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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954, USA)

Submarine captain Osama bin Laden’s fanatic quest for vengeance against the so-called “civilized” world may not be as politely executed as the faint of heart might wish, but it makes sense within the context of his unusual worldview.   The scientist he kidnaps, locks up, brainwashes, and reminds daily of his power over life and death, eventually learns to respect this point of view.  Watched it all, mostly for the visuals.  The best parts of steampunk, the way it looks and makes you want to dress like a Victorian gentleman and go build outrageous machines, were pioneered in this movie.  Thanks, Walt Disney Corporation!

Killers From Space (1954, USA)

The evil, horrible, gruesome beings the title hints at at do not appear until halfway into the movie, and when they do they’re just some guys in stupid suits.  It was always thus.  Watched 4 minutes.

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Animal Farm (1954, UK)

It is hard to watch this without shuddering, because of all the stories told in the 20th century, this was one of the truest and most tragic.  It remains so today, wherever popular revolutions are hijacked by two-legged pigs.  Watched it all, not because it’s good, (they gave it a happy ending?!), but because, by the strokes of the animator’s brush, millions die, and die, and die.  And did anyone even ask for forgiveness?

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On the Waterfront (1954, USA, Kazan)

Marlon Brando could have been somebody, if it wasn’t for the union mobsters.  All he has left is being a man, and he doesn’t even have that.  Watched it all before, but didn’t appreciate how perfect it is, a meeting of the old gangster thumbscrew and new acting.  What has changed since last time I saw it?  Does fast-forwarding through thousands of mediocre movies allow the great ones to stand out in a way watching the occasional preselected classic doesn’t?

The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954, UK)

Well, I’ve seen worse Robin Hoods, but that’s because the worse ones had bigger budgets, which allowed their awful plots to bloom into full potential.  I sometimes wonder what it is about the Robin Hood myth that is so compelling when I can’t think of a single book or movie that has told it well.  Watched: 11 minutes.  The one interesting thing about this movie is that it was made by Hammer, which got famous later for gorier reasons.

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Night People (1954, USA)

Of all the post-war movies about Communist scheming and kidnapping in the European occupation zones, this is my favorite so far. It reminds me of The Sandbaggers.   No action, no fancy schmancy noir shadows and zither music, just dull, tough men making hard choices and dirty deals.  Watched it all.  Berlin comes off well too: For once as a beautiful city, not just ruins.

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Apache (1954, USA, Aldrich)

It’s amazing how well westerns can be used to make sociological statements, even silly ones.  Here, the last Apache warrior and his woman are radical revolutionaries whose eyes burn in anger at the limits “civilized” society place on their untamed way of life.  Watched it all.  The happy ending was forced, and it shows – none of the actors believe a word they’re saying.  In its honest first half, the message is: Go underground, terrorize the Man, and die young and proud, you glorious rebel you!

The High and the Mighty (1954, USA, Wellmann)

A bunch of people are stuck together on a failing airplane, and Character Drama ensues.  Watched: 15 minutes.  Wasn’t this concept used in a poorly received Norwegian movie recently?  They should have recycled Wellmann’s other movie from that year instead:

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Track of the Cat (1954, USA, Wellmann)

When you watch movies chronologically like this, what happens is that one day you start up yet another movie and discover that someone has just invented a whole new way of making movies.  Just the colors here take my breath away – an entire movie made with the palette of a blood-splattered cow.  It’s like they took one of those dense, dark movies that felt like stage plays and added color and sound along the same lines, and got something so intense that it’s frightening to watch.  Watched it all.  And yes, I guess it’s a failure, but – what an experience.

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Garden of Evil (1954, USA, Hathaway)

Heading out into mythical Mexico to rescue a trapped miner, Gary Cooper personifies the old-fashioned macho Stoic ideal of someone who is ready to unleash emotions or violence when appropriate, but always remains in control, unlike his too-greedy, too-angry, too-cynical friends, who are the unbalanced fragments of Cooper’s balanced whole.  Susan Hayward inspires his chivalric devotion not because he doesn’t suspect he’s being played, but because that’s beside the point, when after all it is the right thing to do.  Watched it all.

Salt of the Earth (1954, USA)

“The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers present .. ” is among the top things you don’t want to see at the beginning of a film.  Commie-fighters at the time thought so too, and launched a campaign against it, thus securing it eternal fame as a Blacklisted Movie.  Watched: 7 minutes, right up to “I tell you, this installment plan, it’s a curse on the working man!”

Sign of the Pagan (1954, USA)

Attila the Hun looks like he has walked out of a Sword & Sorcery fantasy, and there are some great scenes where the power of Paganism and Christianity collide.  But also a lot of dull, wholesome Romans.  Watched: 12 minutes.

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Secret of the Incas (1954, USA)

You know who would make a great Indiana Jones?  Charlton Heston would!  Here he goes about tomb raiding Inca ruins in full Indy outfit, and he’s twice the rogue Ford was.  All that’s missing is the whip.  And the script.  Watched it all.  It’s trash, but it’s Indy, or at least the inspiration for two iconic Indyisms: His look, and that whole bogus puzzle tomb setup.

Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954, Japan, Inagaki)

Japan didn’t need to send their armies to conquer Asia.  They could have had the entire world with second-rate samurai epics.  Watched: 25 minutes.  This one got an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, which I attribute to the voters never having seen a samurai film before, and being awestruck by what a fantastic concept this is.  What excuse more recent fans have I don’t know.

Kasserer Jensen (1954, Norway)

The timid accountant looks exactly like a famous criminal.  Watched: 6 minutes, then fast-forwarded to identify all the Oslo locations I was able to, and locate them in Google StreetView, which is really the main reason to watch old Norwegian movies.

