JamesG
10-02-2009, 02:20 PM
In some ways, films of the '50s mirrored the laidback and colorless (some would say repressed) overtones of the Eisenhower years. Horror movies really weren't very horrific (too many irradiated mutant bugs), and you pretty much had to book passage to Europe to see women as unapologetic sex objects.
But whether you liked Ike or loathed him, the 1950s spawned its fair share of movie classics -- dig just below the surface of many a motion picture from the decade and you'll find drama and intrigue of both kinds, i.e., psychological and sexual.
Millions of viewers got hitched in the '50s: the Master of Suspense is represented here by four of his thrillers. And the master of many genres, Billy Wilder, clocks in with a rom-com, black comedy and a screwball farce. Finally, at least one distinctly American art form -- the musical -- reached a pinnacle early in the decade. Read on for our picks of the best films of the 1950s. -- By Tom Johnson
40. The King and I (1956)
In the pantheon of performances wholly owned by the actors that originate them, Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam, ranks high. Brynner won a Tony Award on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein's lilting musical, then followed that up with a Best Actor Oscar for the movie reprise (one of only nine actors to win both awards for the same role).
And it helps to be aided and abetted by Deborah Kerr as the English governess to the king's large brood of children.
39. The Wild One (1953)
Marlon Brando is the disaffected leader of a delinquent motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small town in the granddaddy of all motorcycle gang movies.
Although the movie burns rubber straight into campiness (Brando's getup of cap, dungarees and jacket looks like it would better fit into another kind of leather bar), the master thespian still commands the screen with choice rejoinders to questions like, "What are you protesting?" "What have you got?" he answers.
38. Guys and Dolls (1956)
"The oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York" is the locus for this rather tepid adaptation of the classic Frank Loesser Broadway musical about gamblers and their molls.
Frank Sinatra and a miscast Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson are the sharpies who'll take odds on any wager. But it's the incomparable Vivian Blaine, singing 'A Person Could Develop a Cold,' who steals every scene she's in.
37. Marty (1955)
"I'm a fat, ugly man!" says lovelorn Marty Piletti (Best Actor Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine) apropos of striking out yet again with the opposite sex. But things begin to look up for the 34-year-old Italian butcher when he meets plain-Jane schoolteacher Clara (Betsy Blair).
Perhaps it was the "everyman" theme that resonated with audiences or the romantic idea that there's a soulmate out there for each of us. Whatever the case, Marty also won Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Delbert Mann) and Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky), proving that sometimes good guys do finish first.
36. An Affair to Remember (1957)
A clunky mix of comedy, musical numbers and sudsy tear-jerking moments owes much of its allure to the potent screen chemistry of Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant -- and the fact that the film was referenced in a big way years later in the more winning Sleepless in Seattle.
Still, for fans of mature comedy starring sophisticated adults, this story of a playboy and nightclub singer who meet cute and plan an assignation at the top of the Empire State Building in six months' time might be your ticket.
35. Ben-Hur (1959)
For much of his career, it seems, Charlton Heston dressed in togas. In Ben-Hur the raiment paid off handsomely, delivering manna from heaven, Tinseltown style -- a Best Actor win.
As Judah Ben-Hur, an upperclass Jew living in Jerusalem during the time of Christ, Heston falls afoul of his best friend (a Roman), is banished to slavery and even hikes back to the Promised Land in time to witness the crucifixion. The guy got around.
Ben-Hur's mother lode of 11 Oscars also included Best Picture and Best Director (William Wyler) statues. Most memorable scene: The chariot race, of course.
34. The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
The diary that teen Anne Frank kept while hiding with her family and others in a secret room in Amsterdam during WWII, chronicling her hopes, dreams and budding sexuality, makes a powerful transition to the screen.
Diary underscores the implacable optimism of the human spirit, best embodied in the voiceover we hear as the secret annex is discovered by the Gestapo. "I still believe, in spite of everything, that all people are basically good at heart," Anne (Millie Perkins) says. Best Supporting Actress winner Shelley Winters donated her statuette for display at the annex in Amsterdam.
33. The Seventh Seal (1958)
The movie about a prodigal knight (Max Von Sydow) returned from the Crusades to a plague-ridden Europe is full of Ingmar Bergman's signature totems: existentialism, allegory, an angsty preoccupation with death and the existence of God and a dubious view of religious zealotry (themes that would inspire generations of later filmmaker/acolytes like Woody Allen).
Mix in magnificent shot-making and brilliant cinematography and what transpires is a stark, brooding, Nordic masterpiece.
32. East of Eden (1955)
James Dean (in his debut film) displays astonishing emotional range as Cal Trask, the "Cain-like" black sheep of a Salinas, Ca., farm family, who competes with his brother for the affections of their strict, unfeeling father (Raymond Massey).
Jo Van Fleet (also making her screen debut) won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a frowsy, small-town prostitute who is Cal's real mother (unbeknownst to him). Elia Kazan directs this adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, a tragedy of Biblical proportions.
31. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
No punches are pulled in this unsparing look at the seedy, desperate life of a small-time press agent (Tony Curtis) who'll stop at nothing to curry favor with Manhattan's most powerful gossip columnist, megalomaniacal J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster).
Based on a biographical composite of the legendary gossip potentate Walter Winchell. On the less sanguine side, New York City's never looked or sounded so good, thanks to straight-ahead jazz from the Chico Hamilton Quintet.
30. Sabrina (1954)
Audrey Hepburn is the quarry of first a Long Island playboy (William Holden) and then his more responsible older brother (Humphrey Bogart) in this comedy written and directed by Billy Wilder that underscores the old axiom: the older the violin, the sweeter the music.
After a stint in finishing school in Paris, Sabrina (Hepburn) returns to the Long Island estate where her father is chauffeur to the Larrabee family (Holden, Bogart, etc.). She soon dazzles all.
29. Porgy and Bess (1959)
The Gershwin brothers were better served by original musicals (An American in Paris, Shall We Dance) based on their extensive catalog of standards than this one, ham-handedly directed by musical novice Otto Preminger.
Still, nothing can quell the vaulting score of this legendary folk opera about the hopes, dreams and jealousies of the poor folk that live on Catfish Row. High Note: Sammy Davis Jr., who pulls out all the stops in his scene-stealing role as "Sportin' Life." The last film produced by Samuel Goldwyn.
28. The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Few actors play paranoid better than Humphrey Bogart. But Bogie one-ups himself here as a Navy skipper slowly becoming unhinged in this fine adaptation of Herman Wouk's bestselling novel.
In a last-ditch effort to save the foundering ship during a typhoon, a shell-shocked Captain Queeg is forcibly relieved of command by his executive officer (Van Johnson), who is then brought up on mutiny charges. In the ensuing trial, Bogart's OCD tick (fingering the ball-bearings) should've merited a special Oscar for best use of a prop.
27. Gigi (1958)
One of the last great MGM musicals, Gigi earned its bonafides winning nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Director (Vincente Minnelli), Adapted Screenplay and Song (the title tune by Lerner and Loewe).
Based on the novel by Colette, innocent Parisian gamine Leslie Caron is groomed for life as a courtesan during the Belle Epoque, a circumstance which neglects to factor in the unpredictable course of true love. (Think Cinderella meets her Prince Charming who happens to be a player.) Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier co-star in a production sumptuous in every detail.
26. Lust for Life (1956)
Seldom has a movie been better matched with a director that could do supreme justice to the material.
Vincente Minnelli -- one of the greatest "colorists" in Hollywood history -- captures the glowing, superheated intensity of the canvases of Vincent Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) in this autobiographical look at the tortured artist's life.
Douglas' portrayal of the ill-fated genius is gripping, but it was Anthony Quinn as swaggering Paul Gauguin (alpha male to a worshipful Vincent) who snagged Oscar laurels as Best Supporting Actor.
25. A Place in the Sun (1951)
Ambitious young George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) was born on the blue-collar side of the tracks but resolves to work his way up the ladder at his rich uncle's company.
At a party, he meets gorgeous Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and an ill-fated romance ensues. The big draw here, apart from the classic tragedy themes, is the combustible yearning Monty and Liz have for each other. (Taylor purportedly fell in love with Clift during filming.)
Oscars include Best Director (George Stevens) and Adapted Screenplay, from the novel by Theodore Dreiser.
24. High Noon (1952)
Tall Texan Gary Cooper stands metaphorically alone (actually his wife, played by Grace Kelly, is by his side) as a small-town sheriff in this Western with allegorical underpinnings to the McCarthy witch hunts (just think of the dissembling townsfolk as HUAC members).
On the day he hangs up his badge, Coop must face down a gunslinger he sent to prison who's due in on the noon train with some major payback in mind. Dimitri Tiomkin also won Oscars for his scoring and the evocative theme song that threads the action.
23. Rashomon (1951)
In ancient Japan, four people involved in a heinous murder-rape of a samurai and his wife give widely varying accounts of the crime.
The movie, which catapulted director Akira Kurosawa into international renown and won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, stands as a fascinating study on human perspective and relative truth-telling. Well, thank God for forensic evidence in the modern age.
22. From Here to Eternity (1953)
In the last fateful days before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, dogface Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) fights his own private war against the camp commander who wants him to lace up his boxing gloves and do battle for the honor of the company.
Eight Oscars include Best Picture, Director (Fred Zinneman), Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra in a legendary comeback performance) and Supporting Actress (Donna Reed).
Although Burt Lancaster finished out of the awards, he did nab one of the hottest lovemaking scenes in moviedom -- the beach tryst with Deborah Kerr, waves foaming and lapping suggestively over them, was as steamy as it got in the prudish '50s.
21. To Catch a Thief (1955)
Cary Grant has rarely been more suave as reformed jewel thief "the Cat," implicated in a series of robberies on the French Riviera. It's up to Grant to ferret out the real burglar and clear his name while fending off advances from another piece of hot ice -- a regal Grace Kelly (a couple years before she permanently relocated to the Riviera as Princess Grace of Monaco).
Hitchcock directs one his most romantic thrillers, which unspools like a tourist travelogue of the South of France. Ooh la-la.
20. The African Queen (1951)
Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), boozer skipper of a rusted-out tub called the African Queen, agrees to transport a spinster missionary (Katharine Hepburn) downriver to safety during WWI.
But during their journey things change and together they hatch a desperate plan to use the Queen to sink a German gunboat that's menacing East Africa. Largely a two-character study, the breezy banter between two of Hollywood's most gifted pros is a joy to behold. And in a career studded with classic performances, Queen marked a capstone for Bogart -- his only Oscar win, for Best Actor.
19. An American in Paris (1951)
The glorious score by George and Ira Gershwin, director Vincente Minnelli's lush color palette and Gene Kelly's exhilarating dances (including the groundbreaking 17-minute ballet to Gershwin's titular tone poem that ends the movie) conspired in one of the greatest upsets in Academy Award history.
Paris beat out A Streetcar Named Desire, A Place in the Sun and The African Queen for Best Picture on its way to winning six other Oscars, including a special award for Kelly's choreography. C'est magnifique!
18. All About Eve (1950)
Worshipful ingénue Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) worms her way into the good graces of venerable stage diva Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and then proceeds to usurp her at every turn.
Six Oscars include Best Picture, Supporting Actor (George Sanders as imperious theater critic Addison DeWitt) and two for Joe Mankiewicz, as director and scriptwriter. As Margo cautions her dinner-party guests when Eve's treachery becomes apparent: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." You know it.
17. Giant (1956)
Directed by George Stevens with the kind of scope that captures the endless, empty sprawl of West Texas, Giant is perhaps the most fully realized adaptation of any Edna Ferber soap-operatic novel.
Rock Hudson as "Bick" Benedict has never been better, as scion of an enormous cattle ranch who marries an Easterner (Elizabeth Taylor) and then brings her back home where she's a fish out of water.
In his final film role before his tragic car crash, James Dean makes an indelible impression as Jett Rink, illegitimate black-sheep relation of the Benedict clan who is despised by Bick. (It doesn't help that Jett's got quite a hankerin' for Taylor.)
16. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
A rather dapper alien (Michael Rennie) lands on Earth and warns civilization that they face total annihilation (from him!) if we don't get our act together and avoid nuclear gamesmanship, etc. How little we've learned.
A landmark science-fiction film more than five decades ago, the movie is (unfortunately) still topical today. Just avoid the lackluster 2008 remake at all costs.
15. Vertigo (1958)
Perhaps Hitchcock's truest masterpiece, Vertigo finished out of the Oscar gilt. Regardless, this edge-of-your seat thriller about an acrophobic retired detective (Jimmy Stewart) and his dangerous obsession with a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak) is one of Hitch's most haunting movies; and it's loaded with plenty of iconic shot-making.
Composer Bernard Herrmann does his usual standup job contributing a score that enhances each bittersweet scene -- really a collection of indelible moments that merit re-discovery with each viewing.
14. Roman Holiday (1953)
Seldom has an actress made such a stunning (and Oscar-winning) screen debut as Audrey Hepburn playing a cosseted princess who breaks free of her royal rut by hooking up with a couple of expatriate Yankee journalists (Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert) and going on a spree in Rome.
A prescient Peck (after seeing the radiant Audrey in early rushes of the film), insisted that she share top billing with him -- a generous gesture to the newcomer that was well-founded in light of her big win on Oscar night. Directed by William Wyler.
13. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
A hack Hollywood screenwriter (William Holden) ready to chuck the whole thing and move back to Ohio becomes the "kept man" of faded silent screen diva Norma Desmond, who convinces him to write her a comeback vehicle.
Director Billy Wilder (who shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) fashioned the blackest of comedies and then found the real thing (silent star Gloria Swanson) on which to peg his cautionary tale of the flipside to Tinseltown glamour. Holden's cynical voiceovers are priceless as is the brief appearance of comic legend Buster Keaton as one of Desmond's "waxworks" friends.
12. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Henry Fonda -- the lone holdout on a murder trial jury -- is indefatigable in his mission to convince his 11 fellow jurors of the innocence of the defendant in this taut procedural that boasts a great cast of veteran character actors (Martin Balsam, Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley, etc.).
Sidney Lumet directs, and the movie is shot almost entirely on one claustrophobic jury-room set during a sweltering New York City summer's day. The mercury isn't the only thing rising as jurors clash over whether to render a guilty verdict.
11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Although plenty watered down from the original Tennessee Williams stage play (you practically need a Geiger counter to detect the homoerotic themes at the crux of the drama), Elizabeth Taylor sizzles as Maggie "the Cat," who'll stop at nothing to woo her recalcitrant husband, Brick (Paul Newman), back into the boudoir.
Standout performances from all, especially Burl Ives as "Big Daddy," a man who can buy everything save his own immortality. Just beware those little "no-neck monsters."
10. North by Northwest (1959)
Cary Grant's at his debonair, most self-deprecating best as a harried Manhattan ad exec who's mistaken for a spy in this timeless Hitchcock thriller.
Taking it on the lam, Grant commandeers planes (beware the crop duster!), trains and automobiles as he makes his way cross-country to a harrowing climax -- clinging perilously from Abe Lincoln's left nostril atop Mt. Rushmore. But take heart, suspense fans; Eva Marie Saint's on hand to soften any bumpy landings.
9. Paths of Glory (1957)
Fact-based story of a French regiment during World War I ordered to mount a suicidal charge against entrenched Germans that tragically fails. In the aftermath, the general who ordered the assault directs that three soldiers from the regiment be cherry-picked and executed as punishment for the unit's "cowardice" under fire.
Stanley Kubrick directs this riveting anti-war statement that gets more potent with each passing year. Standout performance from Kirk Douglas as the regiment's colonel (and a lawyer in peacetime) who acts as counsel for the condemned.
8. Cinderella (1950)
Moviedom's most famous wallflower gets the full Disney musical treatment in an animated fairytale with catchy tunes like "Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo" and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (which became a kind of Disney anthem).
Enhancements to the traditional story include a couple of mice cutups named "Gus" and "Jaq" and the voiceover stylings of Mike Douglas as "Prince Charming" (yeah, that Mike Douglas.)
7. The Searchers (1956)
Director John Ford turned John Wayne into a household name in a series of seminal Westerns that reached their apogee with this grim tale of the years-long pursuit of the band of rampaging Comanche that murdered a prairie family.
Monument Valley has never looked more stunning than depicted through Ford's viewfinder, and the last iconic scene of Wayne standing in the homestead doorway is a tribute to silent Western star Harry Carey Sr.'s signature pose.
Fun Fact: The Duke's catchphrase in the film ("That'll be the day") was co-opted by rocker Buddy Holly for one of his biggest hits.
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The colonel (Alec Guinness) of a contingent of British POWs helps the Japanese build a railroad supply bridge in Burma. But as the Herculean construction project begins to consume him, he forgets that his prime directive is not to aid the enemy.
A buff William Holden co-stars in this David Lean epic as an American Navy Commander charged with dynamiting the bridge, thus exposing the colonel's passion as the ultimate cross-purpose pipe dream. The movie won a clutch of Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Actor (Guinness).
5. Rear Window (1954)
Wheelchair-bound photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) wiles away the time before the cast can come off his broken leg by keeping tabs on the doings of his neighbors; spying on them from his big apartment window in Greenwich Village.
But his innocent voyeurism takes an ominous turn when he witnesses what he thinks is a cover-up to a murder committed in the apartment across his courtyard. Grace Kelly drips with class as Jeffries' haute couture girlfriend, while Alfred Hitchcock ingeniously directs all the suspenseful action from the single POV of the shut-in Jeffries.
4. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Director Billy Wilder's surefire comic touch informs every frame of this classic gender-bender, which ranks in the top tier of funniest films of all time.
Tony Curtis (channeling Cary Grant) and Jack Lemmon (channeling the butchest drag queen you're ever likely to see) have never been better as two Chicago musicians lamming it incognito to Florida after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Joe E. Brown's final line of the film is, hands down, the greatest punchline ever delivered in a movie.
3. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Everything gels in the greatest movie musical ever made -- one that mercilessly satirizes the harrowing transition from silent films to talking pictures in Tinseltown, circa 1927.
Jean Hagen is a scream (literally) as a silent film diva with a voice that could peel wallpaper, and Gene Kelly finds two of his greatest dancing partners in Donald O'Connor and Cyd Charisse.
Highlights include O'Connor's comical tour-de-force (Make 'Em Laugh), the rousing athletic tap number 'Moses Supposes' and, of course, Kelly's joyous solo adagio during a California downpour. The movie sings in more ways than one.
2. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
By reprising his career-making Broadway role as the brutish "manimal" Stanley Kowalski in this stellar adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play, Marlon Brando burst onto the Hollywood scene like a (sexual) tsunami.
In only his second film role, he ushered into the movie mainstream Method Acting, thus changing the profession forever. And as psychologically fragile Blanche DuBois, Vivian Leigh gave her most memorable performance (and won a Best Actress Oscar) since turning heads in her hoop skirt as Scarlett O'Hara.
Best Supporting Actor laurels in this Elia Kazan-directed production went to Karl Malden and Kim Hunter, which just leaves us to say: STELLAAAA!
1. On the Waterfront (1954)
Ex-palooka Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) "coulda been a contenda" but spends most of his time feeding pigeons on the roof of his Brooklyn brownstone -- when he's not vying for daywork down at the docks or doing errands for corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb, who is decidedly not).
Malloy has a crisis of conscience when he witnesses a murder and resolves to do the right thing. The movie was more than an Oscar contender, taking eight, including Best Picture, Director (Elia Kazan), Actor (Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint) and Screenplay (Budd Schulberg).
And Leonard Bernstein's score is one of the most haunting in the history of film soundtracks.
http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2009/09/29/best-50s-movies/
But whether you liked Ike or loathed him, the 1950s spawned its fair share of movie classics -- dig just below the surface of many a motion picture from the decade and you'll find drama and intrigue of both kinds, i.e., psychological and sexual.
Millions of viewers got hitched in the '50s: the Master of Suspense is represented here by four of his thrillers. And the master of many genres, Billy Wilder, clocks in with a rom-com, black comedy and a screwball farce. Finally, at least one distinctly American art form -- the musical -- reached a pinnacle early in the decade. Read on for our picks of the best films of the 1950s. -- By Tom Johnson
40. The King and I (1956)
In the pantheon of performances wholly owned by the actors that originate them, Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam, ranks high. Brynner won a Tony Award on Broadway in Rodgers and Hammerstein's lilting musical, then followed that up with a Best Actor Oscar for the movie reprise (one of only nine actors to win both awards for the same role).
And it helps to be aided and abetted by Deborah Kerr as the English governess to the king's large brood of children.
39. The Wild One (1953)
Marlon Brando is the disaffected leader of a delinquent motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small town in the granddaddy of all motorcycle gang movies.
Although the movie burns rubber straight into campiness (Brando's getup of cap, dungarees and jacket looks like it would better fit into another kind of leather bar), the master thespian still commands the screen with choice rejoinders to questions like, "What are you protesting?" "What have you got?" he answers.
38. Guys and Dolls (1956)
"The oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York" is the locus for this rather tepid adaptation of the classic Frank Loesser Broadway musical about gamblers and their molls.
Frank Sinatra and a miscast Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson are the sharpies who'll take odds on any wager. But it's the incomparable Vivian Blaine, singing 'A Person Could Develop a Cold,' who steals every scene she's in.
37. Marty (1955)
"I'm a fat, ugly man!" says lovelorn Marty Piletti (Best Actor Oscar winner Ernest Borgnine) apropos of striking out yet again with the opposite sex. But things begin to look up for the 34-year-old Italian butcher when he meets plain-Jane schoolteacher Clara (Betsy Blair).
Perhaps it was the "everyman" theme that resonated with audiences or the romantic idea that there's a soulmate out there for each of us. Whatever the case, Marty also won Oscars for Best Picture, Director (Delbert Mann) and Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky), proving that sometimes good guys do finish first.
36. An Affair to Remember (1957)
A clunky mix of comedy, musical numbers and sudsy tear-jerking moments owes much of its allure to the potent screen chemistry of Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant -- and the fact that the film was referenced in a big way years later in the more winning Sleepless in Seattle.
Still, for fans of mature comedy starring sophisticated adults, this story of a playboy and nightclub singer who meet cute and plan an assignation at the top of the Empire State Building in six months' time might be your ticket.
35. Ben-Hur (1959)
For much of his career, it seems, Charlton Heston dressed in togas. In Ben-Hur the raiment paid off handsomely, delivering manna from heaven, Tinseltown style -- a Best Actor win.
As Judah Ben-Hur, an upperclass Jew living in Jerusalem during the time of Christ, Heston falls afoul of his best friend (a Roman), is banished to slavery and even hikes back to the Promised Land in time to witness the crucifixion. The guy got around.
Ben-Hur's mother lode of 11 Oscars also included Best Picture and Best Director (William Wyler) statues. Most memorable scene: The chariot race, of course.
34. The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
The diary that teen Anne Frank kept while hiding with her family and others in a secret room in Amsterdam during WWII, chronicling her hopes, dreams and budding sexuality, makes a powerful transition to the screen.
Diary underscores the implacable optimism of the human spirit, best embodied in the voiceover we hear as the secret annex is discovered by the Gestapo. "I still believe, in spite of everything, that all people are basically good at heart," Anne (Millie Perkins) says. Best Supporting Actress winner Shelley Winters donated her statuette for display at the annex in Amsterdam.
33. The Seventh Seal (1958)
The movie about a prodigal knight (Max Von Sydow) returned from the Crusades to a plague-ridden Europe is full of Ingmar Bergman's signature totems: existentialism, allegory, an angsty preoccupation with death and the existence of God and a dubious view of religious zealotry (themes that would inspire generations of later filmmaker/acolytes like Woody Allen).
Mix in magnificent shot-making and brilliant cinematography and what transpires is a stark, brooding, Nordic masterpiece.
32. East of Eden (1955)
James Dean (in his debut film) displays astonishing emotional range as Cal Trask, the "Cain-like" black sheep of a Salinas, Ca., farm family, who competes with his brother for the affections of their strict, unfeeling father (Raymond Massey).
Jo Van Fleet (also making her screen debut) won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress as a frowsy, small-town prostitute who is Cal's real mother (unbeknownst to him). Elia Kazan directs this adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, a tragedy of Biblical proportions.
31. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
No punches are pulled in this unsparing look at the seedy, desperate life of a small-time press agent (Tony Curtis) who'll stop at nothing to curry favor with Manhattan's most powerful gossip columnist, megalomaniacal J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster).
Based on a biographical composite of the legendary gossip potentate Walter Winchell. On the less sanguine side, New York City's never looked or sounded so good, thanks to straight-ahead jazz from the Chico Hamilton Quintet.
30. Sabrina (1954)
Audrey Hepburn is the quarry of first a Long Island playboy (William Holden) and then his more responsible older brother (Humphrey Bogart) in this comedy written and directed by Billy Wilder that underscores the old axiom: the older the violin, the sweeter the music.
After a stint in finishing school in Paris, Sabrina (Hepburn) returns to the Long Island estate where her father is chauffeur to the Larrabee family (Holden, Bogart, etc.). She soon dazzles all.
29. Porgy and Bess (1959)
The Gershwin brothers were better served by original musicals (An American in Paris, Shall We Dance) based on their extensive catalog of standards than this one, ham-handedly directed by musical novice Otto Preminger.
Still, nothing can quell the vaulting score of this legendary folk opera about the hopes, dreams and jealousies of the poor folk that live on Catfish Row. High Note: Sammy Davis Jr., who pulls out all the stops in his scene-stealing role as "Sportin' Life." The last film produced by Samuel Goldwyn.
28. The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Few actors play paranoid better than Humphrey Bogart. But Bogie one-ups himself here as a Navy skipper slowly becoming unhinged in this fine adaptation of Herman Wouk's bestselling novel.
In a last-ditch effort to save the foundering ship during a typhoon, a shell-shocked Captain Queeg is forcibly relieved of command by his executive officer (Van Johnson), who is then brought up on mutiny charges. In the ensuing trial, Bogart's OCD tick (fingering the ball-bearings) should've merited a special Oscar for best use of a prop.
27. Gigi (1958)
One of the last great MGM musicals, Gigi earned its bonafides winning nine Oscars, including Best Picture, Director (Vincente Minnelli), Adapted Screenplay and Song (the title tune by Lerner and Loewe).
Based on the novel by Colette, innocent Parisian gamine Leslie Caron is groomed for life as a courtesan during the Belle Epoque, a circumstance which neglects to factor in the unpredictable course of true love. (Think Cinderella meets her Prince Charming who happens to be a player.) Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier co-star in a production sumptuous in every detail.
26. Lust for Life (1956)
Seldom has a movie been better matched with a director that could do supreme justice to the material.
Vincente Minnelli -- one of the greatest "colorists" in Hollywood history -- captures the glowing, superheated intensity of the canvases of Vincent Van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) in this autobiographical look at the tortured artist's life.
Douglas' portrayal of the ill-fated genius is gripping, but it was Anthony Quinn as swaggering Paul Gauguin (alpha male to a worshipful Vincent) who snagged Oscar laurels as Best Supporting Actor.
25. A Place in the Sun (1951)
Ambitious young George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) was born on the blue-collar side of the tracks but resolves to work his way up the ladder at his rich uncle's company.
At a party, he meets gorgeous Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and an ill-fated romance ensues. The big draw here, apart from the classic tragedy themes, is the combustible yearning Monty and Liz have for each other. (Taylor purportedly fell in love with Clift during filming.)
Oscars include Best Director (George Stevens) and Adapted Screenplay, from the novel by Theodore Dreiser.
24. High Noon (1952)
Tall Texan Gary Cooper stands metaphorically alone (actually his wife, played by Grace Kelly, is by his side) as a small-town sheriff in this Western with allegorical underpinnings to the McCarthy witch hunts (just think of the dissembling townsfolk as HUAC members).
On the day he hangs up his badge, Coop must face down a gunslinger he sent to prison who's due in on the noon train with some major payback in mind. Dimitri Tiomkin also won Oscars for his scoring and the evocative theme song that threads the action.
23. Rashomon (1951)
In ancient Japan, four people involved in a heinous murder-rape of a samurai and his wife give widely varying accounts of the crime.
The movie, which catapulted director Akira Kurosawa into international renown and won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, stands as a fascinating study on human perspective and relative truth-telling. Well, thank God for forensic evidence in the modern age.
22. From Here to Eternity (1953)
In the last fateful days before the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, dogface Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) fights his own private war against the camp commander who wants him to lace up his boxing gloves and do battle for the honor of the company.
Eight Oscars include Best Picture, Director (Fred Zinneman), Supporting Actor (Frank Sinatra in a legendary comeback performance) and Supporting Actress (Donna Reed).
Although Burt Lancaster finished out of the awards, he did nab one of the hottest lovemaking scenes in moviedom -- the beach tryst with Deborah Kerr, waves foaming and lapping suggestively over them, was as steamy as it got in the prudish '50s.
21. To Catch a Thief (1955)
Cary Grant has rarely been more suave as reformed jewel thief "the Cat," implicated in a series of robberies on the French Riviera. It's up to Grant to ferret out the real burglar and clear his name while fending off advances from another piece of hot ice -- a regal Grace Kelly (a couple years before she permanently relocated to the Riviera as Princess Grace of Monaco).
Hitchcock directs one his most romantic thrillers, which unspools like a tourist travelogue of the South of France. Ooh la-la.
20. The African Queen (1951)
Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), boozer skipper of a rusted-out tub called the African Queen, agrees to transport a spinster missionary (Katharine Hepburn) downriver to safety during WWI.
But during their journey things change and together they hatch a desperate plan to use the Queen to sink a German gunboat that's menacing East Africa. Largely a two-character study, the breezy banter between two of Hollywood's most gifted pros is a joy to behold. And in a career studded with classic performances, Queen marked a capstone for Bogart -- his only Oscar win, for Best Actor.
19. An American in Paris (1951)
The glorious score by George and Ira Gershwin, director Vincente Minnelli's lush color palette and Gene Kelly's exhilarating dances (including the groundbreaking 17-minute ballet to Gershwin's titular tone poem that ends the movie) conspired in one of the greatest upsets in Academy Award history.
Paris beat out A Streetcar Named Desire, A Place in the Sun and The African Queen for Best Picture on its way to winning six other Oscars, including a special award for Kelly's choreography. C'est magnifique!
18. All About Eve (1950)
Worshipful ingénue Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) worms her way into the good graces of venerable stage diva Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and then proceeds to usurp her at every turn.
Six Oscars include Best Picture, Supporting Actor (George Sanders as imperious theater critic Addison DeWitt) and two for Joe Mankiewicz, as director and scriptwriter. As Margo cautions her dinner-party guests when Eve's treachery becomes apparent: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." You know it.
17. Giant (1956)
Directed by George Stevens with the kind of scope that captures the endless, empty sprawl of West Texas, Giant is perhaps the most fully realized adaptation of any Edna Ferber soap-operatic novel.
Rock Hudson as "Bick" Benedict has never been better, as scion of an enormous cattle ranch who marries an Easterner (Elizabeth Taylor) and then brings her back home where she's a fish out of water.
In his final film role before his tragic car crash, James Dean makes an indelible impression as Jett Rink, illegitimate black-sheep relation of the Benedict clan who is despised by Bick. (It doesn't help that Jett's got quite a hankerin' for Taylor.)
16. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
A rather dapper alien (Michael Rennie) lands on Earth and warns civilization that they face total annihilation (from him!) if we don't get our act together and avoid nuclear gamesmanship, etc. How little we've learned.
A landmark science-fiction film more than five decades ago, the movie is (unfortunately) still topical today. Just avoid the lackluster 2008 remake at all costs.
15. Vertigo (1958)
Perhaps Hitchcock's truest masterpiece, Vertigo finished out of the Oscar gilt. Regardless, this edge-of-your seat thriller about an acrophobic retired detective (Jimmy Stewart) and his dangerous obsession with a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak) is one of Hitch's most haunting movies; and it's loaded with plenty of iconic shot-making.
Composer Bernard Herrmann does his usual standup job contributing a score that enhances each bittersweet scene -- really a collection of indelible moments that merit re-discovery with each viewing.
14. Roman Holiday (1953)
Seldom has an actress made such a stunning (and Oscar-winning) screen debut as Audrey Hepburn playing a cosseted princess who breaks free of her royal rut by hooking up with a couple of expatriate Yankee journalists (Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert) and going on a spree in Rome.
A prescient Peck (after seeing the radiant Audrey in early rushes of the film), insisted that she share top billing with him -- a generous gesture to the newcomer that was well-founded in light of her big win on Oscar night. Directed by William Wyler.
13. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
A hack Hollywood screenwriter (William Holden) ready to chuck the whole thing and move back to Ohio becomes the "kept man" of faded silent screen diva Norma Desmond, who convinces him to write her a comeback vehicle.
Director Billy Wilder (who shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar) fashioned the blackest of comedies and then found the real thing (silent star Gloria Swanson) on which to peg his cautionary tale of the flipside to Tinseltown glamour. Holden's cynical voiceovers are priceless as is the brief appearance of comic legend Buster Keaton as one of Desmond's "waxworks" friends.
12. 12 Angry Men (1957)
Henry Fonda -- the lone holdout on a murder trial jury -- is indefatigable in his mission to convince his 11 fellow jurors of the innocence of the defendant in this taut procedural that boasts a great cast of veteran character actors (Martin Balsam, Jack Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Ed Begley, etc.).
Sidney Lumet directs, and the movie is shot almost entirely on one claustrophobic jury-room set during a sweltering New York City summer's day. The mercury isn't the only thing rising as jurors clash over whether to render a guilty verdict.
11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
Although plenty watered down from the original Tennessee Williams stage play (you practically need a Geiger counter to detect the homoerotic themes at the crux of the drama), Elizabeth Taylor sizzles as Maggie "the Cat," who'll stop at nothing to woo her recalcitrant husband, Brick (Paul Newman), back into the boudoir.
Standout performances from all, especially Burl Ives as "Big Daddy," a man who can buy everything save his own immortality. Just beware those little "no-neck monsters."
10. North by Northwest (1959)
Cary Grant's at his debonair, most self-deprecating best as a harried Manhattan ad exec who's mistaken for a spy in this timeless Hitchcock thriller.
Taking it on the lam, Grant commandeers planes (beware the crop duster!), trains and automobiles as he makes his way cross-country to a harrowing climax -- clinging perilously from Abe Lincoln's left nostril atop Mt. Rushmore. But take heart, suspense fans; Eva Marie Saint's on hand to soften any bumpy landings.
9. Paths of Glory (1957)
Fact-based story of a French regiment during World War I ordered to mount a suicidal charge against entrenched Germans that tragically fails. In the aftermath, the general who ordered the assault directs that three soldiers from the regiment be cherry-picked and executed as punishment for the unit's "cowardice" under fire.
Stanley Kubrick directs this riveting anti-war statement that gets more potent with each passing year. Standout performance from Kirk Douglas as the regiment's colonel (and a lawyer in peacetime) who acts as counsel for the condemned.
8. Cinderella (1950)
Moviedom's most famous wallflower gets the full Disney musical treatment in an animated fairytale with catchy tunes like "Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo" and "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes" (which became a kind of Disney anthem).
Enhancements to the traditional story include a couple of mice cutups named "Gus" and "Jaq" and the voiceover stylings of Mike Douglas as "Prince Charming" (yeah, that Mike Douglas.)
7. The Searchers (1956)
Director John Ford turned John Wayne into a household name in a series of seminal Westerns that reached their apogee with this grim tale of the years-long pursuit of the band of rampaging Comanche that murdered a prairie family.
Monument Valley has never looked more stunning than depicted through Ford's viewfinder, and the last iconic scene of Wayne standing in the homestead doorway is a tribute to silent Western star Harry Carey Sr.'s signature pose.
Fun Fact: The Duke's catchphrase in the film ("That'll be the day") was co-opted by rocker Buddy Holly for one of his biggest hits.
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
The colonel (Alec Guinness) of a contingent of British POWs helps the Japanese build a railroad supply bridge in Burma. But as the Herculean construction project begins to consume him, he forgets that his prime directive is not to aid the enemy.
A buff William Holden co-stars in this David Lean epic as an American Navy Commander charged with dynamiting the bridge, thus exposing the colonel's passion as the ultimate cross-purpose pipe dream. The movie won a clutch of Oscars including Best Picture, Director and Actor (Guinness).
5. Rear Window (1954)
Wheelchair-bound photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) wiles away the time before the cast can come off his broken leg by keeping tabs on the doings of his neighbors; spying on them from his big apartment window in Greenwich Village.
But his innocent voyeurism takes an ominous turn when he witnesses what he thinks is a cover-up to a murder committed in the apartment across his courtyard. Grace Kelly drips with class as Jeffries' haute couture girlfriend, while Alfred Hitchcock ingeniously directs all the suspenseful action from the single POV of the shut-in Jeffries.
4. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Director Billy Wilder's surefire comic touch informs every frame of this classic gender-bender, which ranks in the top tier of funniest films of all time.
Tony Curtis (channeling Cary Grant) and Jack Lemmon (channeling the butchest drag queen you're ever likely to see) have never been better as two Chicago musicians lamming it incognito to Florida after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Joe E. Brown's final line of the film is, hands down, the greatest punchline ever delivered in a movie.
3. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Everything gels in the greatest movie musical ever made -- one that mercilessly satirizes the harrowing transition from silent films to talking pictures in Tinseltown, circa 1927.
Jean Hagen is a scream (literally) as a silent film diva with a voice that could peel wallpaper, and Gene Kelly finds two of his greatest dancing partners in Donald O'Connor and Cyd Charisse.
Highlights include O'Connor's comical tour-de-force (Make 'Em Laugh), the rousing athletic tap number 'Moses Supposes' and, of course, Kelly's joyous solo adagio during a California downpour. The movie sings in more ways than one.
2. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
By reprising his career-making Broadway role as the brutish "manimal" Stanley Kowalski in this stellar adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play, Marlon Brando burst onto the Hollywood scene like a (sexual) tsunami.
In only his second film role, he ushered into the movie mainstream Method Acting, thus changing the profession forever. And as psychologically fragile Blanche DuBois, Vivian Leigh gave her most memorable performance (and won a Best Actress Oscar) since turning heads in her hoop skirt as Scarlett O'Hara.
Best Supporting Actor laurels in this Elia Kazan-directed production went to Karl Malden and Kim Hunter, which just leaves us to say: STELLAAAA!
1. On the Waterfront (1954)
Ex-palooka Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) "coulda been a contenda" but spends most of his time feeding pigeons on the roof of his Brooklyn brownstone -- when he's not vying for daywork down at the docks or doing errands for corrupt union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb, who is decidedly not).
Malloy has a crisis of conscience when he witnesses a murder and resolves to do the right thing. The movie was more than an Oscar contender, taking eight, including Best Picture, Director (Elia Kazan), Actor (Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie Saint) and Screenplay (Budd Schulberg).
And Leonard Bernstein's score is one of the most haunting in the history of film soundtracks.
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