1950s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2012 4:04 pm
VOTING CLOSED. RESULTS CAN BE FOUND HERE.
If you are reading this sentence, you are eligible to participate in our forum's latest decades lists project exploring the films of the 1950s. If you know anyone adventurous enough--on or off the forum--that you think would also enjoy participating, feel free to invite them as well.
Please PM me your list of what you believe are the top 50 films from the decade toward the end of the project. You may feel that you could compile a list of 50 favorite films from this period much earlier than the deadline, but it's still highly recommended that you engage in the discussions here. Don't keep your favorites a secret, and always be open to suggestions from others!
THE RULES
1) Each individual list is to comprise no more or less than 50 films, ranked in your order of preference (with no ties). If you haven't yet seen 50 films from the decade that you think are genuinely great (or even if you have), please take advantage of the resources listed below and participate in the ongoing discussions to find films that you can be proud to put on your list.
2) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1950s (1950-1959) is eligible.
3) The date given on IMDb is the relevant date for determining eligibility, even when it's clearly wrong (unless a special case is made below). If the film is not on IMDb and you say it was released during the 1950s, I'll take your word for it.
4) Multi-part films released separately (e.g. Eisenstein's Ivans) count as one film. Each entry in a trilogy (e.g. Ray's Apus) counts as a separate film.
5) For portmanteau films with multiple directors, each of the individual segments and the film as a whole are all separately eligible.
We might occasionally need to make an exception to rule 3 or 4. If you are seriously considering including a film on your list that you have a question about in this regard, bring it up in this thread and we'll iron it out.
For more details about rules and procedures, please refer here.
ELIGIBILITY – REMINDERS / SPECIAL CASES
Teleplays, such as those featured in Criterion's Golden Age of Television set, the TV version of 12 Angry Men, or Tragedy in a Temporary Town, are eligible.
Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 is ineligible, as we grouped it with Part 1 and included the pair in our 1940s project.
Len Lye's Tal Farlow is incorrectly listed on IMDb as a 1950s film. It will not be eligible until the 1980s project.
Konrad Wolf's Sun Seekers is eligible as a 1950s film, even though IMDb lists it as a '70s film (it was banned from release for 14 years).
The following multi-part films count as one film for purposes of this project (this is just a reminder, not an exhaustive list): The Tiger of Eschnapur/The Indian Tomb, The Human Condition (eligible as a whole for the '50s, even though the last part came out in the '60s)
The following films may be cited as 1950s releases in some places, but are 1960s on IMDb, and so are not eligible for this list: Une histoire d'eau, Window Water Baby Moving, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Cruel Story of Youth, Le Trou, Together (Mazzetti), The Nightingale's Prayer, The Savage Eye, Letter Never Sent, Eyes Without a Face, Breathless, A la Mode, The Virgin Spring, Kapò, The Testament of Orpheus, The End of Summer, The Overcoat
The following films are cited as 1950s films on IMDb, and so are eligible for this list, regardless of what anyone else might say: Gun Crazy, Orpheus, The Flowers of St. Francis, Stromboli, Stage Fright, The Gunfighter, To Joy, Anticipation of the Night, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Distant Journey, A Man Walks in the City, The Great War, Side Street, The Law, Le Signe du lion, The Wayward Girl, Shadows
RESOURCES
Past Forum Discussions
Discussion from the Forum's Prior 1950s Project
Defending of Sad Pandas from the Forum's Prior 1950s Project
'50s List Project: Seminal Secondary Sources
Discussion from the Forum's Noir List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Western List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Musicals List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Horror List Project
The Alternate Oscars: Best Picture 1927-1968
100 Russian and Eastern European Classics
Tex Avery DVD availability in R1
Forum Discussions of International DVDs
African / Bulgarian / Chinese / Cuban / Czech / Dutch / Finnish / German / Hungarian / Norwegian / Polish / Romanian / South American / Swedish / Turkish / Ukrainian / Yugoslavian
Forum Discussions of Filmmakers Active During the 1950s
Robert Aldrich / Michelangelo Antonioni / Ingmar Bergman / Budd Boetticher / Robert Bresson / Luis Buñuel / Frank Capra / Claude Chabrol / Charles Chaplin / Henri-Georges Clouzot / George Cukor / Jules Dassin / Delmer Daves / Vittorio De Sica / André de Toth / Carl Theodor Dreyer / Federico Fellini / John Ford / Georges Franju / Samuel Fuller / Jean-Luc Godard / Jean Grémillon / Wojciech Has / Howard Hawks / Monte Hellman / Alfred Hitchcock / John Huston / Shôhei Imamura / Henry King / John Krish / Stanley Kubrick / Akira Kurosawa / Fritz Lang / David Lean / Joseph Losey / Sidney Lumet / Alexander Mackendrick / Louis Malle / Joseph L. Mankiewicz / Anthony Mann / Jean-Pierre Melville / Vincente Minnelli / Kenji Mizoguchi / Andrzej Munk / Mikio Naruse / Max Ophüls / Yasujirô Ozu / Roman Polanski / Michael Powell / Otto Preminger / Richard Quine / Nicholas Ray / Satyajit Ray / Alain Resnais / Jean Renoir / Roberto Rossellini / Don Siegel / Robert Siodmak / Douglas Sirk / Josef von Sternberg / George Stevens / John Sturges / Andrei Tarkovsky / Frank Tashlin / Jacques Tati / Jacques Tourneur / François Truffaut / Gustav Ucicky / José Val del Omar / Agnès Varda / Luchino Visconti / Andrzej Wajda / Raoul Walsh / Orson Welles / William A. Wellman / Billy Wilder / Fred Zinnemann
Forum Discussions of 1950s Films
All About Eve / Anticipation of the Night / Il bidone / The Big Sky / The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T / Friendly Persuasion / Hell Drivers / The Hound of the Baskervilles / The Hunchback of Notre Dame / Imitation of Life / Mandy / Men in War / Mesa of Lost Women / My Son John / The Naked and the Dead / Othello / Pillow Talk / Plan 9 from Outer Space / Rebel Without a Cause / Summer Stock / Sunset Blvd. / The Thief / The Wide Blue Road
Additionally, any '50s film available from Criterion or MoC will have its own thread, which you can find in the linked indices.
Guides Within This Thread
Mr. Sausage on Kurosawa
domino harvey on Astruc, Chabrol, DeMille, Donen, Hawks, Hitchcock, Kazan, Logan, Mankiewicz, Ray, Ritt, Sidney, Walters, Wilder, and Wyler, Cromwell, Ford, and Stevens, Anthony, Frank & Panama, Daniel Mann, and Preminger, Capra, Delbert Mann, Minnelli, and Zinnemann, Fuller, Kramer, and Lang, Huston, Lupino, and Anthony Mann
Michael Kerpan on Japan: Part 1 / Part 2
Minkin on Abbott and Costello
Shrew on China
zedz on 1950s Experimental Films on DVD
the preacher on Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela
External Resources
A list of films from the 1950s appearing on They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's Top 1000 or Doubling the Canon lists
Cahiers du cinéma's Top 10s from the 1950s
Recommended Reading
The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, Thomas Schatz
The Fifties, David Halberstam
Movie Love in the 50s, James Harvey
Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s, Ed Sikov
FORUM MEMBER SPOTLIGHTS
Is there a film you love that you fear is under most people's radar? Try shining a light on it! To inaugurate a film into the spotlight section, just follow these three simple steps:
1. Make a post about the film discussing why you find it so exceptional.
2. Clearly indicate that you wish the film to be one of your spotlight titles.
3. Direct others to where the film can be found.
I'll keep track of all the spotlight titles here so that they can be easily referenced. You're welcome to have more than one spotlight title, but try not to have too many more, so it's manageable for everyone to be able to see them all.
Everyone is strongly encouraged to give each of these films the same chance that you would hope others would give your own spotlight titles.
