1950s

  • Sacha Guitry – La vie d’un honnête homme (1953)

    1951-1960ClassicsFranceSacha Guitry

    Plot: Through a combination of hard work and ruthlessness, Albert Ménard-Lacoste (Michel Simon) has become a wealthy businessman, although his austerity prevents him from being loved, even by his family. One day, he is confronted by his worst nightmare in the form of his estranged brother Alain, who is his polar opposite – an easy-going, penniless drifter. Albert’s first reaction is to dismiss Alain from his sight. But then he has a change of heart and drops in on the shabby lodgings where Alain is living. Albert is about to offer his brother a job when the latter suffers a fatal heart-attack. Immediately, the cunning businessman sees a way to make a fresh start and perhaps settle a few scores with his family. He swaps his clothes with Alain and assumes the dead man’s identity. Little by little, Albert’s eyes are opened to the shallowness of his erstwhile life and to the grotesque hypocrisies of his everyday existence… (filmsdefrance.com)Read More »

  • George Sherman – Johnny Dark (1954)

    1951-1960ActionClassicsGeorge ShermanUSA

    Plot:
    Tony Curtis stars as Johnny Dark, a moody automobile designer. Rejected by a major auto firm because of his “radical” notions, Johnny sets out to prove the efficiency of his cars on the racetrack. He is aided and abetted by pretty Piper Laurie and less pretty Paul Kelly, while motor mogul Sidney Blackmer fumes and fusses until he realizes that Johnny’s designs will save his company. Most of the film is devoted to a marathon race, pitting Johnny against his friendly enemy Don Taylor. Johnny Dark is a must for racing buffs, as well as a prime example of Tony Curtis in his beefcake period.Read More »

  • Román Viñoly Barreto – El vampiro negro AKA The Black Vampire (1953)

    1951-1960ArgentinaFilm NoirRomán Viñoly BarretoThriller

    This retelling of Fritz Lang’s M benefits from the input of two of the greatest film cinematographers in Argentine film history: Aníbal González Paz, who shot the film in a visually striking expressionistic style, and Alberto Etchebehere, who received a screenwriting credit because of his technical suggestions regarding the way the film should look. The script retains the compulsive nature of Lang’s child murderer, but otherwise differs greatly from the original film.Read More »

  • Jirí Trnka – Sen noci svatojánské AKA Midsummer Night’s Dream (1959)

    1951-1960AnimationCzech RepublicFantasyJirí TrnkaWilliam Shakespeare

    The first puppet kinescope in the world. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happiness of magic creatures as elves and nymphs. The film is considered the most remarkable Jirí Trnka work and a milestone in the history of the world animation.Read More »

  • Rudolph Maté – The Siege at Red River (1954)

    1951-1960Rudolph MatéUSAWestern

    In Ohio in 1865, a Gatling gun is being transported by a Confederate Army officer in civilian clothes, calling himself Jim Farraday, and a sergeant, going by Benjy, to aid the Southern cause in the war. They come to the aid of a Rebel-hating Yankee nurse, Nora Curtis, whose wagon is stuck in the mud.

    Stopping off in a town for supplies and information, Farraday falls under the suspicion of a Pinkerton detective, Frank Kelso, who has been assigned to locate the stolen Gatling gun. Behind her back, Farraday and Benjy smuggle the gun out of town in Nora’s wagon……Read More »

  • Robert S. Baker – Blackout (1950)

    1941-1950CrimeDramaRobert S. BakerUnited Kingdom

    A blind man’s sight is restored in time to solve the mystery of his girlfriend’s dead (or is he) brother and a gang of currency smugglers.Read More »

  • Charles Vidor – Thunder in the East (1952)

    1951-1960Charles VidorClassicsDramaUSA

    During India’s first years of independence from Britain, Steve Gibbs lands his armaments loaded plane in Ghandahar province hoping to get rich. Pacifist Prime Minister Singh hopes to reach an agreement with guerilla leader Khan, the maharajah is a fool, and the British residents are living in the past. Steve’s love interest is Joan Willoughby, the blind daughter of a parson.Read More »

  • Fritz Lang – Das Indische Grabmal AKA The Indian Tomb (1959)

    1951-1960AdventureClassicsFritz LangGermany

    Synopsis:
    Harald Berger and his Indian lover, the temple dancer Seetha, desperately flee from the shikaris (cavalry) of Eschanapur’s maharajah Chandra, who burn a whole village just for letting them pass invoking traditional hospitality. A spider weaves a web so the trackers won’t look for them in a Shiva temple, but she is caught outside, he left for dead after a steep fall into a crocodile-infested water. Meanwhile his sister Irene and brother-in-law Dr. Walter Rhode, the architect who refuses to build a tomb to bury Seetah alive for scorning the ruler’s love before the hospital he was asked for, guess the truth, and try to make their assigned Indian servant Asagara talk, who dreads incriminating his sovereign.Read More »

  • Karl Hartl – Mozart AKA The Life and Loves of Mozart (1955)

    1951-1960AustraliaDramaKarl HartlMusical

    If you agonized through “Amadeus”, cringing at the depiction of a giggling buffoon and his featherbrained Constanze, shuddering at the underlying premise that God gave the gift to the wrong man for reasons we just can’t understand, then this film may provide you with a pleasant antidote. Filmed in 1955, probably in anticipation of the bicentenary of his birth, it gives a totally different view of the composer, and recreates the last year of his life on a more intimate anti-blockbuster scale. But though it is an engaging effort with many fine points, it doesn’t succeed in redeeming Mozart from the fictions of Milos Forman’s travesty, because it is itself a fictionalization that distorts in its own way the character of the composer.Read More »

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