, the lights coming up on somebody stepping off the screen to strangle you and throw you out into the lobby.”

--Peter S. Scholtes

Rear Window: Great Hitchcock or Greatest Hitchcock?

BONUS FEATURE

The only flaw in Rear Window: that awful jangly bracelet Grace wears.

Naw, I never committed myself to sitting through 7S.

NxNW as screwball ... makes sense.

Lemme guess, it's your favorite in this top 10 thus far, right Morbs?

Three left!

xxp: oh, the other things you've sat through!

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3. Singin’ In The Rain
Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952
POINTS: 249
VOTES: 9
#1s: 0

COMMENTS:

“Singin' in the Rain is a little mean toward its villainess (though it helps that Jean Hagen actually dubbed Debbie Reynolds in most scenes rather than the other way around), and the sexual chemistry between Gene Kelly and Reynolds evaporates the moment they stop bickering and she admits she's impressed (enter Cyd Charisse). But pretty much everything else about this greatest-ever musical stands up and does back flips before its head explodes.”

--Peter S. Scholtes

“Postmodernism avant la lettre (or après if you believe Lawrence Grossberg). “

― Kevin John Bozelka

“when I saw this at the Castro, at Cyd's pressed slide down Gene's calf at 2:15 my date audibly gasped, grabbed my wrist and then crossed her legs”

― Milton Parker

Singin' in the Rain

BONUS FEATURE

*sigh*

xp: I had Rear Window higher than 7S or NxNW

My blurb for Rear Window from that thread, fwiw:

Not only is Rear Window maybe the best Hitchcock, it's also one of those rare movies that are, while you're in the act of watching them, clearly the best movie ever made.

I'm guessing Fires on the Plain is not in the top 2. (also one of those rare movies)

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2. Night of The Hunter
Charles Laughton & Robert Mitchum (uncredited), 1955
POINTS: 318
VOTES: 11
#1s: 0

COMMENTS:

“The terrible, horrible capacity for evil in us all.”

― Kevin John Bozelka

“A lot of this film reminds me of what old movies and children's books were to me when I was little, reading Angus and Sam the Minuteman and watching Frankenstein, The Wizard of Oz, or The Red Balloon: stories that were completely possessing dreams, vivid and unreal, that could turn nightmare at any moment. The music, ravishing black-and-white imagery, surreal "outdoor" sets, and lost children on a journey belong to the '40s or earlier in my mind. But the attitude is subversive modern horror: Bill Sikes of Oliver Twist has become a smart noir sadist disguised in the garb of so many Depression-era preacher heroes. Children see through him but adults are taken, charmed, or cowed. The way the film deals with sexuality is also shockingly frank and clear-eyed. This is a film about truths where only the presentation is fanciful, which might be why it was a flop.”

--Peter S. Scholtes

“Cinema straight out of the Anthology of American Folk Music. This is one of those weird films that by all means shouldn’t hit like it does. All the comedy stuff (the Rev bouncing into town in his jalopy, the executioner dialogue) and the yuletide cheer at the end seem out of place, but it DOES NOT MATTER. There is darkness on the face of this earth, or better still:

“Ah, little lad, you're staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand? The story of good and evil?”

― The Wild Shirtless Lyrics of Mark Farner (C. Grisso/McCain)

"night of the hunter"

BONUS FEATURE

My sources tell me it's Picnic.

xpost

I'm fine with all of the top 4!

wow, I didn't know this was that overrated.

I didn't know you were that much an arrogant asshole.

you ALWAYS say that.

I'd be fine with Hunter as best First Film.

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1. Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
POINTS: 358
VOTES: 11
#1s: 1

COMMENTS:

“Maybe the greatest dream film ever, hence laughed at by the prosaic. "The gentleman certainly knows what he wants."”

--Dr. Morbius

“Like Rear Window, Vertigo isolates an aspect of why movies work and turns it into a story. Just hearing the soundtrack at a Halloween party recently* brought it all back: that old sinking feeling of falling in love with a wishful fiction, one you imagine exists for you--and in a sense does, at least when it comes to movies, not real-life projections, since an actress wouldn't perform for you without your ticket stub or rental receipt. Then I watched Mad Men on DVD, and noticed the Vertigo bite of the opening, which makes perfect sense, since the heroes of this '50s-as-sanity-squeezing-nightmare are as wrapped up in what feminism and the counterculture had to destroy as Jimmy Stewarts delusion was. He's basically going off a cliff after
a girl in an ad, and the girl goes off the cliff trying to be the ad.

*Coincidentally, I dressed as Alfred Hitchcock, with my date as Tippy Hedren from The Birds.”

