Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Directed by Howard Hawks
Written by Charles Lederer based on the musical comedy by Joseph Fields and Anita Loos
1953/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant
#277of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] He’s your guy/ When stocks are high,/ But beware when they start to descend.

It’s then that those louses/ Go back to their spouses./ Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.  – Lyrics by Leo Robin [/box]

This brightly colored musical looks more like something Frank Tashlin might have directed than anything by Howard Hawks.

Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) makes no secret of the fact that she is looking for a mate who will give her diamonds .  Best friend Dorothy Shaw tries to keep her grounded with little success.  Lorelei has found an ideal candidate in nebbish Gus Esmond Jr. Unfortunately, Esmond Sr. does not approve.  So Lorelei decides to go to Paris in the hopes that absence will make Gus’s heart grow strong enough to overcome the objections.  Dorothy is not about to leave Lorelei to her own devices.

Our heroines end up on a cruise ship where Dorothy, who is not so mercenary as Lorelei, collects quite a number of admirers from the U.S. Olympic Team.  After she find out they are in training, Ernie Malone steps in to fill the vacuum. Secretly, Ernie is a private detective who has been hired by Gus’s father to dig up dirt on Lorelei.  This is almost too easy to do as Lorelei is soon flirting with spritely Sr. Francis “Piggy” Beekman (Charles Coburn), the owner of a diamond mine.  Complications and hilarity ensue.

While Russell and Coburn are very good, Monroe is the real reason to watch this film.  I have seen her in several supporting roles to this date but this is the movie where her dumb-blonde sex-pot persona and talents as a comedienne emerge in full force. The plot betrays its theatrical origins with the characters bursting into song at a moment’s notice but lots of the numbers are enjoyable.  “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” is iconic.

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Mr. Hulot’s Holiday (Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot)
Directed by Jacques Tati
Written by Jacques Tati and Henri Marquet
1953/France
Discina Film/Cady Films/Soecta Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#267 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Opening Titles: Mr. Hulot is off for a week by the sea. Take a seat behind his camera, and you can spend it with him. Don’t look for a plot, for a holiday is meant purely for fun, and if you look for it, you will find more fun in ordinary life than in fiction.[/box]

Monsieur Hulot drives his rattletrap car to a French seaside resort.  There he mingles with his fellow guests at a bourgeois seaside hotel.  Oblivious to everything, he manages to create chaos wherever he happens to wander.

I like Tati’s films quite a bit.  This first Monsieur Hulot film kicks off the series admirably. There is no plot or dialogue to speak of.  The sight gags and sound effects come so fast and furious that one hardly misses them. You can watch these films any number of times without feeling like you have caught everything.  I like that Hulot retains his dignity while all are losing theirs.  I also like the score very much.  Recommended.

Mr. Hulot’s Holiday was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay.

Trailer – subtitles unnecessary!

Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Pers Anderson Fogelström from his novel
1953/Sweden
Svensk Filmindustri
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#264 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Monika Eriksson: You’re different than the others. You’re just like someone in a film.[/box]

Gunnar Fischer provides some exquisite lighting to Bergman’s tale of young love and its eventual collision with reality.

Harry Lund (Lars Ekborg) is a dreamy 19-year-old who lives with his chronically ill widowed father and works as a delivery driver.  His world is changed when he meets Monika Eriksson (Harriet Andersson).  Monika comes from a chaotic working class household headed by her alcoholic father and filed with the shouts of numerous younger brothers and sisters.  She clearly is far more experienced than Harry but loves him dearly for treating her better than the others.

Monika finally reaches the point where she cannot bear to return home and easily convinces Harry, whose father is again in the hospital, that they should run away.  So the two commandeer the father’s boat and take off for one of the islands in the Swedish Archipelago.  There follows an idyllic, blissful summer of love.  Things take a more serious turn after Monika announces that she is pregnant, the food starts to run out, and the cold winds of autumn begin to blow.

The couple return to Stockholm and marry.  Monika gives birth to little girl but has no feeling for her.  Harry works with purpose for the first time and studies for an engineering exam in his off hours.  But Monika just wants to have fun and the inevitable heartache follows.

This is a gorgeous, beautifully acted movie.  Harriet Anderrson is not a real beauty but is perhaps the most sensual of any of Bergman’s women.  Bergman and Andersson were on the verge of beginning an affair during the making of this picture and it shows in the loving exploration of her face and body.  Recommended.

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Original US trailer for “Monika – The Story of a Bad Girl”

Shane
Directed by George Stevens
Written by A.B. Guthrie and Jack Sher based on the novel by Jack Schaefer
1953/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#276 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Shane: You were watchin’ me down it for quite a spell, weren’t you?
Joey: Yes I was.
Shane: You know, I… I like a man who watches things go on around. It means he’ll make his mark someday.

This is filled with cliches but is nonetheless an unforgettable classic.

A number of homesteaders has settled on what once was rangeland.  The ranchers who once ran their cattle over the land are dead set on chasing them off.  Joe Starrett (Van Helflin) has become the unelected leader of the farmers by general agreement.  He is holding on against all threats with his gentle wife Marian (Jean Arthur) and son Joey (Brandon De Wilde).

One day, a stranger appears.  He is Shane (Alan Ladd).  It is love at first sight for young Joey, who is at the stage where he is obsessed with guns and can sense the strength and menace of his idol.  Shane, headed who knows where, decides to stay on with the Starretts as a farm hand.  Shane also exerts a kind of magnetic attraction on the loyal Marian.

Shane observes first hand the brutality of the cattlemen against the settlers, which escalates from threats to more deadly attacks.  Unsatisfied, the ranchers bring in hired gun Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) to take more drastic action.  It is now up to Shane to try to save the day.  With Elisha Cook Jr., Ellen Corby, and Edgar Buchanan as settlers.

I have always found this story to be on the corny side and it is a credit to the director that he manages to lift it to almost mythic levels.  This is despite his use of such devices as mourning dogs and a young boy who can keep up on foot with a man on horseback.  He had the scenery and the actors going for him.

Jean Arthur came out of retirement to do this picture for her friend George Stevens.  It is impossible to believe she was already fifty years old.  She makes a perfectly credible object of desire for the two leading men.  In my opinion, the Academy got its acting nominations wrong.  They should definitely have gone to Arthur and Heflin, who are the soul of the film.

I had a chance to see the Blu-Ray and the color llooks stunning, unlike the faded stills and trailer shown here.

Shane won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Color.  It was nominated in the categories of:  Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (De Wilde); Best Supporting Actor (Palance); Best Writing, Screenplay.

Trailer

Ugetsu (Ugetsu monogatari)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Yoshikata Yoda; Adapted by Matsutarô Kawaguchi from an idea by Hisakazu Tsuji and stories by Akinari Ueda
1953/Japan
Daiei Studios
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#274 of 1001 Movies You Must See Brefore You Die

[box] All things are full of weariness;/ a man cannot utter it;/ the eye is not satisfied with seeing,/ nor the ear filled with hearing. – Ecclesiastes1, ver. 8 [/box]

This is a sad and beautiful movie.

The story is set in the 16th Century during Japan’s brutal Civil Wars.  Genjûro (Masyuki Mori) is a humble potter in a small village.  He has a devoted wife Miyagi (Kinuyo Tanaka) and small son.  The couple’s neighbors are the farmer Tôbee and his wife Ohama.

Genjûro decides that he can profit from wartime shortages by taking his pots to a nearby town.  Tôbee, who does not look to be too bright, has longed dreamed of being a samurai.  The two make an initial run with some pots and make a handsome profit. Genjûro now begins frantically increasing his stock and loses a lot of his patience and humanity in the process. The fighting is getting closer to the village and the wives beg their husbands to flee.  Instead, they decide to take the pots to a more distant town across a lake.  The wives go along but Genjûro sends Miyagi and his son home before they get very far.

The men succeed beyond their wildest dreams.  Fairly early on, Tohee takes his share of the profits and runs off to buy some ramshackle samurai armor and seek employment.  In the process, he abandons Ohama.  The mysterious Lady Wakasa (Machiko Kyô) and her attendant buy a number of pots from Genjûro and ask him to deliver them to her castle.

By a fluke of chance, Tohee does manage to become a samurai with his own retinue. Ohama is seduced by Lady Wakasa and remains in the castle enjoying exquisite pleasure as her husband.  In the meantime, the wives endure all the savagery that war can dole out to women.

This is, at least in part, a fantastical story and the images perfectly match the eerie feeling of the tale as well as the sordid reality experienced by the women.  This may be the third time I have seen this film.  Maybe because of the fantasy or the style, I have never really connected with this acknowledged masterpiece.  I want to love it but I don’t.  Well worth at least one watch, however.

Ugetsu was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

Trailer

Roman Holiday
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton, and Dalton Trumbo; story by Trumbo
1953/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix Rental
#278 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Irving Radovich: She’s fair game, Joe. It’s always open season on princesses.[/box]

This film is precious for introducing the world to Audrey Hepburn.  That it is also one of the all-time best romantic comedies is just gravy.

Princess Anne (Hepburn), the heir to the throne of an unnamed country is on a tour of European capitals.  By the time she and her entourage arrive in Rome she is stressed out and bored out of her skull.  She longs to at least see what a normal life is like.  She gets so upset that the doctor is called and prescribes a dose of sleeping pills.  Before the drug takes effect, Anne seizes the chance to escape in the back of a delivery van.

She had planned to be gone for just an hour but ends up snoozing by a fountain. Reporter Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) sees her and kindly tries to see her home.  This proves to be impossible and she ends up sacking out in his apartment.  He oversleeps as well, too late to cover the princess’s press conference.  It is then he discovers the identity of his houseguest and embarks on a scheme to cash in on this exclusive material.