Hell Below Zero (1954, USA)

Never mind the rest, but I love the scene where Alan Ladd gives a sleazy con-man a righteous punching.  That’s the spirit!  Watched: 22 minutes.

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The Caine Mutiny (1954, USA, Dmytryk)

The apparently insane captain isn’t an unorthodox genius, but a genuinely insane captain who’ll get us all killed.  Watched it all before, and again now, and Bogart’s crazy eyes are unforgettable, but in retrospect Queeg is a one-dimensional stock character in the making.  Also, the movie ends with a long courtroom scene.  I hate those.

Devil Girl From Mars (1954, UK)

Recent events on Mars show what can happen when women take their struggle for equality too far: They turn into unsmiling, cape-wearing overlords who travel around the solar system stealing males for their breeding program.  Oh no!  We must stop this from happening here?!  Watched: 4 minutes, + this.

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Seven Samurai (1954, Japan, Kurosawa)

Society is an uneasy alliance between bewildered civilians and men who find murder exciting.  Watched it all before, and again now.  Now here’s a proper movie, with proper samurais, proper bandits, and proper sword fights.  Even proper slow-motion death scenes, (a first?)  Movie violence as entertainment, it all comes back to Seven Samurai, (although I insist it should be spelled samurais).

Far til fire i sneen (1954, Denmark)

It flatters my inner patriot that a 1954 Danish family’s idea of a luxurious vacation is to go skiing at Geilo in Norway.  Watched: 10 minutes.

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The Naked Spur (1953, USA, Mann)

It’s a shame James Stewart made such a great good guy, the kind who’d see the upside of a nuclear holocaust, because he was even better when you weren’t sure if he’d shoot you or hug you or both.  Watched it all before, long ago, and again now.  The Naked Spur once awoke me to how good Westerns could be.  It still sets the standard, but the rest of the genre hasn’t live up to the promise.

Salome (1953, USA)

The Bible got it all wrong: Salome / Rita Hayworth was actually an early Christian who danced before Herod to save the life of John the Baptist.  Save it.  But for some reason he got beheaded instead.  Watched: 15 minutes, so I’m not sure what went wrong, but it seems to have had something to do with an evil stepmother.

Donovan’s Brain (1953, USA)

The dead millionaire’s evil brain is kept alive in a laboratory, and spends its time controlling the minds of nearby scientists and humming Metallica tunes.  Watched: 35 minutes.

I Confess (1953, USA, Hitchcock)

Another thing I didn’t expect about this movie marathon: How old-fashioned a typical Hitchcock thriller would feel by 1953.  This is basically a Columbo episode, with Karl Malden as Columbo.  Watched: 28 minutes.

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Calamity Jane (1953, USA)

Come sing along with the happy citizens of Deadwood, the colorfullest cheerfullest town of the good ol’ West!  Doris Day as Calamity Jane is one of the most astonishing things that have ever happened in movies.  She’s awful, and the movie is awful too, but it doesn’t matter, because this is a fantastic awful movie.  Watched it all.  This movie is only a few line changes away from being a lesbian love drama, but it ends with Calamity Jane marrying Wild Bill Hickock, destined for a long life of happiness.

Battle Circus (1953, USA)

Did you ever wonder what M.A.S.H. would look like if it wasn’t a comedy, and featured Humphrey Bogart as the scruffy doctor?  Well here it is!  It has the helicopters and tents and operation scenes and everything.  Even Hotlips!  Watched: 17 minutes.

Holiday with Angel (1953) - Introduction round

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Holiday with Angel / Dovolená s Andelem (1953, Czechoslovakia)

All the most productive workers of Czechoslovakia get rewarded by the Party with something called a “vacation”, a period of non-work in relaxing surroundings.   They’re sent off to a fancy hotel where most of the rooms even have running water!  In the future, such “vacations” will be available to all loyal workers in the socialist worker’s paradise.  Watched it all.

Will Any Gentleman..? (1953, UK)

Hey, this movie has two future Doctor Whos in it, Jon Pertwee and William Hartnell!  Nerdgasm!  The younger Pertwee would have made an excellent Doctor even by our current youth-fixated standards.  Watched: 14 minutes.

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The War of the Worlds (1953, USA)

Imagine the perfect 50s alien invasion movie, one that is primitive enough to be fun, (no “the aliens are actually the good guys”), has characters who mostly behave like people, and where the special effects are used intelligently to build up a sense of otherworldly awe.  Well, this is it.  Watched it all.

Roman Holiday (1953, USA, Wyler)

The sort of movie where the characters’ inability to talk to each other force them into absurd situations that eventually teach them about life and love and so on.  Watched: 35 minutes.  For a long time I thought Audrey Hepburn was Katharine’s sister, but it doesn’t add up, does it?

Stalag 17 (1953) - One führer is enough

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Stalag 17 (1953, USA, Wilder)

It’s not true what the narrator says, that nobody had made a POW movie before.  The British had made several by this point, and I’m already sick of the format.  But bless that Billy Wilder and his magic, there’s no way I can resist this.  Watched it all, all two hours of it, and I would happily spend hours more with these guys.  Not least of its charms is that prison guard Schulz is played like Londo Mollari.

The Lady Wants Pink (1953, USA)

A stereotype brought to life: Suburban 1950s America as later generations have preferred to remember it.  Identical wives using ever more expensive fur coats to assert their status, while their identical husbands bankrupt themselves and the children watch television, and ha ha consumerism is silly BUT NOT REALLY SO GO SPEND SPEND SPEND.  Watched: 11 minutes.