The Elephant Will Never Forget (John Krish) (knives)
Three Little Bops (Friz Freleng) (knives)
A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald) (domino harvey)
Detective Story (William Wyler) (domino harvey)
Flowing (Mikio Naruse) (puxzkkx)
Free Radicals (Len Lye) (zedz)
Rhythm (Len Lye) (zedz)
There's Always Tomorrow (Douglas Sirk) (zedz)
Park Row (Samuel Fuller) (Shrew)
La notte brava (Mauro Bolognini) (Dylan)
O Drakos (Nikos Koundouros) (Calvin)
Give a Girl a Break (Stanley Donen) (swo17)
Furrows (José Antonio Nieves Conde) (the preacher)
N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson) (swo17)
Secret People (Thorold Dickinson) (Sloper)
Wienerinnen (Kurt Steinwendner) (Tommaso)
Domenica d'Agosto (Luciano Emmer) (Tommaso)
Momma Don't Allow (Karel Reisz & Tony Richardson) (Wu.Qinghua)
There's No Peace Under the Olive Tree (Giuseppe de Santis) (Wu.Qinghua)
Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman) (Wu.Qinghua)
AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS
BEST EDITIONS
As you all well know, not all DVDs are created equal--poor transfers, wrong aspect ratios, and other issues can often mar the most readily available releases of certain films, and DVD Beaver and other sites aren't always that helpful in pointing out preferable alternatives. If you find yourself in this boat for a particular title, this is the section for you.
If there's a film for which you are seeking the best edition, let me know and I'll list it here. By the same token, if you have a suggestion for what the best edition is of a film listed here, or if you would like to take the initiative to recommend a certain edition of a film not yet listed here, let me know that as well. Hopefully we can answer each other's questions and come up with something of a comprehensive guide for the other than obvious cases.
Buñuel's Los olvidados: knives' rec, Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's El: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's Nazarin: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's Wuthering Heights: Michael Kerpan's rec
Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (other than the OOP Criterion): Feego's rec
Lye's Color Cry, Rhythm, and Free Radicals: swo17's rec
Rossellini's Voyage to Italy?
Welles' Othello: matrixschmatrix's rec
AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS
DESPERATELY SEEKING SO AND SO
Is there a film you're dying to see but you've exhausted all possible avenues for finding it and still come up short? List it here and perhaps some kind soul will be able to direct you to a copy by PM. Please limit listings here to only a few films that you're most desperate to see.
knives is looking for: the films of Kinuyo Tanaka
Resources compiled by swo17, Tommaso, domino harvey, Jean-Luc Garbo
***Please PM me if you have any suggestions for additions to/deletions from this first post.***
If you are reading this sentence, you are eligible to participate in our forum's latest decades lists project exploring the films of the 1950s. If you know anyone adventurous enough--on or off the forum--that you think would also enjoy participating, feel free to invite them as well.
Please PM me your list of what you believe are the top 50 films from the decade toward the end of the project. You may feel that you could compile a list of 50 favorite films from this period much earlier than the deadline, but it's still highly recommended that you engage in the discussions here. Don't keep your favorites a secret, and always be open to suggestions from others!
THE RULES
1) Each individual list is to comprise no more or less than 50 films, ranked in your order of preference (with no ties). If you haven't yet seen 50 films from the decade that you think are genuinely great (or even if you have), please take advantage of the resources listed below and participate in the ongoing discussions to find films that you can be proud to put on your list.
2) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1950s (1950-1959) is eligible.
3) The date given on IMDb is the relevant date for determining eligibility, even when it's clearly wrong (unless a special case is made below). If the film is not on IMDb and you say it was released during the 1950s, I'll take your word for it.
4) Multi-part films released separately (e.g. Eisenstein's Ivans) count as one film. Each entry in a trilogy (e.g. Ray's Apus) counts as a separate film.
5) For portmanteau films with multiple directors, each of the individual segments and the film as a whole are all separately eligible.
We might occasionally need to make an exception to rule 3 or 4. If you are seriously considering including a film on your list that you have a question about in this regard, bring it up in this thread and we'll iron it out.
For more details about rules and procedures, please refer here.
ELIGIBILITY – REMINDERS / SPECIAL CASES
Teleplays, such as those featured in Criterion's Golden Age of Television set, the TV version of 12 Angry Men, or Tragedy in a Temporary Town, are eligible.
Ivan the Terrible, Part 2 is ineligible, as we grouped it with Part 1 and included the pair in our 1940s project.
Len Lye's Tal Farlow is incorrectly listed on IMDb as a 1950s film. It will not be eligible until the 1980s project.
Konrad Wolf's Sun Seekers is eligible as a 1950s film, even though IMDb lists it as a '70s film (it was banned from release for 14 years).
The following multi-part films count as one film for purposes of this project (this is just a reminder, not an exhaustive list): The Tiger of Eschnapur/The Indian Tomb, The Human Condition (eligible as a whole for the '50s, even though the last part came out in the '60s)
The following films may be cited as 1950s releases in some places, but are 1960s on IMDb, and so are not eligible for this list: Une histoire d'eau, Window Water Baby Moving, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Cruel Story of Youth, Le Trou, Together (Mazzetti), The Nightingale's Prayer, The Savage Eye, Letter Never Sent, Eyes Without a Face, Breathless, A la Mode, The Virgin Spring, Kapò, The Testament of Orpheus, The End of Summer, The Overcoat
The following films are cited as 1950s films on IMDb, and so are eligible for this list, regardless of what anyone else might say: Gun Crazy, Orpheus, The Flowers of St. Francis, Stromboli, Stage Fright, The Gunfighter, To Joy, Anticipation of the Night, Jazz on a Summer’s Day, Distant Journey, A Man Walks in the City, The Great War, Side Street, The Law, Le Signe du lion, The Wayward Girl, Shadows
RESOURCES
Past Forum Discussions
Discussion from the Forum's Prior 1950s Project
Defending of Sad Pandas from the Forum's Prior 1950s Project
'50s List Project: Seminal Secondary Sources
Discussion from the Forum's Noir List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Western List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Musicals List Project
Discussion from the Forum's Horror List Project
The Alternate Oscars: Best Picture 1927-1968
100 Russian and Eastern European Classics
Tex Avery DVD availability in R1
Forum Discussions of International DVDs
African / Bulgarian / Chinese / Cuban / Czech / Dutch / Finnish / German / Hungarian / Norwegian / Polish / Romanian / South American / Swedish / Turkish / Ukrainian / Yugoslavian
Forum Discussions of Filmmakers Active During the 1950s
Robert Aldrich / Michelangelo Antonioni / Ingmar Bergman / Budd Boetticher / Robert Bresson / Luis Buñuel / Frank Capra / Claude Chabrol / Charles Chaplin / Henri-Georges Clouzot / George Cukor / Jules Dassin / Delmer Daves / Vittorio De Sica / André de Toth / Carl Theodor Dreyer / Federico Fellini / John Ford / Georges Franju / Samuel Fuller / Jean-Luc Godard / Jean Grémillon / Wojciech Has / Howard Hawks / Monte Hellman / Alfred Hitchcock / John Huston / Shôhei Imamura / Henry King / John Krish / Stanley Kubrick / Akira Kurosawa / Fritz Lang / David Lean / Joseph Losey / Sidney Lumet / Alexander Mackendrick / Louis Malle / Joseph L. Mankiewicz / Anthony Mann / Jean-Pierre Melville / Vincente Minnelli / Kenji Mizoguchi / Andrzej Munk / Mikio Naruse / Max Ophüls / Yasujirô Ozu / Roman Polanski / Michael Powell / Otto Preminger / Richard Quine / Nicholas Ray / Satyajit Ray / Alain Resnais / Jean Renoir / Roberto Rossellini / Don Siegel / Robert Siodmak / Douglas Sirk / Josef von Sternberg / George Stevens / John Sturges / Andrei Tarkovsky / Frank Tashlin / Jacques Tati / Jacques Tourneur / François Truffaut / Gustav Ucicky / José Val del Omar / Agnès Varda / Luchino Visconti / Andrzej Wajda / Raoul Walsh / Orson Welles / William A. Wellman / Billy Wilder / Fred Zinnemann
Forum Discussions of 1950s Films
All About Eve / Anticipation of the Night / Il bidone / The Big Sky / The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T / Friendly Persuasion / Hell Drivers / The Hound of the Baskervilles / The Hunchback of Notre Dame / Imitation of Life / Mandy / Men in War / Mesa of Lost Women / My Son John / The Naked and the Dead / Othello / Pillow Talk / Plan 9 from Outer Space / Rebel Without a Cause / Summer Stock / Sunset Blvd. / The Thief / The Wide Blue Road
Additionally, any '50s film available from Criterion or MoC will have its own thread, which you can find in the linked indices.
