Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

An Affair to Remember
Directed by Leo McCarey
Written by Delmer Daves, Leo McCarey Mildred Cram, and Donald Ogden Stewart
1957/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corportation/Jerry Wald Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#331 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Terry McKay: What makes life so difficult?

Nickie Ferrante: People?[/box]

This movie could have been improved with less singing and orphans.

Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) is a celebrity playboy. The newspapers are full of his recent engagement to an heiress and he is sailing home to meet her.  Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) is a former singer who is being kept in a New York penthouse apartment and designer clothes by an indulgent boyfriend.  She is sailing home following a European vacation.  The two strike up a flirtatious friendship on board.  Terry in particular is careful to keep the relationship within strictly defined limits.

When Nickie introduces Terry to his grandmother during a port stop, Terry has a spiritual awakening.  After this, the two are madly in love though they stay even farther apart on board so as not to stir up gossip.  They agree to spend the next six months tying up loose ends and seeing if they can adjust to a less prosperous life style.  If all goes well, they will meet at the Empire State Building at the end of that time.  All my readers must know what happens next, but far be it from me to reveal it.

This is a remake of McCarey’s 1939 Love Affair, starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, which I much prefer.  The earlier film, while still full of singing orphans, has a lighter touch. Much of this is due to the delightful performance of Irene Dunne.  Kerr is excellent of course but there is just a much less improvisational feel overall.  This film is staid enough that all the incongruities stand out, starting with the inspirational visit with grandma and continuing throughout the third act.  Sorry to be a party pooper.

An Affair to Remember was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of: Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; Best Music, Original Song; and Best Music, Scoring.

Trailer

The Bridge on the River Kwai
Directed by David Lean
Written by Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson (both uncredited) from a novel by Pierre Boulle
1957/UK/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/Horizon Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#340 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Colonel Saito: Do not speak to me of rules. This is war! This is not a game of cricket![/box]

David Lean makes the epic personal in this practically perfect classic.

A ragtag band of British POWs are marched to a Japanese camp deep in the Burmese jungle for the sole purpose of constructing the title railway bridge which is to provide a vital supply line.  They join the starving prisoners already accustomed to the harsh ways of Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa).  The cynical American Shears (William Holden) tries to explain conditions to British commanding officer Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guiness), a veteran of Indian colonial service, to no avail.  Nicholson promptly engages in a battle of wills with his Japanese counterpart by refusing to allow officers to do manual labor on the bridge.  He is gets thrown in the “oven” for his trouble and the rest of the officers go to a punishment stockade.

But the Japanese are getting nowhere with the British enlisted men and the bridge is badly behind schedule.  Saito is under enormous pressure to complete the project.  He eventually must give in.  Nicholson decides that for the sake of morale and to show up Saito the British officers will supervise the project and build a magnificent bridge.

In the meantime, Shields does the impossible and escapes through the impenetrable jungle.  But Major Warden (Jack Warden) blackmails him into escorting him and one other officer back through the jungle on a mission to blow up what the prisoners have worked so hard to construct.

I have nothing to add to the thousands of adulatory words written about this movie.  Lean by this time had reached the peak of his craft and was ably aided by some outstanding actors and craftspeople.  Guinness was never better.  If you haven’t seen it, you must.  If you have seen it, it bears innumerable repeat viewings.

The Bridge on the River Kwai won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Guinness); Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring.  Sessue Hayakawa was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

The Incredible Shrinking Man
Directed by Jack Arnold
Written by Richard Matheson
1957/USA
Universal International Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental
#335 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Scott Carey: A strange calm possessed me. I thought more clearly than I had ever thought before – as if my mind were bathed in a brilliant light. I recognized that part of my illness was rooted in hunger, and I remembered the food on the shelf, the cake thredded with spider web. I no longer felt hatred for the spider. Like myself it struggled blindly for the means to live.[/box]

In a year filled with giant creatures, a poetic horror story features a tiny man.

Scott and Louise Carey are enjoying a blissful vacation on a sail boat.  They are both catching some rays when Scott gets thirsty.  He makes Louise go fetch him one from the galley.  As punishment, while she is gone a strange mist envelopes the boat.

On returning home, Scott gradually starts noticing that his clothes seem too big.  At first, the couple think he is just losing a little weight.  But when the problem worsens, Scott goes to the doctor.  He’s not worried but after several visits it is clear that Scott is losing height as well as weight.  The doctor sends him to a research institute that finally discovers the cause of the problem (which I’m still kind of fuzzy on – it involves insecticide and radiation) but cannot cure it.

Scott continues to shrink.  Eventually he loses his job as a salesman and the couple is forced to sell his story to the media.  He starts to write a book.  The smaller Richard gets, the more domineering he becomes.  Finally, Scott becomes so small that cats and spiders become his enemies.

Somehow, I had missed this film all these years.  It was worth waiting for.  There are the inventive special effects and an interesting story with subtexts about the media, sexual politics, and psychology.  But I especially loved the ending, when the infinitesimal becomes infinite.  Recommended.

Fan trailer

Paths of Glory
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham, and Jim Thompson from a novel by Humphrey Cobb
1957/USA
Bryna Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#330 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] [the condemned men are awaiting execution] Corporal Paris: See that cockroach? Tomorrow morning, we’ll be dead and it’ll be alive. It’ll have more contact with my wife and child than I will. I’ll be nothing, and it’ll be alive.

[Ferol smashes the roach] Private Ferol: Now you got the edge on him.[/box]

My rating of this film has moved from excellent to awesome.

The story is set in 1916 when the Germans and French have settled into agonizing months of trench warfare.  Victories are small and brief.  The French General Staff has decided that the public needs another victory.  General Broulard (Adolphe Menjou) orders his subordinate General Mireau (George McCready) to take a minor German position called the Ant Hill.  Mireau initally protests that this is impossible but Broulard hints at a promotion and he becomes enthusiastic.  Mireau passes the order on to the 701st Regiment commanded by Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas).  Dax protests even more vigorously but Mireau expects that the objective can be taken and held with the loss of only 55% of the men and Dax obeys orders in the end.

The action proves even more impossible than anticipated.  The French drop like flies.  One part of the trenches is under such intense fire that about a third of the men never get a chance to move out.  Mireau, a martinet, starts raging about cowardice and orders French guns to fire on their own men.

After the fight is lost, Mireau wants to set an example by trying and executing random men for cowardice.  Dax and Broulard manage to argue Mireau down to only three men.  Their selection will be corrupt and arbitrary. Dax asks to defend his men but it is basically a show trial.  We watch the men face their fate.

This is one of the most powerful anti-war films ever made.  The generals basically see soldiers as numbers in a kind of perverted calculus.  They are cannon fodder and must be punished if they do not “do their duty” and behave as such.  The movie has one of the all-time great endings.  I always forget about the final scene with the German girl singing in the cafe and it never fails to move me enormously.

The acting by all is marvelous.  What a career Menjou had!  He has been with me for the entirety of this journey through the years and still seems in his prime.  It is the images that steal the show though.  The stills are all so stunning that I had a hard time picking only two.  Kubrick certainly started out at the top.  Highly recommended.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Leon Uris, suggested by an article by George Scullin
1957/USA
Wallis-Hazen
First viewing?/Netflix rental
#323 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Wyatt Earp: All gunfighters are lonely. They live in fear. They die without a dime, a woman or a friend.[/box]

It’s always fun to see Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas play off each other.

This legend of the old West has been filmed any number of times.  In this version, Doc Holliday (Douglas) rides in town with his mistress Kate Fisher (Jo Van Fleet) in tow.  Doc has just about run out of luck as a gambler and has a stormy relationship with Kate.  His more serious problem is that he is seriously ill with a bad cough.  His immediate problem is that there is a gang of bad guys waiting to gun him down for killing their brother, who cheated Doc at cards.

Soon after, lawman Wyatt Earp (Lancaster) rides into the same town to arrest members of the Clayton gang.  It turns out the corrupt local sheriff has released them.  Earp meets Holliday and tells him to leave town and take his gun with him.  Holliday refuses and kills one of his pursuers.  Earp lets Holliday escape.

There is a long build up to the gunfight in this movie and I won’t go into painstaking detail. Along the way, Earp loans a gambling stake to the broke Holliday, earning his eternal gratitude.  Earp falls in love with a lady gambler (Rhonda Fleming) and wants to hang up his gun belt and badge.  Holliday’s relations with Kate get stormier than ever.  Finally, Earp must confront the notorious Clayton brothers to avenge his own brother, leading up to the famous gunfight.  With John Ireland as a member of the Clayton gang, Dennis Hopper as the youngest and most salvageable of the Clayton brothers, and Lee Van Cleef as a bad guy.

This is a perfectly serviceable Western with some good performances.  I think Douglas is the standout here.  I am spoiled, I know, but for some reason it doesn’t work that well for me.  For one thing, I thought the basis for the friendship wasn’t fully developed.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Sound, Recording and Best Film Editing.

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Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1957/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#334 of 1001 Films You Must See Before You Die

[box] Professor Isak Borg: If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me. So it was this evening.[/box]

I have loved this every time I have seen it.  And every time I see it, it seems like a different movie.

Isaac Borg (Viktor Sjöström) is a 78-year-old widower.  He lives alone with his equally aged housekeeper Miss Agda.  This particular day he is to receive an honorary doctorate celebrating his 50 years as a respected physician.  He decides to take his time and drive to Lund from Stockholm in his ancient limousine.  His daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) asks to accompany him.  She wants to see his son Evald (Gunnar Bjoörnstrand), whom she left several days previously.  Isaac and Marianne do not enjoy a warm relationship.

We see the day in flashback as Isaac is writing in a journal.  Despite the honor he is to receive, his life seems to him to have been wasted and not really lived.  He spends much of the day having disturbing dreams and fantasies and learning hard truths.  His sadness is lightened by three young hitchhikers who join him en route.  With Bibi Andersson in a dual role as one of the hitchhikers and Isaac’s lost love Sara.

Somehow this has always struck me as a cold, sad movie.  On this viewing, however, it seemed positively redemptive.  Age may have something to do with it.  Now learning something about oneself and the possibility of even small changes seems hugely significant.

I probably don’t need to gush on and on about the beauty of this masterpiece.  I’ve always preferred The Seventh Seal but now I am not so sure.  Sjöström is completely fantastic in it.  I love his occasional childlike wistfulness.  My highest recommendation.

Wild Strawberries was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen.

Three reasons to watch – Criterion Collection

The Cranes Are Flying (Letyat zhuravli)  
Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov
Written by Viktor Rozov from his play
1957/USSR
Mosfilm
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#338 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Stepan: Our wounds will heal. But our fierce hatred of war will never diminish. We share the grief of those who cannot meet their loved ones today, and we will do everything to insure that sweethearts are never again parted by war, that mothers need never again fear for their children’s lives, that fathers need never again choke back hidden tears. We have won, and we shall live not to destroy, but to build a new life![/box]

The rare play adaptation that should be seen for its mind-blowing cinematography.

The story is a simple one.  Veronica (Tatyana Samoylova) and Boris are in love.  He calls her “squirrel” and,when war breaks out and he volunteers, he gives her a stuffed squirrel to remember him by.  Parting is agony for Veronica.  Soon enough, she loses her parents in an air raid which destroys their apartment.  She goes to live with Boris’s family.  His slacker pianist cousin takes advantage of her and they must marry.

Veronica’s misery doesn’t seem to end and she looks more shell-shocked than any soldier.  The family is forced to evacuate to Siberia where she survives a number of calamities, always hoping to be reunited with the love of her life.

Cinematographer Sergei Urusevsky was a genius and his use of the camera in this film is only topped by his I Am Cuba (1964), also with director Kolotozov.  The tragic story is well told though at times the acting strays into silent film territory.  The propaganda is of the anti-war, patriotic variety.  Samoylovna has one of the great expressive faces in cinema.  Highly recommended.

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Clip – opening

12 Angry Men
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Reginald Rose
1957/USA
Orion-Nova Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#333 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Juror #6: [when Juror #8 asks him to “suppose” the defendant’s innocence] Well, I’m not used to supposin’. I’m just a workin’ man. My boss does all the supposin’, but I’ll try one. Supposin’ you talk us all out of this, and, uh, the kid really did knife his father?[/box]

Lumet gathered all the great character actors of the 50’s into one room with Henry Fonda and made a stage play work compellingly as cinema.

The camera takes us into a New York court building and past several courtrooms until we arrive at the chambers where a young Latino is on trial for capital murder, accused of stabbing his father to death.  We are there at the judge’s instructions to the jury.  Twelve unnamed men gather in the jury room.  After some pleasantries, they get down to business.  Most think they will be able to leave for the day in fairly short order. After all, It is an open and shut case backed up by a couple of eye witnesses.  The jurors are all the more anxious to leave since the room stifling hot and the fan doesn’t work.

