Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Ladykillers
Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
Written by William Rose
1955/UK
The Rank Organization/Ealing Studios
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#290 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Mrs. Louisa Wilberforce: Simply try for one hour to behave like gentlemen.[/box]

One of Ealing Studio’s last comedies is among its very best.

Professor Marcus (Alec Guinness) has an intricate and  fool-proof plan for an an armored car robbery.  He gathers together a gang to accomplish this.  Part of his plan is to use an unsuspecting little old lady to carry the loot away.  He thinks he has found one in Mrs. Wilberforce (Katie Johnson).  He takes a room for rent in her house and meets with the gang in the guise of a chamber quintet.  These people are some of the most unlikely looking musicians ever, but Mrs. Wilberforce grows to like them and to love the music coming out of the room (via a gramaphone).

The robbery itself goes brilliantly but runs into some glitches when Mrs. Wilberforce is on her way back to the house.  There are many more mishaps to come.  With Herbert Lom and Peter Sellers as gang members.

This is a hilarious twist on the classic heist plot that builds to a crescendo of pitch-black comedy.  I love the way that the robbers are reduced to acting like little boys by the end.  It has seemed fresh every time I have seen it.  In some ways, it even gets funnier when you know what is about to happen.  Guinness is really great as is everyone else.  Highly recommended.

This was remade under the same title by the Coen Brothers in 2004.  I can’t imagine that it came close to topping this.

The Ladykillers was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Best Screenplay – Original.

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Rebel Without a Cause
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by Stewart Stern and Irving Schulman from a story by Nicholas Ray
1955/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#296 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Jim Stark: I don’t know what to do anymore. Except maybe die.[/box]

It was James Dean’s year and this was the most iconic of the few roles he played.

Jim Stark (Dean) is the new kid in town.  His parents move any time he gets in trouble which happens when anyone calls him “chicken”.  As the film begins he is in trouble for public drunkenness.  His parents come to bail him out of jail and it becomes evident why he would want an escape from their bickering.  At the police station, he also first meets the equally troubled Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo).  Both are fleeing from their own family dysfunction.

On Jim’s first day at school, he is noticed and picked on by the in-crowd.  The teenagers zero in on Jim’s weak spot immediately and challenge him to a game of “Chickie Run”. This involves driving stolen cars off a cliff.  The one who leaps from the car last wins. Fortunately for Jim, he loses but now the surviving gang members are after him for keeps. He spends the night with Judy and Plato playing house in a deserted mansion.  Young love blooms before the inevitable confrontation.  With Jim Backus as Jim’s father and Dennis Hopper and Nick Adams as gang members.

This movie is well acted and beautifully shot by Ray.  I don’t think it has aged particularly well.  It is a real product of a specific time – the birth of a youth culture with its catch phrases and teenage angst.  I have a hard time with the sexual politics in which Jim’s father is seen as weak because he helps with the housework.  Finally, Dean isn’t too believable as an outcast.  He would have been the coolest member of any group he happened to be in.  At any rate, this is a must-see.

Rebel Without a Cause was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Mineo); Best Supporting Actress (Wood); and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

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Night of the Hunter
Directed by Charles Laughton
Written by James Agee from a novel by Davis Grubb
1955/USA
Paul Gregory Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#310 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Ben Harper: What religion do you profess, preacher? Rev. Harry Powell: The religion the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us.[/box]

This is an odd but extremely beautiful film with fantastic performances from Robert Mitchum and Lillian Gish, two of my favorite actors ever.

The story takes place in the rural South during the Great Depression.  Ben Harper (Peter Graves) has robbed a bank and killed a guard in order to provide for his young family.  As the police close in, he hides the loot, making his son John and daughter Pearl swear never to reveal the location of the loot to anyone, including their mother Willa (Shelley Winters). Ben is then arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death.  He has the misfortune of sharing his cell with “Preacher” Harry Powell (Mitchum), who learns many details of Ben’s life but not the location of his money.

Powell, a serial wife murderer, sets off for the Harper farm after his release from prison.  He is on a mission to steal the money.  If necessary, he will add another widow to his collection.  Willa and Powell marry, after which he begins his reign of terror on the children.

Finally, the children escape in the nick of time and set off downriver in their father’s skiff. After some hardship and Harry’s constant menace, they are taken in by Rachel Cooper (Gish), a kind woman who rules over her charges with tough love.

I watched the Criterion Blu-Ray release of this and it looks stunningly beautiful.  The lighting is absolute perfection throughout.  Mitchum, who was working well outside his comfort zone, makes a fantastic villain but I love Gish even more in this.  She has one of the great all-time faces.  Somehow this film has always felt very naive to me, especially in the second half where we get all kinds of too obvious symbolism using the beasts of the forest, etc.  I think I understand it better now that I’ve heard the commentary.  It seems that Laughton was simply ultra faithful to the novel.  His vision was to tell the tale through the eyes of the son.  My quibbles aside, this is a classic and a must-see.  Recommended.

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Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1955/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
Repeat viewing/DVD collection
#313 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Mrs. Armfeldt: I am tired of people. But that doesn’t stop me from loving them.[/box]

For my money, this is the most charmingly poetic romantic comedy of all time.

The story takes place at Midsummer near the end of the 19th century in Sweden. Lawyer Fredrik Engerman (Gunnar Bjornstrand) has married his young ward Anne (Ulla Jacobsen). She is now about 18 but the marriage is still unconsumated.  The pair live with servants, including randy parlor maid Petra (Harriet Andersson), who is the same age as Anne.  Fredrik’s gloomy adult son from his first marriage, Henrik, a student of theology, is visiting.

One day as he is enjoying a chaste nap with Anne, Fredrik utters the word “Desiree” in his sleep.  This is the actress Desiree Arnfelt (Eva Dahlbeck).  Desiree and Fredrik had an affair following the death of his first wife at the end of which she dumped him.  Fredrik and Anne go to see Desiree in the theater but Anne asks to return home with a sick headache, a fairly common maneuver with her.  Frederik sneaks out later to visit Desiree.  Their reunion is interrupted by the arrival of her lover Count Carl Magnus Malcolm, a pompous and macho officer.

Desiree decides to do a little match-making, including some of her own, and invites Fredrik and Carl Magnus, with their respective wives, as well as Henrik for a weekend at her mother’s country estate.  We get a lot of great dialogue plus a complicated suite of romantic maneuvers before every person at the event ends up with the right partner.

I love this movie.  It reminds me a bit of Renoir’s Rules of the Game without the tragedy. All the acting is perfection as are many of the shots and moments.  Desiree’s mother is priceless.  The ending is sublime.  I wish Bergman had continued to direct some comedies later into his career.  Highly recommended.

The story was remade as Sondheim’s Broadway musical A Little Night Music and the 1977 movie made from that musical.

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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.

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Journey to Italy (Viaggio en Italia)
Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Written by Vitelanio Brancati and Roberto Rossellini from a novel by Colette
1954/Italy/France
Italia Films/Les Films Ariane etc.
First viewing/Hulu
#275 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Katherine Joyce: I wanted you to take a rest. It didn’t occur to me that it’d be so boring for you to be alone with me.

Alexander ‘Alex’ Joyce: What’s that got to do with it? I’m just bored because I’ve got nothing to do.[/box]

Rossellini uses vivid imagery to evoke the death of a marriage.  Somehow his script let him down.

Katherine (Ingrid Bergman) and Alex Joyce (George Sanders) have been married for eight years.  They live in England and are visiting Naples in order to sell an estate she inherited from her uncle.  They are socialites and have not been alone together like this since their marriage.  They go to the beautiful estate and instead of being able to relax are very restless.  He wants to spend his time with some of the society types he has found there and she wants to go sightseeing.

They explore their interests separately, bickering on the occasions they meet again.  They discover they are strangers.

