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FFA Movie Poll: 1955 - 1959 Countdown Monday is here! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter KarmaPolice
- Start date
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Tennessee Williams is like Tori Amos for me. There are moments when they work their minds into a frenzy, whip their art into its highest shape and rub their ladybits just so against the corner of the piano bench to create orgiastic outbursts of life, feeling & wisdom which are truly transcendent. Then there's 45 minutes of pretentious, self-absorbed warbling before the next one.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Watched East of Eden a couple nights ago. I thought it was ok, but not point worthy from me. The first time I have seen Dean in a movie, and I can see looks-wise why he was a star, but I guess I was expecting a bit more in the acting department. Also, the dialogue was telling me he was bad and dangerous, but it just came off as whiny and bratty.
Last night was The 400 Blows. I liked this one a bit better. It will be on the edge as far as getting points from me, but I have a feeling it might miss. I keep reading about and get the importance of the French New Wave, but having seen 5-6 from the the era I don't think any have connected fully with me. 400 Blows was the closest though.
Last night was The 400 Blows. I liked this one a bit better. It will be on the edge as far as getting points from me, but I have a feeling it might miss. I keep reading about and get the importance of the French New Wave, but having seen 5-6 from the the era I don't think any have connected fully with me. 400 Blows was the closest though.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
there may never have been a movie star that was harder to take your eyes off than James Dean, but that doesn't keep me from wanting to hit him 98% of the time i'm watching.
i am very glad the lyrics of popular song became a vehicle for personal and even artistic expression, but i'm real in&out on a lot of the people whose work made that possible. same thing with film. i'm more partial to the Frenchies than the Italians or Swedes - Euros & Asians of the time being a LOT freer to explore in the era of burgeoning cinema art - but i can see anybody connecting on whole nuther levels. just a thang -
Eephus
Footballguy
I think it helps to look at James Dean in historical context. He along with other method actors like Brando and Clift revolutionized film acting in the decade following WWII. Their impact is dulled a bit after watching 60 years of actors that have been influenced by them. But if you compare Dean to someone like Spencer Tracy, you can better appreciate what a big swing he took.
The Man With No Name
Footballguy
No love for "No Time For Sergeants"? 2nd movie for Andy Griffith, a comedy and nothing like A Face in the Crowd. Don Knotts has a scene in it too
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Ugh. When i was little (mid 50s), my grandfather had a recording of Andy Griffith - as a MUCH more exaggerated country bumpkin than Sheriff Taylor - explaining football & Shakespeare and just never stopped playing the damn thing for company. Sometimes as often as a dozen times a weekend. If you want to make me feel ill, put that on. And that character inspired the production of No Time For Sergeants on Broadway (whole family drove down from VT to see it) and the movie, so ugh.
krista4
Footballguy
I watched Paths of Glory yesterday. ####, that was a great but upsetting movie. But then again, it wasn't really upsetting in that the
seemed inevitably part of the movie. The selection of the three soldiers and their differing personalities and approaches was perfect. Actually the complexity of every character and the movie as a whole seemed way before its time. That's a movie that stays with you.
"One way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then." So chilling.
executions
"One way to maintain discipline is to shoot a man now and then." So chilling.
krista4
Footballguy
Fun fact: Mr krista and I took the Orient Express from Bangkok to Singapore, and one of the stops was to see the actual bridge, which was not where the author set it but the real bridge near Bangkok where the construction project occurred. But I got horrible motion sickness on the train and instead stayed on board to recover, while Mr. krista went to the bridge and said it was really uneventful.
Hmph, this is more a "boring fact" than a "fun fact." Thus concludes my bridge (near the River Kwai) story.
The Man With No Name
Footballguy
When in the jungle going back to the bridge, those 'birds' were actually bats and they #### all over everyone as they were taking flight
Eephus
Footballguy
Griffith is excellent in "A Face in the Crowd", a movie with more than a few parallels with modern American politics.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Did it get better? I love the conflicted position and internal drama of Alec Guiness.krista4 said:
Yeah I agree that James Dean isn't all that great and he always comes off as whiny. As for The 400 Blows, I thought it was one of the very few movies to really capture the feeling of childhood without any sentimentality.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I think I am nearing the end of my 50s research. Going to Chicago with the wife this weekend to see Radiohead, so probably will only be able to knock out a couple more next week.
I think A Face in the Crowd might be my favorite of the ones that I have seen new so far. Like Eephus said, you could definitely see some parallels of what's going on today. Right behind it was Throne of Blood. Not that I have seen too many, but it's my favorite Kurosawa so far and I liked it better than Hidden Fortress, which I also watched this week. I think all I have left to watch in my pile is Rififi and Sweet Smell of Success. Looks like Elevator to the Gallows won't get to me in time for the lists, as there are still 4 people ahead of me for the only copy in the system. If I have time I still wanted to re-watch one or two - Vertigo, Paths of Glory, and Some Like It Hot on that list.
Sadly, I have also started research for the next poll too.
I think A Face in the Crowd might be my favorite of the ones that I have seen new so far. Like Eephus said, you could definitely see some parallels of what's going on today. Right behind it was Throne of Blood. Not that I have seen too many, but it's my favorite Kurosawa so far and I liked it better than Hidden Fortress, which I also watched this week. I think all I have left to watch in my pile is Rififi and Sweet Smell of Success. Looks like Elevator to the Gallows won't get to me in time for the lists, as there are still 4 people ahead of me for the only copy in the system. If I have time I still wanted to re-watch one or two - Vertigo, Paths of Glory, and Some Like It Hot on that list.
Sadly, I have also started research for the next poll too.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
A Face in the Crowd would make a great double feature with 1949's All the King's Men.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
I will always have a great affection for A Face in the Crowd, for it played a very important role in my life. After my Mary died in '96, my head couldnt get quiet. When you watch someone waste with bone cancer for over two years, breaking her wrist shaking out a match, snapping her femur in two adjusting her weight on the couch, shriveling from 6'1, 135 to 5'6, 75, from a glorious she-beast to a hissing rodent, you lose your faith that life has any point at all.
I couldnt get to sleep, couldnt stay asleep, so i stayed high. Meth, speedballs, most of the time losing thousands of dollars on video poker machines for days at a time so my head wouldnt be left to its own devices. My bosses were my two best friends, so they were tolerant with time loss and working loaded and they'd just pack me in a cab if they thought i'd get busted on the job and i'm pretty sure both of em figured my following Mary down the rabbithole was kinda for the best.
One of their gfs didn't see it that way. Friend Peggy didn't see it that way. Her & her Vito and me & my Mary had chased Reno to heaven and hell over the past decade and she didn't want nobody following anybody down no hole.
I'd written some stuff and got a little dough & a little fame out of it when i was young, but i never had the writer id, the hunger and, when the chances ran out in the early 80s i never gave it a 2nd thought. Peggy knew i'd done that, had heard my old audition reel from my radio show, had been to dinner with me and my pal Bill Kelley (who won an Oscar for writing Witness) and apparently came out of it thinking i should be a writer and that was the way to save me. She kept fishing me out of the casinos and taking care of me at home and cheerleading me into giving writing another try.
One night she crashed me on her couch and left the TV on AMC cuz she knew i liked old movies (all AMC showed then). I woke up to Face in the Crowd and loved it, thought it was fresh and prescient like Network. Passed back out and woke up with an idea for a new take on it, to bring it into the modern day. Peggy loved my idea - she would have loved any idea i came up with if only i did - and said "you talk, i'll type". And we did, Tuesday and Thursday nights for the whole summer. She even wrote to the original screenwriter, the great Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront, What Makes Sammy Run?) and told him the value this project was having in my 'treatment' and could we pursue and, in like his 90s, he wrote back a lovely note with tacit permission. I repaid her faith and attention by staying sober on those nights and giving my Marsha Jeffries all of Peggy's characteristics and speech pattern, which she loved.
It was a fool's errand, of course, and ended that way but, without that peak of light from my own soul that her courage allowed me to see, i never would have taken the step of borrowing my uncle's hunting cabin to detox that winter and almost assuredly wouldnt be edifying you bohunks today on the blacks and whites of my world. Like Lonesome Rhodes said, "Ain't nothing you can't do when you let the best side of you take over". May y'all find your Peggy when you need one. nufced -
I couldnt get to sleep, couldnt stay asleep, so i stayed high. Meth, speedballs, most of the time losing thousands of dollars on video poker machines for days at a time so my head wouldnt be left to its own devices. My bosses were my two best friends, so they were tolerant with time loss and working loaded and they'd just pack me in a cab if they thought i'd get busted on the job and i'm pretty sure both of em figured my following Mary down the rabbithole was kinda for the best.
One of their gfs didn't see it that way. Friend Peggy didn't see it that way. Her & her Vito and me & my Mary had chased Reno to heaven and hell over the past decade and she didn't want nobody following anybody down no hole.
I'd written some stuff and got a little dough & a little fame out of it when i was young, but i never had the writer id, the hunger and, when the chances ran out in the early 80s i never gave it a 2nd thought. Peggy knew i'd done that, had heard my old audition reel from my radio show, had been to dinner with me and my pal Bill Kelley (who won an Oscar for writing Witness) and apparently came out of it thinking i should be a writer and that was the way to save me. She kept fishing me out of the casinos and taking care of me at home and cheerleading me into giving writing another try.
