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The Prisoner (1955, UK)

A psychological interrogation movie in the tradition of Nineteen Eighty-four, the Babylon 5 episode Intersections in Real Time, and – most of all – the 1960s TV series The Prisoner, which it certainly must have influenced. Watched it all.

Love Me or Leave Me (1955, USA)

I hate biopics. Hate them, hate them, hate them. On the upside, this one has Doris Day being smart, ambitious, and doing her best to get into the song business without having to go through the bed of that sleazebag James Cagney.  But it’s still a biopic. Watched: 14 minutes.

Oh.. Rosalinda!! (1955, UK, Powell & Pressburger)

I liked Powell and Pressburger more when there was a certain operatic quality to their movies that still wasn’t actual genuine opera. Watched: 12 minutes.

It’s Always Fair Weather (1955, USA)

And now Comden & Green are writing stinkers too. What is the world coming too? I bet the good times are over, and nobody will ever make a good movie ever again. And then the movie business will go broke, because all the stories have already been told as well as they can be. Watched: 9 minutes. Well, I guess I should give 1956 a chance before I give up. Just one quick peak ..

Romeo & Juliet (1955) - Prokofiev - Romeo fights Tybalt

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Rome and Juliet (1955, USSR)

I think I get the purpose of ballet now: It’s a way to have have both story and music, without having it interrupted by singing. The dancing is just something to keep your eyes distracted with while you listen to the music and try to remember how the story goes. But then if that is the case, I don’t see why they make such a fuss about the dancing. Maybe I’ve missed something after all. Watched it all. Btw, whose idea of a cruel joke was it transport Shakespeare into a medium without dialogue?

Son of Sinbad (1955, USA)

In almost every movie that is set in the Biblical past or the near East, you’ll find an Obligatory Decadent Banquet Scene at around the 1:00 mark, where nobles recline lazily by their dinner tables, while they watch a pretty girl dance. It’s usually the only scene worth watching, because you really can’t go wrong with that sort of thing. The one in this movie is unusual in that it features pole dancing. Watched: 5 minutes.

The Prodigal (1955, USA)

I’m sure there is a right way to tell the story of the Prodigal Son, but a big, loud Bible epic isn’t it. You can tell the worst of the worst Bible epics by the voiceover in the intro that explains how people in ancient times all worshipped the evil gods Baahl and Astarte etc. etc., except for one small village of indomitable Hebrews. Watched: 4 minutes. It doesn’t even have a proper Obligatory Decadent Banquet Scene.

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The Last Frontier (1955, USA, Mann)

Westerns are full of frontiersmen and soldiers, but the ones in this movie are among the first that actually feel like the sort of undisciplined, independent men you’d expect to find wandering about in the great American wilderness, and the kind of tough, disciplined murderers you’d expect to find in an army. Watched it all. This is one Mann western that doesn’t feature James Stewart, and it’s better for it.

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Rebel Without a Cause (1955, USA)

One way of looking at Rebel is as the first in a proud tradition of dramas about teenagers behaving badly & sadly, (the standard of which today is defined by the UK version of Skins). Another way of looking at it is as the parents of 1955, who grew up during the Depression and the Second World War, might have looked at it: As a story about a generation of ungrateful whiners who wouldn’t have lasted five seconds in the War. I’m not saying that’s the right way of looking at it, but it’s more fun than the usual one, especially the scene where Dean berates his father for not knowing what it means to be a Man. Why, his father probably stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima, and murdered hundreds of Japs with his enormous flame thrower. Watched it before, and again now.

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Dementia / Daughter of Horror  (1955, USA)

Horror movies lost something when sound was invented, the ability to portray the world as fundamentally evil. This is one of the first movies to recapture that. It’s not scary, just perversely fascinated with the all the awfullness that life has to offer. Watched it all.

Kvinnodröm / Dreams (1955, Sweden, Bergman)

For a few moments, this is one of the most visually interesting movies I’ve seen .. and then the characters start speaking, the usual Bergman dialogue, ruining everything. Watched: 8 minutes.

Piagol (1955, South Korea)

The Communist Party of North Korea is EVIL, evil I tell you. (Well yes, actually, it was, and still is.) Watched: 14 minutes.

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East of Eden (1955, USA)

Preliminary hypothesis: The movies of James Dean are remembered today mostly because they were the only ones he got to act in. Hypothesis now disproven. Watched it before, and again now. I didn’t pick up on the Biblical allegory the first time, which is embarassing, considering that it’s right there in the title.

Guys and Dolls (1955, USA, Mankiewicz)

Musicals are supposed to be phony, but the right kind of phony, you know? Like this. I think Good News ruined me for musicals. Ever since I saw it, I’m always waiting for the Joan McCracken scene. And there isn’t any. She only really played in that one movie, and then she died in 1961. I miss Joan McCracken. I think I’ll go watch Pass That Peace Pipe again. Over and over again. Anyway – watched: 18 minutes.

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Ordet (1955, Denmark, Dreyer)

If someone were to make a parody of a brilliant but slow-moving drama about God-fearing Danish farmers, it would be indistinguishable from this, and vice versa, in much the same way that this movie implies that holiness is indistinguishable from madness – and vice versa. Watched it all.  A chill builds in while I watch this. I don’t think the temperature in the room has dropped. It’s the movie, and the centuries of cultural memory it resonates with. This isn’t quite the religion of my parents, or of their parents, but perhaps of their grandparents.

