Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Touch of Evil
Directed by Orson Welles
Written by Orson Welles based on a novel by Whit Masterson
1958/USA
Universal International Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#343 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Tanya: He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?

Orson Welles ends the film noir era with a bang.

As the film begins, we see the trajectory of a car bomb as a couple drives from a Mexican border town into the United States, where it explodes.  At the same time, Mexican police official Mike Vargas (Charleton Heston) is walking across that same border with his new American wife Susan (Janet Leigh).  The location of the explosion determines jurisdiction and Police Captain Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) is in charge of the investigation.

Vargas takes an interest in the case and is allowed to observe Quinlan’s investigation as a courtesy, a decision Quinlan mightily resents.  Vargas is appalled at Quinlan’s tactics.  Quinlan is famous for his “hunches” and he manages proceedings so that his hunches are always proved right.

In the meantime, Vargas is scheduled to testify against a drug lord in Mexico City.  The drug lord’s brother, “Uncle” Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) is determined to prevent him from doing so.  Knowing that Vargas himself is untouchable, he sends his numerous nephews to get to him through Susan.  With Joseph Calleia as Quinlan’s right-hand man, Marlene Dietrich as an old friend of Quinlan and Zsa Zsa Gabor as a strip club owner.

This is a fantastic look at the underbelly of humanity.  It has not just a touch of evil, but is permeated with it.  The performances are all just wonderful, if you pretend that Heston isn’t supposed to be playing a Mexican.  This time I concentrated the richly human performance of Calleia.  I’d rank it as Welles’s second-best film and that puts it pretty high up the best pictures of all time list.  Very highly recommended.

Trailer

Clip – Orson Welles and Marlene Dietrich

Gigi
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Written by Allen J. Lerner based on a novella by Colette
1958/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#344 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Aunt Alicia: Marriage is not forbidden to us, but instead of getting married at once, it sometimes happens we get married at last.[/box]

This movie makes me feel happy and I love it unapologetically.

Gigi (Leslie Caron) is a rambunctious young girl who is being trained by her aunt and grandmother (Hermoine Gingold) to carry on in the family tradition.  Unfortunately for Gigi, this is to become a courtesan to the rich and famous.  But Gigi is a very backward student.

Gastone (Louis Jourdan) is just the sort of man that Gigi is being groomed for.  His uncle Honoré is that sort of man personified.  Gastone is bored to tears by the life of a bon vivant, however.  He gravitates to the simple life of Gigi’s grandmother’s household and to the fun offered by young Gigi.

The day comes when Gigi begins to look the part her family has envisioned for her.  By that time, Gigi is already a woman who knows exactly what she wants for her self.

I can’t remember when I first saw this but it was when everything about it seemed innocent, romantic, and funny.   Those are the eyes with which I still see it.  To me it is a cinderella story in which virtue triumphs in the end.  It helps that the production is lavish and gorgeous and the songs are memorable.  I can’t imagine anyone else in any of the parts.

The Blu-Ray DVD contains a commentary by film historian Jeanine Basinger who talks about the movie with obvious affection.  She has done the commentaries on several classic “women’s” pictures and is becoming one of my favorites.

Gigi won 9 Academy Awards in all – every award for which it was nominated – in the categories of: Best Picture; Best Director; Best Writing – Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction – Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Film Editing; Best Original Song (“Gigi”); and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  Maurice Chevalier won an honorary Oscar “for his contributions to the world of entertainment for over half a century”.

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Ivan the Terrible, Part II (Ivan Groznyy. Skaz vtoroy: Boyarskiy zagovor)
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein
Written by Sergei M. Eisenstein
1958/USSR
Mosfilm/TsOKS
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#184 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] We had hoped that you were ruler in your Kingdom and that you yourself ruled, and that you yourself looked after your Kingdom’s honour and your Kingdom’s advantages and that is why we wanted to deal such matters with you. But it appears that other people rule for you. They are not just people, they are trading peasants and they do not care about our Ruler’s heads and our honours and the advantages of our lands, instead seeking just their own trade advantages. And you are in your virginal state like some old unmarried female. And you should have not believed anyone who even though he was aware of our matters had betrayed us. — Letter from Ivan IV of Russia (the “Terrible”) to Elizabeth I of England[/box]

Stalin was not a fan of this movie.  I could have died without seeing it again.