One night she crashed me on her couch and left the TV on AMC cuz she knew i liked old movies (all AMC showed then). I woke up to Face in the Crowd and loved it, thought it was fresh and prescient like Network. Passed back out and woke up with an idea for a new take on it, to bring it into the modern day. Peggy loved my idea - she would have loved any idea i came up with if only i did - and said "you talk, i'll type". And we did, Tuesday and Thursday nights for the whole summer. She even wrote to the original screenwriter, the great Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront, What Makes Sammy Run?) and told him the value this project was having in my 'treatment' and could we pursue and, in like his 90s, he wrote back a lovely note with tacit permission. I repaid her faith and attention by staying sober on those nights and giving my Marsha Jeffries all of Peggy's characteristics and speech pattern, which she loved.
It was a fool's errand, of course, and ended that way but, without that peak of light from my own soul that her courage allowed me to see, i never would have taken the step of borrowing my uncle's hunting cabin to detox that winter and almost assuredly wouldnt be edifying you bohunks today on the blacks and whites of my world. Like Lonesome Rhodes said, "Ain't nothing you can't do when you let the best side of you take over". May y'all find your Peggy when you need one. nufced -
Eephus
Footballguy
Tough act to follow.
One of my all-time guilty pleasure movies is "The FBI Story" a 1959 authorized biography of the agency. It was a pet project of J. Edgar Hoover who approved the script, helped with casting, ordered reshoots and made a cameo appearance. It stars Jimmy Stewart as an agent who joined as a young man and managed to get involved in a surprisingly high number of high-profile cases. It mixes in about a half dozen mini movies about those cases with a framing melodrama involving Stewart's All-American family.
It's unabashed propaganda of course but it's also ridiculously entertaining. Director Mervyn LeRoy uses every film making cliche in the book to keep the story moving from set piece to set piece. Stewart is excellent as he usually is. The film clocks in at 2 hours 30 minutes but the episodic structure keeps it from being bloated. The concluding commie spy story has some fat to trim but has enough mid-century NYC location footage to keep it interesting.
It's one of those movies that I can't help myself from watching when I stumble on it. There's a good quality stream available. Try watching the 4 minute pre-credits sequence and see if it hooks you.
The FBI Story
Part 1: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2uos
Part 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2qm0
Part 3: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2oq6
One of my all-time guilty pleasure movies is "The FBI Story" a 1959 authorized biography of the agency. It was a pet project of J. Edgar Hoover who approved the script, helped with casting, ordered reshoots and made a cameo appearance. It stars Jimmy Stewart as an agent who joined as a young man and managed to get involved in a surprisingly high number of high-profile cases. It mixes in about a half dozen mini movies about those cases with a framing melodrama involving Stewart's All-American family.
It's unabashed propaganda of course but it's also ridiculously entertaining. Director Mervyn LeRoy uses every film making cliche in the book to keep the story moving from set piece to set piece. Stewart is excellent as he usually is. The film clocks in at 2 hours 30 minutes but the episodic structure keeps it from being bloated. The concluding commie spy story has some fat to trim but has enough mid-century NYC location footage to keep it interesting.
It's one of those movies that I can't help myself from watching when I stumble on it. There's a good quality stream available. Try watching the 4 minute pre-credits sequence and see if it hooks you.
The FBI Story
Part 1: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2uos
Part 2: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2qm0
Part 3: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6e2oq6
krista4
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
I know these threads get a bit private but they also can get public for a late-nighter for a guy in the West on the Fourth who just woke up for some reason. Thoprayw, wikkid, for you and Mary and Peggy.
BTW, I love On The Waterfront, but it's overtly political. I have Kazan's biography somewhere if someone wants it. It's somewhere.
And may our best sides of us take over, eternally.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
On the Waterfront had to be political. I take issue with the side of the politics of Kazan was on. I think he was on the wrong side of history but the whole point of the movie was his defense for his views and behavior during the blacklist. Great performances across the board and an excellent score.rockaction said:
rockaction
Footballguy
Yep. That was the whole point indeed. I, of course, think he was in the right to do what he did and am grateful even if I don't like McCarthy and HUAC's methods and procedurals. I've always viewed the movie through my own lens.
Barton Fink also loosely addressed the progression of communist playwrights into Hollywood in the thirties and forties. I know you're not fooled, but for others, don't be fooled, Joel and Ethan Coen know what they're doing with their history of ideas in Hollywood and ideas in general (see No Country by McCarthy, the best movie I can remember being interested in during the past decade). One brother -- I forget who -- has his masters in political philosophy from Princeton before the movie career, so that counts for something. I actually missed their latest and can't wait to see it. The Big Lebowski turned ideas and personalities into humor, I wonder what Hail Caesar did with it.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
There WERE Communists in Hollywood (and Washington) but the campaign to ferret them out turned into a witch hunt with innocents caught up in it.
rockaction
Footballguy
Yep. I love how Kazan made them teamsters and unionists in the movie. It's a stroke of genius that could never come from a conservative, yet in every way is conservative.
