The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

[nitin]

Mr Arkadin really does get short shrift, it’s as luridly mad a noir as there ever was.

[therewillbeblus]

Even though I've seen it, I don't know, five times or so, I don't believe I've watched anything but the comprehensive version. Can anybody speak to the other two cuts - and does anybody prefer them to the longer one?

[Roger Ryan]

Even though I've seen it, I don't know, five times or so, I don't believe I've watched anything but the comprehensive version. Can anybody speak to the other two cuts - and does anybody prefer them to the longer one?

Since Welles was forced out during post-production, there really isn't a definitive director's cut (this is a different situation from, say, Othello or Macbeth which are available in multiple cuts all controlled by Welles). The "Corinth" version represents the film in a somewhat unfinished state which may be close to Welles' intentions. Since the "Comprehensive" version uses the "Corinth" edit as a starting point, then adds in all the extant footage Welles shot for the film and straightens out the continuity, I believe it's the best version and closest to what Welles originally envisioned (full disclosure: I know the folks behind the "Comprehensive" version). I believe Welles hadn't even settled on the flashback structure until principal photography was well underway, so all the versions tend to be flawed in a similar way. While the "Comprehensive" version is the only one to present the flashbacks in a logical order (a big plus for me), I can see why some think the additional footage becomes redundant (the chief culprit being the two anecdotes Arkadin tells at the party, which is probably one too many). I know Jonathan Rosenbaum and James Naremore have argued that the "Confidential Report" edit has better overall audio, but I think that's negligible.

[therewillbeblus]

Interesting insights, Roger, thanks for that!

[therewillbeblus]

I finally finished off Bunuel's 50s features (and completed his filmography in the process), and found this decade to be wildly uneven, far more than I anticipated, with basically every great film one I had previously seen. Having said that, it's not without its merits. A revisit of Los Olvidados was less intense than the first time, but the film is overall a successful social problem picture with a fearless honesty that finds comfort in dissecting characters often left to the sidelines. One of Bunuel's strongest straight dramas, and still holding some eccentric flourishes like the opening play-matador POV of the camera-as-mock bull.

I already praised Susana but I think that in the context of this decade it's the film that succeeds most in balancing a societal critique with an exposition on anthropological comedy. La hija del engaño is lighter and more of a farce, but a far cry from the Bunuel I know and love. The jealousy later explored in the better El turns into resentment quickly, and the guilt that rolls out as we move through the story is comedic and a demonstration of social influence. It’s not a great film, or one of his better of the 50s, but it’s worth seeing, even if many of the jokes fall flat amidst the meandering choppy narrative, including the final ‘punchline.’ El Bruto similarly goes for a lighter spin on a romantic drama, taking a cute and playful angle of the social problem film. I’m not over the moon about it either but at least I felt more of a connection to these characters than most of his weaker films this decade. This one does have a whopper of an ending though, bordering on nihilistic, with a bizarre exchanging glance with an animal to finish the film on a particularly odd yet powerful note.

I didn't like Subida al cielo's meandering shrug of an attempt at silly adventure, but Una mujer sin amor, which Bunuel himself declared to be his worst film, can probably take that prize. It’s not a particularly terrible film but it’s lacking any Bunuel charms. A bourgeois family encounters a more modest man who falls in love with the matriarch and she realizes that she married for money, and of course the poorer man is more humble and kind. What ensues is predictable drama that’s been done a hundred times, and none of Bunuel’s thematic interests are present, aside from some picking at classist and financial motivators, but even to cite those is akin to grasping at straws.

El is the masterclass on jealousy in relationships based on intimacy and convention, a darker undertaking on melodrama that hits relatable serious issues with comedy, to hone in on the broader scope of sexual desire evoking jealousy in Susana. Abismos de Pasion may not be nearly as good as those films but it's one of the better of the bottom half, as a Mexico-set adaptation of Wuthering Heights that serves as a contrast to Bunuel’s follow up film, another adaption, of Robinson Crusoe. While that later film shows the insanity of isolation and the need for socialization, this film emphasizes the insanity that comes with socialization and the push to separate oneself from others. However, the two align in the eventual retreat back to others, the magnet of connection perhaps absurd but inevitably compelling. Bunuel’s adaptation is extreme, full of rigidly emotional declarations and animosity against the self and others. The conflict is always acute and intense while remaining objective, like a milieu being studied but also empathized with, maybe more than the average film of his, for there is much less mocking going on here, even if it is often in jest. Bunuel’s surrealism is spliced in expectedly, but perhaps not as expected, for the final images not only spin off from the novel (though to be fair it’s not like this is trying to be a meticulous adaptation anyways) but are some of the most intense horror-level surrealist markings of his career.

