The African Queen 1951 - A successful mixture of adventure, comedy and star chemistry

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: John Huston
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull, Theodore Bikel

"Adapted from a novel by C.S. Forester, The African Queen stars Humphrey Bogart in his Oscar-winning portrayal of Charlie Allnut, the slovenly, gin-swilling captain of a tramp steamer called the African Queen, which ships supplies to small East African villages during World War I. Katharine Hepburn plays Rose Sayer, the maiden-lady sister of a prim British missionary, Rev. Samuel Sayer (Robert Morley). When Germans invade and Samuel dies, Allnut offers to take Rose back to civilization. She can't tolerate his drinking or bad manners; he isn't crazy about her imperious, judgmental attitude. However it does not take long before their passionate dislike turns to love. Together the disparate duo work to ensure their survival on the treacherous waters and devise an ingenious way to destroy a German gunboat. The African Queen may well be the perfect adventure film, its roller-coaster storyline complemented by the chemistry between its stars. The profound difficulties inherent in filming on location in Africa have been superbly documented by several books, including one written by Katharine Hepburn." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

A Christmas carol 1951 - The classic and definitive version of Dicken's novel

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Brian Desmond Hurst
Main Cast: Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Michael Hordern

"A Christmas Carol (Scrooge in UK release) is remarkable for staying faithful to Charles Dickens's classic story as it remains fresh and vivid, even upon repeat viewings. The entire cast is excellent, but it is the great performance of Alastair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge that distinguishes this version from several other adaptations of this work. Sim creates a complex characterization, and, in the film's many flashback scenes, the audience is given a compelling view of the character as he evolves into the not-so-lovable curmudgeon visited by ghosts. Indeed, such complexity is necessary for the story to have its full impact, as the viewer must feel both sympathy and disapproval for Scrooge, a difficult combination for an actor to convey. The crisp, black-and-white cinematography of C.M. Pennington-Richards is also a major asset. This is one of the most convincing of all recreations of Dickens' England, with almost no condescension to sentimentality from director Brian Desmond Hurst." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

A streetcar named Desire 1951 - A milestone Hollywood work with Brando's star-making performance

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Elia Kazan
Main Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden

"With the same director (Elia Kazan), a screenplay co-adapted by the playwright (Tennessee Williams), and three-quarters of the Broadway production's stars, A Streetcar Named Desire transcended 'filmed theater' to become a groundbreaking Hollywood work. Battling the stringent Production Code, Kazan and Williams made concessions concerning the 'perverse' sexual elements of Blanche DuBois' past, but they retained the crucial rape of 'delicate', old-fashioned Blanche by brutal, 'modern' Stanley Kowalski, earning the Code's approval for a film definitively aimed toward adults. Marlon Brando's star-making performance as the 'Stella'-howling Stanley burned itself into popular consciousness with its combination of carnality and Method-acting 'naturalness', establishing Brando as the premier purveyor of the then-innovative Method acting style and a striking erotic presence. The more traditional Vivien Leigh, replacing Broadway's Jessica Tandy, similarly flourished as Blanche, while the Oscar-winning art direction, Harry Stradling's photography, and Alex North's moody, influential jazz score enhanced the hothouse atmosphere. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars, including Best Picture, and took home awards for Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter, though Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Ace in the hole 1951 - A bitterly satiric comedy-drama about media

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall

"A movie truly ahead of its time, Ace in the Hole (also known as The Big Carnival) turned out to be too bitter and cynical for moviegoers in 1951. An unrelenting portrait of media sensationalism and the human obsession with tragedy that propels it, the film is based on a true story that also spawned Robert Penn Warren's novel The Cave. Director, screenwriter, and producer Billy Wilder suffered perhaps the biggest commercial and critical failure of his career with Ace, losing much of his standing at Paramount, even though the movie was released between two of his most enduring and popular triumphs, Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Stalag 17 (1953). Ace was perhaps not up to the standard of those works, but it clearly stands as one of Wilder's many fine achievements. It's hardly surprising that this film failed to find a mainstream audience, despite the added attraction of emerging star Kirk Douglas in the lead. American culture wouldn't be ready for such a large dose of pessimism until the 1970s; even then, a film such as 1976's Network, which clearly paralleled the tone of Wilder's effort, was dismissed by many viewers as too hysterical." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Strangers on a train 1951 - Compelling and stunning thriller masterpiece

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Main Cast: Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll, Patricia Hitchcock

"From the opening shots of two pairs of shoes walking, two train tracks crisscrossing, and those shoes accidentally bumping toes, Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train explores one of his signature concerns: the coexistence of good and evil in one person. In a story adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel and structured through a series of doublings, Robert Walker's Bruno becomes the flamboyant homicidal id to Farley Granger's stiff arriviste Guy, obliging Guy's desire to eliminate his wife and expecting Guy to return the favor with Bruno's father. After the murder, dreamily reflected in a pair of eyeglasses, Bruno haunts Guy, menacingly popping into Guy's life in Washington and on the tennis court. Yet, with Walker's charisma and Granger's weakness, Bruno is the more charming figure, revealing the appeal of moral chaos even as that chaos must be punished. Hitchcock's persistent pairs - shoes, train tracks, crossed tennis racquets on Guy's lighter, two fateful carnival trips, two bespectacled women - point to the ineffable connection between Bruno and Guy, and the (literally) dark psychosis that lurks beneath everyone's bright, well-ordered surface. A popular success, Strangers on a Train was Hitchcock's return to form after several failures." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

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

IMDB Link
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

DVD links:

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

IMDB Link
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

DVD links:

Gun crazy 1950 - One of the most fascinating and thought-provoking crime films of its era.

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Main Cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall

"The definitive Joseph H. Lewis-directed melodrama, Gun Crazy is the 'Bonnie and Clyde' story retooled for the disillusioned postwar generation.
John Dall plays a timorous, emotionally disturbed World War II veteran who has had a lifelong fixation with guns. He meets a kindred spirit in carnival sharpshooter Peggy Cummins, who is equally disturbed - but a lot smarter, and hence a lot more dangerous. Beyond their physical attraction to one another, both Dall and Cummins are obsessed with firearms. They embark on a crime spree, with Cummins as the brains and Dall as the trigger man lacking the courage to kill. As they dance their last dance before dying in a hail of police bullets, the audience is half hoping that somehow they'll escape the Inevitable.
The best and most talked-about scene in Gun Crazy is the bank robbery sequence, shot in 'real time' from the back seat of Dall and Cummins' getaway car. Originally slated for Monogram release, Gun Crazy enjoyed a wider exposure when its producers, the enterprising King Brothers, chose United Artists as the distributor. The film was based on a magazine article by MacKinlay Kantor; one of the scenarists was uncredited blacklistee Dalton Trumbo." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

(720p Blu-Ray rip, 3 GB)

http://rapidgator.net/file/a1498450d44506127cf6c6638567715a

OR:

(Blu-Ray rip, 700 MB)

http://rapidgator.net/file/3dbc8eb8d56c99ab157997b6e31e16e6

DVD links:

The asphalt jungle 1950 - The 'perfect' crime and its consequences

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,9

Director: John Huston
Main Cast: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, Sam Jaffe, John McIntire, Mark Lawrence, Marilyn Monroe

"The Asphalt Jungle is a brilliantly conceived and executed anatomy of a crime - or, as director John Huston and scripter Ben Maddow put it: 'a left-handed form of human endeavor'.
Recently paroled master criminal Erwin 'Doc' Riedenschneider (Sam Jaffe), with funding from crooked attorney Emmerich (Louis Calhern), gathers several crooks together in Cincinnati for a Big Caper. Among those involved are Dix (Sterling Hayden), an impoverished hood who sees the upcoming jewel heist as a means to finance his dream of owning a horse farm. Hunch-backed cafe owner (James Whitmore) is hired on to be the driver for the heist; professional safecracker Louis Ciavelli (Anthony Caruso) assembles the tools of his trade; and a bookie (Marc Lawrence) acts as Emmerich's go-between. The robbery is pulled off successfully, but an alert night watchman shoots Ciavelli. Corrupt cop (Barry Kelley), angry that his 'patsy' (Lawrence) didn't let him in on the caper, beats the bookie into confessing and fingering the other criminals involved. From this point on, the meticulously planned crime falls apart with the inevitability of a Greek tragedy.
Way down on the cast list is Marilyn Monroe in her star-making bit as Emmerich's sexy 'niece'; whenever The Asphalt Jungle would be reissued, Monroe is prominently in the print ads as one of the stars. The Asphalt Jungle was based on a novel by the prolific W.R. Burnett, who also wrote Little Caesar." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Night and the city 1950 - There's no escape from your own trap

