1001 Flicks

Regularly updated blog charting the most important films of the last 104 years.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

333. The Defiant Ones (1958)


















Directed By Stanley Kramer

Synopsis

A black and a white prisoner are chained together and escape from an overturned transport truck. Hilarity ensues.

Review

One of the first films on the list to very seriously address questions of racial prejudice and integration, The Defiant Ones is also the first great part by Sidney Poitier, who plays a fiercely conscious black man.

The film works as an obvious allegory of American race relations. Blacks and Whites are chained together and there is no answer except cooperation, which comes hard and demands much from both parties but can be rewarding.

Of course it isn't very rewarding here as they both get caught, but the reward comes in the more moral and personal salvation of both characters as human beings. Tony Curtis has left his good looking boy parts behind him and starts the film of as horribly bigoted. They are both redeemed in the end, however. The fact that such an obvious allegory works so well as a film is part of is to be loved about this work. Sidney Poitier's character and performance alone would guarantee this film's place in history, but there is plenty more to love here.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tony Curtis), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sidney Poitier), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Theodore Bikel), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Cara Williams), Best Director, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.

Getting out of the clay pit:


Monday, December 29, 2008

332. Gigi (1958)













Directed By Vincent Minnelli

Synopsis

A little girl turns into a woman of questionable legal standing.

Review

This is one of the funnest late musicals in our list, in fact it is the last great MGM musical and it is a really great one. This has everything you require from a musical, amazing sets, a great sense of fun and great songs.

The whole story around Gigi is one which would probably not see the light of day today, starting off with an old man singing what amounts to an ode to borderline paedophilia, it goes on looking at the education of a young girl into a love machine.

If you put that aside, after all 1958 was a different planet, the film is great fun to watch. Leslie Caron is beautiful and the acting is generally excellent. Maurice Chevalier is probably the great highlight of the whole thing. We had last seen him in one of my favourite musicals, Love Me Tonight where he played a young tailor, all the way back in 1932, now he is old and bring a Gallic charm and amusement to the whole thing.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In 1991, Gigi was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The American Film Institute ranked it #35 in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions. The film is considered the last great MGM musical and the last great achievement of the Freed Unit, headed by producer Arthur Freed, although he would go on to produce several more films, including the musical Bells Are Ringing in 1960. The film was the basis for an unsuccessful stage musical produced on Broadway in 1973.

Trailer:



331. Bab El Hadid (Cairo Station) (1958)



















Directed By Youssef Chahine

So here's another film I cannot find by legal or illegal means. If you know where to get it for a reasonable price (i.e. under $25) let me know.

Monday, December 22, 2008

330. Touch of Evil (1958)













Directed By Orson Welles

Synopsis

A Mexican cop and an American cop clash while investigating a murder. Corruption, hatred and grotesquery pepper the rest of the film.

Review

Orson Welles can be one of the most rewarding film-makers and actors to simply watch. Here he plays a completely monstrous character with such a sheer screen magnetism that you are glued to what is a very strange and brutal film to the very amazing end.

Again as I discussed in the last review the sense of cinema becoming more adult is patent here, not that Orson ever made uncomplicated films, but the themes dealt with, and the way they were dealt with was always quite tame.

This film is the death toll of the film noir, and what an amazing one it is. The whole thing is great to watch from one of the most stressful opening scenes ever, to blacked up Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich to bulging eyed Mexican drug baron strangled over the face of Janet Leigh to the edge-of-seat ending, it all works perfectly and disconcertingly. I am sure David Lynch liked this one, I did.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The movie was literally a B-movie, released as the lower half of a double feature. The A-movie was The Female Animal, starring Hedy Lamarr, produced by Albert Zugsmith and directed by Harry Keller whom the studio had hired to direct the re-shot material in Touch of Evil. The two films even had the same cameraman: Russell Metty. Welles's film was given little publicity despite the many stars in the cast. Nonetheless, even as originally released it was a film of power and impact: though it had little commercial success in the US, it was nonetheless quite well-received in Europe, particularly by critics like future film-maker François Truffaut.

The amazing opening scene:


Saturday, December 20, 2008

329. Man of the West (1958)














Directed by Anthony Mann

Synopsis

A man (Gary Cooper) is caught in the middle of a train robbery. He, a woman and another guy get dumped and walk until they found a house. Well Gary Cooper has a past with the gang in the house. It all goes pear-shaped.

Review

Sometimes in the history of cinema you clearly see the art-form having a pronounced growth spurt. This happened right at the beginning of the 50s and is now happening again at the end of the decade. Several reasons might exist for this, the development of the technical instruments or more importantly changes in the wider society.

At the moment we are seeing the slow and inexorable relaxation of the production code, recently on this list we've had Paths of Glory and the Sweet Smell of Success. Two films which are quite different and now we have Man of the West.

This is the most violent Westerns we've had on the list until now, not solely in terms of physical violence but also psychological, it reaches the level of grotesqueness at times. The two undressing scenes and the death of the mute bandit make this violence particularly interesting.

I was not a big fan of the Mann-Stewart collaborations but here we clearly see a transition to a more violent and adult western, one which explores the worse of humanity instead of a "pioneering spirit". A very good Western.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

When first released, the film was largely ignored by American critics, though renowned French critic Jean-Luc Godard regarded it as the best one released that year. In the decades since the film's release, it has garnered a cult following as well as considerably greater acclaim. Some, such as The Guardian's Derek Malcolm consider the film Mann's best and a landmark in the western genre's canon. Malcolm included the film in his 2000 list The Century of Film.

Cool fight scene:


Wednesday, December 17, 2008

328. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)














Directed by Alexander Mackendrick

Synopsis

A columnist tries to stop his sister's love affair with a jazz player, using the dirtiest possible means.

Review

Alexander Mackendrick had previously been in this list with two Ealing Comedies, Whisky Galore! and The Ladykillers, now Ealing Studios was sold to the BBC and he moved to the States where he was given the job of directing this film and what a great job he did!


The film is amazing not only because of the very good directing by Mackendrick, in fact the greatest highlights are the acting by Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster and the taut, amazing dialogue that they engage in.

All the characters in the film are positively repulsive, with the exception of the very secondary loving couple. The film's view of the media and the corrupted relationships it engages in is positively bleak. The machinations of the main characters make them some of the most vile "heroes" of any film on this list yet, and it works incredibly well.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

A preview screening of the film did not go well as Tony Curtis fans were expecting him to play one of his typical nice guy roles and instead were presented with Sidney Falco. Mackendrick remembers seeing audience members "curling up, crossing their arms and legs, recoiling from the screen in disgust". Burt Lancaster's fans were not thrilled with their idol either, "finding the film too static and talky". The film was a box office failure and Hecht blamed his producing partner Hill. "The night of the preview, Harold said to me, 'You know you've wrecked our company? We're going to lose over a million dollars on this picture,'" Hill recalled.[1] However, Lancaster blamed Lehman who remembers a confrontation they had: "Burt threatened me at a party after the preview. He said, 'You didn't have to leave – you could have made this a much better picture. I ought to beat you up.' I said, 'Go ahead – I could use the money.'"

Film is online, part 1:


Monday, December 15, 2008

327. Paths of Glory (1957)


















Directed By Stanley Kubrick

Synopsis

War is stupid, grotesque and senseless. So are military courts.

Review

The first of many Kubrick films on this list does not disappoint in the least. You can almost see this as a prequel to Dr. Strangelove, it isn't as outwardly funny or as farcical but the same grotesquery of war is displayed here.

The film is quite short at under 1 hour 30 minutes but it is also a sharp, short punch to the gut. The whole film seems like a bad dream, there are lines of dialogue here that just make you laugh with incredulity, not because they are bad or unbelievable but because they are just on the right side of believable for you to imagine those characters saying them.

Of course this effect is only possible because the acting is so amazingly good throughout. The soldiers are played by people who have an almost documentary feel about them, the "actors" are the officers and that kind of creates a division between the real people and those who are detached of humanity, the soldiers do not look like actors at all. Kirk Douglas is the only exception among the officers, being the humane officer whose struggle we follow. Amazing and very infuriating film, Kubrick was an angry man and this was an amazing outlet.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The release of the film and its showing in parts of Europe were controversial. Active and retired military personnel, offended by the way the French military was portrayed in the film, vehemently criticized it after its showing in Brussels (although the film was otherwise well received). Contrary to a persistent urban legend, the film was not banned in France; however, the French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, the European distributor for the film, through diplomatic channels, to refrain from releasing the film. As a result, the film was not submitted to French censors, and was not shown in France until 1975, when moral codes had changed and attitudes calmed. In Germany the film was not allowed to be shown for two years after its release to avoid any strain in relations with France. The film was also officially censored in Spain by the government of Francisco Franco for its anti-military content, and was not released in that country until 1986, eleven years after Franco's death.

Trailer:


Saturday, December 13, 2008

326. Letyat zhuravli (The Cranes Are Flying) (1957)


















Directed By Mikhail Kalatozov

Synopsis

A girl (Veronica) and a boy (Boris) are separated when the USSR joins the second world war, he joins the army, she stays behind without being able to say goodbye. She is eventually kind of forced to marry Boris' cousin (did he rape her? did she actually betray Boris?) but never forgets Boris. She eventually finds out he died.

Review

If you've been following this list it seems like Russian cinema stopped after Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein. So it is all the more surprising that suddenly you get a film that is so technically and emotionally ravishing as this one, it seems like it came out of nowhere.

If you are a fan of the French Nouvelle Vague this is a film to watch, as an amazing precursor. I am not sure what cameras they are using here but they are amazingly fluid, the film consists of scene after scene after scene of amazing beauty and technical achievement.

Still, if that was all this would not be the film it is. The acting is superb, Tatyana Samojlova is a beautiful and extremely natural actress and that just makes her emotional turmoil all the more poignant. A truly unmissable film.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

It was the second of two Soviet films to win the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film is online, watch it! Part 1:


Wednesday, December 10, 2008

325. Bharat Mata (Mother India) (1957)

















Directed By Mehboob Khan

Synopsis

It's not easy being a mother, owe money to a money lender, having your cows die, your husband lose his arms and then leave you, your mother-in-law die, your village destroyed in a flood, your baby die, and in the end having to shoot your son dead. Not easy at all.

Review

Phew... just spent three hours watching this, and it was a good film. It feels much more of an indigenous Indian style of cinema than the more Westernised films of Satyajit Ray, there's the singing and the dancing and the extreme melodrama.

Another interesting thing about the film is it's Sovietic look, I actually had to look up if it was a co-production because there are so many shots in the film that look like Stalinist or Maoist propaganda, and I found out it is a co-production with the USSR, and that makes a lot of sense.

The shots with that Left-Bloc influence look immediately iconic and that is a truly impressive thing to do, there are a dozen of moments in the film that are as iconic as any propaganda poster, this is also a result of the artificiality of the film. There is little attempt to be realistic, the dancing and the melodrama add to this sense. But then this is cinema and not real life, it is perfectly OK to eschew realism for stylisation if done right, and here it is done right. Just a bit too long, and my DVD had no subtitles during the songs, which was very annoying as my Hindi is a bit rusty.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The film is a remake of Mehboob Khan's earlier film Aurat (1940). The film would later be remade in Telugu as Bangaru Talli (1971). The film was fifth Indo-Russian co-production, and was preceed by Pardesi (1957), also starring Nargis Dutt. In 2005, Indiatimes Movies ranked the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films. The film ranked #3 in the list of all-time box office hits.

Mother India pulls a plow:



Monday, December 08, 2008

324. Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)











Directed by David Lean

Synopsis

Club Med Thailand leaves much to be desired.

Review

What a great film. David Lean is a pretty amazing director and then he had the fortune of getting some great actors for this. Alec Guinnness is great as always and so is all the rest of the cast. The gorgeous colour cinematography is pretty amazing, making the film look considerably modern.

Another thing that makes the film look quite modern is the amount of detail put into the characterisation of the characters, from dirt to ragged clothing, the set design is equally amazing, not only in the creation of the bridge itself but also in Saito's room for example with all the Japanese elements and the pinup calendar giving it a touch of humour in a thoroughly unhumorous character.

It lasts for longer than 2 and 1/2 hours and it never gets even slightly boring, the film is expertly paced, it is at times very funny due to the completely insane unflappability and flippancy of many of the characters and it ends up giving us a moral lesson on the futility of war and its endeavours. One of the most interesting things is the parallels between Guinness' and Saito's characters, giving you a sense of people who have anything but common sense. An amazing and unmissable film.

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

David Lean clashed with his cast members on multiple occasions, particularly Alec Guinness and James Donald, who thought the novel was anti-British. Lean had a lengthy row with Guinness over how to play the role of Nicholson; Guinness wanted to play the part with a sense of humor and sympathy, while Lean thought Nicholson should be "a bore". On another occasion, Lean and Guinness argued over the scene where Nicholson reflects on his career in the army. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness, and exploded in anger when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Thank God that I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor (William Holden)"

Trailer:


Saturday, December 06, 2008

323. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)














Directed By John Sturges


Synopsis

The Earps and the Clantons... not BFFs.


Review

Another film version of what is probably of the most often portrayed historical events in cinema history. I don't think even Pearl Harbour or D-Day had as many re-enactments as the gunfight at OK Corral. I must have seen about 10 films of it.

That being said this is a good film about this kind of tired subject. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas are excellent as ever, and the final shoot out is a great fight scene, the kind of stuff John Sturges did so well.

So yeah, it was probably too long at two hours, you don't really need that long to tell a story that most people who bother to watch the film already know. Still, it is reasonably historically accurate, and is good fun, building up to a very good ending... other than that meh.

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

DeForest Kelley played the part of Morgan Earp in this film. Ten years later, as Doctor McCoy, he and others from the USS Enterprise landing crew faced the Earps in an episode of Star Trek "Spectre of the Gun".

Theme Song:


Wednesday, December 03, 2008

322. Aparajito (The Unvanquished) (1957)

















Directed By Satyajit Ray

Synopsis

Aparajito starts with Apu in Varanasi with his parents, his father is mildly successful as a priest. His father dies and his mother goes back to the countryside where Apu goes to school, eventually, due to his great success he is sent to Kolkata on a scholarship. He returns home after hearing his mother is ill, only to find he has arrived one day too late. He goes back to Kolkata.

Review

Aparajito is the second of the trilogy about the life of a Bengali boy. As such it feels very much like the middle film in the trilogy, in the first film, Pather Panchali, you got to know the characters and their environment and culture. Here that is taken as known and you jump right into the story.

This has positive and negative sides. On the positive side exposition is not necessary, you know the relationships and the condition of each character, on the other hand it doesn't feel as new as Pather Panchali and it has the typical problems of any bridge film, no real beginning or end.

Still it makes me watch the last film in the trilogy even more, the world is super-detailed, the acting is excellent and you care about the characters... now pared down to one... so you care about Apu's future. This trilogy is essential viewing for its beautiful cinematography, music, shots, acting, sets, script ... and that's all, I think. It's hard to judge parts individually, as it just feels like a whole film bigger than the sum of its parts, so when I watch the third one I will say something about the whole trilogy.

Final Grade

8/10


Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Aparajito won the Golden Lion at the 1957 Venice Film Festival. Ray got Golden Gate Awards for the Best Director in San Francisco International Film Festival in 1958 for this film. The film won "Bodil Award: Best Non-European Film of the Year" from Denmark in 1967. In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was included in Time magazine's All-time 100 greatest movies list. Roger Ebert has included The Apu Trilogy in his book Great Movies.

The film is online, here's part 1, skip to minute 3 for the film itself:


Monday, December 01, 2008

321. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)














Directed By Jack Arnold

Synopsis

After being hit by a cloud of glitter (radiation?) a guy starts shrinking. After a fight with his cat he falls in the basement and has to fight a spider. Then he goes out and has a religious epiphany.

Review

B-movies are always something else. Usually, however they are quite good and this is no exception, the incredible shrinking man is able to maintain a suspenseful and very stressful mood throughout culminating in a fight with a spider that if you are as squeamish as I am will make your skin crawl.

This is based on a story by and adapted to the screen by Richard Matheson of I Am Legend fame (the book not the Will Smith film), and one thing he is good at is the feeling of loneliness, threat and claustrophobia which is very well achieved here.

It really gets a lot of its points for a great script and quite amazing special effects for the time, the sets are great with so many things blown up to make the character tiny. The action sequences are pretty good as well. The ending is slightly disappointing with the religious epiphany taking the whole of 15 seconds and leaving the viewer thinking "What?".

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

"And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears locked away and in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God there is no zero. I still exist." (Scott, to himself - last line in movie.)

The film in 10 minutes: