Invasion of the body snatchers 1956 - A cautionary fable about the blacklisting hysteria of the McCarthy era

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Don Siegel
Main Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones

"Though it was an inexpensive production for B-movie studio Allied Artists, Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is a class-A 1950s science fiction allegory about the fragility of inner passion. With Siegel's matter-of-fact approach and 'ordinary' small town setting and characters, the story about human possession by unexplained alien pods becomes all the more frightening; though the pods are from elsewhere, the 'monsters' assume human faces. While the pods have often been seen as a Cold War sci-fi metaphor for Communist infiltration of American society, they are an equally compelling symbol of soul-deadening 1950s suburban conformity. Invasion of the Body Snatchers builds tension slowly and steadily, dealing not in the shock of bug-eyed monsters common to other 1950s science-fiction movies but in the unnerving possibility that the enemy is among us - and impossible to tell from our allies. Siegel himself liked to assert that the Hollywood studios were filled with pods; and when Allied Artists saw Siegel's bleak ending, they demanded a prologue and epilogue that added an element of hope. The 'Siegel version' of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, however, was seen in Europe and 'underground' American screenings, before the 1979 reissue officially deleted the studio-mandated additions.
Keep an eye peeled for a bit part by soon-to-be-legendary Western director Sam Peckinpah, who plays a meter reader and also (uncredited) helped write the screenplay. Based on a novel by Jack Finney, Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman and in 1993 by Abel Ferrara (as Body Snatchers); and its influence can be felt from The Stepford Wives (1975) to The X-Files." - www.allmovie.com

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The day the Earth stood still 1951 - An intelligent sci-fi classic in the shadows of Cold War

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: Robert Wise
Main Cast: Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Hugh Marlowe, Sam Jaffe

"At a time when science fiction on film had yet to work itself out of its bug-eyed monsters period, The Day the Earth Stood Still was a dramatic step forward for the genre. Intelligently written and directed, well-crafted, and boasting a top-notch cast in good form, it was a class act all the way, as well as one of the first Hollywood films to take the idea of extraterrestrial visitors seriously (if not as a practical reality, at least as an interesting metaphor). Klaatu, as played by Michael Rennie, was that rare alien invader who wanted to save us from ourselves, and Rennie gives the character an intelligence, compassion, and strength that make him seem a lot more human than many of the earthlings he encounters, while Sam Jaffe, Patricia Neal, and Billy Gray manage to prove that not all the Earth people are violent, brain-dead slobs. Director Robert Wise and his crew create an admirable sense of tension and awestruck wonder in the wake of Klaatu's arrival (many later films with higher budgets failed to capture the magic of the spaceship landing in Washington, D.C., or the towering mystery of Klaatu's robot assistant Gort), and, at a time when Cold War paranoia was at its height, The Day the Earth Stood Still carried a strong pro-disarmament message that was quite brave for its day. The film's message remains pertinent today, and, as entertainment, its intelligence, warmth, and solid filmcraft make it an enduring classic of its kind." - www.allmovie.com

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The third man 1949 - Visually stunning, mysterious British Cold War thriller

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IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Carol Reed
Main Cast: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee

"In this Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Upon his arrival, Martins discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that his funeral is taking place immediately. At the graveside, Martins meets outwardly affable Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) and actress Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), who is weeping copiously. When Calloway tells Martins that the late Harry Lime was a thief and murderer, the loyal Martins is at first outraged. Gradually, he discovers not only that Calloway was right but also that the man lying in the coffin in the film's early scenes was not Harry Lime at all - and that Lime is still very much alive (he was the mysterious 'third man' at the scene of the fatal accident). Thus the stage is set for the movie's famous climactic confrontation in the sewers of Vienna - and the even more famous final shot, in which Martins pays emotionally for doing 'the right thing'.
Producer Alexander Korda wanted Noel Coward to play the mysterious Harry Lime, but, once Orson Welles was cast in the part, the movie became a testament to his presence and impact; he's only on screen for about a quarter of the movie, but he's the actor that everyone remembers. In fact, Welles was off shooting another movie, reporting to The Third Man only late in the shooting, and he was doubled for many scenes: that was Carol Reed's assistant, future Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton, in the black trench coat running down Vienna's darkened streets, and those were director Reed's fingers reaching through the sewer grating at the chase's end. Recasting Joseph Cotten's Holly Martins as an American in turn allowed Greene to bring to the screen for the first time his antipathy toward Americans and their bright-eyed, bushy-tailed innocence in approaching the world's problems, a theme that would manifest itself even more directly in relation to Vietnam in The Quiet American.
Nominated for several Academy Awards, The Third Man won Best Cinematography for Robert Krasker." - www.allmovie.com

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Notorious 1946 - Hitchcock's visual masterpiece

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IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Main Cast: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern

"One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest films, Notorious features the director at his devilishly elegant, self-assured best. The film's smooth veneer largely creates its visceral impact; lurking beneath the gloss are dealings of the most grotesque sort, their execution made all the more insidious by their sophisticated guise. Aside from containing one of Hitchcock's most famous MacGuffins, the uranium ore, Notorious boasts some of his most famous camerawork, most notably the gorgeous tracking shot during Sebastian's party that takes the viewer from the top of a staircase to Alicia's hand, clenched around the key that will lead her to the uranium ore. The camera moves with the quiet intimacy of an unobserved party guest, almost serpentine in its journey. Similarly ingenious is Hitchcock's use of point-of-view shots, particularly that of Alicia's waking up with a hangover and watching Devlin walk toward her as the camera spins 180 degrees. Seeing through Alicia's eyes, the audience sympathizes with her, making the character one of Hitchcock's most full-blooded and enduring heroines. It goes without saying that the success of Alicia's characterization is in no small part due to Ingrid Bergman's performance; tragic, lovelorn, and marked by logical cynicism, her portrayal of Alicia was one of the best of Bergman's career. She was ably supported by Cary Grant and Claude Rains, the former going against his likeable, effortlessly charismatic persona to play an initially charmless man with morals as questionable as the heroine's are supposed to be. Rains, paired with Bergman again after Casablanca, makes Sebastian into one of the film's more sympathetic characters; it is a mark of Rains' ability that when Sebastian turns to climb the stairs in the film's closing scene, we feel real terror for him. That Sebastian's fate is the result of both his own manipulations of others and his heart's manipulations of himself is at the center of the film's true MacGuffin: masquerading as a Cold War thriller, Notorious is one of the screen's classic black romances." - www.allmovie.com

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