The movie takes up where Part I left off with the same cast of characters minus those slain in the first film.  Ivan has been recalled to Moscow where the boyars and clergy continue to plot against him.  His prime enemy is his own aunt Efrosinia, who wants to put her feeble-minded son Vladimir on the throne.

Ivan suspects that it was Efronsinia that poisoned his wife in the first film and exacts an intricate revenge.  After he defeats Efrosinia and company, Russia is ready to take on the rest of the world.

This contains the same weird and stylized acting style as in the first film.  It might almost be a silent movie for the amount of facial contortions employed.  If you can get beyond that, it’s one exquisite frame after another.  I find those in the first film more memorable, however.  Eisenstein filmed two sequences in a two-strip color process.  I prefer the black-and-white.

The film was made between 1945 and 1949 but Stalin supressed it, presumably because the increasingly dictatorial Ivan reminded him too much of himself.  It was finally released during Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign.

Clip – no subtitles but they aren’t really needed

Man of the West
Directed by Anthony Mann
Written by Reginald Rose from a novel by Will C. Brown
1958/USA
Ashton Productions/Walter Mirisch Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental
#346 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Link Jones: There’s a point where you either grow up and become a human being or you rot, like that bunch.[/box]

Here is something a little different in the Western department for 1958.

Link Jones (Gary Cooper) is a man of mystery.  His name and origins seem to change depending on whom he is talking to.  He arrives in town from a small settlement to catch the train to Fort Worth, where he says he plans to hire a school teacher.  His fellow passengers will include gambler and con artist Sam Beasley (Arthur O’Connor) and saloon singer Billie Ellis (Julie London).

During a robbery attempt, all three of these folks ended up stranded 100 miles from the nearest town when the train takes off abruptly.  The would-be robbers were from Dock Tobin’s (Lee J. Cobb) gang and the passengers quickly find themselves at their hide-out.  It is then we learn that Link was a member of the gang in his youth but has now reformed.

Dock is a dotty but intimidating old man and his associates are mean hombres.  Link’s loss was a blow to Dock and he wants him back, prompting distrust, jealousy and violence on the part of the gang members.  With Jack Lord as the meanest of the hombres.

This has many of the standard 50’s Western tropes but the villains are a bit different and it is more violent than many.  Cooper is good but he is looking increasingly tired.  Cobb is in his full-out bigger than life mode.  The film is strikingly shot by director Mann.

I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this, but it occurs to me that the Western was where film noir went in the Technicolor era.  We seem to be getting the same tortured men with a past as in the earlier films.  The femme fatale has gone by the wayside.

Trailer

Mon Oncle
Directed by Jacques Tati
Written by Jacques Tati with artistic collaboration by Jacques Lagrange and Jean L’Hote
1958/France
Specta Film/Gray Film/Alter Films et al
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#351 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] [at the 1959 Academy Awards] I find that the people who speak the worst English want to talk more than the others. — Jacque Tati[/box]

This is utterly charming and laugh out loud funny.  It is my favorite of Tati’s films and I love them all.

Monsieur Hulot just can’t help innocently creating chaos anywhere he happens to be. Naturally, children love him.  He lives in a quaint and traditional part of Paris.

Hulot’s sister and brother-in-law live with their son Gerard in a monstrosity of an ultra-modern house.  Think Disneyland’s Home of the Future gone insane.  Gerard’s father, an industrialist, is jealous of Hulot’s warm relationship with his son.  So he tries various schemes to give Hulot a “goal in life”.  Of course all of these go haywire.

Tati was a genius and this is a practically perfect comedy.  The sight gags often happen simultaneously.  It can be watched over and over again and you will find several things you missed on all previous viewings.  I particularly like the dogs and the fish fountain.  Highly recommended.