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Jules Dassin
Main Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan

"An adaptation of Gerald Kersh's similarly grim source novel, Jules Dassin's Night and the City opens with cheap grifter Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) running for his life through the streets of London. Harry wants to be big-time, and he does not care how he raises cash for his schemes. Like a junkie, he uses and steals from his girlfriend Mary (Gene Tierney), a singer at the Silver Fox, a seedy nightclub owned by the physically grotesque Phil Nosseross Francis L. Sullivan. Harry, who also works for Phil steering unsuspecting customers to the club, comes up with a plan to wrest control of professional wrestling from promoter and underworld kingpin Kristo (Herbert Lom) by manipulating Kristo through his father, retired wrestling great Gregorius (Stanislaus Zbyszko). For financial backing, Harry turns to Phil and Phil's wife Helen Googie Withers, both of whom give him the money, but only to further their own ends. When Gregorius is accidentally killed by his protege's upcoming opponent, Strangler (Mike Mazurki), and Phil realizes that Helen is leaving him for Harry, the scheme quickly unravels. Truly a glimpse of hell, Night and the City's distorted visuals and dark symbolism depict an underworld from which there is no escape and in which redemption comes at a very high price.
Director Jules Dassin, forced to leave Hollywood because of the 1950s blacklist, effectively uses his London setting to create an urban nightmare. The film is dominated by its downbeat ambience and the moral ambiguity of its characters. There is a protagonist, but he is neither a hero nor an anti-hero. As might have been expected, the film did poorly in its initial US theatrical release. The performances are consistently strong, particularly the lead performance of Richard Widmark. While never greatly popular with audiences, Night and the City presages such intense urban films as Taxi Driver and Seven; the star of the former, Robert De Niro, also starred in a subsequent remake of Night and the City." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

(480p Blu-Ray, mkv, 629 MB) -

http://www.filefactory.com/file/6nn61ead4twz/ 

Or:

(720p Blu-Ray, 1GB) -

http://uploaded.net/file/3ewz7mf8/Night_and_the_City_1950_720p_BluRay_x264_x0r.part1.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/ada6oibh/Night_and_the_City_1950_720p_BluRay_x264_x0r.part2.rar

In a lonely place 1950 - One of the darkest portraits of Hollywood

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Nicholas Ray
Main Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy

"A haunting work of stark confessionalism disguised as a taut noir thriller, In a Lonely Place - Nicholas Ray's bleak, desperate tale of fear and self-loathing in Hollywood - remains one of the filmmaker's greatest and most deeply resonant features.
It stars Humphrey Bogart as Dixon Steele, a fading screenwriter suffering from creative burnout; hired to adapt a best-selling novel, instead of reading the book itself he asks the hat-check girl (Martha Stewart) at his favorite nightclub to simply tell him the plot. The morning after, the girl is found brutally murdered, and Steele is the police's prime suspect; however, the would-be starlet across the way, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), provides him with a solid alibi, and they soon begin a romance in spite of Gray's lingering concerns that the troubled, violent Steele might just be a killer after all.
During production, Ray's real-life marriage to co-star Grahame began to crumble, and his own vulnerability and disillusionment clearly inform the picture; the brooding, bitter Steele - a role ideally suited to Bogart's wounded romanticism - is plainly a doppelganger for Ray himself (the site of his first Hollywood apartment is even employed as the set for Steele's home), and the film's unflinching examination of the character's disintegration makes for uniquely compelling viewing." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Harvey 1950 - A true classic about tolerance and faith

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,1

Director: Henry Koster
Main Cast: James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Peggy Dow, Charles Drake, Cecil Kellaway