La ilusión viaja en tranvía was quite funny, centering around a pair of heavy drinking workers who carelessly float through life and sacrifice sensibilities over the fondness for meaningless adventures. Their fleeting agendas and passive personalities sans ambition reminded me of so many comedies made today that aren’t half as charming as this, especially lacking the randomness of character and willingness to find unpredictable avenues that forfeit safety in explicable development for comedy. The arcs break off into pieces of interpersonal relationships between eccentrics, which both adds to the film’s interest and takes away from cohesion. All in all, a fine film.

Ensayo de un crimen is just as spectacular as I remembered. A black comedy about a man who may or may not want to kill but believes he has super powers, exhibiting delusions of grandeur that build this up (one of the eeriest and most hilarious scenes in Bunuel’s career is when his childhood self smiles over the dead body of his surrogate mother early on). The idea of a psychopath failing repeatedly to commit murder should be under the definition of dark comedy in the dictionary, although that idea is more of a facade for the themes of solipsism and catholic guilt that drive this exposition. Bunuel uses his best skills at surrealistic layered narrative and satire on human behavior to build a space where the principal character abides by bourgeois mannerisms and yet his mind as sinister as it is noble. The continuous emasculation of his deviant identity is extra appealing because it stunts the delicate psychology that has put all eggs in one basket, ironic as it centers around power and the result of not achieving this aim leads to an absence of power and self.

There is a key subtext that hints at less of a sociopathic re-emergence later in life with the music box and more of a need to escape from the banal of bourgeois routine. Since he is triggered by the music box, which signifies a sensation unfamiliar from apathy, this is just as much a commentary on the bourgeois (not a surprise) and provides another layer in humor in proposing that our protagonist may be not able to distinguish between his own innate desires and a a conditioned desire to escape his boring life! On top of all of this is his own preoccupation with fatalism, creating significance and ascribing it to events in a manner that is completely fabricated in his delusions. He feels responsible for his intrusive thoughts and so he stretches this to blame himself for actions he can not and has not taken- a deranged kind of narcissism that loathes and loves the self to degrees eliminating perspective, like a child living in his own imagination. At times this plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon stenciled onto a sociological farce, and the unaware antihero, the kind of character Bunuel draws best, is reminiscent of the husband in El or Fernando Rey’s characters throughout the end of his body of work. A fun film, and one of Bunuel’s best of the decade.

The early argument that erupts to kick off the central conflict which drives the plot in El río y la muerte is rooted in such sensitivity of ego that I found the entire situation hysterical despite its grave results. The film takes itself seriously enough to limit the comedic effects from balancing out the mood, a talent Bunuel was still developing with less consistency in this period. La fievre monte a el pao is a Shakespearean political thriller-drama that also plays itself pretty straight, with Bunuel more interested in exploring his own conflicting cynicism of social walls separating people through politics and the humanity that breaks through said barriers by the few with strong moral wills. This was a well-shot film with a great use of location that transplants the viewer into its environment. Too bad the story, characters, and the film's agenda didn’t work terribly hard to convince me to invest into them, and in the end I can’t say there’s anything wrong with the film, but there’s nothing that makes it exceptional either. I felt similarly about his earlier film, Cela s'appelle l'aurore, which had a more involving and intimate narrative but nevertheless remained a rather unspectacular film. This is Bunuel at his most sympathetic and least challenging, but as he wears his moral motivations on his sleeve rather than masking them under a web of snarky traps, it may have heart but it lacks the creativity in his soul.

Rewatching La mort en ce jardin in the context of his 50s works proves successful as a more cheeky rambunctious tale of rebellion against domineering and oppressive forces. There’s a more involving story with colorful characters and a sense do adventure, all squarely planted within the political backdrop that is close to Bunuel’s heart. Unfortunately, like a lot of his films of this decade, the characters and environment become tiresome as they go on. Bunuel really succeeds best going deeper in satire as the central pursuit in this period, which allows him to then explore character and emotion spun off of these ideas.

