294. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Directed By Robert Aldrich

Synopsis

Mike Hammer picks up a woman wearing only a trenchcoat. He gets beat up and she gets tortured to death. After a series of investigations involving a series of grotesque characters Mike understands that the McGuffin is a suitcase containing the great whatsit. The film is the first to teach us not to open suitcases with mysterious shining contents.

Review

So there is a suitcase containing a nuclear device, or Medusa's head or it is Pandora's box and it contains all the evils in the world, frankly it doesn't matter, it is just another element in one of the strangest films to ever grace this list.

The film is clearly noir, or should I say post-noir, the tropes of noir are so skewed that it is unlike any other noir film. It feels like a bad acid trip, a nightmare on celluloid, enhanced by strange camera angles, grotesque characters and a constant mystery surrounding the whole thing.

In the end this feels like the template for Lynch and Cronenberg, but it is weirdly filmed in 1955, and that is what makes this film so amazing. It comes completely out of the blue and therefore only hits you with that much more strength. It is one of those films that you just have to watch. Fascinating throughout, and it makes you think if some of the actors like the room-mate are acting badly because they are bad actors or by some strange design which just makes the whole film more unnerving. Unmissable.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The original American release of the film shows Hammer and Velda escaping from the burning house at the end, running into the ocean as the words "The End" come over them on the screen. Sometime after its first release, the ending was crudely altered on the film's original negative, removing over a minute's worth of shots where Hammer and Velda escape and superimposing the words "The End" over the burning house. This implied that Hammer and Velda perished in the atomic blaze, and was often interpreted to represent the End of the World. In 1997, the original conclusion was restored. The DVD release has the correct original ending, and offers the now-discredited (but influential) truncated ending as an extra.

First 10 minutes:

293. Bob Le Flambeur (Bob the Gambler) (1956)

Directed By Jean-Pierre Melville

Synopsis

An old inveterate gambler plans a heist of a Casino safe in order to recover money he lost gambling, it doesn't all go according to plan but he doesn't get off badly.

Review

This film is considered one of the great influences on the French Nouvelle Vague that would come in force in the next decade. It is actually very easy to see how influential it is, the camera movements and hand-held cameras certainly contribute to a Nouvelle Vaguey feel, as does the whole atmosphere.

The film is not only looking towards the future, however, it is also looking towards the 40s and the great noir films of that age. The film starts with a voice-over, there is a femme fatale (who shows up in remarkable stages of nakedness for the 1950s, there even a split second nipple shot... yes these are the things I notice), there is a chain-smoking cop... you know the style.

The acting is quite good throughout, but the experimentalism of the film is sometimes also its downfall, some of the scenes seem disjointed, the cuts seem inappropriate at times, but it is all part of the growing pains of great cinema... or the problem with having a shit editor.


Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Vincent Canby, writing for the New York Times in 1981, noted "Melville's affection for American gangster movies may have never been as engagingly and wittily demonstrated as in Bob le Flambeur, which was only the director's fourth film, made before he had access to the bigger budgets and the bigger stars (Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon) of his later pictures.

Trailer:

292. Ordet (The Word) (1955)

Directed By Carl Theodor Dreyer

Synopsis

A family of Danish farmers is struck with disaster. One of the sons thinks he is Jesus, another one wants to marry a strict Calvinist, another one is an Atheist... Just like the Three Stooges, only more Scandinavian.


Review

Dreyer was the director of probably the best, silent film of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc and here he is returning to some of the same themes. The themes of religious rapture and faith.

Fortunately for us Dreyer's view is quite a tolerant one. There is clearly a religious message to the thing, but it isn't being shoved down out throats fortunately.

The film works more at the level of family drama than anything else, but the elements of magical realism add something to the film, I still don't know if what they add is good or bad, though. I need to think a little bit more about it, but it certainly makes for a memorable ending. The pace is deliberately slow, but the characters are so well fleshed out that you care, and it works because you care.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It is based on a play by Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor who was killed by German Nazis.

A scene, sorry you have to speak Danish or read Spanish to understand it, but there is no version with English subtitles on Youtube:

291. Marty (1955)

Directed By Delbert Mann

Synopsis

A 34 year-old butcher has problems getting a woman to get married to. Everyone wants him to get married, and when he finally finds a girl that likes him and that he likes, the people around him seem to think he can do better.

Review

It is strange how a film could have won both the Best Picture Oscar and the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1955 and remain kind of unknown today. This is particularly strange because it is a really good film. There must be few films which paint a more candid image of relationships in the mid 50s.

Ernest Borgnine is excellent here, playing a part that is not usual for him, a sensitive down on his luck man who cries sometimes. What is great about it is that Borgnine infuses the character with such pathos that he is truly believable.

There isn't much to the story itself, but the sincerity of the film is disarming in itself. It is just lovely, a meeting of people who feel oppressed by the demands of life, of being beautiful, fun and witty, of satisfying everyone's expectations. In the end the characters triumph over pettiness and that is always good to see.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikpedia:

At the Cannes Film Festival, the producers were initially taken aback when it was announced that the film won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm). After they had won, they decided to promote the film heavily for its general release. (The trailer has Burt Lancaster claiming the film was superb in every way.) The opinions of critics were overwhelmingly positive. Ronald Holloway of Variety Magazine felt it was an excellent film and said "If 'Marty' is an example of the type of material that can be gleaned, then studio story editors better spend more time at home looking at television." TIME felt the film was "Wonderful". Louella Parsons enjoyed the film however, she felt that it would not likely be nominated for Oscars.[3] At a budget of $343,000 (USD) the film generated revenues of $3,000,000 in the USA alone, making it a box office smash. The film ended up receiving eight Academy Award nominations, with four major wins: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor, becoming one of two films to date to win both Best Picture and the Palme d'Or.

Trailer:

290. The Ladykillers (1955)

Directed By Alexander Mackendrick

Synopsis

A gang of robbers rent an old lady's room as a way to scope out a job, they decide to use the old lady as a convenient courier for their sting. She eventually finds out about the robbery and they decide that they have to kill her to get away with it.

Review

Talk about dark comedies, this is so dark that it almost moves away from the comedy completely. The main enjoyment of the film is simple schadenfreude and there is nothing wrong with that when it is done as well as it is here.

For me this is not the best of the Ealing Comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets still holds that special place in my heart. It is, however, a very good one indeed, the way that all the events match together towards their inexorable conclusions is exciting and thrilling to watch.

The big stand-outs here are really Alec Guiness in a part that completely transforms him (this man seem to play old characters since he was born), and the old lady, who plays here part with an extreme naturalness. Peter Sellers shows up in one of his earliest parts but doesn't really shine. The script is also five stars. Great film.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

American William Rose wrote the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay and won the BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay. He claimed to have dreamt the entire movie and merely had to remember the details when he awoke.

The Ladykillers:

289. Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955)

Directed by Thorold Dickinson

Place Holder

Well I can't find this in any trustworthy site for any amount below "extortionate" and cannot find it anywhere for download. If you can find it for sale at a reasonable price (up to £15 or $30) let me know.

288. Les Maitres Fous (1955)

Directed by Jean Rouch

Synopsis

Documentary on the rites of the Hakua who are possessed by Colonial characters in their yearly ritual. Oh and drink the gushing blood of a dead dog.

Review

In this tame age of cinema you could get away with pretty shocking imagery if you were doing a documentary. And Jean Rouch does not shy away from it, short from showing the actually execution of the dog everything else is pretty strange and to some audiences quite shocking, if you took your average audience member to see this in the mid 50s I can't even imagine what he'd think.

But the film does not live only from the car-crash TV quality of watching people foaming at the mouth and killing a dog, just to be normal, well-adjusted members of society the next day. The most important thing in the film is said by Rouch's voice over in the last second of the film, raising the question of whether this ritual is a way to let off the steam in order to live under oppression, a kind of mental health treatment by doing some debased actions.

What Rouch does not touch but is apparent to the informed viewer is the idea that this is also a mockery of Colonial powers in the ritual, the Hakua assume their forms in order to bring those authoritarian figures down to their level. And yes, at first it might seem like Rouch is portraying African barbarism, but if you look under the surface his message and the message of the Hakua was considerably more subversive.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

The Hauka movement, according to some anthropologists was a form of resistance that began in Niger, but spread to other parts of Africa. According to some anthropologists, this pageant, though historic, was largely done to mock their authority by stealing their powers. Hauka members were not trying to emulate Europeans, but were trying to extract their life force – something “entirely African”.

This stance has been heavily criticized by anthropologist James G. Ferguson who finds this imitation not about importing colonialism into indigenous culture, but more a way to gain rights and status in the colonial society. The adoption of European customs was not so much a form of resistance, but to be “respected by the Europeans.”

The whole thing is on youtube, part 1: