Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Lola Montés
Directed by Max Ophüls
Written by Max Ophuls, Annette Wademant, and Jacques Natanson from a novel by Cecil Saint-Laurent
1955/France/West Germany
Gamma Films/Florida Films/Union-Film
First viewing/Hulu
#296 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] “To all men and women of every land, who are not afraid of themselves, who trust so much in their own souls that they dare to stand up in the might of their own individuality to meet the tidal currents of the world.” ― Lola Montez, The Arts of Beauty, or Secrets of a Lady’s Toilet, with Hints to Gentlemen on the Art of Fascinating[/box]

Max Ophuls’ final film, and only film in color, goes to the big top to tell the sad life story of a notorious dancer.

The film begins under the lights as the ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) presents the scandalous Lola Montez (Martine Carol) to an eager audience.  He offers that she will answer the most intimate questions for fifty cents.  Before the show is over, she will leap head first from a high wire and exhibit herself for one dollar a piece while caged with the wild animals.

Lola’s scandalous life is told in vignettes starting from her elopement and marriage to a cad at a young age.  The story progresses through an affair with Franz Liszt, a dalliance with a young student (Oscar Werner), and a relationship with Ludwig I of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook) which almost brings down the monarchy.  The circus frames these events as luridly as possible but it is clear that there has been precious little real happiness for Lola.

I love many of Ophuls’ films and was looking forward to this one.  It left me disappointed. Despite the very lavish and beautiful production, I felt too distanced from the action.  The film was a failure and a scandal at the time of its release and was subsequently butchered by producers.  I watched a recreated version.  It may have been a bit too out there for me as well as for the 50’s audiences.

Re-release trailer

Oklahoma
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Written by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig based on the musical play by Rogers and Hammerstein
1955/USA
Magna Theatre Productions/Rogers and Hammerstein Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant
#312 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Oh what a beautiful morning,/ Oh what a beautiful day,/ I’ve got a wonderful feeling,/ Everything’s going my way. – Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein III[/box]

This musical has been part of my life – Gloria Grahame was Ado Annie long  before I knew her as a femme fatale – and I will always love it.

The story takes place in the last days of the Oklahoma territory.  Settlers are looking forward to statehood.  There is some good-natured conflict between ranchers and farmers in the area.

Laurie (Shirley Jones) lives on a farm with her Aunt Eller (Charlotte Greenwood).  She is being courted by cowboy Curly (Gordon MacRae).  This courtship consists mostly of teasing and bickering.  Reclusive farmhand Jud Fry (Rod Steiger) takes an almost proprietary interest in Laurie.  He creeps her out but she agrees to go to a barn raising with him to make Curly jealous.

Concurrently, Ado Annie (Gloria Grahame), who “can’t say no”, is having a dalliance with peddler Ali Hakim (Eddie Albert).  Her fiance, cowboy Will Parker (Gene Nelson), returns from Kansas and wants to marry her but her father will not this happen unless Will can produce $50 cash.  In the meantime, dad catches Annie and Ali in a compromising position and encourages their marriage at the point of a shotgun.

When Laurie rebuffs Jud’s advances on the way to the party, he vows revenge.  The singing and dancing continues until everybody ends up with the right partner.

Oklahoma! was the first Rogers and Hammerstein collaboration and signaled a new era in Broadway musicals with the songs integrated into the story.  We also get the first dream ballet, which will be a feature of musicals for the next several years.  I think the music is glorious.  I have always loved Shirley Jones in everything.  Fred Zinnemann films the scenery beautifully.  Recommended to musical lovers.

Oklahoma! won Academy Awards for Best Sound, Recording and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated for Best Cinematography, Color and Best Film Editing.

Trailer

Clip

Guys and Dolls
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz from the play by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows and stories by Damon Runyon
1955/USA
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#309 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Sergeant Sarah Brown: That bacardi flavor, it certainly makes a difference, doesn’t it?

Sky Masterson: Oh, yeah. Nine times out of ten.[/box]

I’m not ashamed of loving this movie

Nathan Detroit (Frank Sinatra) has a problem.  On the 14th anniversary of his engagement to stripper Adelaide (Vivian Blaine),  he is broke and without a venue for his illegal crap game.  The town is full of high rollers but the heat, in the form of Sgt. Brannigan, is on.  He needs $1,000 cash up front to use a friend’s garage.  So Nathan decides he will earn the money by means of a sucker bet.  He finagles Sky Masterson (Marlon Brando) into bragging that he can take any woman at all to Havana for dinner the next day.  After Sky falls for a bet, Nathan picks Save-a-Soul Mission missionary Sarah Brown (Jean Simmons) as the lucky lady.

Sky realizes he has been had and vows that he will not let Nathan get the better of him.  Finally he sees a way to get Sarah to bite in exchange for delivering twelve sinners to impress a General that wantq to close down the struggling mission.  Naturally, he gets more than he bargained for once he gets her to Havana.  With Stubby Kaye as Nathan’s henchman Nicely-Nicely Johnson.

I was in this musical in my youth, have it practically memorized, and love it still.  One has to accept the cartoon sensibility of the piece and the picturesque Damon Runyon way of speaking.  I think these are quite charming and like the music a lot as well.  It’s fun to see Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons sing and dance.  I hadn’t realized Joseph L. Mankiewicz was at the helm until this viewing.  Recommended to musical lovers.

Guys and Dolls was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

Trailer – Ed Sullivan looks so young!

Clip – “Fugue for Tinhorns”

The Man with the Golden Arm
Directed by Otto Preminger
Written by Walter Newman and Lewis Meltzer from the novel by Nelson Algren
1955/USA
Otto Preminger Films/Carlysle Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
#307 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Frankie Machine: You got any money, Molly?… I feel so sick. I hurt all over…

Molly: Jump off a roof if you’re gonna kill yourself but don’t ask me to help ya…[/box]

This is probably the first post-Code heroin addict movie.  As such, I should cut it some slack for the many elements that have become cliches over the years.

Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) has just been released from a federal prison hospital where he has kicked the monkey off his back.  He returns to his wife Zosh (Eleanor Parker), a clinging whiner.  It is clear he sticks around solely due to his guilt over being the driver in an auto accident that has left her in a wheelchair.  He would rather be with Molly (Kim Novak) and she reciprocates his feelings.  They keep it platonic for the moment though.

Frankie learned to play drums in the hospital, is talented at it, and has a referral from the doctor to a booker of players in big bands.  He soon has lined up an audition. Unfortunately, his golden arm refers to his prowess as a poker dealer rather than as a drummer.  From the moment Frankie enters the his local hang-out, his former employer is after him to get back in the game and his pusher is needling him to take his first shot.  A few setbacks pull Frankie back to his old life.

The third act features the obligatory withdrawal scene, a murder, and the resolution of the love triangle.  With Arnold Stang as Frankie’s friend.

This movie was another Code breaker from Otto Preminger and surely felt quite wild and risque in 1955.  I’ve seen so many other drug movies (not my favorite genre at that) that today its presentation of drug culture seems vaguely hilarious.  The pusher is the most ludicrous of the characters.  Sinatra is very solid though and the ladies are good,  My favorite part was Elmer Bernstein’s jazzy score.

The Man with the Golden Arm was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actor; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.

Trailer

Bad Day at Black Rock
Directed by John Sturges
Written by Millard Kaufman and Don McGuire based on a story by Howard Breslin
1955/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#287 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] John J. Macreedy: What did Komoko have to do with Corregidor?

Reno Smith: He was a Jap, wasn’t he?[/box]

This is an excellent modern-day Western looking at the dark heart of xenophobia in America.

It is 1945.  John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) stops in the hamlet of Black Rock.  His train is the first to have stopped there in four years and the town looks like it consists of about four or five buildings.  He is trying to visit a man named Kokomo who lives in nearby Adobe Flat.  Macreedy’s mere presence was greeted with great suspicion by the townspeople and, once they hear his purpose, he can find neither shelter nor transportation.  The two elders of the community – its drunken sheriff (Dean Jagger) and doctor (Walter Brennan) – try to warn him away.

Then Reno Smith (Robert Ryan), clearly the town’s unofficial “boss”, shows up and things start to get even more scary.  However, Macreedy manages to commandeer a jeep from gas jockey Liz (Anne Francis).  He discovers Kokomo’s house burned down and what seems to him to be a grave.  Now Macreedy’s life is truly in danger but the one-armed man reacts to all threats with equanimity.

The rest of the film is filled with suspense as our hero tries to stay one step ahead of certain death.  With Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine as thugs.

This is a smartly shot and tightly wound film.  Some of the best actors of the 1950’s are gathered here and all in top form.  The message transcends its wartime setting.  One quibble I had was that Macreedy probably had a good chance to go for help early on which he squandered.  But I suppose if he had acted with greater caution we wouldn’t have had a film!  Recommended.

A Bad Day at Black Rock was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actor (Tracy); Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay.

The Mad Masters (Les maîtres fou)
Directed by Jean Rouch
Les Films de la Pleiade
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Personally, I am violently opposed to film crews…. The ethnologist alone, in my mind, is the one who knows when, where, and how to film, i.e. to do the production. Finally, and this is doubtless the decisive argument, the ethnologist should spend quite a long time in the field before undertaking the least bit of film making. This period of reflection, of learning, of mutual understanding might be extremely long, but such a stay is incompatible with the schedules and salaries of a team of technicians. — Jean Rouch[/box]

The best thing about this documentary is that it lasts only 25 minutes.  I found it very distressing.

Documentary filmmaker Jean Rouch takes his camera to Accra, Ghana where we see Africans laboring in the busy city to support “colonial oppression”.  Some of these men gather every day at noon.  On the weekends they transition from modern workers to become Haukas.

The men have constructed their version of the white colonial world with a makeshift governor’s palace and idol of the governor.  The ritual consists of going into a frenzied trance in which their bodies are occupied by caricature versions of the colonial powers such as the governor, a doctor, his wife etc.  During the trance, the men foam at the mouth and stagger around.  They begin to mutilate themselves.  The high point is the sacrifice and consumption of a dog.  Yuck.

I am nothing if not a completist and I found this 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die film on YouTube.  I wish I had died before I saw it.  When I watch things like this I can’t help suspecting that the filmmaker is somehow egging the subjects on. I’m also not quite sure about the political construct Rouch has overlaid the film with.

All That Heaven Allows
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Written by Peg Fenwick; story by Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee
1955/USA
Universal International
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#314 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Kay Scott: Personally, I’ve never subscribed to that old Egyptian custom….of walling up the widow alive in the funeral chambers of her dead husband along with his other possessions. The theory being that she was a possession too. She was supposed to journey into dead with him. The community saw to it. Of course it doesn’t happen anymore.

Cary Scott: Doesn’t it? [/box]

Douglas Sirk’s critique of 50’s middle-class morality features eye-popping visual storytelling.

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is in early middle age, a widow, and the mother of two young adult children who no longer live at home.  Since her husband’s death, her life has been restricted to country club functions and the tepid courtship of a stolid older man who is always complaining about his aiilments.  She puts on a brave face but you can tell her life is just about killing her.  She confides in her best friend Sara (Agnes Moorehead) who does not seem to understand.

One day, as Sara has stood up Cary for a lunch date, hunky younger gardener Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) materializes to take her friend’s place.  They immediately hit it off and eventually Ron asks Cary out to his place in the woods to see the trees he is growing. After a few minutes of hesitation, she agrees.  She is soon impressed and a bit frightened by Ron’s Waldenesque unconventional way of life.  Before too long they are in love and Ron asks her to marry him.  She waveringly accepts.

