The King and I 1956 - The much-loved family classic

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IMDB Rating: 7,5

Director: Walter Lang
Main Cast: Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr, Rita Moreno, Martin Benson, Terry Saunders, Rex Thompson

"The King and I, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's 1951 Broadway musical hit, was based on Margaret Landon's book Anna and the King of Siam. Since 20th-Century-Fox had made a film version of the Landon book in 1946, that studio had first dibs on the movie adaptation of The King and I. It typifies the elaborate Broadway musical adaptations with which Hollywood studios often tried to fight the advance of television of 1950s. In general, The King and I tends to be somewhat stagey, with the notable exception of the matchless 'Small House of Uncle Thomas' ballet, which utilizes the Cinemascope 55 format to best advantage (the process also does a nice job of 'handling' Deborah Kerr's voluminous hoopskirts) to counter the smallness of the TV screen, offering equally grand set design, costumes, and cinematography. Most of the Broadway version's best songs ('Getting to Know You', 'Whistle a Happy Tune', 'A Puzzlement', 'Shall We Dance' etc.) are retained. None of the omissions are particularly regrettable, save for Anna's solo 'Shall I Tell You What I Think of You?' This feisty attack on the King's chauvinism was specially written to suit the talents of Gertrude Lawrence, who played Anna in the original production; the song was cut from the film because it made Deborah Kerr seem 'too bitchy' (Kerr's singing, incidentally, is dubbed for the most part by the ubiquitous Marni Nixon - who had been responsible for Natalie Wood's singing voice in West Side Story and Audrey Hepburn's in My Fair Lady). So the songs and performances are equally impressive: Yul Brynner - being the main attraction of the movie - won an Oscar for his career-best performance as the King of Siam, the role that made him a star and with which he will forever be identified." - www.allmovie.com

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Giant 1956 - From rigid conservatism to mindless materialism

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IMDB Rating: 7,7

Director: George Stevens
Main Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Mercedes McCambridge, Dennis Hopper, Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor

"George Stevens' sprawling adaptation of Edna Ferber's best-selling novel successfully walks a fine line between potboiler and serious drama for its 210-minute running time, making it one of the few epics of its era that continues to hold up as engrossing entertainment across the decades. Even if it hadn't starred three of the most iconic screen figures of the 1950s, George Stevens's Giant would still be an emotionally powerful and visually striking film; adding Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean (in his final performance) to the mix was just the icing on the cake. Dean contributes the highest-caliber fireworks, though his Method style sometimes blends uncomfortably with the more traditional performances of the other actors, but Stevens also drew atypically strong performances from Taylor and Hudson, who delivers perhaps his best performance on screen next to Seconds (1966). The story is a glorified soap opera, but Stevens's epic production strengthens the narrative rather than drowning it, providing a visual metaphor for the intimidating vastness of the Texas landscape. The image of the vast Benedict mansion slowly appearing as a tiny dot on the horizon is only the most memorable of the film's many indelible images. Giant is as big and sprawling as Texas itself; it's the tininess of the larger-than-life characters in the oilfields of the Southwest that keeps them human, and makes them all the more fascinating.
The talented supporting cast includes Mercedes McCambridge as Bick’s frustrated sister, put out by the new woman of the house, and with Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper as the Benedict’s rebellious children.
Giant was nominated for 10 Academy Awards with director George Stevens winning his second Oscar for this ambitious, grandly realized epic of the changing socio-economic (and physical) landscape of modern Texas." - www.allmovie.com

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Marty 1955 - The basic needs for love and companionship

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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

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Chikamatsu monogatari (The crucified lovers) 1954 - An essential tale of tragic romance

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IMDB Rating: 8,2

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi
Main Cast: Kazuo Hasegawa, Kyoko Kagawa, Eitaro Shindo, Eitaro Ozawa

"In the 1950s, Kenji Mizoguchi was on a roll. He won two successive Golden Lions at the Venice Film Festival - an unprecedented feat - and produced three unqualified masterpieces: Life of Oharu, Ugetsu, and Sansho Dayu. The Crucified Lovers, made the same year as Sansho, stands as Mizoguchi's last great film. For this film - about star-crossed lovers, based on a puppet play by Monzaemon Chikamatsu - he returns to familiar themes: avaricious, duplicitous men; pious, long-suffering women; and the cruel vagaries of fate. Unlike his previous postwar films, the lead male character, Mohei, does not seem consumed by greed, vengeance, or vanity. Yet compared to the purity and devotion of lead female - a near constant in Mizoguchi's oeuvre - Mohei still seems weak in comparison. The film unfolds with marvelous fluidity, gathering momentum until the lovers' gruesome end. The blissful smiles on the faces of Osan and Mohei as they are led to crucifixion is one of the most striking images in Mizoguchi's long catalogue. Technically, Mizoguchi fills this film with striking photography and elegant camera movement. Though perhaps lacking the lyricism of Ugetsu and the grandeur of Sansho Dayu, The Crucified Lovers is a breathtaking work." - www.allmovie.com

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Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai) 1954 - Unanimously hailed as one of cinema's greatest masterpieces

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IMDB Rating: 8,7

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Main Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Tsushima, Yukiko Shimazaki, Daisuke Kato

"Widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, Seven Samurai was both the apex of Akira Kurosawa's long career and the high-water mark of the Japanese period drama. The film's action rivets the viewer in spite of the three-hour-plus running time: the battle sequences, among the best ever filmed, are immediate and visceral; and the characters are complex and so well-rendered that the viewer grieves when one dies. Like few other historical films, it captures not only the physical look of the time but also its essence. Like Jean Renoir's masterpieces Grand Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939), Seven Samurai illustrates the collapse of social distinctions and the growing irrelevance of old traditions in dangerous and chaotic times. Kurosawa questions the division between samurai and bandit, between good and evil. In one scene, peasant-born Kikuchiyo heatedly argues that the samurai have been abusing and exploiting the peasants for centuries. In this framework, the samurais' acts of bravery, selflessness, and honor seem absurd, if not pointless. The peasants' choice of the samurai over the bandits is merely one of a lesser evil. Once the bandits are gone, the samurai will no longer be needed. This is underscored in the film's poignant end, when the surviving three samurai leave the village, receiving neither acclaim nor reward, as the villagers plant rice. American audiences were so impressed with Kurosawa's epic masterpiece that it was remade into John Sturges' Magnificent Seven (1960)." - www.allmovie.com

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Madame de... (The earrings of Madame de...) 1953 - A sad, elegant film from the French master

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IMDB Rating: 7,9

Director: Max Ophüls
Main Cast: Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica

"A wonderful companion piece to director Max Ophüls' La Ronde, Madame de... spins a similar tale of serial affairs among the rich and idle. But its darker tone has rightfully earned its status as the filmmaker's great triumph. A minority camp would give the nod to Lola Montès. The pair of earrings which pass from hand to hand come to symbolize deception and greed, pawns in silly games of love. Ophüls connects his characters with a camera (directed by his frequent collaborator Christian Matras) which glides in and out of well-appointed rooms, suggesting that there are no degrees of separation in this world. Few filmmakers could match Ophüls' talent for exposing the need among the wealthy and titled to keep up appearances." - www.allmovie.com

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Sabrina 1954 - Charming modern-day Cinderella story

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Martha Hyer

"Billy Wilder's Sabrina has an explicit fairy-tale quality (it begins with the words 'once upon a time') that betrays its Cinderella roots. Based on Samuel Taylor's stage play, the movie suffers occasionally from feelings of staginess and windiness. It is, at times, obviously formulaic and predictable, but such is the nature of most romantic comedies. Audrey Hepburn's naïf-like vulnerability and angelic beauty make her the perfect fit for the part; her natural elegance, playfulness, and intelligence have the audience cheerfully manipulated into applauding her elevation from rags to riches. Humphrey Bogart (in a part originally intended for Cary Grant) plays against type as the romantic lead who knows the price of everything, but has no concept of the value of love. His character, Linus Larrabee, not Sabrina, is the real protagonist of the piece, as it is his big decisions and personal growth that key the movie's action and resolution. William Holden is well cast as the debonair and wanton playboy. While Bogie and Hepburn don't rank up there with Bogie and Bacall on the chemistry meter, both are incessantly charming. Sabrina is not as insightful or cutting as Wilder's best work, but the snappy and witty banter, which is marked by droll double entendres, help to elevate the film above standard entrants in this genre. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, but ended up winning only one, for Edith Head's costume design." - www.allmovie.com

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A star is born 1954 - Judy's triumph from beginning to end

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Judy Garland, James Mason, Jack Carson, Charles Bickford, Tommy Noonan, Amanda Blake

"The 1954 musical remake of A Star is Born could have been titled A Star is Reborn, in that it represented the triumphal return to the screen of Judy Garland after a four-year absence. The remake adheres closely to the plotline of the 1937 original: An alcoholic film star, on his last professional legs, gives a career boost to a unknown aspiring actress. The two marry, whereupon her fame and fortune rises while his spirals sharply downward. Unable to accept this, the male star crawls deeper into the bottle. The wife tearfully decides to give up her own career to care for her husband. To spare her this fate, the husband chivalrously commits suicide. His wife is inconsolable at first, but is urged to go 'on with the show' in memory of her late husband.
To make room for the songs, several supporting characters from the 1937 version were eliminated. The result is a film that, despite the increased length, has less story-telling richness, though the deficiency is compensated by Garland's superb performance.
What truly sets the 1954 A Star is Born apart from other films of its ilk is its magnificent musical score by Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin. The songs include The Man Who Got Away (brilliantly performed by Garland in one long take, sans dubbing), It's a New World, Somewhere There's a Someone, I Was Born in a Trunk, Lose That Long Face and Gotta Have Me Go With You. When originally previewed in 1954, the film ran well over three hours, thanks to the lengthy-and thoroughly disposable-Born in a Trunk number, added to the film as an afterthought without the approval or participation of director George Cukor. The Warner Bros. executives trimmed the film to 154 minutes, eliminating three top-rank musical numbers and several crucial expository sequences (including Norman's proposal to Vicki). At the instigation of the late film historian Ronald Haver, the full version was painstakingly restored in 1983, with outtakes and still photos bridging the 'lost' footage. Despite the efforts of restoration experts, there are today no complete prints of the original release version. Judy Garland benefits from the increased emphasis on her character, and the film is far more of a star vehicle for her than was the original for Janet Gaynor. Though nominated in several categories, A Star is Born was left empty-handed at Academy Award time, an oversight that caused outrage then and still rankles Judy Garland fans to this day. (Hedda Hopper later reported that her loss to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954) was the result of the closest Oscar vote up till that time that didn't end in a tie, with just six votes separating the two.)" - www.allmovie.com

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The band wagon 1953 - Last of the great Hollywood musicals

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IMDB Rating: 7,6

Director: Vincente Minnelli
Main Cast: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan

"Made towards the end of MGM producer Arthur Freed's peak period of musical productions, at a time when movies, theater, and other forms of entertainment were all feeling the heat from the rise of television, preeminent musical director Vincente Minnelli's backstage story celebrates the musical itself and its brand of pop entertainment. Pitting Fred Astaire's washed-up movie hoofer against Jack Buchanan's high-falutin' artiste and Cyd Charisse's transplanted ballerina, The Band Wagon reflexively pokes fun at the musical's excesses and delves into the question of what an audience really wants, implicitly defending traditional forms of entertainment at a time when Hollywood was in decline and consumers were turning to new form of recreation. As with Freed's Singin' in the Rain (1952), the sophisticated comedy of show business manners becomes a showcase for the Freed Unit's sparkling production values and musical acumen, as well as Minnelli's stylistic virtuosity. While numbers such as Astaire's 42nd street dance 'Shine on Your Shoes' and Astaire's and Charisse's 'Dancing in the Dark' reveal Minnelli's mastery at integrating dance and story, the final 'Band Wagon' revue is a peerless sequence of pure musical entertainment, with 'The Girl Hunt' deftly mixing the high and low arts of ballet and jazz in a parody of Mickey Spillane's detective yarns. Though not one of Minnelli's Oscar winners, The Band Wagon has come to be considered his best musical, and a wise elegy to the form." - www.allmovie.com

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From here to eternity 1953 - Pearl Harbor, Schofield Barracks, aspirations & frustrations

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IMDB Rating: 7,8

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Main Cast: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Frank Sinatra, Ernest Borgnine

"There were few movies greeted with more anticipation than Fred Zinnemann's From Here to Eternity when it opened in 1953. Adapted from one of the best-selling novels of the previous ten years, it was a film for which everyone had high expectations. It lived up to all of them and then some, adding a new level of violence and frankness to popular dramatic films just when the public was ready to accept these elements. (However, the movie couldn't even hint at an aspect that James Jones' novel mentioned almost at its outset: the homosexual advances that Prewitt parried from his former sergeant, resulting in his transfer to a rifle company.)
Burt Lancaster, who'd previously established himself as a hero-victim in a series of film noirs made under the auspices of Universal and as a costume hero in a pair of Warner Bros. period adventure films (The Flame and the Arrow, The Crimson Pirate), transformed himself into the quintessential macho leading man with his performance; Montgomery Clift gave the performance of his life as Robert E. Lee Prewitt, unwilling boxer and trumpet player; ex-navy enlisted man Ernest Borgnine dominated every scene he was in as Sgt. Judson, the most vicious enlisted man seen onscreen in a mainstream American movie up to that time; Deborah Kerr, previously known for her plucky, lady-like roles, got to play an unabashedly sexual woman, and a married one at that; Donna Reed, cast against type as the prostitute with delusions of her own, gave the most honest and wrenching performance of her career; and Frank Sinatra, cast against all prevailing wisdom in Hollywood (and beating out Eli Wallach for the choicest supporting role in Hollywood that year), became a great actor overnight as the doomed Maggio.
No words could do justice to the film's most famous scene: the nocturnal romantic rendezvous on the beach, with Burt Lancaster's and Deborah Kerr's bodies intertwining as the waves crash over them. If you're able to take your eyes off the principals for a moment or two, keep an eye out for George Reeves; his supporting role was shaved down when, during previews, audiences yelled 'There's Superman!' and began to laugh.
From Here to Eternity raised the bar for realism (and the genuine, jagged, if ugly side of life) in war movies, and in movies in general; winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and supporting awards to Sinatra and Reed." - www.allmovie.com

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Roman holiday 1953 - An enchanting fairy tale that catapulted Audrey into stardom

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IMDB Rating: 8,1

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert

"With Audrey Hepburn at her most appealing, Gregory Peck at his most charismatic, and Rome at its most photogenic, Roman Holiday remains one of the most popular romances that has ever skipped across the screen. Aside from being an enormously enjoyable romp, the film is most notable for two reasons. The first is Hepburn, featured here in her first starring role in a Hollywood film. Her performance won her an Academy Award and established her as an actress whose waifish, delicate beauty presented a viable alternative to the amply proportioned bombshells of the day. With her wide-eyed but cultivated portrayal of Princess Anne, Hepburn kicked off a trend defined by the Audrey Hepburn 'look' - simple, sophisticated, and streamlined. The second reason for the film's importance is its location. Whereas modern-day filmmakers may think nothing of jetting off to remote and exotic locales, in 1953 the idea of traveling beyond a Hollywood soundstage was fairly novel. Director William Wyler's use of Rome is one of the best examples of how a location can become a leading character in a film: without the city's twisted alleyways, bustling crowds, and hulking ruins, Roman Holiday would have had the visual impact of a museum diorama. The effect of using the actual city in the film was eye-popping: audiences saw not just a romance between the two lead characters but a love affair between the camera and the city. In this respect, Roman Holiday goes beyond its status as one of the screen's most enduring romances to become one of history's most thumbed-through travel brochures.
Oscar also went to the screenplay, credited to Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton but actually co-written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo." - www.allmovie.com

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Singin' in the rain 1952 - One of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made

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IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Main Cast: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Cyd Charisse

"Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's Singin' In The Rain is usually lumped together with the other MGM "songbook" musicals of its era, An American In Paris and The Band Wagon. In contrast to those two outstanding works of music and motion, however, Singin' In The Rain had an additional layer of importance and appeal as one of Hollywood's relatively rare feature films about itself. The Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown songbook is on one level the center of the movie, but it's also a backdrop for a humorous and delightfully stylized look back at the crisis that engulfed the movie mecca and its inhabitants once synchronized sound came to films. The musical was made in 1952, only 25 years after the beginning of the series of events depicted and satirized in the script, so recent in time that there were still plenty of old studio hands (including sound department head Douglas Shearer) who had firsthand memories of the actual events.The film is full of delightful in-jokes about its subject and the people who lived through the era: Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont is a burlesque of silent-movie sex symbol Clara Bow, whose decidedly urban style of diction never really fit her image or what the public wanted, while Millard Mitchell's R.F. Simpson was a gently jocular satire of Freed himself, who could never quite visualize the elaborate musical numbers whose scripts and budgets he was approving as producer. Donald O'Connor's Cosmo Brown was an onscreen stand-in for men like Franz Waxman and dozens of other musicians, who moved from writing arrangements or conducting the major theater orchestras to heading the music departments of the studios. The resulting musical, in addition to offering a brace of memorable songs and performances (with a startlingly sultry featured spot for Cyd Charisse in the "Broadway Melody" sequence, as a bonus), gave audiences a short-course pop-history lesson about how the movies learned to talk, sing, and dance." - www.allmovie.com

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A place in the sun 1951 - With two of cinema's most beautiful faces

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IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: George Stevens
Main Cast: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Raymond Burr

"Previously filmed in 1931 under its original title, Theodore Dreiser's bulky but brilliant novel An American Tragedy was remade in 1951 by George Stevens as A Place in the Sun. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies, including a vicious cross-examination by a D.A. played by future Perry Mason, Raymond Burr.
A huge improvement over the 1931 An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg, A Place in the Sun softens some of the rough edges of Dreiser's naturalism, most notably in the passages pertaining to George's and Angela's romance. Even those 1951 bobbysoxers who wouldn't have been caught dead poring through the Dreiser original were mesmerized by the loving, near-erotic full facial closeups of Clift and Taylor as they pledge eternal devotion. A Place in the Sun won six Oscars, including Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, although it lost Best Picture to An American in Paris." - www.allmovie.com

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Father of the bride 1950 - A cute family classic with wonderful performances

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IMDB rating: 7,3

Director: Vincente Minnelli
Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor, Billie Burke

"Father of the Bride is a well-made light comedy, enhanced by a radiant performance from Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy at his subtle, comic best (receiving an Oscar nomination for his performance). The film encapsulates the self-image of the United States in 1950, depicting a traditional two-parent family's passing along the fundamental ritual of marriage. As such, it effectively defines what is sometimes referred to as a "family values" film, never mind that the United States in the 1950s may hardly have been this homogenized and wholesome. If not as opulent as MGM films of the Irving Thalberg era, Father of the Bride nonetheless represents the type of high-quality studio film often produced in the post-WWII era. It was a huge financial success, and it is sometimes cited as evidence that the reputation of director Vincente Minnelli has come to center too much on his musicals and not enough on his broader work, such as this comedy.
Minnelli reunited with the principal cast a year later for a sequel, Father's Little Dividend; and the movie was remade in 1991 with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton." - www.allmovie.com

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Born yesterday 1950 - Judy Holliday's pitch-perfect performance

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IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden

"Garson Kanin's Broadway hit was transferred to the screen with only a few passing nods to the stricter censorship required by films. Judy Holliday won an Oscar for her portrayal of Billie Dawn, a strident, dim-bulbed ex-chorus girl who is the mistress of millionaire junk tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford). In Washington to put a few senators and congressmen in his pocket (the better to lay the groundwork for an illegal cartel), the rude-and-crude Brock realizes that the unrefined Billie will prove an embarrassment. Thus he hires idealistic but impoverished Paul Verrell (William Holden) to pump some intelligence and 'class' into Billie. Paul does his job too well; by awakening Billie's social and political consciousness, he turns the girl into Brock's most formidable foe in his efforts to buy influence in DC. Along the way Paul and Billie fall in love.
Crooked politicians were nothing new to motion pictures, but the film was released into an era of Anti-Communism when even the smallest criticism of the U.S. government was perceived as serving the Communist cause. So strong was this mood that Holliday was investigated by the FBI - and cleared via a personal message from FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to studio chief Harry Cohn." - www.allmovie.com

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Champion 1949 - The tour-de-force performance of Kirk Douglas that made him a star

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Mark Robson
Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Marilyn Maxwell, Paul Stewart, Ruth Roman

"While far from the only good film on boxing, Champion is perhaps the best drama ever based on the fight game. It is remarkable for a number of things: the unrelenting, grinding logic that leads to the hero's tragic fate; the beautiful cinematography and editing that make it a masterpiece of light and shadow; near-perfect performances by everyone, from Kirk Douglas as Midge Kelly, down to the actor who plays a sleazy small-time ring manager; and the boost it gave to the budding careers of Douglas and others. The basic story has been told many times, but never so powerfully: a poor, ambitious boy accidentally learns that he is a 'natural' boxer, and that he might 'go all the way'. He wins his early fights with ease and, at last, in the big one, he becomes champion of the world. Then rot sets in. He lives it up, deserts his loved ones and best friends, and loses his physical and moral advantages. Near the end - out of condition, demoralized - the champion loses (or almost loses) his boxing crown. Finally, he grits his teeth, returns to rigorous training and to people he really likes, and he regains (or holds onto) the championship.
The movie raised some unpleasant truths about human nature, and Douglas was so compelling in a vile and irredeemable role that he almost single-handedly changed the rules for the roles that could be played by Hollywood leading men and in which the public would accept them. (Billy Wilder and Fred MacMurray had already made progress in this direction with Double Indemnity in 1944, but most leading men were still unwilling to take that kind of risk.) Had Douglas, pegged as one of Hollywood's comers, not taken the role near the outset of his career and run with it to an Oscar nomination and box-office success, we might never have seen financing for such movies as A Streetcar Named Desire, The Wild One, On the Waterfront, The Naked Jungle, The Harder They Fall, The Man With the Golden Arm, or other groundbreaking antihero vehicles of the 1950s, which were Hollywood's most daring films of a decade often regarded as bland.
Too bad that this wonderful film - nominated for six Oscars including Best Actor - won only an Academy Award for Film Editing (Harry Gerstad) and a Golden Globe Award for Best Cinematography (Franz Planer). All the acting performances are superb: Champion was the breakthrough role for Douglas; his Oscar nomination led to many later starring vehicles. Champion also launched the careers of actresses Ruth Roman and Lola Albright, and has what is probably Marilyn Maxwell's finest performance as the unforgettable gold digger Grace Diamond. And all that terrific acting certainly implies some credit for director Mark Robson, who went on to do award winners like Bright Victory and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. Regardless of what Oscars it won or didn't win, Champion is a landmark film that should be on everyone's must-see list." - www.allmovie.com

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Adam's rib 1949 - Battle of the sexes

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IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: George Cukor
Main Cast: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, David Wayne, Jean Hagen

"Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin's witty and intelligent script (despite many improbabilities, such as the conflict of interest in having a husband and wife contest the same case, and the plausibility-defying circus-like theatrics that Amanda deploys in the courtroom) propels this funny and barbed courtroom comedy. The legal and gender-fueled debates at the center of the film may seem somewhat antiquated today, but the intelligence and wit that inform much of the film's dialogue are still surprisingly fresh. Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn share an onscreen ease and familiarity usually reserved for long-married couples. Ironically - given that the film is about the legal ramifications of a woman's shooting of her philandering husband - they had become an extramarital item themselves by the time this film was being made. Judy Holliday gives an unexpectedly affecting performance as the woman wronged, while bug-eyed Tom Ewell is solid as her weasel-like philandering husband. However, David Wayne as the lascivious piano composer/neighbor of the feuding legal eagles gives the most impressive supporting performance. His best line? 'Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which comes idiot children and more lawyers'. Technically, the film is very conventional. Outside of the opening sequences, in which George Cukor's camera roams the busy streets of rush hour New York, the film has a stage-like feel, with static shots of the battling spouses dominating the proceedings. Perhaps Cukor didn't want to distract us from the real star of the show, the clever and insightful Kanin/Gordon script." - www.allmovie.com

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The heiress 1949 - Olivia de Havilland's Oscar-winning performance

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IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: William Wyler
Main Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift, Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins

"Henry James based his 1881 novella Washington Square on a real-life incident, wherein a young actor of his acquaintance married an unattractive but very wealthy young woman for the express purpose of living the rest of his life in luxury. Washington Square was turned into a stage play in 1946 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz; this, in turn was adapted for the movies under the title The Heiress. Olivia DeHavilland won an Academy Award (her second) for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper, the plain-Jane daughter of wealthy widower Dr. Austin Sloper (Ralph Richardson). Catherine is not only unattractive, but lacks most of the social graces, thanks in great part to the domineering attitudes of her father. When Catherine falls in love with handsome young Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift), she is convinced that her love is reciprocated, else why would Morris be so affectionate towards her? Dr. Sloper sees things differently, correctly perceiving that Morris is a callow fortune hunter. Standing up to her father for the first time in her life, Catherine insists that she will elope with Morris; but when Dr. Sloper threatens to cut off her dowry, Morris disappears. Still, Catherine threatens to run off with the next young man who pays any attention to her; Sloper, belatedly realizing how much he has hurt his only child, arranges to leave her his entire fortune. Years pass: Morris returns, insisting that he'd only left because he didn't want to cause Catherine the 'grief' of being disinherited. Seemingly touched by Morris' 'sincerity', Catherine agrees to elope with him immediately. But when Morris arrives at the appointed hour, he finds the door locked and bolted. Asked how she can treat Morris so cruelly, Catherine replies coldly 'Yes, I can be very cruel. I have been taught by masters'. Though The Heiress ends on a downbeat note, the audience is gratified to know that Catherine Sloper has matured from ugly-duckling loser to a tower of strength who will never allow herself to be manipulated by anyone ever again. World War II had forever changed the role of women in U.S. society, and The Heiress, in the guise of a period drama, carried the theme of women's increasing power in the postwar years. This is just one of several films from the era that were thus both excellent dramas and interesting allegories. " - www.allmovie.com

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A foreign affair 1948 - A very funny post-war satire

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IMDB rating: 7,5

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund

"A cutting-edge comedy in the post-World War II era, A Foreign Affair remains a very funny film, but much of its richness came from the historical context of its satire. At the heart of the film is the observant wit of writer/director Billy Wilder, a Jewish German émigré with a sardonic view of life in post-war Berlin. The interplay among Marlene Dietrich, Jean Arthur, and John Lund gives the film much of its comic texture; the dialogue is sharp and the story is knowing. Charles Lang's cinematography is first-rate, and Edith Head's costume designs give the film much of its glamour. While not as well-known as other Wilder films, A Foreign Affair was a clear example of Wilder's increasing willingness to push the limits of what Hollywood would allow. While a film like A Foreign Affair would be the crowning achievement for many directors, Wilder had still more great films ahead of him, with such classics as Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Some Like it Hot (1959)." - www.allmovie.com

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Red river 1948 - Epic, emotional Western; a clash between the old and the new

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IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Howard Hawks
Main Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey Sr., John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey Jr.

"In his first collaboration with John Wayne, Howard Hawks examines capitalism and dueling masculinities in the rousing context of a Western cattle drive. A Mutiny on the Bounty for Big Sky country, Red River features a challenge between Montgomery Clift's Matthew Garth and Wayne's Tom Dunson that becomes a contest between new and old models of Western manhood - a clash enhanced by the different performance styles of ambiguous, Method-acting, proto-rebel Clift and stolidly imposing star Wayne. Young and adaptable, Garth sees the necessity of finding new markets and cooperating with a community, including such potential adversaries as John Ireland's gun-loving Cherry, while Dunson's Old West individualism becomes an inflexible, economically ruinous monomania. The unsympathetic Dunson challenged the traditional Wayne persona, presaging the disturbed Western heroes that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s, including Wayne's later role as psychotic Ethan Edwards in John Ford's The Searchers (1956) and in the films that Red River writer Borden Chase wrote for director Anthony Mann. Powered by Russell Harlan's dynamic yet moody black-and-white cinematography and Dimitri Tiomkin's score, Red River became a substantial hit, confirming Clift's star quality in his film debut and earning Oscar nominations for Chase and action editor Christian Nyby; it still stands as one of Hawks's top Westerns." - www.allmovie.com

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