From someone who has mostly watched movies from the 1920′s, 30′s and 40′s for the last two years, it may come as a surprise to hear that I don’t particularly like old movies. I just don’t like them less than new movies, and when you’re trying to uncover All the Good Movies Ever Made, you have to start somewhere. But even the best of the good Golden Age Hollywood movies can be a bit unimaginative and soft around the edges.
That’s why I love the two new kinds of movies of the early 50′s: Intelligent, even angry, “message” movies, and science fiction movies. I’ve mostly heard bad things about 1950′s science fiction, but the only thing that is cheesy about the 1951 sci-fi movies are the effects. Otherwise they’re everything I missed in the 40′s.
So here they are, the best (or at least pretty good) movies of 1951:
Best of the best
Hey everyone let’s invent the science fiction movie!
Aspiring towards theater
Aspiring towards cinema
Aspiring towards opera
Italian movies that don’t suck
Four Ways Out / La Citta si diffende
Satirical Japanese color movies
The ‘other’ bin