"This whimsical fantasy about a local drunk's 6' 3 1/2" imaginary rabbit pal was a smash hit (and a Pulitzer Prize winner) on Broadway and was then adapted into this likeable farce that's also an allegory about tolerance. James Stewart stars as Elwood P. Dowd, a wealthy tippler whose sunny philosophy and inebriated antics are tolerated by most of the citizenry. That is, until Elwood begins claiming that he sees a 'pooka' (a mischievous Irish spirit), which has taken the form of a man-sized bunny named Harvey. Although everyone is certain that Elwood has finally lost his mind, Harvey's presence begins to have magically positive effects on the townsfolk, with the exception of Elwood's own sister Veta (Josephine Hull), who, ironically, can also occasionally see Harvey. A snooty socialite, Veta is determined to marry off her daughter, Myrtle (Victoria Horne), to somebody equally respectable, and Elwood's lunacy is interfering. When Veta attempts to have Elwood committed to an insane asylum, however, the result is that she is accidentally admitted instead of her brother. Then the institution's director, Dr. Chumley (Cecil Kellaway), begins seeing Harvey, too. Hull, who reprised her part from the stage production, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

All about Eve 1950 - "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night!"

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Main Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Barbara Bates, Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Ritter

"Based on the story The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, All About Eve is an elegantly bitchy backstage story revolving around aspiring actress Eve Harrington. A skewering satire of the theatre world, All About Eve entertains while it eviscerates. This is a film that really does have it all: Joseph L. Mankiewicz's sure-handed direction and gloriously poisonous screenplay, celluloid diva Bette Davis at her disdainful best, uniformly excellent performances from the supporting cast, and costumes that further demonstrate that designer Edith Head did indeed give good wardrobe. The fact that All About Eve swept the 1950 Academy Awards (receiving six, including Best Picture) speaks to all of these qualities, but a great deal of the film's historical and cinematic importance lies in its content. For years, Broadway had taken aim at Hollywood, and now the tables were turned with considerable venom. Mankiewicz's script summoned into existence a whole array of painfully recognizable theatre types, from the aging, egomaniacal grand dame to the outwardly docile, inwardly scheming ingenue to the powerful critic who reeks of malignant charm." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Sunset Boulevard 1950 - A Hollywood story: Billy Wilder's masterpiece

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,6

Director: Billy Wilder
Main Cast: Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson

"Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard ranks among the most scathing satires of Hollywood and the cruel fickleness of movie fandom. In his pungent satire of the industry's sordidness, Wilder turned Hollywood history back on itself, with the presence of silent film star Gloria Swanson as aging silent diva Norma Desmond and great silent director Erich von Stroheim as her butler eloquently commenting on the ephemerality of fame. Her writer/gigolo Joe Gillis incarnated corruptly desperate young Hollywood, dismissing forgotten greats like Buster Keaton as 'waxworks' while imagining that he can escape unscathed from Norma's fantasy world. Shot in ultra-noir black-and-white in a 1920s Hollywood mansion, the looming ceilings, overstuffed rooms, and oblique lighting rendered Norma's environment alluringly sinister in its deteriorating decadence, while Joe's famous 'entrance' - floating face-down dead in Norma's pool while recounting his story in voiceover - caustically upended narrative conventions. Greeted with raves, Sunset Boulevard became Swanson's cinematic triumph; William Holden's performance as Joe reignited his own stardom. Wilder originally offered the film to Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri. Montgomery Clift was the first choice for the part of opportunistic screenwriter Joe Gillis, but he refused, citing as 'disgusting' the notion of a 25-year-old man being kept by a 50-year-old woman.
Despite offending the movie moguls, Wilder was rewarded with eleven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress. Along with wins for Art Direction and Franz Waxman's score, Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr. took a Screenplay prize.
Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running musical version has served as a tour-de-force for contemporary actresses ranging from Glenn Close to Betty Buckley to Diahann Carroll." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Nora inu (Stray dog) 1949 - A stunning piece of international film noir

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Akira Kurosawa
Main Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi

"In his third film with Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune plays young police detective Murakami. One summer day on a crowded bus in Tokyo, his gun is stolen by a pickpocket. Rather than face the shame of reporting his gun missing, he chooses to go out and find it himself (there were not many weapons on the streets of Tokyo immediately following WWII). While trying to locate the gun, he discovers an entire criminal underworld. He is eventually helped on his journey by superior officer Sato (Takashi Shimura), who seems to suggest that the young detective is indulging in his own criminal desires. The search becomes even more desperate when Murakami finds out that his gun has been used in several crimes, including murder. He then develops an obsession with finding both the gun and the killer." - www.allmovie.com