For me the best parts of this film were the scenes of Bergman exploring Italy.  Everywhere she goes she finds death in the ancient ruins and statues.  Vesuvius and Pompeii in particular are unforgettable. Unfortunately, the ending undercuts the rest of the film.  The dubbing doesn’t help either.  Although Bergman and Sanders evidently dubbed their own voices, it made their acting seem hollow to me.

Carmen Jones
Directed by Otto Preminger
Witten by Oscar Hammerstein II and Harry Kleiner
1954/USA
Carlyle Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental
#291 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Joe: Thanks, but I don’t drink.

Carmen Jones: Boy, if the army was made up of nothin’ but soldiers like you, war wouldn’t do nobody no good.[/box]

I love the opera.  I enjoyed the movie.

Basically, the Carmen story is moved to the American South during WWII.  Joe (Harry Belafonte) is an Air Force corporal who has been selected for flight school.  It is his last day on base.  His fiancee Cindy Lou comes to visit him.  Joe wants to get married that same day.  Before he can get the permission to do so, Carmen Jones (Dorothy Dandridge), who already has set her sights on Joe, gets into a brawl with another factory worker on base.  Joe is ordered to take her to jail in another town.

Carmen uses every trick of seduction in the book while they are on the road to escape.  Joe stays strong until she cooks him a meal at her grandmother’s house.  While he is not looking, she slips away.  Joe gets the stockade for letting her go.

But Carmen seems really to have fallen in love with the soldier.  She is now spending her evenings at a nightclub where she catches the eye of Huskey Miller, a prize fighter.  He orders his manager to get her to join him in Chicago.  But Carmen prefers to wait for Joe. He finally shows up.  All has been forgiven and he has once again been slated for flight school.  Instead, he gets into a fight with a sergeant over Carmen and must flee with her to escape another, longer stint in the stockade.

The pair go to Chicago.  Joe cannot show his face because the military police are on his tail.  Now that Joe is completely in her spell, Carmen becomes restless in the shabby room they share.  Soon she pays a visit to Huskey Miller.  The climax plays out the same as in the opera.  With Pearl Bailey as a friend of Carmen.  Marilyn Horne dubbed Dandridge’s singing voice.

I know the opera very well having listened to it over and over when I was young.  The English lyrics seemed totally incongruous to me.  Others may not have any problem with them.  The performances are all strong.  I think Dandridge deserved her Oscar nod.  The music is, of course, glorious.

Dorothy Dandridge was nominated for Best Actress and Herschel Burke Gilbert was nominated for Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.

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Salt of the Earth
Directed by Herbert J. Biberman
Written by Michael Wilson
1954/USA
Independent Production Company/Intl Union of Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers
Repeat viewing?/Amazon Instant
#293 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Esperanza Quintero: Whose neck shall I stand on to make me feel superior, and what will I have out of it? I don’t want anything lower than I am. I am low enough already. I want to rise and to push everything up with me as I go.[/box]

This blacklisted movie is far ahead of its time in terms of its feminism.

The plot is based on an actual strike and takes place in contemporary New Mexico.  The film is narrated by Esperanza Quintera (Rosaura Revueltas), who lives with her husband and two children in quarters provided by the zinc mine where her husband works as a miner.  There is another baby on the way.  Her husband Ramon divides his time between union meetings and the beer hall.  The family does not have hot running water or an indoor toilet.    At times, she wishes that the baby will not be born.

After one accident too many, the miners are deciding whether to go on strike over safety issues in the mine and for equality between the Mexican-American and white workers. The women want the strike to include better sanitation for the company housing.  The men reject this suggestion but vote to go on strike.

The strike is brutally suppressed but the picket line cannot be broken.  Finally, the company invokes the Taft-Hartley Act to ban picketing by striking miners.  The women then volunteer to maintain the picket line themselves.  None of the men, in particular Ramon, is in favor of this idea but the women prove themselves to be steadfast and brave “sisters” despite imprisonment and harassment.  With Will Geer as the sheriff.