Anne tells Joe she has run away from school and Joe gives Anne some vague line about who he is.  The remainder of the film shows Joe helping Anne discover the joys of Rome. Of course, the two fall in love in the process.  Is a fairy tale ending in the cards?  With Eddie Albert as Joe’s photographer friend.

Hepburn was born to be a princess and a major movie star.  She is irresistible in this movie.  I had forgotten that there are some serious moments and she is excellent at those as well.  Rome never looked this beautiful in black and white.  Recommended.

Audrey Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress.  Roman Holiday also won the awards for Best Motion Picture Story and Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.  The award was originally credited to Ian McLellan who fronted for Dalton Trumbo.  The Oscar was post-humously presented to Trumbo’s widow in 1993.  The film was nominated in the categories of:  Best Picture; Best Director; Best Supporting Actor (Albert); Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; and Best Film Editing.

Trailer

Pickup on South Street
Directed by Samuel Fuller
Screenplay by Samuel Fuller; story by Dwight Taylor
1953/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#265 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Skip McCoy: Are you waving the flag at *me*?[/box]

Sam Fuller really hits his stride in this major studio production.

Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) is a recently released pickpocket and three-time loser.  One of his first jobs is to pinch a wallet from the purse of Candy (Jean Peters) who is riding the subway on the way to a rendevous.  Trouble is she is being watched and he has been spotted.  Skip gets away though and returns with his loot to the seaside shack where he lives.  There, he discovers that the wallet contains microfilm.  Soon we learn that the microfilm contains some sort of top secret plans that are being sold to the Reds.

The police soon locate Skip through Moe (Thelma Ritter) a professional snitch who is saving up for a fancy funeral, but Skip isn’t talking.  Then Candy’s boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley) sends her to buy back the film.  Skip and Candy are immediately attracted but he is not about to give up the film for less than $25,000.

The rest of the story follows the increasingly brutal tactics of both the Commies and the police to get their hands on the film.  Skip finds out who his friends are in the process.

I really like this movie.  Superficially, it is about the Red menace but is really about honor among thieves and lowlifes.  The film is beautifully shot and tautly written.  The performances are outstanding too.  I especially like Ritter in perhaps her best performance as the tough yet fragile Moe.  I’ve not been especially impressed with Parker in other films but she is wonderful here.  She and Widmark just sizzle in their love scenes.  Recommended.

There is an interview with Fuller on the Criterion DVD.  He is exactly as I had expected, a true original.

Thelma Ritter was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Trailer

Screenwriter on the film – Trailers from Hell

The Earrings of Madame de …
Directed by Max Ophüls
Written by Marcel Archard, Max Ophüls, and Annette Wademant from a novel by Louise de Vilmorin
1953/France/Italy
Franco London Films/Indus Films/Rizzoli Film
Repeat viewing/Netflix Rental
#268 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Monsieur Rémy: I thought I was doing both of you a favor.

Général André de…: I don’t follow, Monsieur Remy. I sometimes do favors for others but I avoid letting others do them for me.

Monsieur Rémy: A good policy.[/box]

The first time I saw this I was mesmerized by Ophul’s fabulous camera work.  This time I was moved by the story and the acting.  Either way, this film is a marvel.

General Andre de … (Charles Boyer) and his wife Louise (Danielle Darrieux) are sophisticates and members of the Paris elite.  As the story begins, Louise is trying to decide which of her jewels she should sell to pay off some debts she has kept a secret from her husband.  She decides her diamond earrings, a wedding present from André, are the easiest of her possessions to part with.  She covers her indiscretion by saying she can’t find the jewels, which are presumably lost or stolen.

Although she swore the jeweler to secrecy, he proceeds to inform André, a valued client. André buys them back, asks that the jeweler mention this to no one, and gives the earrings to his mistress who is departing for Constantinople at the conclusion of their affair. The mistress loses all her money at the casino and pawns the earrings.  Baron Fabrizio Donati (Vittorio de Sica), an Italian diplomat, sees the earrings in a jeweler’s window and buys them without a particular recipient in mind.

Donati is assigned to the Italian Embassy where he socializes with the General and his wife at many official functions.  While the General is away on maneuvers, Donati and Louise see more and more of each other.  Finally, he gives her the earrings.  The earrings start on another, more tragic, ownership cycle until they reach their destiny.

This film is beautiful in every way.  There is an amazing sequence that encapsulates the relationship between Louise and Donati through their dancing at various parties.  The camera dances right along with them.  I had not remembered how sad the story was.  By the end I felt so sorry for all the characters.  I don’t think Boyer was ever better.  He captures both the pride and the hurt of the General to perfection.  Highly recommended.

The Earrings of Madame de … was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.

Can’t find a good clip so here is this analysis of the opening tracking shots