Du rififi chez les hommes (Rififi) 1955 - An instant commercial success in Paris and worldwide

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Jules Dassin
Main Cast: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey

"Jules Dassin - in his second European film after being driven out of the United States during the years of the house Un-American Activities Committee hearings - directed this landmark caper film about the planning and execution of a nighttime robbery at a swanky English jewelry shop in the Rue de Rivoli. The pinnacle of heist movies, Dassin's Du Rififi Chez Les Hommes (1955) is not only one of the best French noirs, but one of the top movies in the genre. Crafting an archetypal noir story about how human weakness can sabotage the best-laid plans, Dassin masterfully emphasizes the skill and nerve-shredding delicacy that it takes for the central band of thieves to execute those intricate plans (without making a sound) in the classic half-hour heist sequence. The air of seediness and inevitable doom that lingers over the proceedings - shot on location in Paris - adds an existential weight to the suspense, turning Rififi into more than just a caper. Though Rififi's all-too-clear primer on how to rob a jewelry store and its then-excessive violence and decadence got the film in trouble in some countries, Rififi became an oft-imitated international hit and Cannes prizewinner for Dassin's direction. Barely seen in the U.S. since its original release, Rififi was restored to its full 35 mm visual glory in 2000, complete with new, more explicit subtitles (done in collaboration with Dassin) and a translation of the title song." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Les diaboliques 1955 - The greatest film that Alfred Hitchcock never made

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Main Cast: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard

"French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot created enough pulse-racing suspense in just two movies to take his place in history next to Alfred Hitchcock as one of the finest thriller directors ever. Clouzot followed up his remarkable 1953 action film The Wages of Fear with the dark and mysterious Diabolique (Les Diaboliques). Wages has moments of almost preternatural tension and is arguably the more interesting film, but Diabolique most captured the popular imagination. That's probably due to the film's familiar yet strikingly fresh combination of chilling atmospherics, sexual intrigue, macabre pacing, and influential 'horror' plot construction. Typical of many French films of the 1950s, Clouzot's style was influenced by American film noir; unlike the French New Wave films which followed it, Diabolique also revealed the German expressionist roots of noir. The film has been remade three times, as Reflections of Murder, House of Secrets and the pitiful 1996 Diabolique, and many of its plot twists have been recycled in countless other thrillers." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Kiss me deadly 1955 - A terrific film noir with the famously enigmatic ending

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,7

Director: Robert Aldrich
Main Cast: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez, Wesley Addy, Marian Carr

"Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir, and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly stars Ralph Meeker as Spillane's anti-social private eye Mike Hammer in the ultimate Cold War paranoia investigation. With macho 'bedroom dick' Hammer using any violence necessary, this darkest of 1950s films noirs sends him on a search for the 'Great Whatsit', an ominously incandescent box encompassing America's nuclear nightmares, as well as man's deepest fears about unpredictably explosive female potency. Starring Ralph Meeker as the brutal Hammer, Kiss Me Deadly is shot through with Aldrich's anarchic sensibility, from Cloris Leachman's desperate opening run along a pitch-black road to the final apocalyptic conflagration. While the film was dismissed by U.S. reviewers, the French Cahiers du cinéma critics praised Kiss Me Deadly's hysterically expressionist style and singular power, as then-critic François Truffaut declared Aldrich the revelation of 1955. Later rediscovered by American film buffs, Kiss Me Deadly has since assumed its rightful place in the film noir pantheon, and films from Alex Cox's Repo Man (1984) to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) have paid homage to that evocatively glowing container. The apocalyptic climax is doubly devastating because we're never quite certain if Hammer survives (he doesn't narrate the story, as was the case in most Mike Hammer films and TV shows). Director Robert Aldrich and scriptwriter Jack Moffit transcend Kiss Me Deadly's basic genre trappings to produce a one-of-a-kind melodrama for the nuclear age. The 1998 restoration returned the final minute-and-a-half of footage to 35mm prints, dramatically altering the film's conclusion." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Marty 1955 - The basic needs for love and companionship

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Delbert Mann
Main Cast: Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti, Joe Mantell, Karen Steele

"Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning slice-of-life drama originated as a live 1953 broadcast directed by Delbert Mann on The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse starring Rod Steiger and Nancy Marchand. The Hecht-Lancaster movie version, also directed by Mann, replaces the two leads with Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair (as well as featuring several soon-to-be-familiar faces, including Jerry Paris, Frank Sutton, and Karen Steele, plus Joe Mantell, Nehemiah Persoff, and Betsy Palmer from the TV version). But it remains otherwise intact, telling of 24 very important hours in the lives of two lonely people. Marty is a bittersweet, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, and always realistic comedy-drama about Marty Pilletti (Ernest Borgnine), a 34-year-old Bronx butcher.
Marty derives its greatness from Paddy Chayefsky's superb screenplay, which examines the reasons why people needlessly consign themselves to lives of sterile loneliness. The film makes the audience feel the ennui that surrounds Marty (Ernest Borgnine), from his mother's smothering love to the banality of his friends and his job. In one of the screen's great moments of heroism, Marty breaks free of his self-chosen prison and accepts the emotional risk of seeking happiness. There are few closing words more frightening and more hopeful than in the climactic moment when Marty picks up the phone, dials the number of the woman he has met, and says, 'Hello, Clara'." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The ladykillers 1955 - Brilliant early black comedy

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,9

Director: Alexander Mackendrick
Main Cast: Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Danny Green, Katie Johnson

"It is almost impossible to find fault with any aspect of this film, from its opening shot of Mrs. Wilberforce's house at the dead end of a city street overlooking a train yard to the same closing shot. William Rose's script economically sketches the slightly lopsided world of a little old lady seemingly oblivious to anything complex or sophisticated, as Mrs. Wilberforce makes her way through her neighborhood to the police station, where her visits to report strange activities are quite well-known. Rose takes us quickly through the heist, and at the film's halfway point, the story turns on the discovery by Mrs. W. of the money inside the cello case. For all their bravado, however, the gang of robbers who would menace her are nearly as harmless as their intended victim. None of them relish the idea that Mrs. W. cannot live to report them to the police. They would do anything - even turn on each other - rather than bump off the only person who can finger them. Alexander Mackendrick's direction is remarkably restrained; the slapstick moments are believably set up and executed with finesse. Nothing feels frantic here, right down to the amazing choreography of bodies falling off the railroad bridge in the last act. Alec Guinness, playing a man who understands all too well how the 'human element' is the only variable in any master plan, and Katie Johnson, as a woman who is both sweet and determined, both carry the film; the looks that pass between Prof. Marcus and Mrs. Wilberforce when she realizes the truth about him and his friends are eloquent beyond description. Peter Sellers fans may be disappointed that he's not given more to do here, though it is amusing to watch him and Herbert Lom, future adversarial colleagues in the Pink Panther comedies, working together. The Ladykillers won an Oscar nomination for William Rose's screenplay, and a BFA award for veteran character actress Johnson." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Rebel without a cause 1955 - "You're tearing me apart!"

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Nicholas Ray
Main Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen, William Hopper, Dennis Hopper, Rochelle Hudson

"A clenched fist of teenage alienation and cultural disillusion, Rebel Without a Cause questioned the complacent state of 1950s American society with the subtlety of a blow to the jaw. A truly landmark film, Rebel went where almost no Hollywood film had dared, exposing the anger and discontent beneath the prosperity and confidence of post-war America, picking at family values that dictated that happiness was best found in the nuclear family's well-appointed suburban home. The alienated kids in Rebel were part and parcel of these homes - angry, wounded animals who rejected the very comforts that were supposed to make America superior to the rest of the world. If the notion that comfortable, middle-class white kids could harbor such feelings of anger and nameless yearning wasn't discomforting enough, even more so was the notion that their parents were ill-equipped to understand or help them. From Plato's neglectful mother and father to Jim's ineffectual parents to Judy's pathologically repressed father, all of the film's parents are seen as people whose conformity to the values of 1950s society masks their own discontent and - in the case of Judy's father and Plato's parents - underlying deviance. Thus, the teenagers are not so much the problem themselves as heirs to the problems created by the older and supposedly wiser generation.
Rebel without a Cause began as a case history, written in 1944 by Dr. Robert Lindner. Originally intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando, the property was shelved until Brando's The Wild One (1953) opened floodgates for films about crazy mixed-up teens. Director Nicholas Ray, then working on a similar project, was brought in to helm the film version. His star was James Dean, fresh from Warners' East of Eden. Ray's low budget dictated that the new film be lensed in black-and-white, but when East of Eden really took off at the box office, the existing footage was scrapped and reshot in color. This was great, so far as Ray was concerned, inasmuch as he had a predilection for symbolic color schemes. James Dean's hot red jacket, for example, indicated rebellion, while his very blue blue jeans created a near luminescent effect (Ray had previously used the same vivid color combination on Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar). As part of an overall bid for authenticity, real-life gang member Frank Mazzola was hired as technical advisor for the fight scenes. To extract as natural a performance as possible from Dean, Ray redesigned the Stark family's living room set to resemble Ray's own home, where Dean did most of his rehearsing. Speaking of interior sets, the mansion where the three troubled teens hide out had previously been seen as the home of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.
Released right after James Dean's untimely death, Rebel without a Cause netted an enormous profit. The film almost seems like a eulogy when seen today, since so many of its cast members - James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Nick Adams - died young. Mineo, sad and touching as the lost boy infatuated with Dean's Jim Stark, was murdered near his Hollywood home, while Wood, who brought female sexual yearning to the screen in ways that had never before been seen, drowned in a mysterious boating accident. And, of course, Dean died in a car accident before the film was even released. That Rebel Without a Cause remains a classic is in no small part due to Dean's raw, soulful performance, made more timeless by his mortality." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

East of Eden 1955 - Magnificent feature film debut of the iconic film star

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,0

Director: Elia Kazan
Main Cast: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Dekker

"This truncated screen version of John Steinbeck's best-seller was the first starring vehicle for explosive 1950s screen personality James Dean. A grand, visually remarkable adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, East of Eden was one of the films responsible for the cult that grew up around James Dean. Released in 1955, the same year as Dean's Rebel Without a Cause, Eden featured the actor in his sullen, troubled prime, rolling his eyes, mumbling his words, and stuffing his hands into his pockets as only he knew how. At once angry and vulnerable, Dean's performances in both movies established him as an icon of youthful discontent for decades to come. Aside from its place in the Dean iconography, East of Eden remains remarkable for Elia Kazan's use of CinemaScope, capturing with harsh vibrancy the expanse and breathtaking desolation of the California farmlands. The landscape crackles with a moody intensity that mirrors the conflicts among the film's central characters. In this respect, East of Eden earned its place in Hollywood legend: it featured great performances from its human principals, while the scenery gave a spellbinding performance in its own right. Released the same year as Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden provided Dean with his first Oscar nomination, for Best Actor. Among the movie's other stellar performances, Jo Van Fleet won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. " - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

The night of the hunter 1955 - Laughton created a masterpiece of horror

IMDB Link
IMDB Rating: 8,1

Director: Charles Laughton
Main Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Peter Graves

"Actor Charles Laughton directed only one movie during his 36 years in show business, and he certainly made his lone effort memorable; The Night of the Hunter is a strange, chilling, and uniquely compelling work that resembles no other American film of its era. Superbly shot by ace cinematographer Stanley Cortez, the film was obviously influenced by the look of German expressionist cinema, but Cortez and Laughton took the style's visual devices and reshaped them for their own purposes. The result is a film that resembles a reflected dream of childhood, foreign and troubling yet also very beautiful. Laughton drew a stunning performance from Robert Mitchum, who drops his usual veneer of casual cool and becomes disquietingly psychotic man of the cloth Harry Powell; his rapt sermon about the battle between love and hatred, and his murder of his new bride (Shelley Winters), rank with the most powerful and deeply etched moments of Mitchum's career. Legend has it that Laughton, who didn't care for children, instructed Mitchum to direct Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce as the luckless Harper siblings, and, if it's true, Mitchum coaxed a pair of unusually naturalistic and affecting performances from his youthful co-stars, who never play "cute." Lillian Gish is a tower of both strength and compassion as Rachel Cooper, the saintly flip side to Mitchum's dark perversity; in a world where even the most loving and honorable adults have gone astray, Rachel alone offers love and protection without judgment to young people who need it, and Powell's venal, misogynist brutality are no match for her spiritual courage. It's a pity that Laughton never followed up on this remarkable debut; many long and successful careers have been launched by movies not half as impressive as The Night of the Hunter. Overlooked on its first release, The Night of the Hunter is now regarded as a classic." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links: