REVEALED-THE ILX TOP 75 FILMS OF THE 1950s

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.

xpost Haha!

I've frequently caught pieces of it flipping past TCM, but nothing captured my interest, especially not Liz at her peak beauty.

or, if you choose Dave Kehr's perspective: "There is a strange undercurrent of discontent and despair to many of the situation comedies of the 50s; this ostensibly lighthearted film about Spencer Tracy's Kafkaesque attempts to bring off his daughter's wedding is one of the bleakest films of a bleak decade....Minnelli drops all pretense of comedy for a climactic nightmare sequence that conjures up the ghost of Dr. Caligari."

(if that doesn't get you to see it, nothing will)

ILX doesn't appear to like comedies much more than Oscar does. How many besides Some Like It Hot in the 75? (no musicals pls)

The cartoons?

well, that's a whole separate argument...

Live action: Smiles, I'm All Right Jack, Roman holiday (romcom), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (too musical?), Nights of Cabiria (funny-sad), uh...

The Ladykillers was bubbling under (2 votes/38 points)

well, that's a whole separate argument...

Not when they're consistently much funnier than the feature-length, live-action comedies.

Good to see Duck Amuck again: My favorite LOL moment is him pushing away "The End." Wouldn't we all?

anyhoo, thank you for your efforts, C. Grisso/McCain. I don't know what the "base" is for a '40s poll (six of us?).

but Eric, it IS usually easier to make a funny 6-minute film than a 90-minute one.

Then more directors should take the hint and make richly funny 6-minute films instead of fitfully amusing 90-minute ones.

I would obviously not take part in a '40s poll. Don't think I've seen many masterpieces from that decade.

xp: like Guy Maddin?

Exactly. (Though My Winnipeg was very well sustained ... if not a comedy.)

Morbs, you're failing: no Apatow-Rogen jokes in days!

xpost: Also easier to be timeless with animation, maybe, or easier to be subversive/radical without freaking out your funders...

I've had ppl I dragged to Jerry's Nutty Professor tell me that's not a comedy either.

Alfred, I've moved on.

Nutty Professor is many other things in addition to being a comedy, which helps it through the rough spots.

I don't equate comedy with laughs, especially with someone as strange as Lewis (or Keaton or Tati).

There are five Preston Sturges masterpieces in the '40s!

The '40s will be easier than you think...

I don't equate comedy with laughs either, but if that's all they're trying to get and they fail well over half the time and there's no formal qualities to fall back on and I'm not inherently impressed by the sophisticated presentation of the foibles of hetero communications, well ...

My '40s ballot would be about half Val Lewtons, one-third Orson Welles and Hitchcock, and the rest a-g.

oh, and Hellzapoppin’ (which is to say, a-g)

30-40% is a high rate for even a laughs-only comedy. like Hellzapoppin?

xp

(its formal qualities are open to the question of intention)

for Hollywood, I think I prefer the '40s to the 50s!

xpost -- but it has formal qualities, which Leo McCarey movies do not

Comedy in the thirties >> comedy in the forties.

Buñuel was one of the few good directors making comedies in the fifties (no one saw'em, though).

xp: grooooannn, that's madness whether you like his formal qualities or not ... you've seen Duck Soup, yes?

also about 80 of McCarey's films are comedy shorts starring the likes of Laurel & Hardy, which would populate my '20s ballot.

xp: grooooannn, that's madness whether you like his formal qualities or not ... you've seen Duck Soup, yes?

I even like some of his movies. Make Way for Tomorrow is a masterpiece without any particular formal qualities.

“McCarey understands people better perhaps than anyone else in Hollywood.” - Jean Renoir

Sure, but how does that defend his lack of mise-en-scene?

(OK, maybe mise-en-scene isn't the word I'm looking for here.)

yeah, "lack" is a bit strong. His films have an aura (as do Lubitsch's, perhaps moreso) that isn't engineered in ways familiar to us from subsequent filmmakers. But they work, so they must've done it right.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my love for Make Way for Tomorrow challenges everything I thought I loved about cinema, and I'm grateful for that, but do not find anything remotely approaching Tomomrrow's great whatsit in any of McCarey's other films, and won't stress about it.

(Unfortunatly, I haven't seen a Lubitsch film that works for me in that way yet.)

I have never understood exactly what mise en scène is anyway; it changes from critic to critic. So I say fuck it, give me the arithmetical beauty of a streetful of ppl tearing each other's pants off.

So I say fuck it, give me the arithmetical beauty of a roomful of tap dancers reenacting the Sierpinski triangle.

Thank you for spurring me to rent All About Eve, which has many laughs out loud...

Yes, I laugh or at least exhale through my nose about 40 percent of the time during All About Eve.

it's obv a great, kickass script. But what are Mankiewicz's formal qualities?

also, pony up the individual ballots.

My sources tell me it's Picnic.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, November 18, 2008 5:33 PM

ha ha!

I was sad Picnic didn't make it. I love the DVD artifacts on this scene. The image compression reveals the Holden-in-blackface:

my #1 was El: This Strange Passion, oh well

it's obv a great, kickass script. But what are Mankiewicz's formal qualities?

You know my point is that, in the absence of formal qualities, it all boils down to "I like this/I don't like this" for me. And screwballs almost always fall under the latter.

it's obv a great, kickass script. But what are Mankiewicz's formal qualities?

The ones he learned from Billy Wilder?