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Earth vs the Flying Saucers (1956, USA)

The highly advanced race of aliens who arrive at Earth are a bit clumsy at first contact situations, aren’t they? Send a message nobody understands, then randomly destroy everything in sight when your storm trooper ambassador is understandably shot at by confused earthlings. And when they later go to full-scale war, it’s not at all clear what they’re trying to achieve. Watched it all, colorized, of course – almost always watch the colorized version, especially a pure effects movie like this. Few filmmakers in the B&W era would have said no to color if they’d had the budget.

Helen of Troy (1956, USA)

This movie has a serious casting problem. Helen of Troy is supposed to be most beautiful woman of her time, but her maid is played by the woman who really was, Brigitte Bardot. Watched: 5 seconds of the overture, (yes it’s one of those), plus the obligatory decadent banquet scene, which is short, but makes up for it by being extra decadent.

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Giant (1956, USA)

Like Rock Hudson’s Texas ranch, this movie goes on forever. I’m probably not the first person to make that observation. This is the sort of movie that gives you time to think of things like that. It’s also a pretty good story about life, family, land, and oil, at least for the first five or six hours, until James Dean’s makeup and the force-fed message of racial equality grinds you down. Watched it before, and again now.