This film was made in the neo-realist style with many non-professional actors.  Sometimes it comes off as overly didactic but I liked it.  Revueltas really makes you sympathize with her plight.  It kept me engaged throughout.

This film was not shown in U.S. theaters until 1965 because the director, producer, writer and composer were all blacklisted.

Trailer

Sansho the Bailiff (Sansho Dayu)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Fuji Yahiro and Yoshikata Yoda from a short story by Ogai Mori
1954/Japan
Daiei Studios
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#290 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Masauji Taira: [Speaking to his son Zushio on the verge of being exiled and separated from his family] Zushio, I wonder if you’ll become a stubborn man like me. You may be too young to understand, but hear me out anyway. Without mercy, man is like a beast. Even if you are hard on yourself, be merciful to others. Men are created equal. Everyone is entitled to their happiness.[/box]

Mizoguchi’s tale of misery and mercy is truly a classic.

In medieval Japan, a Governor who sides with the peasants against a tax collector is sent into exile.  Before he goes, he impresses the virtue of mercy on his young son Zushio.  He gives the boy a small statue of the Goddess of Mercy as a reminder.

His wife Tamaki (Kinuyo Tanaka) and two children try to follow.  They are making the journey on foot with a single servant.  The way is rife with bandits and slave traders.  One night, they cannot find a lodging and camp in the woods.  A woman who says she is a priestess offers them warm food and leads them to a boat that will supposedly take them out of harm’s way.  They are pounced on by traffickers.  Tamaki is taken onto one boat and the two children and servant set out in another.

The children end up being purchased by the cruel Sansho, a petty official.  They disguise their identity. Sansho works his slaves mercilessly and brutally punishes any who try to escape.  Ten years pass.  Zoshiro looks to be working his way into Sansho’s favor with his willingness to punish escapees himself.  His sister Anju is appalled.

Then Anju hears a new slave singing a sad song mourning Zoshiro and Anju and thinks she has worked out where their mother is located.  When Zoshiro is ordered to take their old servant up into the mountains to die, Anju thinks she sees an escape route.

I remember this movie as being almost unbearably cruel and sad.  Somehow I didn’t remember that mercy is the theme that runs throughout.  It is not often in evidence but triumphs in the end.  I liked the film far more this time that on previous viewings.  I always appreciated the stunning imagery.

Clip – a lesson on mercy

Johnny Guitar
Directed by Nicholas Ray
Written by Philip Yordan from a novel by Roy Chanslor
1954/USA
Republic Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#292 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Johnny: There’s only two things in this world that a ‘real man’ needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke.[/box]

Nick Ray strays into Sam Fuller territory with this gaudy, off-kilter Technicolor Western.

Vienna (Joan Crawford) owns a saloon in the middle of cattle country.  The headstrong businesswoman’s plan is to wait for the railroad to pass through and then cash in on a new town.  The ranchers have little use for the railroad or Vienna.  But Vienna has a secret weapon in the form of the enigmatic Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden).  The two apparently had a thing at one time but at first things are more platonic not least because Vienna has since had a thing with the Dancin’ Kid.

A stagecoach is robbed and a man is killed.  Blame is pinned on the Dancin’ Kid’s gang. Emma (Mercedes McCambridge), the sister of the victim, insists that Vienna was also mixed up in this.  She starts organizing a lynching party.

The Kid’s gang is evidently innocent of the stagecoach hold-up but decides the best way to get money to leave town is to rob the local bank.  Vienna is in the bank at the time but her money is spared.  All these things whip Emma into a state of righteous wrath and builds up to the climactic battle between the two women.  With Ernest Borgnine as a gang member, Ward Bond as a town elder and John Carradine as a loyal drunk.

If for nothing else, this is worth seeing simply to watch Crawford and McCambridge try to outdo each other in the overacting department as each actress’s character vies to become Queen Bee of the territory.  Otherwise, it’s enjoyable but nothing that makes me want to see it again.

TrailerJohnny