To Catch a Thief (1955, USA, Hitchcock)

This movie is above all a tourist commercial for the nature and architecture of southern France, with Cary Grant stumbling about in the foreground, a gentleman thief trying to catch another gentleman thief, trying and failing to outshine his surroundings. Watched: 27 minutes.

The Rains of Ranchipur (1955, USA)

This is one of those titles that sounds impressive when you first hear it, but when you think about it, it doesn’t make any sense. What’s so interesting about the rains of Ranchipur? Are they particularly frequent, or rare, or just very unusual? Are they more so in Ranchipur than elsewhere? Explain. On second thought, don’t. Watched: 9 minutes.

The Private War of Major Benson (1955, USA)

Charlton Heston is nearly kicked out of the Army for being too manly, which doesn’t really strike me as a plausible setup for a movie. Although, if anyone can be too manly for the Army, it would be Heston. Watched: 11 minutes.

Night and Fog / Nuit et brouillard (1955, France, Resnais)

The greatest documentary about concentration camps and extermination camps I’ve ever seen.  A visual essay that looks back on the horrors of the recent past in a way that hits you like a half-forgotten nightmare forcing you to remember it. Watched it all.

Land of the Pharaohs (1955, USA)

Evil Egyptians plot and scheme, blah blah blah. Watched: 4 minutes. In pseudo-historical epics, the obligatory decadent banquet scene typically occurs around halfway into the movie. It’s usually the only interesting scene in the movie, but is outdone in this case by the astonishing finale, a burial scene that is truly worthy of Indiana Jones, and probably a direct influence.

Mister Roberts (1955, USA)

Military humor is all the same, half light-hearted absurdity, and half deadly. This one tries a little too hard, and James Cagney certainly does. He’s no Queeg, and the movie grinds to an embarassing halt the moment he opens his mouth. Watched: 45 minutes.

The Rose Tattoo (1955, USA)

It doesn’t look like Tennessee Williams has discovered how to tell a coherent story yet. Or maybe Hollywood hasn’t found out how to film his plays. Watched: 14 minutes.

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Blackboard Jungle (1955, USA)

50s cultural history was a bit unclear to me before I started this marathon, so I was surprised to learn that it’s not until 1955 that you get movies that feature (actual) rock’n roll music and juvenile delinquents with (almost) stereotypical 50s hairdoes.  Watched it all.

Creature With the Atom Brain (1955, USA)

Is it very pedantic of me to point out that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about a “creature with an atom brain”, because all brains are made of atoms? Especially when the creature in question is actually a remote-controlled zombie. Watched: 5 minutes.

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The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, UK)

Three men go up in space, only one of them returns, and he has become .. EVIL. Watched it all before, but I didn’t appreciate then that this is one of the best SF movies of the 50s so far – and also perhaps the first genuinely good SF horror. Welcome aboard, Hammer.

Jump Into Hell (1955, USA)

“This film is dedicated to the thousands of heroic men and officers of the French Union Forces who defended the fortress of Dienbienphu. Their courage stands as a symbol and proof that free men will forever oppose slavery.” Ah yes. I don’t think it was quite that simple. Watched: 5 minutes.

Daddy Long Legs (1955, USA)

The Swing Generation, they got old. Watched: 7 minutes.

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I Live in Fear (1955, Japan, Kurosawa)

Which is more insane: Being consumed with fear of a nuclear holocaust, or being able to live calmly with the knowledge that the world may end suddenly at any moment? Watched it all.

Quentin Durward (1955, USA)

It’s bad enough for Walter Scott to give both a novel and its main character the name “Quentin Durward”, but that is no excuse to make it worse by repeating the error in the movie version a century later. Watched: 5 minutes.

The Day the World Ended (1955, USA, Corman)

The only thing this post-apocalypse has is Roger Corman’s unique style, brutal and trashy, but never mind that just yet. Watch Five instead. Watched: 13 minutes.

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As Long as They’re Happy (1955, UK)

The British have been trying for years to copy the American fast-paced musical-comedy formula, and this time they’ve actually got it almost right, right down to the cheerful consumerist message. Watched it all. Its only fault is the music.

Killer’s Kiss (1955, USA, Kubrick)

Well, everybody has to start somewhere. Watched: 10 minutes, then fast-forwarded to .. wow!

The Dark Avenger (1955, USA)

As a rule of thumb, you are recommended to stay away from all mid-50s widescreen movies that open with a shot of a medieval castle. Watched: 5 minutes.

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Five Against the House (1955, USA)

I think this could be the first ever proper college movie, with witty youths, hazing, parties and gambling. There was that one Mr Belvedere movie, but that doesn’t count, and plenty of movies that took place in colleges, but that doesn’t make them college movies. Perhaps this one isn’t either, because it morphs into a rather implausible caper movie. Watched it all.

Three for the Show (1955, USA)

Betty Grable finds herself married to two men at the same time, and decides to resolve this in the least interesting way possible: By choosing one of them. But not until toying with the idea of bigami for a while. Watched: 30 minutes.

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Cockleshell Heroes (1955, UK)

Cheerful British war movies about gangs of cheeky individualists who carry out daring raids into enemy territory are so much much more fun than thinking about what the average soldier or civilian went through. Watched it all, although it has to be said that their sabotage raid is pretty dumb, and only works because the Germans are dumber. Then again, it did actually happen, and .. er .. “shortened the war by six months”. Okay then.

Lola Montez (1955, France)

This is what happens when you give a director too much money and power. Bah, directors, what do they know about movies! Watched: 6 minutes, plus the naughty bits, of which there aren’t any, so I can’t figure out how this movie caused the scandal the intro text boasts about.