It wasn't him Charlie it was you
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Sure but I don’t think we should have worked to put them and ruin their lives- many only had gone to a couple meetings or loose social connections with communists. The wonderful podcast “You Must Remeber This” has a whole season on the blacklist. It’s a must listen for film and history fans.
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
Yeah, I would consider those the innocents. Going to a couple meetings doesn't mean you want to subvert American culture or overthrow its government. That was the witch hunt part.
Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
I am not happy with this list at all.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
I admit to loving the Searchers, but you do have to get over some of Ford's typical indulgences. Cornpone humor. Some purposefully unrealistic backdrops right in the middle of a movie that is otherwise a travel guide to Monument Valley.
Mann's films definitely feel more contemporary and I'm glad you mentioned him.
The Man With No Name
Footballguy
Bad Day At Black Rock. All Star cast - Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Den Jagger, Anne Francis, Walter Brennan. Directed by John Sturgis
Trailer
One armed Tracy beats up Borgnine
Trailer
One armed Tracy beats up Borgnine
Ilov80s
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Eephus
Footballguy
Ford, Hawks and Raoul Walsh were born before the turn of century and had been directing Hollywood movies since the silent era. Westerns are rarely forward looking but Ford was a traditionalist/classicist by genre standards. That certainly didn't hurt his reputation among early auteur theory critics who had lots of common themes and technique to work with in Ford's films.
Other directors who made great Westerns in the 50s were 10-20 years younger and came from more varied backgrounds. Mann had worked in theater, Edward Dmytryk had been a member of the Hollywood Ten and spent time in prison.
Westerns grew up during the decade. Much of that was due to more mature scripts but the perspective of newer directors helped advance the genre.
krista4
Footballguy
I've watched both now. Prefer Paths of Glory by a fair stretch, though I love heist movies so thought The Killing was great, too.
For some reason I thought I still had two more weeks to watch; now I see I was wrong! Still was hoping to watch at least Elevator to the Gallows, A Face in the Crowd, The Searchers, Sweet Smell of Success, and Marty before the deadline. And maybe give River Kwai another shot. :(
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Insightful. I’d say The Searchers and definitely The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence shoe that Ford was able to modernize the western and spin the traditional plot/characters/ideals. The Searchers is really a film that fits more in the 70s in the sense that our main character is more of an antihero. He’s a racist hateful man who as we watch we aren’t even sure we want him to succeed in his search.Eephus said:
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Andy Dufresne
Footballguy
I strangely did not really care for Sweet Smell of Success. It seemed mean through and through.
I plan on watching Witness For The Prosecution before submitting a list.
I plan on watching Witness For The Prosecution before submitting a list.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
It is certainly a nasty movie. The two leads are both awful people. Witness is a pretty good film- especially the performance of Laughton.
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
The courtroom dramas of that era (WFTP, 12 Angry Men, Anatomy of a Murder*, Compulsion, Wrong Man and, Nuremberg, Mockingbird, Inherit the Wind from the early 60s) are like gourmet mac&cheese - the bits & layers play on my tongue while the creamy goodness of tricky justice warms my soul. A black & white courtroom is so comforting me that, if i wrap things up early enough to go to bed to Perry Mason @ 11:30, i (a lifelong insomniac) rarely make it to the reveal anymore.
*my fave
*my fave
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Yankee23Fan
Fair Tax!
Have we agreed on any movies?KarmaPolice said:
Eephus
Footballguy
I wonder if contemporary audiences viewed Wayne's character in The Searchers as an anti-hero like most modern viewers do. It's obviously the same film but changing audience attitudes over the past 60 years may have contributed to how it's perceived today.
Liberty Valence is more modern in its setting and narrative structure but still has a classical Western plot. At the core, Wayne's character is the hero saving the citizens of Shinbone. The story disguises this a bit by placing him in a coffin as the story unfolds.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Is he the hero in Liberty?
I don’t see it that way. He represents an older way of less life that’s disappearing but he sacrifices his own values for the sake of the future. That sacrifice basically committing murder.
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Eephus
Footballguy
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
Anyone seen the original "Ladykillers"? Will definitely make my list somewhere.
Eephus
Footballguy
Binky The Doormat
Footballguy
wikkidpissah
Footballguy
Seeing it as one's first Ealing comedy would be unfortunate, even to complete a contest as existentially important as this. It only really works as the payoff to having watched Kind Hearts & Coronets and Lavendar Hill Mob and for the inevitability of Peter Sellers joining the Ealing tradition. It's better than the Coen Bros version but has a similar "i wish this worked better" feel.
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