The jurors immediately take a vote and Juror No. 8 (Henry Fonda) is the lone hold-out for acquittal.  It’s not that he’s so sure the boy is innocent but that he wants to discuss the evidence.  This makes some of the other jurors really mad.  Some were persuaded by the prosecutor’s case.  For others the ethnicity and social class of the accused is evidence enough.  Juror 8 brings up a couple of points which make him uncertain.  Further discussion changes some other minds.  With Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and E. J. Marshall as the angriest arguers for a guilty verdict; Martin Balsam as the foreman; and Jack Warden as a guy with tickets to that night’s ball game.

What can I say after I have said that this is a perfect rendition of a stage play?  Lumet keeps his camera movement so vital that we never feel claustrophobic in that little room. He also stages the actors brilliantly.  The acting is top notch and the theme is thought-provoking and timeless.  Highly recommended.

It has always bothered me that Henry Fonda brought that knife with him.  It seems to me improper for the jury to be discussing something not in evidence.  Now that I think about it though, there could be a safety issue!  I wonder what they do nowadays with dangerous exhibits.

12 Angry Men was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing, Screen Play Adapted from Material in Another Medium.

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The Wrong Man
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Maxwell Anderson and Angus MacPhail
1956/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#326 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Lt. Bowers: An innocent man has nothing to fear, remember that.[/box]

This moving true story is surely the saddest that Hitchcock ever made.

Manny Balestrero (Henry Fonda) plays the bass fiddle in the orchestra at the Stork Club. Not the stereotypical musician, he is a quiet family man with a wife, Rose (Vera Miles), and two young sons.  He doesn’t drink and is always on time.  The family is barely scraping by so, when Rose must have expensive dental treatment, he decides to see if he can borrow on her life insurance policy.  Then the nightmare begins.

When Manny goes to the insurance company, one of the workers is sure she recognizes him as the man that held up the office at gunpoint twice before.  She asks around and soon everybody agrees with her.  So the police pick Manny up, they think they have additional proof of his guilt, and soon he is under arrest for armed robbery.  Things go from bad to worse as Rose starts blaming herself for the whole mess.

I’m a bit of a true crime buff and you rapidly learn that there is nothing quite so unreliable as eyewitness testimony.  That’s all the police really had on Manny.  Yet while you are watching the film, you can understand their point of view completely.  The tragedy of the thing is that this crime is a matter of every day routine for the cops and the prosecutor, who don’t mean badly, but it has the potential to ruin Manny’s entire life and that of his family.  Fonda is perfect in this part.  I like this one a lot. Recommended.

Trailer

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Daniel Mainwaring from a serial in Collier’s magazine by Jack Finney
1956/USA
Walter Wanger Productions
Repeat viewing/My DVD collection
One of 1001 Moview You Must See Before You Die

Dr. Miles J. Bennell: In my practice, I’ve seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happened slowly instead of all at once. They didn’t seem to mind… All of us – a little bit – we harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.

It is amazing how much horror can be created with with a simple story and limited special effects.

Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) has been called back to his small town practice urgently because of the large number of patients who insist on seeing him.  When he arrives, however, many of these have cancelled their appointments.  He does see one woman who believes the man who is occupying her uncle’s body is not really her uncle. He refers this patient to a psychiatrist.  These stories seem not to be uncommon.  Miles already encountered a little boy who ran screaming from a woman he said was not his mother.

A high point to Miles return is running into his old high school sweetheart Becky (Dana Wynter).  In the years since graduation, both have married and divorced.  They rekindle their relationship immediately.

They don’t have much of a chance to enjoy a romance, though.  Miles is summoned to a friend’s basement where the friend has discovered a blank faced corpse lying on his pool table.  The corpse is beginning to look more and more like the friend.  Gradually, Miles discovers that the whole town seems to be infected by a mysterious ailment.  And something seems determined to add the doctor and his girlfriend to their number …

This movie is everything science fiction should be, tightly paced at only 80 minutes and creepily disturbing.  The script and direction always have me believing in the good doctor’s predicament.  There is an interesting sub-text but whether it is anti-Communist or anti-McCarthy is hard to work out.  It may just be a commentary on how social pressures can rob us of our humanity.  Highly recommended.

Trailer