Cary is unprepared for the scandalized reaction of the country club set and, more particularly, her own children.  People object to Ron for both his age and his social standing.  There is a veiled assumption that Ron is after Cary’s money and some murmuring that the relationship must have pre-dated the death of Cary’s husband.  Will Cary have the backbone to go to the altar?

On this viewing of the film, what hit me hardest was Sirk’s barely hidden challenge to the assumption that there is something wrong and even “bad” about a woman of a certain age having sexual needs or desires.  Cary’s old escort is not a threat in this regard.  And by the end of the film even Ron has been rendered “safe”.  The irony is palpable.

The color scheme is vivid and underscores the film’s themes.  Cary is in greys throughout except during the country club scene where she wears a red-dress and becomes the unwilling target of a drunken married lech.  The composition reveals the claustrophobia of Cary’s existence.  The TV set sequence is just brilliant and really does not require words.  The years have provided the film with a feminist subtext that belies its sudsy exterior.  All That Heaven Allows is melodrama for sure but I feel less teary than angry when I watch it.  Recommended.

Trailer

Marty
Directed by Delbert Mann
Written by Paddy Chayevsky
1955/USA
Hecht-Lancaster Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rentaL
#291 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Marty Pilletti: Listen Angie, I been looking for a girl every Saturday night of my life. I’m 34 years old. I’m just tired of looking, that’s all. I like to find a girl. Everybody’s always telling me get married, get married, get married. Don’t you think I wanna get married? I wanna get married. Everybody drives me crazy.[/box]

The ending makes me cry every time.

Marty (Ernest Borgnine) is a good-natured butcher who still lives with his mother into his thirties.  All his many brothers and sisters are married.  His mother is forever nagging him to meet a girl and his man friends always want him to join them in their sexual escapades. The problem that he is not particularly good-looking and is awkward around women.  His life has made him a “professor of pain”.

Then one night, he goes to a local dance hall and rescues a Clara (Betsy Blair), an equally shy girl who has been dumped by her blind date.  Marty finds he can talk up a storm around her and enjoys her company.

However, as soon as he thinks he has found his match, his mother and man friends start getting very nervous.  And poor Marty does not have much of a record of standing up for himself.

A lot of this film is almost painful for me. People are certainly cruel.  I am so glad not to be out there in the dating world!  However, I love the movie any way for the performances and for the human story.  Borgnine reveals depths he did not show often before or after this picture.  Recommended.

Marty won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Mantell); Best Supporting Actress (Blair); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black and White.

Trailer

Pather Panchali
Directed by Satyajit Ray
Written by Satyajit Ray from a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
1955/India
Government of West Bengal
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#297 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Durga: We’ll go see the train when I’m better, all right? We’ll get there early and have a good look. You want to?[/box]

Satyajit Ray makes poverty human, beautiful, and sad.

This is the story of several years in the life of a Brahmin family in the ancestral village of the father.  Father is a dreamer and would be playwright.  He turns down jobs because it would be unseemly to agree too quickly even though the family home is about ready to fall down.  Mother struggles mightily to make ends meet and loses her temper frequently.  The daughter Durga is a bit of a dreamer herself, a trial to her mother, and a petty thief.  She mostly steals fruit to give to her ancient Auntie, who lives with them.  Apu, the son, is born about a third of the way into the movie.  He is evidently his family’s great joy and hope.  They send him to school in the village when he is old enough.

Circumstances finally persuade the father to go in search of work.  He says he will be back in a few days but is gone for months.  Mother watches the rice storage hit bottom and then has to face tragedy alone.

First, this is an exquisitely beautiful film.  The outdoor shots and closeups are simply stunning.  There are whole scenes that have etched themselves into my memory permanently – among them the trek to see the train and the monsoon sequence.  The story is rich in the details of family life.  Ray, a complete beginner, got excellent performances out of his amateur actors.  Finally, I could listen to the Ravi Shankar score for days.  This is one of my very favorite films and highly recommended.

Clip – the monsoon arrives – the Blu-ray restoration of this is a big improvement

TCM intro by Ben Mankiewicz