Mon Oncle won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Trailer

Some Came Running
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Written by John Patrick and Arthur Sheekman from a novel by James Jones
1958/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
#352 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Dawn Hirsh: Bumming around, doing all sorts of jobs – didn’t that help to make you a better writer?
Dave Hirsh: Dawn honey, bumming around can only help to make you a bum.

Despite its fine acting and production values, I cannot get behind the story of this movie or its portrayal of women.

Hard-drinking writer Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) arrives in his provincial home town by bus almost against his will.  He has recently been discharged from the service and is still in uniform.  On the bus with him is ditzy bimbo Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine) who is madly in love with the soldier despite his insulting treatment of her.  Hot on her heels will be the Chicago thug that is in love with her.

Early on, Dave meets professional gambler Bama  Dillert (Dean Martin).  Since he plays a mean game of poker himself, the two partner up together and become roommates.  Dave has an even dimmer view of Ginnie (whom he calls a “pig”) than Dave does.

Dave does everything possible to be an embarrassment to his social climbing brother Frank (Arthur Kennedy).  He seems willing to get out of town, though, until he casts his eyes on creative writing teacher Gwen French (Martha Hyer).  The repressed, possibly frigid, schoolmarm is a big fan of Dave’s writing but less so of the man’s lifestyle.

Dave falls instantaneously in love with Gwen and cuts out the booze in an attempt to win her.  Will he succeed and what will happen to poor, lovesick Ginnie?

I have never liked this critically acclaimed movie and it took me until this viewing to figure out why.  All the female characters are stereotypes and all their lives revolve around men, specifically Dave.  MacLaine’s character with her stupid stuffed dog purse is the worst.

On the positive side, I really, really like Dean Martin in this one.  Minnelli demonstrates a mastery of both color and the wide screen.  The tracking camera in the final carnival scene is pretty marvelous.

Some Came Running was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress (MacLaine); Best Supporting Actor (Kennedy); Best Supporting Actress (Hyer); Best Costume Design; and Best Music, Original Song (“To Love and Be Loved”).

Trailer

Ashes and Diamonds (Popiol i diament)
Directed by Andrezej Wajda
Written by Jerzy Andrezejewski and Andrezej
1958/Poland
Zespol Filmowy “Kadr”
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#348 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Krystyna: So often, are you as a blazing torch with flames/ of burning rags falling about you flaming, /you know not if flames bring freedom or death. /Consuming all that you must cherish /if ashes only will be left, and want Chaos and tempest…

Maciek Chelmicki: …Or will the ashes hold the glory of a starlike diamond… /The Morning Star of everlasting triumph.[/box]

The beauty and power of this film take my breath away.

The film takes place on the day the Germans surrender to the Allies at the end of WWII. The Polish Home Army continues to fight.  Maciek is now a soldier and hitman for the nationalists.  He takes orders from Andrezej.  Their mission is to assassinate a leader of the Communist side.  The first attempt goes badly wrong when they kill two innocent men who show up at the wrong place and time.

The group proceed to town to take a second crack at the kindly old man.  They find themselves in a hotel where a banquet celebrating the Allied victory is taking place.  When Maciek falls for a beautiful barmaid, he has a crisis of conscience.

The story is a simple one but the psychological depth and symbolic representation of warring strains within society are profound.  Each frame is composed for maximum impact.  The deep-focus photography is stunning.  Highly recommended.

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Vertigo
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor from a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
1958/USA
Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Madeleine: Only one is a wanderer; two together are always going somewhere.[/box]

The definition of a movie you must see before you die.

The setting is San Francisco.  Detective John “Scotty” Ferguson (James Stewart) is hanging from a roof gutter several stories above ground.  He must watch helplessly as a policeman who is coming to his rescue slips and falls to his death.

We segue to several months later as Scotty has recovered from his physical injuries.  His psychological trauma may never heal.  He has been left with a disabling fear of heights and vertigo.  His close friend and ex-fiancee Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) encourages him to get on with his life.  The independently wealthy Scotty prefers to wander aimlessly for the moment.  Midge clearly is still in love with Scotty but broke off the engagement because he seemed lukewarm at best.

Scotty gets a call from an old college friend, Gavin Elster.  Elster tells him a fantastical tale about his wife Madeleine who he believes has been possessed by the spirt of her ancestor Carlotta Valdes.  He wants Scotty to tale her and find out how she spends her time. Scotty is reluctant to get involved but agrees to have Elster point her out at a restaurant.  Madeleine is played by an icy blonde Kim Novak and Scotty is instantly hooked.

Scotty follows Madeleine on her own wanderings through Carlotta’s history.  After he saves her from a jump into San Francisco Bay, the two fall in love.  But nothing in this movie is what it seems.

This film amply demonstrates all Hitchcock’s genius at its very height and throws in psychological depth to boot.  It is perhaps the perfect film about obsession and twisted desire.  All the elements are virtual perfection.

That said, this is neither my favorite Hitchcock film nor my candidate for best film ever.  I’ve been thinking it over and perhaps my niggling failure to suspend my disbelief in the plot is to blame.  As a murder plan it makes absolutely no sense to me even though the film explains how it was supposed to work a couple of different times.  It seems like too much trouble and too likely of failure to cross anyone’s mind.  As a plan to drive Scotty insane, it has more merit, but the author of the conspiracy has no motivation to do that.   There’s also a certain coldness and cruelty to the film that prevents it from being my favorite.

The DVD contains a commentary by the restoration team and various members of the production.  Kim Novak explains how she related Judy’s need to be accepted for who she was.  I find that very touching.

Vertigo was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound.

Vertigo

Horror of Dracula (AKA Dracula)
Directed by Terrence Fisher
Written by Jimmy Sangster based on the story by Bram Stoker
1958/UK
Hammer Films
First viewing/Netflix rental
#353 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Doctor Van Helsing: Since the death of Jonathan Harker Count Dracula the propagator of this unspeakable evil has disappeared. He must be found and destroyed![/box]

A bit gorier than the 1931 version and also a classic.

The setting is a very Victorian English version of Germany.  Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania on a mission to slay Count Dracula (Christopher Lee).  Oddly, he knows how to kill a vampire but is missing some essential information about crosses and garlic.  He manages to drive a stake into the heart of one of the vampire’s female victims but Dracula himself is too much for him.  Doctor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) travels to the castle to search for his missing friend but he is too late.  Dracula has fled.

Bent on revenge for the loss of his acolyte, Dracula goes to prey on Harker’s fiancee, Lucy. Next he sets his sights on Mina, the wife of Lucy’s brother.  Van Helsing is on the case, though, and it is a fight to the death.

This is a very solid and enjoyable film with great performances by Cushing and Lee.  There is far more blood than in the original but it’s not too scary.  There are some groovy special effects when vampires are finally put out of their misery.  Recommended for lovers of the genre.

Trailer

The Music Room (Jalsaghar)
Directed by Satyajit Ray
Written by Satyajit Ray and Santi P. Chouhury from a story by Tarashankar Banerjee
1958/India
Arora
First viewing/Hulu Plus
#350 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ― Bob Marley[/box]

A gorgeous film about the disintegration of an aesthete.

Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) is the last in a long line of zamindars (landlords).  He has a host of devoted servants fulfilling his every need.  People refer to him as “king”.  Roy’s greatest pleasure is to host lavish recitals in his music room.

But Roy has fallen on hard times.  He has spent his last dime and is rapidly plundering his wife’s jewels.  Still, he insists on carrying on as previously hosting an extremely expensive party for his son’s coming of age to the great dismay of his wife.  He is above seeking funds from his moneylender neighbor Mahim, a nouveau riche man who doesn’t even have a music room.

Mahim is determined to outdo Roy and invites him to the inauguration of his own music room.  Roy is not to be outdone and spends even more money on a recital of his own on the very same night.  Tragedy strikes and Roy becomes a recluse for several years as he loses lands, servants and more.  But Mahim continues to prosper, setting up the sad conclusion.

This film is breathtakingly shot.  It also features a lot of outstanding Indian classical music.  Biswas manages to make his character both heartbreaking and deeply aggravating at the same time.  Recommended.

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