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Viva Zapata! (1952, USA, Kazan)

Marlon Brando is the Mexican Moses, who leads the slaves out of Mexico into, well, Mexico.   Watched it all.  As biopics go, this one seems to be not intolerably inaccurate, although at the price of confusing viewers who have not made it a purpose of their life to study every twist and turn of the Mexican Revolution, which seems to have had an above average number of twists and turns.

Phone Call From a Stranger (1952, USA, Negulesco)

One thing I can’t tolerate in a movie is intentionally annoying characters.  They’re just too annoying.  I want to punch them.  I want to get away.  And then I remember – I can.  Watched: 10 minutes.

Captive Women (1952, USA)

1000 years in the future, Earth is a battlefield, and John Travolta stalks the land.  Watched: 10 minutes.

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Singin’ in the Rain (1952, USA)

Make them laugh, make them laugh, make them laugh.  Watched it all, many times before, and again now.  Partly because it’s fantastic, and partly because for the first time now I understand the context it was made in.  This is MGM’s goodbye to old Hollywood, a response to Sunset Boulevard, and its exact opposite in every way: Cheerful where Sunset was dark, naive where it was cynical.

Kid Monk Baroni (1952, USA)

Hey, it’s Leonard Nimoy, as an angry young punk off the streets!  I love first sightings of famous actors, (although Nimoy is arguably more famous as a poet).  Watched: 5 minutes.