--Peter S. Scholtes

“Casting Stewart against type was one of the best things in Vertigo. It makes his descent towards the end all the more affecting, because you don't expect Jimmy Stewart to go that low.”

― Tuomas

“To paraphrase William Carlos Williams, the pure products of America may go crazy, but that ain’t nothin' compared to what they do to the ones they love.”

― The Wild Shirtless Lyrics of Mark Farner (C. Grisso/McCain)

“I wish movies still looked like Vertigo.”

― milo z

“the last shot of "vertigo" is one of the pinnacles of the cinema, and not a word is spoken”

― amateur!st

BONUS FEATURE

Well. I wish Rear Window had traded places.

since Vertigo was my #1, I guess this is the most meaningful vote I have ever cast!

Deciding between Rear Window and Vertigo is the very definition of splitting hairs. I'm glad they're both above NxNW.

Night/Hunter is the best first film in that it feels like its the first film ever. The level of invention and lack of baggage in debt to other movies is practically unparalleled that late in the game.

drowning Shelley Winters done in Place in the Sun (j/k)

Yeah, and silhouette of villain done in Nosferatu, et al, blah blah, still an uncontestable masterpiece.

I mean if you seriously like screwball that much, remove your own eyes immediately, they are obviously of no use to you.

Night/Hunter is the best first film in that it feels like its the first film ever

wow, otm.

did Brando & Clift really make their names by appearing in such insignificant films? (not that I voted for any but the one btwn em that is ranked)

I DON'T like screwball as much as you pretend, I thought that was part of our mutual-caricature shtick.

Don't you think I was exaggerating too?

Loving and respecting Mad Men even more now that I've seen the last episode of Season One, which is like a Sirk film storyboarded by Kubrick.

My blurb for All That Heaven Allows FWIW:

Emo feminism in the strong, subtle, sure hands of a great male director, though maybe it's the uncommonly empathetic female performance at the center that gets me. Sirk's best, I think.

Damn, I had Sansho the Bailiff at #1 and it didn't even make the list. Is the title that off-putting? At least Rio Bravo beat The Searchers.

Having fun imagining Morbs' reaction to Sirk being described as emo.

xxxp: well, sure!

I don't even relate to the meaning of "emo," it came along when my interest in music was waning.

anyway, this was my list -- after the first 20-25 don't hold me to any of it, esp the order:

Vertigo
The Earrings of Madame de...
A Man Escaped
Fires on the Plain
The Tragedy of Othello
World of Apu
The 400 Blows
Un Chant d'Amour
Europa '51
Rear Window

The Seventh Seal
Ugetsu
Paths of Glory
Bonjour Tristesse
Father of the Bride
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Seven Samurai
Rio Bravo
Ikiru
A Star Is Born

In a Lonely Place
The Tarnished Angels
Seven Men from Now
North by Northwest
Kiss Me Deadly
The Sun Shines Bright
I'm All Right Jack
The Wages of Fear
Aparajito
Smiles of a Summer Night

On the Waterfront
All About Eve
Gigi
Some Like It Hot
Ashes and Diamonds
Touch of Evil
The Quiet Man
Son of Paleface
Nights of Cabiria
Mon Oncle

Bubbling under (for my conscience):

The Flowers of St. Francis
What's Opera, Doc?
Touchez pas au Grisbi
All That Heaven Allows
Los Olvidados
Ivan the Terrible, Part 2
The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T
Rashomon
Written on the Wind
Attack
Summertime
Umberto D.
Wild Strawberries
Strangers on a Train

xpost -- That said, I'm sort of on board with the rest of that blurb, Pete. The thing that really gets me in the famed TV sequence isn't the irony and campy signpost symbolism of the blocking/reflections, but rather the way Wyman underplays her disappointment in herself and her children. She lets the snob daughter do the open weeping while she stretches out her temples and seemingly can't even be roused to raise her voice. She's been totally crushed from within.

OK, Morbs, Father of the Bridge xplain plz.

so my takeaway agenda: Ichikawa, Satyajit Ray, Judy Garland, Spencer Tracy, Boetticher, Bunuel.

I mean, I'm an auteurist too and all, but even I recognize Carrie and Dressed to Kill as among De Palma's best films.

have you seen it? I see that I wrote to Grisso "The warmest portrait of the American family engine and its limitations."

The thing that really gets me in the famed TV sequence isn't the irony and campy signpost symbolism of the blocking/reflections, but rather the way Wyman underplays her disappointment in herself and her children.

Although I'm reluctant to resort to biographical criticism, swap Ronnie Reagan for the husband, and Maureen and Michael for the children, and you've got Morning in America.

xp: also, Liz at her peak beauty, around 18.