Daily Archives: July 19, 2015

Ace in the Hole (1951)

Posted on July 19, 2015 | 8 comments

Ace in the Hole (AKA The Big Carnival)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, and Walter Newman
1951/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#243 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Lorraine: I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.[/box]

Billy Wilder concocts the original media circus and Kirk Douglas gives us perhaps his most vile heel ever.

Chuck Tatum (Douglas) is a hard-drinking wise-guy newspaper reporter who has been fired by several big city newspapers.  He shows up at an Albuquerque paper and offers his services as a “$200 a day” reporter who will work for cheap.  Despite rubbing the editor (Porter Hall) the wrong way, he gets the job.  After a year, he is still being sent to cover rattlesnake festivals.

On the way to one such event,  he and his photographer stop to get gas at a roadside cafe and souvenir shop.  They learn from the owner’s wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) that her husband has been trapped in an old Indian tomb where he was searching for artifacts.  Chuck goes to investigate and discovers that the trapped man, Leo, believes that he may be the victim of an Indian curse punishing those who desecrate their grave sites.  Chuck smells a good story and a possible Pulitzer prize.

When Chuck learns that the contractors he brought in to rescue the man believe they can get him out in 24 hours he encourages them to do it the hard way by drilling down from the top.  He wants to milk the story for at least a week and is supported in this aim by the crooked local sheriff who is looking for publicity for his re-election campaign. Meanwhile the trapped man and his parents believe Chuck is actually his friend.  Lorraine knows differently but is all cooperation when she sees how much money can be made by the gawkers who now flood the site.

Chuck wangles an exclusive deal for the coverage and alienates all his fellow journalists in the process.  He even manages to get his job back at a New York paper.  Will Chuck get the comeuppance he so richly deserves?

This movie is powerful and well-made in every respect.  It is also the most cynical and misanthropic of all Wilder’s films.  There is an uncharacteristic meanness and lack of leavening humor that makes it hard for me to really love.  It really should be seen though.

Ace in the Hole was nominated for an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQCp_EEbqZU

Trailer

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1951

Early Summer (1951)

Posted on July 19, 2015 | Leave a comment

Early Summer (Bakkushû)
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu
Written by Kôgo Noda and Yasujirô Ozu
1951/Japan
Shôchiku Eiga
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

 

[box] Mr. Ozu looked happiest when he was engaged in writing a scenario with Mr. Kogo Noda, at the latter’s cottage on the tableland of Nagano Prefecture. By the time he finished writing a script, after about four months’ effort, he had already made up every image in every shot, so that he never changed the scenario after we went on the set. The words were so polished up that he would not allow us even a single mistake. — Chisû Ryû[/box]

Yasujirô Ozu was at the height of his powers when he made the three films in which Setsuko Hara starred as a young woman named Noriko.  This is perhaps lesser known than the other two – Late Spring and Tokyo Story – but is just as good.

Three generations of the Mamiya family live in the same household.  They are grandmother and grandfather, their son Koichi (Chisu Ryô), daughter-in-law and two grandsons, and unmarried daughter Noriko (Hara).  Noriko is a modern sort of 28-year-old and helps with the expenses by working in the city as a secretary.  Koichi is a physician.

Noriko’s boss and everyone else who knows her think it is high time for her to get married. The boss has what seems to be the ideal candidate in mind.  Noriko’s parents and brother are enthusiastic about the match but Noriko is skillful at dodging any discussion about the matter.

Then Noriko accepts a marriage offer from an unexpected quarter and the household is thrown into a mild uproar until everybody gets used to the idea.

I love this film.  It all seems just like real life to me despite the exquisitely contrived compositions.  It takes about an hour for the marriage drama to arise.  Before that the story is more or less just a snapshot of daily life.

This is another film on Ozu’s favorite topic, which is not in fact marriage, but the dissolution of the Japanese family.  We are treated to an especially moving denouement in this one as the hoped-for marriage will mean that all the people in the household must go their separate ways.  The Criterion DVD has an excellent commentary by Ozu scholar Donald Richie.

Clip

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Posted in 1951

1951

Posted on July 19, 2015 | 2 comments

In 1951:

Legendary film critic and theorist Andre Bazin established the French film journal “Cahiers du Cinéma”. Its ideas and writing gave rise to the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) and brought respectability to the idea of film as a legitimate field of study.

The Motion Pictures Production Code specifically prohibited films dealing with abortion or narcotics.  Marking the decline of the old Hollywood studio system, this was the first year in which the Best Picture Oscar was given to the film’s producers rather than to the studio that released the film.  Motion picture mogul-executive Louis B. Mayer was forced to resign in 1951 after 27 years as the head of MGM Studios that he had founded. Mayer’s resignation followed continued disagreements with his eventual successor Dore Schary over cost-cutting and the issue of creating socially-relevant pictures.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

In U.S. news, the Twenty-second Amendment Constitution was ratified, limiting Presidents to two terms.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for passing atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union. On April 5 they are sentenced to receive the death penalty.  The couple was executed in 1953.

U.S. President Harry S. Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his Far Eastern commands for insubordination.   MacArthur made his last official appearance in a farewell address to the U.S. Congress. During his speech, he famously said: “I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.”

Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau. The first thermonuclear weapon was tested on Enewetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Direct dial coast-to-coast telephone service began. The world’s first (experimental) nuclear power plant opened. The United States became malaria-free,

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger was published.   Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats recorded “Rocket 88”, currently observed by most as the first rock and roll song ever made.  The Town by Conrad Richter won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  No drama prize was awarded.  “Too Young” by Nat King Cole was number 1 on the Billboard Charts.

Korean War Veterans Memorial, Washington DC

The Treaty of Paris (1951) was adopted, establishing the European Coal and Steel Community.  This was the first step toward the establishment of the European Union.

In early 1951, the territory around Seoul and central Korea changed hands several times as the UN and Communist forces advanced and retreated.  By July 1951, the conflict had reached a stalemate, with the two sides fighting limited engagements, but with neither side in a position to force the other’s surrender. Both the United States and China had, at this point, achieved the short-term goal of maintaining the demarcation line at the 38th parallel, while the North and South Koreans had failed in the larger goal of uniting the country under their preferred political systems. Representatives of all the parties began to discuss peace.  For the next two years, small-scale skirmishes continued to break out, while the various representatives argued over the peace terms.

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The list of films I will select from is here.  I have already reviewed the following 1951 films on this site.  ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; and .

 

Montage of stills from the Academy Award winners

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0mhgyTgxtw

Bonus – “Rocket 88” – that’s Ike Turner’s backup band.

 

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Posted in Movie Reviews