Nazarin's revisit only solidified the likelihood that this may be Bunuel’s masterpiece, or at least close to it. Basically the complement to Bresson’s gravely serious Diary of a Country Priest, we are presented with a priest who is also in a thankless and oppressed position but fails to help his fellow man in spite of his efforts. It’s no coincidence that he wears a much more confident disposition, which hints at its own solipsism or pride blocking true humility, and this is essentially his journey to achieving that spiritual perspective through failure. Bresson’s priest learns the same lessons but in a less comedic way, and while I prefer that film for the way it opens up an invisible door to relatable surrogate spiritual experience, Bunuel makes equally strong filmmaking choices to drive home his point. He wisely opts to present the ultimate existential joke in dukkha, or to quote a line from Hesse’s Steppenwolf, “true humor begins when a man ceases to rise himself seriously,” that which does not kill us we can choose to laugh at and can grow from this laughter as a portal to a wider point of view. I love the surrealistic psychotic dreams at the start and the juxtaposition between 'immoral' behavior or thoughts and the priest’s good naturedness, the people of the world treating each with the same degree of apathy, non-discriminatory and relativist. Nazarin’s own character defects are made apparent throughout the journey as he adopts a rigid dismissal of the heretics’ proposal of the values of ‘evils’ and his narrow-mindedness is continually shown to be not only a handicap but a psychological mechanism by which he represses uncomfortable content or alternative perspectives, hinting at an insecurity of his own faith deep down. This is not a comedy but plays to both tones, finding its drama in the comedy of life.

The potential didactic position of nihilism is undercut by a peripheral view that still leaves open space for God’s existence but on a non-interventionist plane. The final moment is possible to read as a convoluted lesson that undoes the self and allows Nazarin to access total humility, much like Ginepro does in The Flowers of St. Francis, God showing his love and teachings through indirect obstacles or perhaps no intrusion whatsoever. Life itself begets the lesson, and what is God but the indescribable seams that remain invisible but are essential to our awareness and personal growth. People say God works through others- well, if so, it’s certainly working through a lot of oppressors and apparent deviants for Nazarin to see the light and separate himself from a barrier to true surrender to his higher power.

[Michael Kerpan]

TWBB -- Nice write up (which I largely agree with).

Even if Bunuel's output was uneven in this decade -- we still get a remarkable number of masterpieces. It is really a shame that almost none of his best films from this period have yet gotten first class releases (and some have gotten no commercial English-subbed releases at all).

[therewillbeblus]

Agreed - El, Susana, Nazarin and Ensayo de un crimen are so rooted within the already established Buneulian wheelhouse that I'm genuinely shocked at their absence from Criterion. Susana even has a kind of inverse-Viridiana thing going!

I'm curious to hear thoughts on Abismos de Pasion from fans of Wuthering Heights. I can't say I remember much about the book at all, and had to look up summaries to compare, but aside from the bonkers ending I'd be interested on how Bunuel changes things to either go against the themes or towards them differently - it appears that even the finale is a bold declaration in step with the tamer source! I'd happily go back and re-read the book myself if there's enough there to make it a fun project.

[Michael Kerpan]

I love Streetcar and Bruto (which _I_ don't find "light" at all) almost as much as these others....

When I initially strongly disliked Rivette's Wuthering Heights, I decided to re-read (or finally finish, perhaps) the book. I discovered that much of what I disliked was traceable directly to the book itself.

[therewillbeblus]

Bruto definitely isn’t “light” but I thought it stood out amongst many of his other political films as a bit funnier and less rigid in its approach. As it progresses though it becomes one of the more intense and that ending is one of his best and destabilizing of his career.

[Michael Kerpan]

And I thought Bruto was stronger than average purely visually among Bunuel's films.

I find the neglect of Streetcar in the English-using world mystifying -- it is surely one of Bunuel's most fun to watch films.

[therewillbeblus]

From Here to Eternity: Oof, I used to really like this movie, but it follows the trend of Zinnemann films that have lost all charm as I age and revisit. It’s not bad, has some decent acting and melodramatic arcs, but overall feels stale and lame in its attempts at involving drama. With a cast like this isn’t hard to not thrive, so I guess middling success is destined to feel like a bit of a disappointment.

