Monthly Archives: May 2011

1950s movies marathon – part 36

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953, USA, Hawks)

There are only two kinds of women: The kind that marries for looks (Jane Russell), and the kind that marries for money (Marilyn Monroe).  Watched it all.  It’s one of the insurmountable problems for the stricter brands of feminism that sexism and materialism is simply a lot more fun.  Oh, and I’ll stop making fun of Marilyn Monroe’s voice now.  The more she comes to look like her iconic self, the less I notice.

It Came From Outer Space (1953, USA)

Ha!  Who says I miss out on things by only watching old movies?  The 50s now have 3D too, and in some scenes it even looks half-way believable.  I wonder why it went out of fashion for 50 years.  Apart from the nauseau and headache, I mean.  Watched: 22 minutes.

Glen or Glenda (1953, USA, Wood)

Decades of bad B-movies about social and sexual issues have resulted in this, the ultimate bad movie.  But I must I say I admire Ed Wood a bit.  He’s advocating, in 1953, tolerance of transsexuals.  That’s a pretty big deal.  And he’s talentless in such a disarmingly earnest way.  Watched it all.  Then again, the movie reassures us that while Glen is a transvestite, he is “not a homosexual”.  Phew, well that’s allright then!

The Bells of Cockaigne  (1953, USA)

This TV movie is my first sighting of James Dean, who hasn’t perfected broody yet, and comes across as whiny instead.  Common problem.  Watched: 4 minutes. Btw, how do you pronounce Cockaigne?

..the most repressive city in China

China is certainly large enough to accommodate two financial cities, Hong Kong and Shanghai, just as Frankfurt and London coexist in Europe. What Shanghai lacks, though, is a stable legal and business climate, the comfort factor identified by the HSBC chairman. And there is no indication that things are about to change in the near future.In fact, change seems less likely in Shanghai than in other Chinese cities because it is even more closely watched by security agents and the Propaganda Department. In Beijing and Guangzhou, some journalists, writers and lawyers manage to get past the police net and have their say, but in Shanghai, the merest hint of dissident behavior is enough to put one behind bars. Shanghai is the most repressive city in China. Several student and worker movements, some democratic, others not, started here. It was here that the Communist Party took root in 1925. For this reason, the current leaders do not permit any freedom of expression. [..] Shanghai is nothing but a facade of modernity erected by the Party, which pursues its vision of what the China of tomorrow should look like. Foreigners on a hurried visit tend to lose their critical faculties the moment they land in China. They gaze, wonderstruck, at the facade erected for their benefit.

- Guy Sorman, The Empire of Lies (2006)

..the new law has not provided for such an eventuality

One-third of Shanghai’s 17 million inhabitants are migrants, yet it is virtually impossible for them to become citizens with their identity cards, which in principle give them access to public services.  In Shanghai, as in all other Chinese cities, there is a sort of local nationality by blood. With the winds of reform blowing over the city in the Year of the Rooster, the municipality has decided to issue local identity cards on the basis of marriage, but the conditions are so restrictive that they appear ridiculous. A non-Shanghai woman married to a Shanghai man can get nationality after fifteen years of her marriage, which means the couple’s children will automatically become citizens of Shanghai, as nationality is handed down by the mother. The authors of this daring innovation told me, though, that a man from Shanghai would have to be very “poor or handicapped” to marry a “foreigner”. What happens if a non-Shanghai man marries a Shanghai woman? I asked. The new law has not provided for such an eventuality, they told me at the mayor’s office, because it was unthinkable that a Shanghai woman would marry an “outsider”.

Town-hall officials said that if all immigrants were granted citizenship, by marriage or otherwise, they would flood schools nad hospitals and demand public housing. The city’s infrastructure wouldn’t be able to take the load. Were the news to spread to the countryside, millions would flock to Shanghai, creating huge ghettos around the city.

- Guy Sorman, The Empire of Lies (2006)

1950s movies marathon – part 35

Invaders From Mars (1953, USA)

I wonder if perhaps those people who see the red scare reflected in all those 1950s sci-fi movies are overanalyzing things a bit.  Sometimes a regular dad who acts like he has a terrible secret is just a regular dad who has been possessed by invaders from Mars.  Watched it all.

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953, USA)

Hey, they’ve finally invented CinemaScope! Widescreen! Stereo! Oh, how I’ve missed it all.  Okay, so they’re overdoing the stereo effect a bit.  It’s not necessary to move all the sound to the left when the character is on the left side of the screen.  And there are some odd lense effects when the camera moves.  Watched: 15 minutes.

The Wages of Fear (1953, France)

All the scum of Europe have ended up in a bar in Nameless South America.  Nothing to do but sit around in the heat and dream of food and money, and nothing to hope for but for the local ugly American to come around and exploit you.  Watched it all.  I think I read this story in Donald Duck & Co in the 80s.

Hondo (1953, USA)

The only reason I’ve heard of Hondo is because it was described as the greatest western of all time in an episode of Married With Children, where Al missed it on TV and learned he would have to wait to 2011 for the next airing.  Well, it’s now 2011, but I don’t see what all the fuss was about.  Watched: 10 minutes. Perhaps I’ll give it another chance in 2028.