Download links:

http://uploaded.net/file/or5xsabo/Str.Dg.1949.BRRip.480p.TBD.part1.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/fs4tgy9h/Str.Dg.1949.BRRip.480p.TBD.part2.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/18fm68mp/Str.Dg.1949.BRRip.480p.TBD.part3.rar 
http://uploaded.net/file/arxp7ccm/Str.Dg.1949.BRRip.480p.TBD.part4.rar

Banshun (Late spring) 1949 - Yasujiro Ozu's second postwar production

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Main Cast: Chishu Ryu, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura

"Elegantly shot and quietly powerful, Late Spring is considered one of Yasujiro Ozu's finest films, along with Tokyo Story (1953) and Early Summer (1951). Like those films, Spring stars beautiful, enigmatic Setsuko Hara as Noriko, a woman reluctant to abandon her widowed father for marriage. And like most Ozu films, Spring subtly details the clash between the values of traditional Japan and those of contemporary society. Either Noriko leaves her father and enters the confining yet socially sanctioned world of marriage or she stays with him and enters the alienated labor pool like her thoroughly modernized friend Aya. Yet the film could just as easily be read as a wistful elegy to lost freedom. Though Ozu shoots the film with his trademark idiosyncratic restraint - including wide and low camera angles, mismatched eyelines, and long shots of unpeopled spaces - the camera is remarkably mobile during the first half of the film. Noriko is seen enjoying herself on a bicycle ride with a handsome young man and later exulting on a train trip. As Noriko progresses towards marriage, the camera confines her, echoing her own social entrapment. By the end of the film, Noriko's presence is replaced with a wedding portrait, while her father sits alone in an empty house. Late Spring is a remarkably moving film by one of world cinema's finest masters." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Ladri di biciclette (The bicylce thief) 1948 - The signature work for the neorealist movement

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,4

Director: Vittoria De Sica
Main Cast: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell

"This landmark Italian neorealist drama became one of the best-known and most widely acclaimed European movies, including a special Academy Award as 'most outstanding foreign film' seven years before that Oscar category existed. Written primarily by neorealist pioneer Cesare Zavattini and directed by Vittorio DeSica, also one of the movement's main forces, the movie featured all the hallmarks of the neorealist style: a simple story about the lives of ordinary people, outdoor shooting and lighting, non-actors mixed together with actors, and a focus on social problems in the aftermath of World War II. Lamberto Maggiorani plays Antonio, an unemployed man who finds a coveted job that requires a bicycle. When it is stolen on his first day of work, Antonio and his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) begin a frantic search, learning valuable lessons along the way. The movie focuses on both the relationship between the father and the son and the larger framework of poverty and unemployment in postwar Italy. As in such other classic films as Shoeshine (1946), Umberto D. (1952), and his late masterpiece The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1971), DeSica focuses on the ordinary details of ordinary lives as a way to dramatize wider social issues. As a result, The Bicycle Thief works as a sentimental study of a father and son, a historical document, a social statement, and a record of one of the century's most influential film movements." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Quai des orfevres (Jenny Lamour) 1947 - A great comeback for Clouzot

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Main Cast: Louis Jouvet, Simone Renant, Bernard Blier, Suzy Delair

"Following a three-year suspension from filmmaking after his Le Corbeau (1943) was judged too critical of his native France, director Henri-Georges Clouzot returned with this thriller that's equal parts crime drama and character study.
Suzy Delair stars as Jenny Lamour, an ambitious music hall singer who wants to be a star and is willing to befriend the lecherous old men who ogle her act, inspiring the jealousy of Jenny's husband Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier). One particular fan of Jenny's is a wealthy financial backer who extends repeated invitations to the entertainer to join him at fine restaurants and his expansive mansion. Armed with a gun, Maurice goes to the estate to confront his rival one night but discovers that the master of the house is already dead, his wife having smashed a bottle of champagne over his head to stave off a sexual advance. Soon, a gruff but dedicated detective, Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) is on the case, with Maurice taking the heat for Jenny." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

La belle et la bete (Beauty and the beast) 1946 - A visually stunning fantasy

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,0

Director: Jean Cocteau
Main Cast: Jean Marais, Josette Day

"Jean Cocteau's most popular film, this 1946 masterpiece is perhaps the most faithful of the many film versions of the 1756 fairy tale written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Though the ending is a bit on the strange side - the Beast morphs into a prince who looks exactly like Belle's hapless suitor, and her disappointment is unmistakable -- the film features tight, economical storytelling and enough visual fireworks (including many stunningly executed optical effects) to enrapture viewers from beginning to end. The actors are uniformly wonderful; Josette Day makes a stunning Belle, and Cocteau regular Jean Marais excels in a triple role that includes the magnificent Beast. The real stars of the film, though, are Cocteau himself, who gives the film a shimmering, romantic look, and the brilliant costume and set design. The Beast's makeup, in particular, works beautifully; it's just realistic enough to be convincing, while allowing Marais to emote through his eyes and subtle facial tics. The unforgettable sets, which include human-arm candelabras and moving statues, are a marvel of impressionistic romanticism, filled with symbolism that hints at the story's darker implications." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

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

IMDB Link
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

DVD links:

Adam's rib 1949 - Battle of the sexes

IMDB Link
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

DVD links:

All the king's men 1949 - A powerful political movie about corruption

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,6

Director: Robert Rossen
Main Cast: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek, Mercedes McCambridge

"Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men is a roman à clef inspired by the career of Louisiana governor Huey Long. As a powerful indictment of modern politics, All the King's Men represents a landmark in the maturation of United States cinema. It is dominated by the dynamic performance of Broderick Crawford as Willie Stark, a thinly disguised version of real-life populist demagogue Huey Long. In an era that was still churning out feel-good political dramas like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, audiences were shocked by the confrontational realism of a film that said not only that the American political system was corrupt but also that, absent the intervention of violence, it would remain corrupt. It has many cinematic descendants, most notably the similarly named All the President's Men about a real-life corrupt politician, and the observable fact of history that at least in this case, that the checks and balances did work to remove the corrupt official in ways that they did not for Huey Long.
Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark and so did Mercedes McCambridge for the role of the campaign manager." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

On the town 1949 - One of MGM's brightest musicals

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Main Cast: Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, Jules Munshin, Vera-Ellen

"Three sailors on a 24-hour pass - Gabey (Gene Kelly), Chip (Frank Sinatra), and Ozzie (Jules Munshin) - decide to soak up the sights and sounds of New York. Each one finds romance within those 24 hours: Gabey with aspiring dancer Ivy Smith (Vera-Ellen), Chip with lady cabbie Hildy Esterhazy (Betty Garrett), and Ozzie with paleontology student Claire Huddesten (Ann Miller).
Adapted from the Broadway musical by Betty Comden, Adolph Green, and Leonard Bernstein, On the Town is one of the freshest, most exhilarating musicals turned out by the old MGM regime. The stars' verve and camaraderie are contagious, and the songs are staged by legendary musical director Stanley Donen and Kelly himself with wit and innovation. Highlights include the opening 'New York, New York' number, shot on location and flat-cutting from one image to another at a dizzying pace, and Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen's 'Miss Turnstyles Ballet'." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

Intruder in the dust 1949 - A tough, unsentimental, affecting message movie

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,7

Director: Clarence Brown
Main Cast: David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall, Elizabeth Patterson

"Intruder in the Dust is one of the best of Hollywood's postwar 'racial tolerance' cycle - a cycle that would come to an abrupt end in the politically paranoid 1950s. As the decade drew to a close, 1949 brought four major American films that dealt with racial prejudice; while Pinky and Home of the Brave received more attention in the press and at the box office, and Lost Boundaries developed something of a cult following, Intruder in the Dust was at once the best and most underrated of this cycle about 'the Negro Problem'. Based on a novel by William Faulkner, the film takes place in a small Mississippi town (it was filmed on location in and around Oxford, MS).
Juano Hernandez plays an African-American landowner who is arrested on a murder charge. Resentful of Hernandez' industriousness, the white townsfolk are eager to see him hang. David Brian, the attorney uncle of a young white boy (Claude Jarman Jr.) who has befriended Hernandez, agrees to take the accused man's case. His job is complicated by the lynch-mob mentality fomented by the dead man's brother (Charles Kemper) and Hernandez' refusal to reveal the name of the man he suspects as the killer. The hostile atmosphere reaches a fever pitch, but justice is ultimately served.
Intruder in the Dust stands out among other films of its period with its refusal to stoop to any form of condescension towards its black characters or to rationalize the behavior of the bigots. Though produced by MGM, the film wisely displays none of that studio's patented glossiness, opting instead for a dusty, sun-scorched, fleabitten veneer that enhances the film's basic realism. "- www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

