Welcome to 5 Favorites. Each week, I will put together a list of my 5 favorites (films, performances, whatever strikes my fancy) along with commentary on a given topic each week, usually in relation to a specific film releasing that week.
We move forward just a little bit further to the 1950s, a decade that felt like a step down from the one-two punch of the 1930s and 1940s. Still, there were plenty of films to consider and I ultimately considered these before settling on the final five below, but did not include them. Sunset Blvd. (1950), A Place in the Sun (1951), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Les Diaboliques (1955), East of Eden (1955), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1958), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Auntie Mame (1958), The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Imitation of Life (1959), and Wild Strawberries (1959). Also, I feel a bit bad about this, but I didn’t put a single Hitchcock film on the list and he had a hell of a decade with no fewer than four films I love: Strangers on a Train (1951), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), and North by Northwest (1959). Sacrifices had to be made with only five spots to fill. Of these four, the two that came closest were Rear Window and Vertigo, which are easily in my top 5 of Hitch’s films.
All About Eve (1950)
There was a time when a film like All About Eve made sense to a broader audience, but those days have gone and the backstage backstabbing narrative means less to fewer people. Still, the film holds up amazingly well with even the barest of knowledge of the milieu thanks to the universality of the script Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote based on Mary Orr’s novel The Wisdom of Eve. Mankiewicz also directs one of his best feature films starring Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, and Thelma Ritter among others. Marilyn Monroe has a small but impactful role in the film.
Davis plays a stage legend who meets an adoring fan (Baxter) who cozies up to the actress in an effort to learn from her while embarking on her own career. The tables turn as Baxter gains fame and begins to betray or ignore all those who helped get her where she is. Not only is the film witty, acerbic, and gloriously acrimonious, it’s also perfectly acted with Davis, Baxter, Sanders, Holm, and Ritter delivering some of their greatest performances. While modern audiences might not get or appreciate all of the backstage terminology and situations, they should still be delighted by a humorous and deliciously vicious masterpiece.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
As I referenced in my first list in this final series of 5 favorites articles, science fiction has been a longstanding part of cinematic tradition. In the years since A Trip to the Moon released in 1902, the number of sci-fi films that had an impact on future generations of filmmakers were minimal. Most of those were Universal monster movies (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, etc.). In 1951, a new influence emerged in this fascinating exploration of post-World War II society and the cultural animosity towards others. While the aliens of The Day the Earth Stood Still are thought to be invaders, their peaceful intentions are misconstrued by a wary United States.
This notion was further extrapolated on in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the use of aliens that were human in appearance helped sell the concepts. Mistrustful and resistant to potential eradication of the human race, it takes courageous individuals to protect and provide a means of successful escape to someone who looks different, but may be more human than anyone else. Sci-fi has the ability to speak to cultural issues in vast and sometimes controversial ways. Futuristic sci-fi looks at modern times as a frame of influence whereas a film like this, set in the present, helped advance a different cause, that of making the situation real and frighteningly plausible. That alone elevates the material beyond the creature features that dominated the genre for decades.
No original review available.
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Decades of experience as an actor helped Charles Laughton direct one of the greatest films of all time, a haunting thriller about a serial killer played by Robert Mitchum. His prey is the widow of a former cellmate played by Shelly Winters who he thinks knows the location of a secret stash her husband had made before his arrest. Mitchum’s self-proclaimed preacher woos the town and the widow’s hand in marriage, yet her son (Billy Chapin) remains suspicious of his machinations. Everything comes down to the bitter killer stalking the children as they seek refuge in the home of a nearby benefactor (Lillian Gish).
Mitchum is unnerving as the killer and Winters plays the naïve widow brilliantly. Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce as her children are strong young performers while veteran Gish impresses. Laughton’s skill behind the camera is aided by the strong screenplay by James Agee adapted from Davis Grubb’s novel of the same name. The atmosphere Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortez craft keep the audience on the edge of its seat, hoping beyond hope that the vile murderer will somehow be brought to justice. Laughton’s directorial debut was superb and we’ll always lament that he didn’t direct anything after it.
Paths of Glory (1957)
Long before he abandoned the studio system, Stanley Kubrick managed to deliver a string of superb features in the lead up to his post-Spartacus departure. Paths of Glory was one of his best early features, though some feel that star and producer Kirk Douglas had more to do with the film’s creative success (though the film was a commercial flop). That would be more apropos of their Spartacus collaboration than this film. This film is one of history’s best anti-war films, of which there have been many, and it’s Kubrick’s ability to capture the misery, claustrophobia, and horrors of the trenches in World War I that elevated a simple war story into something far more engaging.
Douglas plays Col. Dax the commanding officer of a regiment of French soldiers who are ordered by their superiors to engage in what they suspect is a suicide mission against a well-entrenched German position. When they refuse to cooperate, Dax must defend them against charges of cowardice in the court-martial they face for disobeying the order. A combination war film and courtroom drama, Kubrick was never more skilled at working under the influence of United Artists. It’s a harrowing drama that stands tall among Kubrick’s vast array of towering work and certainly needs to be seen to understand its power.
Touch of Evil (1958)
While Kubrick’s career was ascending, Orson Welles’ career was descending. With few successfully-directed films before it (post-Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons), Touch of Evil would remain one of his last great films and perhaps the only one of his final few that would be well remembered after his death. Set on the U.S.-Mexico border, the film follows the investigation into a bomb that explodes and kills a man and his girlfriend. A Mexican special prosecutor (Charlton Heston), honeymooning in town, takes an interest in the investigation of a fellow Mexican citizen only to discover that the corrupt police department may be planting evidence to secure convictions.
Welles was initially hired to act in the film as the crooked police captain, but was brought on to direct the film at the insistence of co-star Heston. The film benefited greatly from Welles’ vision, but in spite of the studio’s praise of the work Welles did, they re-edited and re-shot parts of the film trying to simplify the narrative for a broader audience. Welles rejected the studio’s changes and provided them instructions for how to complete the film adequately, which they ignored. It wasn’t until 1998 when editor and sound designer Walter Murch re-edited the film from existing footage that people finally saw the mastery that Welles had created with the film. Like with his prior films, studio tinkering often tampered with a great work and while some certainly succeeded in spite of that (The Magnificent Ambersons for example), it’s still important to witness the vision of the director rather than a production house with populist desires.
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