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The White Reindeer / Valkoinen peura (1952, Finland, Blomberg)

It’s 1952 now in the marathon, and I find myself impatiently fast-forwarding through the same-old, same-old, even through movies I might have watched in a better mood. But that’s okay. The whole point of this project is to lean back and demand to be intrigued, to be forcefully pulled into something new, different, unexpected. Something like this, about a Sami woman who dabbles with shamanism and turns into a reindeer vampire, who stalks the snowy plains of Finland, looking for men to suck dry.  W00t?!  Yes!  Watched it all.

Ellis in Freedomland (1952, USA)

A failed salesman gets a lecture from a talking refrigerator about how to sell it.  Watched 10 minutes, then fast forwarded through 80 minutes of talking dishwashers, ovens, etc.  A suspicion creeps up on me: Is this in fact not a real movie, but a training video for dealers of Westinghouse kitchen appliances?  Yes.  Yes it is.  I feel .. violated.

Jumping Jacks (1952, USA)

Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin clearly has the potential of being funny.  But I’m a little disturbed by Lewis’s nerdiness always being presented as some sort of horrible debilitating disease that he must learn to overcome.  What is this, the 50′s?  Watched: 6 minutes.

The Girl in the Bikini / Manina, la filles sans voiles (1952, France)

There may be some sort of plot going on here, but I don’t think anyone noticed, what with (introducing) Brigitte Bardot being right in the middle of it.  Watched: 10 minutes.

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When Worlds Collide (1951, USA)

The Earth is dying, and only a select few will be chosen to escape for a better world on a rocket ship.  This isn’t the apocalyptic masterpiece Five is, but it’s interesting to see how they try to deal seriously with the idea of building a modern-day Noah’s Ark.  Watched it all.

Alice in Wonderland (1951, USA)

Alice began experimenting with drugs at an early age, possibly to escape the attention of that dubious mr Dobson.  (And her adventures in old age were no less remarkable, but that’s another story).  Watched: 15 minutes.  This feels like one of those half-hearted movie adaptations that is just faithful enough to the book to remind you why you love it, but adds nothing of its own.

Fixed Bayonets! (1951, USA)

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that bugs me about some of these post-war war movies. Now I know: It’s the cheerfulness.  You didn’t see it during World War II.  But now it’s here in a movie about Korea.  Watched: 14 minutes.  Oh well, these guys are about to walk straight into half a million Chinese communists.  That’ll take care of the cheerfulness.  (What, too soon?)

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The Thing From Another World (1951, USA)

The scientists at the Arctic research station believe the frozen alien they have found in a crashed flying saucer may be a superior being, who has come to Earth to share of his emotionless wisdom.  But the soldiers know that when one encounters something unknown or abnormal, some .. alien thing, you have to shoot it and burn it and stamp on it until it’s dead dead dead, or it will do the same to you.  Watched it all.

The Golden Horde (1951, USA)

English crusaders head out east to save Samarkand from Genghis Khan.  Hey wait a minute..  Watched: 10 minutes.  This is remarkably stupid, but kind of impressive in its utter disregard for history.  (Oh, and there’s an obligatory decadent banquet scene!)

Dårskapens hus (1951, Sweden)

It’s quite possible that this mash-up by Hasse Ekman of clips from his own movies is hilarious.  The intro certainly is.  As for the rest, it is possibly hilarious.  I’m not laughing, but yes, there is a distinct possibility of its having this effect on viewers at the time.  Watched: 11 minutes.

Penny Points to Paradise (1951, UK)

Yes, it’s comforting to know that Peter Sellers has teamed up with Spike Milligan at this point.  They’re not funny yet, but it’s comforting. A sign that, all in all, the world is taking a turn for the better.  Watched: 13 minutes.

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Five (1951, USA, Oboler)

The post-apocalypse – it is finally here.  It is time.  The mid-20th century has felt empty without it, that sense that somehow we broke the world and can’t put it back together again.  Watched it all.  This is the earliest post-apocalyptic movie I’ve seen, and the format hasn’t changed in 60 years, or if so only by becoming more lighthearted.  This must be one of the most depressing movies that had been made up to this point.  Writer-director-producer Arch Oboler is most famous for his radio plays, though.  I’ll need to find some of them.

Fingerprints Don’t Lie (1951, USA)

Here’s another 1951 B-movie that appears to be using a Hammond organ for the soundtrack.  This may very well be the worst idea in the history of movies.  Watched: 1 minute.

A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, USA)

It’s hot in New Orleans.  Really hot.  Watched it all before, but not so much this time.  Sometimes you just don’t feel like a Tennessee Williams movie.

Flight to Mars (1951, USA)

These guys looked at the success of Destination Moon, and concluded that the secret of making a space flight movie is to make it as boring as possible.  And hey, let’s steal (or buy?) Rocketship X-M‘s ship set while we’re at it.  Watched: 9 minutes.  This is basically an episode of Stargate SG-1 with all the life drained out of it.  On the plus side, the Martian women are innovators in the field of sci-fi skirt lengths.

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That’s My Boy (1951, USA, Walker)

Jerry Lewis is a sickly nerd with jock parents, so when he goes off to college they team him up with Dean Martin to make him more Dean Martiny.  Watched it all, but all in all it’s played too straight, and the point about the bullying father is hammered in even beyond what must have been necessary in 1951.  Worse, Jerry overcomes his challenges in the end by abandoning all his dreams, conforming to social expectations, and becoming a big football hero.  Boo!

Encore (1951, UK)

This is the third movie based on W. Somerset Maugham’s short stories that opens with him personally making a statement about the meaning of his Art.  What a horrible horrible idea that is.  Whatever the merits of the rest of this movie, I certainly don’t want to like it now, and I refuse to even try.  Watched: 2 minutes.