A letter to three wives 1949 - One of the funniest and truest commentaries on married life

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 7,8

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Main Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, Barbara Lawrence

"Three wives, played by Jeanne Crain, Ann Sothern and Linda Darnell, are about to embark on a boat trip when each receives a letter, written by a mutual friend named Addie, informing her that Addie is about to run off with one of their husbands. In flashback, each wife wonders if it is her marriage that is in jeopardy. Deborah (Crain) recounts her fish-out-of-water relationship with her up-and-coming hubby (Jeffrey Lynn); businesswoman Rita (Sothern) asks herself if she's been too rough on her professorial spouse (Kirk Douglas); and Lora May (Darnell), a girl from (literally) the wrong side of the tracks, questions the security of her marriage to a brash business executive (Paul Douglas). The voice of Addie, who is never seen, is provided by Celeste Holm. Thelma Ritter shows up in a hilarious unbilled bit as a slatternly domestic, while an equally uncredited Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer makes a quick entrance and exit as a bellhop.
The stars play no small part in the film's success, especially Ann Sothern's poised performance as the ambitious writer for radio programs and Linda Darnell as the rough, self-doubting girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Visually, the film adds little to the art of cinema, but Mankiewicz's writing is a wonder. The following year, he wrote and directed the legendary All About Eve, leading to an unprecedented Academy Award record: Mankiewicz won Best Director and Best Screenplay for both movies, in consecutive years. Based on a novel by John Klempner, the property was remade for television in 1985, with Ann Sothern back again in a supporting part." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

White heat 1949 - "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!"

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Raoul Walsh
Main Cast: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly

"James Cagney made his name on screen as a criminal, and he gave his last truly great outlaw performance in White Heat, which may well be the most intelligent and striking work of his career. While Cagney always knew how to lend his characters a charismatic menace, his Cody Jarrett in White Heat is both menacing and uncomfortably bizarre. Given to strange semi-epileptic seizures, sudden bursts of horrible violence, and a bizarre attachment to his mother that stops just short of incest, Cody represents the criminal as head case, at once fascinating and disturbingly unstable. Cagney manages to lend Cody just enough of his traditional tough-talking, wise guy veneer that he seems like a conventional screen criminal at first, but it doesn't take long for Cody to reveal himself as a full-blown psychotic, and the perversely self-immolating 'Made it, Ma! Top of the world!' finale is only the most spectacular symptom of his madness. Raoul Walsh's direction is hardly as audacious as Cagney's performance, but it is crisp, efficient, and briskly paced, and in a way Cagney's portrayal may well be all the more effective in this context. While White Heat's narrative often seems like the traditional story of a charismatic bad guy who will be forced to pay for his crimes in the last reel, it instead houses a different and most puzzling sort of villain, who paved the way for the stranger, more brutal outlaws who would dominate crime cinema in the 1960s and 1970s." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links:

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

IMDB Link
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

DVD links:

Kind hearts and coronets 1949 - An elegant black comedy with bravura performances

IMDB Link
IMDB rating: 8,2

Director: Robert Hamer
Main Cast: Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood

"Kind Hearts and Coronets is an elegant black comedy that is perhaps too much remembered for the gimmick of having Alec Guinness play eight different murder victims and too little remembered for the fine performance of Dennis Price as the murderer. One of several comedy classics of the post-WWII era from Ealing Studios, the film is both ironic and bitingly funny. While the ending of the British version leads the audience to believe that Price will escape punishment for his crimes, American censors insisted that the criminal had to be punished for U.S. distribution, and so a less amusing ending was tacked on for the benefit of overly sensitive Yanks. Also of note is Joan Greenwood's performance as the murderer's childhood friend Sibella. Ealing was often an underfunded studio, so the production values are modest, though adequate. If there is an area in which the tech credits shine, it is the make-up and costuming of Guinness." - www.allmovie.com

DVD links: