Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard) Directed by Alain Resnais Written by Jean Cayrol 1955/France Argos Films
Repeat viewing/Hulu
#305 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Récitant/Narrator: With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We pretend it happened all at once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity’s never-ending cry.[/box]
This is almost poetic in its sadness and very hard to watch.
The film contrasts banal color images of contemporary deserted concentration camps with highly graphic black-and-white still images and archival footage of the suffering of Holocaust victims.
I have seen this a couple of times before. You almost, but not quite, become desensitized to the horrific pictures of the dead and dying. It’s the details that killed me this time. There’s footage of a man taking an elderly lady in a wheelchair to the deportation train that I find heartbreaking in so many ways. And all the faces. And the poor bodies. Too much for me.
The Beast with a Million Eyes
Directed by David Kramarsky and Roger Corman (uncredited)
Written by Tom Filer
1955/USA
San Mateo Productions
First viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] Carol Kelley: Yes. I’m not easy to get along with am I? Oh, I don’t know. I think I could stand it, except for … [looking at the horizon] out there… all that wasteland and mountains. We might as well be on another planet. Oh, Alan without Sandy I don’t know what would happen to me. It’d be just you and me and… Him [/box]
IMDb users have rated this film lower than Ed Wood’s Bride of the Monster, which came out the same year. There are several reasons for that but it’s also bizarrely fascinating if you have the patience.
The film begins with portentous voice-over narration from the Beast. The Kelley family, and their mute and creepy handyman “Him”, live on a date farm in the middle of nowhere. Mother Kelley is bored beyond distraction and has turned very, very mean, especially toward her teenage daughter Sandy. Soon a UFO’s high pitched drone breaks all of Mother Kelley’s prized glassware, putting her into an even worse mood.
Then assorted animals including the family dog, a cow, chickens, and a flock of pigeons attack. At some point Mother begins to see the light and realize the error of her ways. We learn that Love is stronger than the Beast. Spoiler Alert: The Beast is revealed to be what looks like a modified tea kettle with a superimposed hand puppet.
This is from early in the career of schlock-master Roger Corman and was made near where I live for a budget of $30,000. It looks like virtually the entire budget was spent on the poster art. The acting is godawful. The story makes no sense and of course zero was spent on special effects. And yet it kept my interest despite the very slow pace. It was all so bizarre that I kept wondering what would happen next.
The Big Combo Directed by Joseph H. Lewis Written by Philip Yordan 1955/USA Security Pictures/Theodora Pictures
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] Mr. Brown: Diamond, the only trouble with you is, you’d like to be me. You’d like to have my organization, my influence, my fix. You can’t, it’s impossible. You think it’s money. It’s not. It’s personality. You haven’t got it. You’re a cop. Slow. Steady. Intelligent. With a bad temper and a gun under your arm. With a big yen for a girl you can’t have. First is first and second is nobody.[/box]
As far as I am concerned, this is up there with Out of the Past in epitomizing all that is film noir.
Mr. Brown (Richard Conte) runs a crime syndicate. He ruthlessly took it over from a former crime lord and his own immediate boss Joe McClure (Brian Donlevy). Despite a decided lack of success so far, he is being doggedly pursued by detective Leonard Diamond. It seems that it is almost impossible to pin anything on Mr. Brown and Diamond’s own boss warns him off the case. But Diamond carries on, not least because he is in love with Brown’s blonde girlfriend Susan (Jean Wallace). For her part, Susan’s life disgusts her so much that she attempts suicide as the story opens.
Mr. Brown is fascinating in his sophisticated evil-doing and keeps getting away with murder while he takes revenge against Diamond in numerous ways. But Diamond is equally stubborn, if not more so.
This movie has everything. John Alton’s low-key cinematography is perfection. The acting, particularly Conti’s, is excellent and the dialogue is about as hard-boiled as you can get. We also get memorable performances by Earl Holiman and Lee Van Cleef as two hit men who are just a bit too fond of each other. This is a gritty and violent film that may even surpass Lewis’s other film noir classic, Gun Crazy. Highly recommended and currently available on YouTube.
James Dean was featured in his first major role and film, director Elia Kazan’s East of Eden. The actor was killed in a car accident on September 30, 1955, having appeared in only three films. Both of his Best Actor Oscar nominations – for East of Eden and Giant – were given posthumously. He remains the only person to have two posthumous acting nominations.
The first feature animation in CinemaScope, Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp, was released in the US. It also marked Disney’s first full-length cartoon based on an original story rather than an established classic. Disneyland opened in a former orange grove in Anaheim, California, in July 1955, at a cost of $17 million. Another Disney first was the ABC-TV debut of The Mickey Mouse Club on October 3, 1955.
Blackboard Jungle was the first film to feature a rock-‘n’-roll song, “Rock-Around-The-Clock” (sung by Bill Haley and His Comets during the opening credits).
United Artists withdrew from the Motion Pictures Association of American when it refused to issue a Production Code seal to its controversial film about drug addiction, director Otto Preminger’s The Man With the Golden Arm. The film’s success helped to loosen restrictions on such films. The code was amended to permit portrayals of prostitution and abortion as well as light profanity (the use of the words ‘hell’ and ‘damn’).
A solitary white passenger during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake’s order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger and was arrested, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. The Salk polio vaccine received full approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A young Jim Henson built the first version of Kermit the Frog.
President Eisenhower sent the first military advisors to South Viet Nam. USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, put to sea for the first time.
A Fable by William Faulkner won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams won for drama. The instrumental “Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White” by Perez Prado was ranked the number one song by Billboard.
The Soviet Union announced the end of the war between the USSR and Germany, which began during World War II in 1941. Eight Communist Bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed a mutual defence treaty in Warsaw, Poland, called the Warsaw Pact. It would be dissolved in 1991. The Austrian State Treaty, which restored Austria’s national sovereignty,was concluded between the four occupying powers following World War II (the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France) and Austria, setting it up as a neutral country.
Ngô Đình Diệm proclaimed Vietnam to be a republic with himself as its President (following the State of Vietnam referendum on October 23) and formed the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnam War began between the South Vietnam Army and the North Vietnam Army in which the latter was allied with the Viet Cong.
I have now seen 55 films that were released in 1954. The complete list can be found here. The year is known as one of the best in film history and is very strong on the top end. Oddly enough, however, I had to dip down into the films I rated 8/10 to complete my list of favorites and there were less films than usual available for me to view. I could not find Becker’s Touche pas au Grisbi for a rewatch. If I had it likely would have made my favorites list. On to 1955!
Pushover Directed by Richard Quine Written by Roy Huggins from novels by Thomas Rafferty and Bill S. Ballinger 1954/USA Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 2
[box] Paul Sheridan: Your place or mine?
Lona McLane: Surprise me. [/box]
This solid film noir features Kim Novak’s first screen appearance in a leading role. Fred MacMurray and Dorothy Malone also shine.
As the story begins, Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) successfully picks up blonde bombshell Lona McLane (Novak). It is apparently lust at first site for her. We soon learn that Paul is actually a detective conducting surveillance on Lona, who is being kept by a gangster who recently absconded with a couple of hundred thousand dollars in a bank heist. Paul’s partner is slowly falling in love with Lona’s next door neighbor Ann Stewart (Malone), a hard-working nurse.
Paul is in way over his head and an easy mark for Lona, who suggests that the couple make off with the loot themselves. As time goes on, he gets himself deeper and deeper in trouble. With E.G. Marshall as the surveillance team’s boss.
This is pretty good. MacMurray is very good in a part not too far from the one he played in Double Indemnity. I don’t generally think too much Novak as an actress, but she is certainly very beautiful and convincing as a femme fatale here.
Silver Lode Directed by Allan Dwan Written by Karen de Wolf 1954/USA Benedict Bogeaus Productions
First viewing/YouTube
#267 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] “Distrust is like a vicious fire that keeps going and going, even put out, it will reignite itself, devouring the good with the bad, and still feeding on empty.” ― Anthony Liccione[/box]
I think this so-so Western is one of the more baffling entries on the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die List.
Ned McCarty (Dan Duryea) rides into the town of Silver Lode looking for Dan Ballard (John Payne). McCarty says Ballard shot his brother in the back and stole $20,000 from him and is wanted dead or alive. McCarty has made it his mission as U.S. Marshall over the last two years to apprehend or kill his brother’s murderer.
McCarty’s first run-in with Ballard is at the latter’s wedding to Rose Evans (Lizbeth Scott). All the wedding guests are on Ballard’s side. The town lawyer goes to the judge to get a writ of habeus corpus for Ballard but the judge says McCarty’s papers are in order and there is nothing he can do. Ballard pleads for a couple of hours to get in touch with the authorities in the town where the alleged murder took place. It turns out that the telegraph wires have been cut.
McCarty is a master manipulator and sees that the townspeople become more and more suspicious of Ballard. By the end, the only person on his side is his steadfast finacee.
This is OK as far as it goes but nothing special. It does not help that the hero is a fairly weak actor and the heroine is completely miscast. I can see the possible analogy to McCarthyism but we’ve had that story infinitely better told in High Noon. I could have died without seeing this one.
Tobor the Great Directed by Lee Sholem Written by Philip MacDonald; story by Carl Dudley 1954/USA Dudley Pictures Corporation
First viewing/YouTube
Brian ‘Gadge’ Robertson: Gee, Tobor, you’re wonderful!
If it weren’t for the boy genius, this would be ideal cheesy fun. As it is, it could appeal to your inner 10-year-old.
In the contemporary “near future”, scientists are at work on sending a man into space. Dr. Ralph Harrison is sickened by experiments on human volunteers that have resulted in injury or death. After he gives his boss a piece of his mind to no avail, he resigns. As he is packing to move house, genius professor Arnold Nordstrom comes to visit, tells him he feels exactly the same, and invites him to come and work on his project to allow unmanned space exploration.
We arrive at the professor’s home where we meet his grandson “Gadge” and conveniently widowed young daughter, his mother. The men set to work on a robot the professor names Tobor (get it?). The robot is to receive its orders in outer space via mental telepathy. When improvements have been made, the doctor invites journalists to a press conference at his home. An uninvited Soviet spy also attends and plans to steal the secrets for evil purposes.
Gadge figures out how to operate the robot on his own, causing a lot of destruction in the process. Mother scolds but the professor beams with pride. Finally the Soviets kidnap the professor and Gadge.
The kid is just insufferable and has phony dialogue like the above quote throughout. There’s quite a flavor of 50’s TV to the whole. However, the pace is good and the romance is kept to a bare minimum. Tobor is also one of the most convincing robots of the year, his fanciful operating system aside.
Target Earth Directed by Sherman A. Rose Written by William Raynor, James H. Nicholson, and Wyott Ordung from a story by Paul W. Fairman 1954/USA
Abtcon Pictures/Herman Cohen Productions
First viewing/YouTube
[box] Nora King: You don’t need a reason to die, Frank. Just one to live.[/box]
This has a very promising start. Then the actors start to talk and we are introduced to the alien.
A woman, Nora, is laying in her bed, a bottle of sleeping pills at her side. She wakes up from her unsuccessful suicide attempt and tries to find a neighbor. None are in and when she goes out into the town the streets are eerily empty. She starts to be pursued by a stranger, Frank, and runs.
The two gradually establish that neither has a reason to fear the other and that they are apparently the only two people in town. They speculate that the city was evacuated during the night. They begin to search for a radio or any news of what has happened. Before very long, the shadow of a gigantic robot begins to tell the story. They manage to escape its clutches.
One of their expeditions takes them into a hotel bar where they discover Vicki (Virginia Grey) and Jim, a couple who are partaking of all the free champagne available on the premises. The four join forces. Eventually, an escaped convict shows up to make the party complete. Romance and danger ensue.
The first ten minutes or so of this movie are dialogue-free and reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode. If the story had continued on that track this could have been something really interesting. Unfortunately, the alien turns out to be a comically flimsy robot that looks as if it might be made out of cardboard and would blow over in a stiff breeze. Then we start to concentrate on the group dynamics of the survivors with the predictable romances and melodrama.
Vera Cruz Directed by Robert Aldrich Written by Roland Kibbee and James R. Webb; story by Borden Chase 1954/USA Hecht-Lancaster Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Joe Erin: Next time you draw near me, better say what you’re aimin’ to shoot at.
Benjamin Trane: If I have the time, I will.[/box]
This OK Western benefits from its star power.
The story takes place during the Mexican Revolution against the rule of Emperor Maximillian. Benjamin Trane (Gary Cooper) is a courtly ex-Confederate colonel. He has come to Mexico to sell his services to the highest bidder in an attempt to earn money to rehabilitate his plantation. He soon runs into flamboyant outlaw Joe Erin (Burt Lancaster). They trade barbs and Joe begins to respect Ben for his fire power if nothing else. Joe is also in the market to sell his services. These prove too expensive for the rebel forces so the men throw in with the Imperial army.
They discover that a coach they have been hired to guard on the way to Vera Cruz contains $3 million in gold and that a Countess is planning to steal the money. They make an agreement with her but the journey to Vera Cruz is filled with double crosses. With George Macready as Maximillian, Cesar Romero as a marquis, and Jack Elam, Charles Bronson and Ernest Borgnine as mercenaries.
It looks like all the actors, particularly Lancaster, are having a lot of fun with the material. The fun is fairly infectious.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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