Guides Within This Thread
Mr. Sausage on Kurosawa
domino harvey on Astruc, Chabrol, DeMille, Donen, Hawks, Hitchcock, Kazan, Logan, Mankiewicz, Ray, Ritt, Sidney, Walters, Wilder, and Wyler, Cromwell, Ford, and Stevens, Anthony, Frank & Panama, Daniel Mann, and Preminger, Capra, Delbert Mann, Minnelli, and Zinnemann, Fuller, Kramer, and Lang, Huston, Lupino, and Anthony Mann
Michael Kerpan on Japan: Part 1 / Part 2
Minkin on Abbott and Costello
Shrew on China
zedz on 1950s Experimental Films on DVD
the preacher on Spain, Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela
External Resources
A list of films from the 1950s appearing on They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's Top 1000 or Doubling the Canon lists
Cahiers du cinéma's Top 10s from the 1950s
Recommended Reading
The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era, Thomas Schatz
The Fifties, David Halberstam
Movie Love in the 50s, James Harvey
Laughing Hysterically: American Screen Comedy of the 1950s, Ed Sikov
FORUM MEMBER SPOTLIGHTS
Is there a film you love that you fear is under most people's radar? Try shining a light on it! To inaugurate a film into the spotlight section, just follow these three simple steps:
1. Make a post about the film discussing why you find it so exceptional.
2. Clearly indicate that you wish the film to be one of your spotlight titles.
3. Direct others to where the film can be found.
I'll keep track of all the spotlight titles here so that they can be easily referenced. You're welcome to have more than one spotlight title, but try not to have too many more, so it's manageable for everyone to be able to see them all.
Everyone is strongly encouraged to give each of these films the same chance that you would hope others would give your own spotlight titles.
The Elephant Will Never Forget (John Krish) (knives)
Three Little Bops (Friz Freleng) (knives)
A Kiss Before Dying (Gerd Oswald) (domino harvey)
Detective Story (William Wyler) (domino harvey)
Flowing (Mikio Naruse) (puxzkkx)
Free Radicals (Len Lye) (zedz)
Rhythm (Len Lye) (zedz)
There's Always Tomorrow (Douglas Sirk) (zedz)
Park Row (Samuel Fuller) (Shrew)
La notte brava (Mauro Bolognini) (Dylan)
O Drakos (Nikos Koundouros) (Calvin)
Give a Girl a Break (Stanley Donen) (swo17)
Furrows (José Antonio Nieves Conde) (the preacher)
N.Y., N.Y. (Francis Thompson) (swo17)
Secret People (Thorold Dickinson) (Sloper)
Wienerinnen (Kurt Steinwendner) (Tommaso)
Domenica d'Agosto (Luciano Emmer) (Tommaso)
Momma Don't Allow (Karel Reisz & Tony Richardson) (Wu.Qinghua)
There's No Peace Under the Olive Tree (Giuseppe de Santis) (Wu.Qinghua)
Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman) (Wu.Qinghua)
AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS
BEST EDITIONS
As you all well know, not all DVDs are created equal--poor transfers, wrong aspect ratios, and other issues can often mar the most readily available releases of certain films, and DVD Beaver and other sites aren't always that helpful in pointing out preferable alternatives. If you find yourself in this boat for a particular title, this is the section for you.
If there's a film for which you are seeking the best edition, let me know and I'll list it here. By the same token, if you have a suggestion for what the best edition is of a film listed here, or if you would like to take the initiative to recommend a certain edition of a film not yet listed here, let me know that as well. Hopefully we can answer each other's questions and come up with something of a comprehensive guide for the other than obvious cases.
Buñuel's Los olvidados: knives' rec, Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's El: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's Nazarin: Michael Kerpan's rec
Buñuel's Wuthering Heights: Michael Kerpan's rec
Fellini's Nights of Cabiria (other than the OOP Criterion): Feego's rec
Lye's Color Cry, Rhythm, and Free Radicals: swo17's rec
Rossellini's Voyage to Italy?
Welles' Othello: matrixschmatrix's rec
AWAITING FURTHER SUGGESTIONS
DESPERATELY SEEKING SO AND SO
Is there a film you're dying to see but you've exhausted all possible avenues for finding it and still come up short? List it here and perhaps some kind soul will be able to direct you to a copy by PM. Please limit listings here to only a few films that you're most desperate to see.
knives is looking for: the films of Kinuyo Tanaka
Resources compiled by swo17, Tommaso, domino harvey, Jean-Luc Garbo
***Please PM me if you have any suggestions for additions to/deletions from this first post.***