Casque d’or: This was a first for me and while I don’t share barryconvex’s level of enthusiasm, I’ll agree that the most successful parts of this film are in the small mannerisms of the leads and the way Becker subtly dresses scenes to reach subliminally effortless impact of authentic expression. The genius of the ending’s change-up is in bringing us back to the harsh finality from the best subjective account we didn’t know we needed, and it’s a wonder more of these stories don’t finish with a lens this deep into the other side of the romantic link instead of finding safety sharing the wealth between them and losing potential for this intensity in the process.

The Blue Gardenia: I’ve seen this a few times and it’s never been one to wow me, although I admire Baxter’s perf especially as a mud pit of guilt and confusion as she must find some security in reality testing while also navigating her sense of moral responsibility and self-preservation. The setup is exciting, taking over a third of the film to slowly build to the main plot while flashing out the characters, their relationships, and stresses. Still, when Baxter leaves the screen during the second half, the film loses steam and it’s tough for me to break through to caring about the noirish twists and turns. Everything that works for me here lies in the performance and Lang’s knack for the first third pacing and detailing of milieu (cough, Woman in the Window).

The more Lang I rewatch, the less I find myself actually enjoying his Hollywood films in whole even if I always admire aspects of them. The Big Heat might make my list though, as one of the most entertaining and yet brutally cold threats to the safety and comfort of he values in ideological state apparatuses, from law and order to the nuclear family to Christian morality, wearing the clothes of a typical noir. The key to that one is Glenn Ford’s demeanor as he faces his fellow man with condescension labeling them as deviants with his eyes and rigid body language, revealing his own fragility as the outlier, an exposed vase on a wobbly table surrounded by bullets flying. The times they are a changin’

[domino harvey]

The Blue Gardenia has always been my favorite Lang, and it's a top ten contender for my list. But I think it's one of the more notable disconnects between me and the rest of the world, though I'm still plugging away at building it up. Maybe one day you'll all wake up and smell the Polynesian Pearl Divers. It would of course only help the cause if a boutique label could restore and release it over some of these other low priority American Langs they've been pumping out lately....

[therewillbeblus]

Even though I’m not in love with the film, I’d still take it over probably any other Hollywood film of his aside from the one I mentioned, so I’ll second that

[senseabove]

I've been anxious about revisiting The Blue Gardenia. I loved it when I saw it, but given that it has virtually no reputation to speak of, I went in with very low expectations, so I'm not sure whether I think it's good or it was just that much better than I expected... I'll get to it for the list for sure, though. I do wish someone would restore it, but I suspect that's going to take a lot of effort—I dug around a few months back and even going as far back as the 90s, I couldn't find record of any screenings that weren't from 16mm! It's baffling how it's ended up in such neglect, given how well-represented the rest of his sound work is...

There are three or four I still need to see, but the Hollywood Lang that I definitely adore (aside from The Big Heat, of course, which is an easy lock for my list) is You Only Live Once. I was warm to it the first time, but it floored me the second time... I liked Fury quite a bit, too. But those aren't 50s films, so I won't elaborate here.

[therewillbeblus]

Those are the other two I like that come to mind too. I have a soft spot for Ministry of Fear because I admire its silly ruckus shot from a master, but I can’t say it’s particularly good and is probably the worst offender of uneven Hollywood Lang. I can’t say anything bad about Scarlet Street even if I found it overrated (this was probably 12 or 13 years ago in an early college film class though, so I should revisit), but The Blue Gardenia is maybe the least sloppy (or second) and I likely keep going back to it time and time again because it works so well in some areas and it’s so close to working in others that I want to give myself another chance for it to click more fully together.

[knives]

I think in the noir thread Dom and I had a nice convo on it, but I'll second him that it is one of the most interesting and successful films from Lang full stop. The way it makes literal female anxieties makes it a perfect double feature with My Sister Eileen.

[therewillbeblus]

The way it makes literal female anxieties makes it a perfect double feature with My Sister Eileen.

I support that reading, which is what I was getting at with Baxter’s perf. Maybe I’ll give it another go and relinquish investment in surface level noir plotting since that’s clearly my hangup, but I agree that thematically it hits a similar spot- that’s a good comparison with the Quine.

[barryconvex]

La Tête Contre Les Murs (Georges Franju 1959)

Jean-Pierre Mocky is the rebellious son of a morally questionable but high profile lawyer. When Mocky's debt to a local crime lord is called in he attempts to break in to his father's house and steal what he owes. After being caught in the act his father has him shipped off to a mental hospital where the bulk of the film takes place. It's a watchable movie but nowhere near the highs Franju will hit with Eyes Without A Face and Thérèse Desqueyroux in 1960 and '62. Here Franju claims all the moral high ground for his uninteresting central protagonist while presenting character after character bereft of any ambiguities or subtleties. There's the bad doctor whose only goal is to keep the mentally ill locked up and away from the rest of society for as long as it suits him and the good doctor who believes in rehabilitation and working with his patients to find some version of their lives that could be workable outside of the sanitarium's walls. Mocky's character is equally one dimensional, his defining personality trait a self centered sense of entitlement not particularly uncommon among people of his age and class. Anouk Aimée plays his saintly girlfriend who is instantly and inexplicably devoted to him despite having only one brief conversation with him before he's committed. Why Franju decided against establishing a backstory between them, even something rudimentary and underdeveloped would've been infinitely more believable than what's shown here, I can't say. Aimée instead is presented as an ideal, a concept that might've worked if she'd been given a little room for expansion in a less rigidly grounded atmosphere. Try as I might, I cannot help but view this film through a veil of similarly themed and superior films that came in its wake, with Titicut Follies being the final word on barbaric psychiatric conditions (what's seen here looks slightly uncomfortable in comparison) of the mid twentieth century and the lives lived under those conditions.

[barryconvex]

Some Came Running


From the very opening, we begin with a strange dissonance between music and image: the image is a man on a bus, daytime, with the bright yellow of the credits overlayed, sleeping, and yet the music, bombastic and dreading, suggests tragedy and doom. The reverse shot, prompted by the bus driver waking up Frank Sinatra's Dave Hirsch, a former writer and GI and current drunk (and gambler), we have established the most important relationship of the film: Dave, in the foreground, and, in the background, mostly covered, sleeping, signaled by a bright red that will continue to signal her until the very end, Shirley MacLaine's Ginny, ignored by the film and Dave. When I say that the film's profundity and greatness is contained almost entirely in Ginny, I'm sure I will evoke skepticism, but for me, she is the Falstaff of this piece: MacLaine's performance is one for the ages, and the character as she plays it is contains such multitudes that I don't think I will ever be able to capture the funny heartbreak and the heartbreaking funniness of her. With her gaudy bright makeup and her rarely downtrodden attitude, she is truly a clown. This is a film nearly devoid of closeups––the wideness of the screen makes them rather difficult––but that doesn't stop Minnelli from providing her with an astonishingly vivid one: a cut from a three shot which makes her makeup seem excessive and trashy to the close-up focus on MacLaine, whose bright red lips and cheeks are suddenly transformed by the big red flower blooming out of the side of her head and the soft, gauzy lighting, and we understand suddenly, or should understand, that this character, who was left behind at the start of the film and then not seen again for almost a third of the running time, is the moral center of the film, the heart of this film. Minnelli loves beauty, and it's significant that he sees such startling, radiant beauty in her. MacLaine and Minnelli spare no opportunities, however, for providing Ginny with as many moments of confident shattered as possible however. The scene where she's talking to Dave as he's packing up, following him back and forth, literally into the closet, simply to keep his attention as much as she can, can only resemble a puppy dog trying to get attention. And I find myself continually thinking of the shot, where Ginny starts crying while talking to the schoolteacher Gwen, and bows her head, and the camera for a quiet moment fixates on the dark brown roots of her hair. It was either this scene, or the following one where she congratulates Dave on her story and he berates her, but I found myself literally in tears for long minutes, crying in pity about how sad kind people can be. I spent most of the film scoffing at the grand achievement of her performance, unable to keep myself from vocalizing the soft pangs of identification with the vulnerability MacLaine is able to achieve by so many subtle effects. And I don't think anyone has achieved such a perfect portrayal of cluelessness as she has when Dave interrogates her about her story.

Hinky's summary is like a better articulated version of my own thoughts, almost exactly. Maclaine is the whole movie for me, her character unlike any I've ever seen before. Despite looking like little more than a drunken roll in the hay, she's the only person here who knows what love is, or at least believes in its importance. An angel ironically dressed in floozy's clothing, she's man's better nature traded for a fifth of gin and a pack of Luckys. Her hair may be dyed- tarnished by a hard life- but her roots are still intact though unnoticeable to anyone not taking the time to look at her more closely. With this quick shot of the top of her head (as mentioned by Hinky), Minelli sums up what this woman has been through and provides a portrait of her battered but unbroken soul. The moment that stood out the most for me was Maclaine's reaction to Martin's name calling in the scene where Sinatra announces his intention to marry her. It's almost unwatchable it's so painful and matches in potency the gut shot of a finale when Martin is moved to take off his hat and Sinatra finally realizes what he had. Thank you hinky (and blu) for the great write up(s), this is definitely making my list.

[therewillbeblus]

The Three Faces of Eve: Dated melopsychodrama with a typical Oscar-winning perf by Woodward who would give us her best roles across the late 60s and 70s in her husband’s ‘smaller’ films. Cobb’s therapeutic interventions aren’t eye-rolling for the times and their relationship is a kind one of decent rapport, though Woodward’s awareness to her symptoms and mobility in practice makes this capital-E Easy Street and the film suffers for it. Even in resigning the silly nature of the exhibition doesn’t allow the film to materialize into something challenging, because the script plays out expectedly and this kind of material demands just a tad of complexity to be interesting, which it’s desperately trying to be with the air of mystery lingering to no avail. The reveal is so stupid from any possible angle, only shown up by the even stupider cure that follows, though the film lost me well before so luckily I wasn’t hanging on by the curiosity of the plot. Still, it’s a committed performance and a composite of the way trauma and therapy were understood at the time, even if it’s probably ridiculous as narrative for the times just as well as now.

Scaramouche: It’s hard to say anything bad about this film, as it’s exceptionally shot and written, with Ferrer turning in an especially sly performance and the famous sword fighting scene is not only well choreographed but the diversity in angles and points of view are creatively inspired. As far as taking on a classic revenge story, all parties churn out something solid, though in spite of all its positives, I didn’t find the work very memorable or different enough from the framework to be particularly interesting. Not that this is what makes a movie, but I guess I was expecting more of a fresh take considering its reputation here and elsewhere.

Pushover: I liked this the first time and it fared about the same on a rewatch, perhaps up a notch due to more familiarity with Quine. It’s an enjoyable and well-driven noir from the man with intelligent comprehension of physical space, showing off that skill set with a sense of early career mastery already. The confusion of all participants, blind to some element to the action which places them in danger, accentuates Quine’s interest in the limitations of mankind and feels like the primary inspiration for the Coens’ Blood Simple. This has no danger of making my list but it’s quite good, and MacMurray acting a fool is always a nice plus.

Arrowhead: domino summed up this film’s strengths and eerie canonized vibe better than I could. As an action adventure film I didn’t particularly care for it, but along the anti-communist analysis that delivers validation on problematic stereotypes it becomes the vision of a progressive’s nightmare by embodying the self-fulfilling prophecy of a conservative one. As opposed to the multiple personality time capsule of The Three Faces of Eve this one thrives by its historical context both within itself and in relationship to all eras since, and likely many more to come. I’ll admit that I didn’t love the film but Palance’s performance alone makes this worth seeing and the implications of its didacticism in bizarre masochistic wish fulfillment are fascinating.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

I have some catch-up work to do, since I actually watched these a while ago.

The Holly and the Ivy
A strong British cast helps bolster an underdeveloped script. I'm affectionate of films like these, as I believe I've remarked elsewhere: small domestic stories set in the British midcentury, depicting a scenery best described as idyllic, or even the sort of physically evocative cobblestone and brick British towns that populate early Hitchcock or some of Lean's early films. The film is about a British family getting together for Christmas, all of them essentially side-stepping personal issues to best please their pastor father, played with typical strength by Ralph Richardson. The best section of the film is the existentially frank conversation between Richardson and his daughter, who has been thrown into emotional turmoil by the reality of the cold and empty nature of the universe. It wraps up too quickly, but it's got an unusually melancholic tone.

No Man of Her Own
This is a remarkable little melodrama. I hesitate to say much about it, since I went in cold and it played better for having known nothing about it. Leisen's direction is clearly superior to the script itself, and while it fails to match To Each His Own or Hold Back the Dawn, strong performances all around and Leisen's elegant direction, and an undeniably strong sense of suspense keep this moving.

Ride Lonesome
I'd seen this many years ago––my first Boetticher––and I wasn't particular taken with it then, and I'm certainly not now. Boetticher's direction is always elegant but the material he is saddled with is a frightful bore. I've never been convinced by arguments that Mann and Boetticher bring to the Western a compelling moral ambiguity or roughness. Sure, their characters and stories are filled with moral darkness that surprises most unfamiliar with classic Hollywood, but I with absolutely take John Ford's mishmash any day of the weak, which I find to be far more interesting morally. Simply, I just found this rather dull for much of its backhalf, although the imagery is sometimes striking.

Outcast of the Islands
Did any other filmmaker of this time in the mainstream industry cut quite as quickly as Reed? This is a choppy picture, even compared to something like The Third Man, and it seems to owe something to its location shooting, some of which is obviously intercut with studio shots. Although obviously more 'exotic' than his other films from this period, Reed's placement of the action in an environment where the main character is completely out of touch with the rest of the inhabitants is not unusual nor does it seem particularly orientalist––the islanders behave in much the same way as the Viennese, for example, in The Third Man. Here, too, Reed's interest in clashing innocence with morbidity is at perhaps its most abundant, between the conflation of play with torture, and the paternalistic attitude Richardson strikes with Howard––indeed, with seemingly every individual he meets in his life. This is a film of striking cruelty, and virtually no one is spared.

[nitin]

No Man of Her Own is such an underrated film. Stanwyck as usual does a lot more with the role than written. Was hoping Olive upgraded their DVD but it never came to pass.

[therewillbeblus]

The Bad and the Beautiful

This fared much better on a second watch, even though I liked it the first time. It’s not so much Douglas that runs away with the film (although his presence is unquestionably crucial to the success of what does), but the script and nature of storytelling, which takes the narrative spinning of Citizen Kane and instead of providing shades of dimension to Douglas’ psychology, deflects those dimensions to the ambiguity of value his selfish actions beget. I can’t think of a film that shows the power of resilience in taking information and drawing strength and motivation from social rejection quite like this does. It’s incredibly optimistic in that regard, and the punchline packs a wallop of flavor in shaking the audience to this realization after hitting the expected beats of frustration of injustice with a twist of fate.

The film is coated in glamour and an ode to the value in our experiences as told through memory as positive and beautiful despite the pain that comes with the ride. It also exposes the faults in the subjectivity of memory and forces an expansion of perspective to see the yang embedded in the yin of every situation, the old “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” argument made into a more complex idea with less condescension. This movie is more successful in its style and narrative pathways than most of its kind, giving the Welles a run for its money. Minnelli relies on the expectations of cinema in joy, success, deceit, character development, dynamic shifting, and beautiful camera movements that mimic dancing from objective distancing as well as jagged horrific intimacy that subjectively aligns us to the characters (that car ride of Turner’s in the rain storm following catching Douglas in a tryst.. holy hell) to draw us into this beautiful world supposedly told through subjective intolerance. It’s ironic and a call for cinema as a space where all is possible, subjective and objective assessments coexisting, positive results coming from perceptions of evil, and the bad and the beautiful perhaps even being two shades of the same thing, be it a person, idea, situation, or experience.

One of the most amazing scenes is the writing one between Powell and Douglas, where our seemingly antisocial star creates the most empathetic scene by holding back the spoon feeding surface level access. This meta-commentary mimics Douglas’ own role in each of their lives, a blessing in disguise, an unwanted and indirect push towards greatness, but also a great example of how the best artists aren’t always great people, and how many of us possess a skill or perspective that we don’t always practice ourselves. The fallibility of human beings, a strong theme in this film, bares itself here, as does the moment where Douglas’ ego crushes itself in the director’s chair while he retains our respect as a talent for production, as well as a man who can take perspective better than most of us even if he doesn’t take the expected next step toward empathy following his application of this skill, or at least not visibly. The idea of generosity and responsibility born out of anything but clear and positive intent is a foreign concept in movies or life itself, and one that’s hard to swallow for most audiences, but Minnelli and his crew really sell the vision here and I wish more films took this angle and ran with it as far as this film does.

Rio Bravo

My favorite 50s Hawks, which isn’t exactly a grand statement in what could be his worst decade, but still one that I don’t adore as much as many. This is a lot of fun for a while, especially the creative setpiece involving the blood dripping in the beer, which feels very much like a pulp writer’s dream. I don’t have the fondness for the “hangout” scenes as I once did, though even when I ranked this film higher I wasn’t enamored with them. The foursome’s dynamic becomes tiresome and I don’t feel whatever strong connection or development that inspired Tarantino to create stronger and more interesting bonds in his films. Hawks’ conception of space, both narrative and physical, is a strength by which he can present an organic growth of collective energy toward values. Unfortunately this is no Only Angels Have Wings or Air Force. Perhaps the fault lies in what should be the strength, by drawing a cast of diverse personalities. The potential here is never realised and shows how Hawks’ methods work best when the connective tissue is a bit stronger than different individuals coexisting without a strong thread binding them, rendering the whole foundation here a bit inauthentic and rambling aimlessly. The message that some people can change and some can’t doesn’t carry any depth, and any vulnerable skin-shedding that occurs is thin and presents with little investment from Hawks. I don’t know, I keep returning to this one because the parts that make it an engaging watch provide a wonderful pleasure like only Hawks can do, but I’m not so sure I can find any strong evidence of its proposed greatness, though I’d love to hear a defense since I’m sure there are many fans here.

Also, not that this film is obsessively attempting to be realistic, but is Stumpy’s “don’t roll out the red carpet” comment out of historical accuracy, or did they roll out red carpets for celebrities in the old west?

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

The potential here is never realised and shows how Hawks’ methods work best when the connective tissue is a bit stronger than different individuals coexisting without a strong thread binding them, rendering the whole foundation here a bit inauthentic and rambling aimlessly. The message that some people can change and some can’t doesn’t carry any depth, and any vulnerable skin-shedding that occurs is thin and presents with little investment from Hawks.

The film's theme isn't about changing, but about self-respect. Feathers respects herself enough not to change ("that's what I'd do if I were the kind of girl that you think I am.") and Dude has enough respect, ultimately, to change. It's not a matter of being able to or not though. It's intertwined with Hawks's interest in professionalism, in being good enough. At one point, Chance says that Colorado is so good a gunslinger that he doesn't even have to prove it. That's self-respect.

The opening episode of the film expresses this theme outright: Dude, so desperate for a drink, is willing to reach into the spittoon. He is willing to degrade himself. He will spend the rest of the film trying to redeem himself; think of when he asks Chance if he can go through the front door of the saloon when they're looking for a murderer, since they always had him come in the back. Consider when Dude finally shaves and shapes himself up, and he goes back to the jail, and Stumpy shoots at him, not recognizing him. It deflates his entire mood, almost as if this clean, shaved, put-together look he finally has gotten back is just a facade over the drunken bum that everyone thinks of him.

What makes it so rich is that this self-respect is constantly at odds with each character's reliance upon each other. Someone else in this forum once remarked that this was one of the points of the musical number "My Rifle, My Pony, and Me"––on top of the fact that this represents the consolidation of the group as a group, it also reflects this contradiction: this is a group of one: ultimately, "me" is the only individual involved in the group the song refers to. It's in this tension that the film finds its alleged genesis: Hawks detested High Noon, because Cooper spends the entire time going around looking for help. Chance needs help, knows he could use it, but doesn't debase himself for it. It's the same sort of virtuous flaw or flawed virtue as the suicidal dedication to a job that pops up in most Hawks films, most richly in Only Angels Have Wings.

But the group thrives on this, all the same. It's what imbues some of the best lines of the film with such richness, like when Dude asks Chance if Colorado is as good as he used to be, and Chance replies, "It'd be pretty close. I'd hate to have to live on the difference." The individual has to be good enough for the group to be good enough. Or the famous Hawks like, "I'm hard to get, John T., you're going to have to say you want me" (which, admittedly, is punchier and finer put in Wings), whereupon individual stoicism prompts interpersonal desire.

As for finding it rambling, aimless, or tiresome, there's not much that can be done about that, is there? I love all the characters in this film, find them all funny and touching and peculiar. Watching John Wayne's big blue eyes as he gets flustered with Angie Dickinson will never not be a joyful thing for me, and there are a million other little pleasures all around, from beginning to end. In many ways, it exemplifies the idea of play: in the end, the big gunfight we spend the entire time expecting is undercut by each of the the three gunfighters demonstrating their skill, and instead of dramatic intensity we get casual comedy, more 'hangout'. Well, these are characters I don't mind hanging out with.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks, that’s exactly the kind of response I was hoping for and your analysis makes sense to me even if I (unfortunately) no longer love the film myself, though I do like it enough to keep watching every few years