Five Men of Edo (1951, Japan)

Yes, it was pretty silly of the Japanese to try to conquer Asia with arms, when they could have conquered the whole world with historical dramas.  Even when, like here, the interwoven storylines of ronins, lords, bandits and courtesans expand into one  unfocused epic mess.  Watched: 48 minutes.

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The Man in the White Suit (1951, UK, Mackendrick)

Matter hacker Alec Guinness sneaks about in laboratories, testing his theories right under the noses of the chemical priesthood that shuns him.  He invents a new material that will revolutionize the textile industry, and Big Capital and Big Labor unite to suppress it.  Watched it all.  Yes there really seems to have been something libertarian in the air at Ealing Studios.

Mask of the Dragon (1951, USA)

Wait, is that a Hammond organ they’re using as the soundtrack to these ridiculous Korean stereotypes?  It’s a disaster.  I don’t think they even bothered to write a score.  They just asked someone to play around on the organ for an hour.  “And here comes a chase scene, so step up the tempo a bit. No, not that fast – we don’t want it to be too exciting.” Watched: 2 minutes.

The Lemon Drop Kid (1951, USA)

Bob Hope again.  I’m going to get that hack one day.  Just wait and see.  Watched: 2 minutes.  (It’s strange how angry I get about these awful old comedians.  What did they ever do to me, apart from destroying my illusions about the greatest generation’s sense of humor?)

Death of a Salesman (1951, USA)

There’s a salesman.  He’s sad.  And everything is awful.  Well, I won’t say the title didn’t warn me.  Watched: 10 minutes.

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The Tales of Hoffmann (1951, UK, Powell & Pressburger)

Powell and Pressburger have gone and filmed an opera!  They’re mad!  Mad!  Watched it all.  This is basically the two hour equivalent to the ballet scene in The Red Shoes.  As with all their movies, my reaction is partly amazement that such a thing can exist at all.   Unlike most of their movies, though, that amazement is more or less all there is to it. But still .. !

Let’s Make it Legal (1951, USA)

So now Marilyn Monroe is at third billing, and rising.  Watched: 3 minutes, then fast forwarded to find her scenes.  I still don’t quite get Marilyn Monroe.   There’s something annoying about the way she slurs her words.  Did she get less annoying later?

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Varieties on Parade (1951, USA)

Hey this is unexpectedly enjoyable: It’s a vaudeville show put on film, with no stupid plot lines or stars, just ordinary vaudeville stars doing stand-up, acrobatics, music, animal tricks, magic, etc.  And it’s actually really enjoyable.  Friendly.  Watched it all.  It’s .. it’s the Muppet Show.  I finally get the Muppet Show now!  They were doing vaudeville with puppets!

Appointment With Danger (1951, USA)

So, in the series of movies based on the Exciting! Thriller! Breathtaking! Death-defying! life of government officials, we’ve now come to the postal inspector?!  Is this for real?  Watched: 3 minutes.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, USA, Wise)

The first plan from outer space was to send a giant robot and ask nicely.  Watched it before, and again now.  I don’t think I appreciated the last time I saw it how few science fiction movies (good or otherwise) had been made at this point.  And it demonstrates nicely SF’s potential for portraying ideas that are too big for realism.  In this case, it’s a stupid idea, (Plan 9 with better writing), but this is still a fantastic movie.  And the music .. yes!

My Favorite Spy (1951, USA)

Having successfully ruined 1940′s comedy, Bob Hope now hopes to set his mark on the 1950′s as well.  I hope they don’t let him.  Watched: 4 minutes.

The Kaiser’s Lackey / Der Untertan (1951, East Germany, Staudte)

What Werner Peters respects more than anything else in life is a display of raw Macht.  He allows himself to be subjected to the will of others, so that he may in turn subject others to his.  Generations of Kaiser worship have thus succeeded in creating the Perfect German.  Watched it all.  Wow, these guys have an even bleaker view of the course of German history than A. J. P. Taylor.

The Axe of Wandsbek (1951, East Germany)

I’m playing a game with these German movies.  I try to guess if they were made in East or West.  This one features two references to Nazi persecution of Communists in the first minutes, so my guess is Eastern.  Watched: 7 minutes.  (I was right.)

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Ace in the Hole (1951, USA, Wilder)

A bunch of Chilean miners are stuck down in a cave somewhere, and Pulitzer-aspiring journalist Kirk Douglas is more than happy to turn it into a media circus.  He’s a bastard, but he’s a new kind of bastard, in touch with the low, greedy soul of the times.  Watched it all.

Bahar (1951, India)

Watching a comedy from a foreign culture can be an odd experience. It’s like it’s randomly phasing in and out of the funny zone. But this isn’t too strange.  It’s basically the Indian version of the old Hollywood formula: Wealthy airheads and their romantic troubles, interrupted by song and dance.  Watched: 31 minutes.

The Tall Target (1951, USA, Mann)

Dick Powell is on the train to Baltimore, and so is Abe Lincoln’s assassin.  Watched it all.  Every time I start an Anthony Mann movie, I promise myself not to be biased by how fantastic his previous movies have been. Maybe this one won’t be so good.  And almost every time, I find myself sucked into the movie, scene by scene.  Mann is the director Hitchcock is often credited to be, and for far less money too.  And this is one of his best movies, the kind of cramped, focused thriller Hitchcock (let’s be honest now) only rarely succeeded in making.

Miss Julie / Fröken Julie (1951, Sweden)

Everyone in the Swedish countryside is absolutely despicable.  They do nothing but humiliate, laugh at and beat each other all day.  Why, that’s terrible!  Watched: 13 minutes.