The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#451 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Jun 21, 2020 12:26 pm

The Snorkel (Green 1958). Sangster and Hammer’s “mini-Hitchcocks” start with Taste of Fear, but with all their plot twists they’re really mini-Les Diaboliques whereas this precursor is more like the real thing: the fact that we know who did it and where the danger lies, the identification with the young girl under threat by a quasi-family relative (Shadow of a Doubt), the entire look and feel of the thing. It’s a wonderfully dark story that’s quite suspenseful and just quite delightfully shot and directed. This isn’t only my favorite of the Sangster films, but my favorite Hammer period.


Image Image Image Image
Le Rouge et le noir (Autant-Lara 1954). The good old days when French cinema still cultivated a tradition of quality. Seriously, this is a very strong, epic-sized (3h12) adaptation of the Stendhal novel, giving expression to both the ego-full romantic passions and ambitions of its characters, and the early realist satirical study of society under the Bourbon restoration. Danielle Darrieux is especially good as the devout but romantically vulnerable Madame de Rénal, and that first part recounting her illicit affair with the calculating Julien Sorel provides some really emotionally potent scenes. Perhaps not a flawless film, but very well done on the whole and extremely absorbing. There is also an appealing, accented stylization to the Max Douy sets that’s a big part of the charm of the film, which on the whole are realistic but have this touch of slightly otherworld-ish sparseness (often very pale colored backgrounds) and preciseness about them which makes the film stand out from typical historical costume dramas. Definitely to be seen, although the Gaumont blu-ray isn’t English-friendly.

Both of these films will probably be on my list.
Last edited by Rayon Vert on Tue Jun 23, 2020 10:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#452 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Jun 21, 2020 3:03 pm

Woah that’s some high praise for The Snorkel! I wasn’t very charitable in my initial writeup but I remember it more fondly than my words indicate so I’ll try to revisit it to repay your A Song Is Born offering
therewillbeblus wrote:
Thu Oct 17, 2019 1:13 am
The Snorkel

Your classic gaslight-the-kid thriller, with a lot of unnecessary fluff but enough long silent scenes of process and spying to inject some originality into the Hammer output (especially the wordless seven-minute opening pre-credits scene, which is sadly the best part of the film). This becomes interesting horror in the creative ways that our villain - who is revealed as the killer before we meet any of the principal characters - torments our heroine, each time passed off to be innocent, with even her blamed after he tries and fails to murder her. It’s an old tired concept, and certainty overstays its welcome, but the direction is excitable and allows this enough fun moments for it to be better than it should be in script.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#453 Post by Rayon Vert » Sun Jun 21, 2020 5:03 pm

Hey, it takes place on the RIviera, so just that makes it an easy sell for me!

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#454 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 22, 2020 12:35 am

Oklahoma!

Besting the promise of some musicals, here is a full transplant into a different time and place, with varying degrees of amicable relations and optimism grounded in the possibilities of community. Like Kismet, the milieu is so animated that whatever natural-setting or artificial-fantasy numbers are gracing the screen, they all feel like they belong to this dream space. The locations and photography can be jaw-dropping, including a beautiful horse-ride through the woods, but realism and artifice combine to create an expansive, comfortable world. Many A New Day made me smile with the gentleness of sisterhood, and sexual politics are challenged only through cute jabs to provoke minor social change. These roles are particularly ingrained into their 50s constructs, but this safety net allows for a playfulness within the constraints. This atmosphere’s strength is in a formulation that accepts and endorses social customs as badges of honor, under which one can realise the romantic heights of their expectations.

Not every scene works, mostly thanks to Rod Steiger’s brash presence and self-serious demeanor distracting me from the mood of the piece, a brooding evil which unfortunately feels alien to the story (what a sick mind for a telescope death-trap too!). Still, everything centered around Shirley Jones is magical, and one can believe why a man would pawn his entire life for her! The golden hues beginning Out of My Dreams in reality before embarking on a lengthy dream ballet montage, is a perfect realisation of sublime in folk and fairy tale blending. The spirit of community is woven in the fabric of the narrative, and a final trial has to force a grin for the audience in professing the thesis that ideological apparatuses provide optimal support to comfortably find happiness in designated cookie-cutter positions. Who wouldn’t want to succumb to society expectations in this magical land, especially after such a hard sell- I’d embrace them!


Jupiter’s Darling

This one cracked me up throughout its perverse exhibition. The opening number pokes fun at slavery, discounting its hardships as a joke to declare romance as the only vital asset in life. George Sanders shows up to basically play a super oblivious version of himself in general Maximus, and we are treated to dancing with gargoyles, including baby cupid gargoyles, underwater. You can’t make this shit up, but when the water jets change color to warm us with striking oranges in propelling the interlude to end as we re-enter ‘reality’ (if that’s what this is..), the absurd artistic choices are revealed to be inspired constructions taken seriously. That transition in particular feels like we are leaving a black-and-white film to find color for the first time.

This balance-act of brazen extravagant content and earnest sexual prowess is so unique that the perversity itself wavers between imaginative spectacle and sensual intensity, forcing the audience to laugh and marvel at its dedication to its bold aims, both wildly fantastical and (I’d imagine for 50s audiences, uncomfortably) familiar carnal expression. The ogling of muscles and coquettish exchanges aren’t particularly novel, but the entire film is dripping with seduction, where even the Roman statues are susceptible to sexual caressing when there’s no man in sight. The interpersonal games are all rooted in sexual shifts of power, including in moments of life and death! It’s almost sick how salacious this film is (“Chain me up again!”).

There are a few numbers that fizzled for me in the middle, but they always ended with some piercing visual treat like a carriage on fire that leads us into the next amusing set of dynamics to wrestle with. My favorite moment is a late scene where Sanders, as his most goofy, plays off Keel while Williams hides in plain sight under a scarf, and their banter hits levels of screwball comedy solely due to her expressive eyes signifying every gag of situational irony.

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I Love Melvin

I love this movie. Debbie Reynolds has stolen my heart a few times already this decade, including in a few musicals (I’m not even thinking of Singin’ in the Rain first, but Athena and Give a Girl a Break)- yet this may be her finest outing. The tale maneuvers itself across a variety of setpieces, with numbers ranging from the stage to an outside courtyard (I immediately thought of Rivette’s Up, Down, Fragile and then remembered domino said Rivette was inspired by this film for a number - but then O’Connor’s pole dancing in the gazebo happened- perhaps a combination of the two?) to a delirious sex-induced football field and peaking at Where Did You Learn to Dance, which now ranks up there on the shortlist with the best musical numbers I’ve ever seen (and that’s only the start of the plot)!

Every single exchange is full of energy, and what makes this film really special is that scenes transition unexpectedly all within a rather traditional storyline. The relationship dynamic between the two leads is rooted in self-consciousness and confusion, so they talk right past each other leading to hilarious non-jokes like a conversation post-tiger scare at the zoo, where Melvin makes no sense and then bites Reynolds’ ear as she tries to understand his neuroses. It’s cute and sexy, lush and mild, seesawing through a narrative which feeds itself on scattered ideas.

The tone is designed to match the expressive energy of the creators, who have less interest in dedicating themselves to a particular milieu, and instead opt for combining the spectacle of our individual fantasies (i.e. football field) and reality of social awkwardness (the budding relationship- i.e. that handshake at the concert!) which clash on more than a few occasions, such as the end of the early park number when they finally meet. This kind of social comedy is my favorite, and the ill-fitting gender roles of a feminine self-conscious male and a masculine self-actualized female disrupts 50s conventional modalities for engagement in a way that is still funny today, hitting the same sore spots of unpredictable conflicts by the nature of co-existing, giving oneself to another and then taking it back, over and over.

O’Connor is able to use the numbers as intended to work through his self-imposed predicament of giving attention to developing a relationship while also examining himself. Musicals often offer a platform for characters to realise bonanzas of potential right before their eyes, but this one specifically tackles that sensitive spot for men, allowing O’Connor to falter between songs and revert back to repelling behaviors without judgment. The use of a sweet yet righteously poised Reynolds to prompt his change also reflects a perspective of patience and scepticism for the audience, for her perplexed responses to his erratic paranoia beget an alleviation of stress and drives home a universal point: that we often build our problems or sources embarrassment into evidence that is not necessarily objectively true- or even apparent outside of our cognitive distortions. Reynolds may succumb to some social norms of the times vis-a-vis the marriage proposal, but her general attitude is one of validation and unconditional love, not the kind that is artificial but the kind that demonstrates the opportunity for us to be less critical of ourselves, and the kind of soul-mate partner who, if we’re lucky, can be that mirror in letting us know we’re okay.

For Reynolds, her desire to be a Star is a dream-in-the-making without forcing her to be a superficial romantic. She is the most authentic character in the film, which is what sells the above guidance for O’Connor. However, it would be a misstep to encourage a reading of her character as a MPDG for his lead- because she is the focal point that drives the optimistic energy in an otherwise anxious string of orchestrations. Her tranquil willingness to accept the present and empathically participate with whoever is around her, even when faced with failure, flavors the mood of this piece. It's worth recognizing that his manchild doesn't really noticeably change while she moves past her institutional restrictions to realising true love and forfeiting ideological pathways of 'marrying-up' to be with the one she loves. Reynolds therefore helps O'Connor without measureable change, and then chases him down when he can't shift enough to chase her! The growth is hers to have, and we win because she actualizes it - though there's an unfilmed sequel out there in someone's mind where they sing and dance forever as he gets closer to her and more removed from his own chaotic mind!

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#455 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:02 pm

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Li’l Abner

This wonderfully exaggerated ridiculousness would make a good double bill with Baby Doll. I thought Jupiter’s Darling was perverse- but this scathing satire on red southern hillbilly communities takes the cake, while also turning the tables on its ‘smart’ audiences. The film contains familiar beats in the plotting and dynamics of more ‘intellectual and relatable’ characters in musical romances, that it laughs right back at us for falling for our own classic 50s musical tropes, professing that holding a condescending attitude towards these folks is hypocritical and, perhaps worse, oblivious to the actual constructs at play (Insulting a self-diagnosed intelligent audience by pointing out what they cannot see, in plain sight? How bold!) This makes sense as an elevation on the source material, which reached more ‘intellectual’ readers who hadn’t been seeking out comic strips before. Going by the hypothesis that these people were tuning in to gawk and feel better about themselves, the film version does well to burst the bubble of such superiority while simultaneously clutching to the inane exposition of these animated people.

I love how everything is so obviously artificial, manipulated, and moods are even completely elevated or muted, so that the core parts of these narratives are uncomfortably simplified and silly when stripped apart. The mentally-hollow southern kindness is treated just as pathetic as the professional intellectual outsiders, and holds out more acid for the person in the audience- if they take a superior nose to the film while praising other musicals and expressive characters based on the same ideas. The story also involves the wealthy capitalist outsiders infiltrating the community, so the distinct perspectives of these worlds become physically entangled and nobody is allowed to remain separate for long.

The southern community is more self-assured, but also ignorant, and the filmmakers are careful not to emerge as didactic or overly clear in any disrespect- for their function works and underlines some important American values of community. The style is more poking fun than suggesting a pejorative thesis, though the pokes are forceful. The question of giving Daisy’s “body and soul” separate or at the same time, is hilarious and could retain a problematic labeling of ‘hillbilly’ men as sexual deviants, but this is the same kind of playful innuendo joke that is verbalized in plenty of other films, so even this seemingly specific concept is borrowed from more universal comedy of the era. That's where the perversity lies- in the audacious directness of the content, though it's arguably more unsettling to have audiences be reminded that this is the same material they've been blindly embracing for years.

The dances are majestic and silly at once, and I had a difficult time taking this seriously except as a musical rooted in farce for a while, though at a certain point of immersion I began to feel a thematic ‘ignorance is bliss’ magnetic pull into this dreamy bubble. Through acclimation we notice that the southern group harnesses most American values as the 50s wants to see them (yeah we’re capitalist but nobody wants to acknowledge the coldhearted antagonist behavior on display here- and that's a far cry from how 50s cinema wants people to see themselves). Mainly that sense of support in camaraderie is upheld and cherished, yet the caveat is that this ideological pool also contains disgusting customs like selling oneself off to someone they don’t love (literally).. the implications less easy to ignore here, in its bold transparency of how gross that is.

The inclusion of magical realism was hilarious in foiling the baddies, as was the scientific experimentation that vacuums husbands’ personalities, perhaps feeding into a stereotype of traditionalist or even creationist Bible Belt skepticism on progressive ideas- but to me the science and magic become one in the same, a cinematic device mixing folklore and current event topics like technical advancement into a swarm of inherently known and foreign ideas, brewing social chaos. The interlocking polar caps help render the exposition as absurd, and as the film progressed and the world sustained a sense of familiarity, I found myself appreciating it more and more, and can see this one growing in my esteem upon repeat viewings. I’m interested in hearing how others read its intentions and charms, but from a point of pure enjoyment- this is one of those rare film experiences where I moved from mild irritation in the process of getting on its wavelength, to passively finding growing pleasure, to absolutely adoring what I was watching.


For other musicals, Lucky Me was a cute genre entry, but the final product was just a slightly above-average fine piece of work from all involved. Doris Day isn’t my favorite when playing into her usual personality (thereby excusing the masterful Calamity Jane) but her rapport with the cast effectively graced us along this unusually tempered outing. The opening scene is absolutely terrific but the film never bests it, although the songs are very good and beat the dance numbers in nearly every instance.

Riding High didn’t feel like much of a musical at heart, but it was an enjoyable work. The supporting parts are appealing, with Bickford playing a disgruntled patriarchal businessman as you'd expect, and Demarest contributes his usual comedic charm- a highlight emerging early watching his deadpan participation in their plan to exit a restaurant without paying. The story, particularly the romance aspect, has been done countless times especially today with the more eccentric girl winning the disillusioned boy’s heart by supporting his alt-dreams, but it’s nice to see the concepts play out here in an era of people trying to break free from the chains of familial expectations towards embracing a personalized way of life. I thought this was a surprisingly emotional film, with some scenes of solemnity coming off as earned due to empathic circumstances outside of the source plot of ‘man vs. his expectations.’ It’s not always consistent in straying from the pack of lookalikes, but it has enough originality to warrant distinctive praise.

I watched Gidget without even knowing it was a musical, which it only is intermittently- but it's fitting! The film is generally a refreshing change of pace- a cool flick about a girl who wants to enter the surf life. I admired that the narrative revolves around the goal of a female being a part of a male-dominated club, with a genuine interest in the act of surfing and its culture divorced from romantic aims. The feminist air is reinforced to authorize both individualized goals and romantic ones, without forcing a coalition that minimizes one of these passions for the sake of the other. The ending even forges a coincidence to appease all parties- which itself encourages a reading that if not for this setup magically pairing the loving couple together, the ideological-imposed matchmaking process would not win out over the ‘free spirit’ surfer girl's individualism. The film allows the characters to have their cake and eat it too, where only through self-actualizing can Dee also safely succumb to romantic notions. It’s all secure and cozy, but paints a view of the world that is truer than cynics will admit: that opportunities to be oneself and adhere to societal norms can coexist, and even be found around the same corner.

Outside of an admirable stance for the decade, and a welcome lowkey mood hidden in surf paradise, the second half loses its footing as the narrative escapes from its fun secret-hideout milieu into the core drama. I still liked this, but I likely won't be signing up for its- apparently many- sequels.

Hit the Deck was weaker than I hoped, having sought it out on the basis of Debbie Reynolds' streak of hit musicals that preceded it. Any pleasures from these actors' dynamics are lost on me, outside of Reynolds herself who continues to shine as best she can in this overcrowded yet empty concoction. Sadly she can't carry this picture all by herself, and a weak script with uninspired numbers don't lessen that weight. I haven't seen the other lesser-known musicals she did during this period, but plan to seek out more of them as I work my way through Rick Altman's book, unless anyone has any strong opinions on dogs to avoid.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#456 Post by knives » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:06 pm

Have you seen Red Garters yet?

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#457 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:14 pm

From this decade, that you haven't seen: the Affairs of Dobie Gillis (which isn't really a musical either) is good. Three Little Words and Two Weeks With Love aren't. I don't even remember her in Meet Me In Las Vegas, so I assume it's a walk on in the casino, but that one's terrible too. Non-musical Tammy and the Bachelor (though you'll learn where a prominent Avalanches sample comes from!) and the Tender Trap are also skippable. Still waiting for a 'Scope copy of her and Bing Crosby in Tashlin's Say One For Me to materialize... (is this the only 'Scope Tashlin uncirculating in OAR?)

knives, she's not in Red Garters, that's Rosemary Clooney!

And I love Riding High! Earlier this year I was trying to think if I actually liked Bing Crosby in anything and that movie basically saved his whole existence for me once I remembered it

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#458 Post by knives » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:22 pm

I was mentioning Red Garters because of his confessed love of the artifice in Abner though I can see how that could be confusing.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#459 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:26 pm

Ah, gotcha. Yes, Red Garters def dials it up to 11,000

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#460 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:41 pm

I'll check it out (and the lone Reynolds that's good), thanks! I should clarify that artifice needs to be used right, which isn't easy, for me to buy into its purpose. Li'l Abner's mise en scene took a lot of acclimation and only won me over once I understood what I was watching, which is why I'm excited to give it another go sooner rather than later. That doesn't mean Red Garters has to be privy to dense analysis to warrant its artifice, but it has to use it well for some purpose, even if it's to emphasize more hollow absurd content. For example, Hit the Deck's use of sets, even if obviously referenced as such, like the Hell number, annoyed me egregiously.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#461 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:47 pm

Red Garters only exists to justify its experiment in extreme artificial sets. Just watch a number on YT first if you think that won’t be enough for you: ”A Dime and a Dollar”

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#462 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:45 pm

Come Back, Little Sheba

A terrific quiet family drama, again prodding my interest in family systems becoming disrupted by an additive variable. Every tone emerges from action that is patiently regulated, with an opening AA meeting dragged out to flood us with the full effect of the milestone, subtle gratitude within the meeting, and louder shame when returning home for Lancaster- as his wife has to shoulder the pride for them both. Their relationship is delicately unsheathed, saying words that mean nothing next to the emotional space between them in simple gestures, often non-actions that say far more. Memories are painful in evoking nostalgia of a better time, and we can understand why this new young girl entices both parties. She sparks a light that has been missing for so long- arousing for Lancaster but also serves very briefly as a reciprocal conversationalist to Booth, but ultimately just a new warm body in her vicinity, who has tried and failed too many times to get her husband to love her.

Booth is the most tragic character, harboring a loneliness that forces her to latch onto whoever crosses her path, including a nosy milkman. I cringed as she disclosed her husband’s private information partly from personal experience (she reminds me a lot of certain family members of mine) but also because she is well-meaning and desperate. Booth is the prime example of a person unable to practice self-awareness when they are completely depleted of attention. Her reminders of passionate moments and dialogue long for a better time, as they cannot even hint at a reflection of the present.

The contrast exists in Moore’s adolescent, and her relationship with her horndog boyfriend. We can objectively sense issues brewing but we can also understand the allure of breaking rules and living for today without wisdom or developed executive functioning for forward-thinking. Booth and Lancaster each voyeuristically peer in on them as specimens, her admitting it openly and him passively waddling away, tail between his legs. This is a space where will power dies as soon as thoughts are formed, conditioned to meekly default into solitude and hide from platforms for action. Booth’s call home to her parents at the end mirrors Lancaster’s own rock-bottom, repetitive crises from their sinkhole of ennui. These downward spirals oppose Moore's fluid mobility to a different man when she becomes irked, a liberation and optimism to diverge from Lancaster and Booth's trapped condition. She is not only a surface-reminder of what was lost, but an object inescapably prone to evaluation from the couple, a new bar of measurement for their depression- embodying an intangible freedom that exposes just how far they've fallen.

Lancaster’s choice of words in his drunken explosiveness along with Moore’s admission of sexuality and seductive techniques feel like they are pushing the boundaries of the Code, and the film is all the more authentic for its refusal to speed things along or sacrifice the sad energy for traditional cinematic pacing or action. The ability for ‘bottoms’ to bring acceptance and gratitude is tied up nicely at the end, but the method by which the moment transpires is so unexpected and organic, it feels like the kind that actually do occur in real life.

Kiss Them For Me

This one gets points for a terrific Grant perf, wandering through his confident meandering goof shtick to find pockets of power, including one moment that commanded my breath as it deafened the crowd on screen. I ultimately found this to be an inconsistent film, but- like a few of my last watches- the structure builds to an odd collection of joyous ingredients.

A scene kicking off the last act is indescribable because it doesn’t involve any striking plotting or gags, but seemingly every supporting character loses their temper or their minds as Mansfield reacts obliviously, and then we move into Grant’s bedroom as he and Suzy Parker affectionately embrace with her dipping down over him on the bed, only to wind up under him, and then proceed to engage in collaborative conversation with each establishing their individuality. I doubt anyone would pinpoint this scene as a remarkable one but it’s indicative of what Donen does so well, orchestrating his players and tones to reach continual peaks of mini-crescendos, only for larger waves like these to pop up and signal the possibilities of cinema with overlapping brushstrokes of every color. Erupting pandemonium using unique, unexpected methods only to dissolve into a sensual curious piece of romance and move from there to individual reflection, a series of polar opposites trying to find common ground in a single scene, is remarkable genius. I would imagine Godard to be a fan of this one, for it spoke the language to me of how he refers to Ray's Johnny Guitar.


The Affairs of Dobie Gillis

Pretty funny satire on the struggles between generations in comprehending one another. Stafford and Van, as Reynolds’ father and beau, respectively, get a lot of mileage out of their rivalry. This is definitely a musical but it doesn't feel like one, and instead loosens itself up in the world of boisterous youthfulness, affirming the worth of this developmental stage of life without provoking the censors too much. Reynolds is cute and innocent enough to serve as a magical moderate candidate for the attitude, suggesting that maybe nice girls can be bad too, and that they don't have to have an identity crisis in the process of age-appropriate experimentation!

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#463 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:48 pm

One of the few cases where the spinoff TV show is way, way, way better than the inspiration

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#464 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:52 pm

For a lean 72 minutes I had a good time, but even though I haven't seen the show you could tell there was more to do with the material.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#465 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 23, 2020 9:58 pm

Some of these older sitcoms do not hold up, but I've really enjoyed my slow watch through of it. The first season even had pre-movie stardom Warren Beatty and Tuesday Weld in the cast! And Dwayne Hickman's dad saying he wants to kill his own son every episode as a catchphrase is still kinda shockingly dark! Plus Bob Denver's Maynard G Krebs is 100% responsible for the modern popular image of the beatnik, AND Pete and Pete named their in-universe Kreb branding after him. I think the whole series is streaming on Amazon Prime and Shout put it all out on DVD.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#466 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 23, 2020 10:15 pm

Very cool, a lot of that makes this tempting but the Pete and Pete reference is what's selling it hardest for me

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#467 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 23, 2020 10:22 pm

Also, since every Hanna-Barbera cartoon was a ripoff of an existing sitcom, this is where Scooby Doo stole their characters, in case you ever wondered

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#468 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 23, 2020 10:33 pm

Haha I remember getting all excited when I discovered giallo and immediately understood where Scooby Doo's entire structure was stolen from. I never wondered about it again since, but now I'm curious what these characters would be doing outside of such a weird universe.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#469 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Jun 24, 2020 8:48 pm

Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Even though Mank only started his directing career in the second half of the last decade, it was his most consistently great string of movies, with all seven being 'good' at the very least. Mank exploded into this decade with his masterpiece, and otherwise expanded his aims to forge interesting and ambitious projects, if not as evenly terrific as his 40s output. While it's unclear if I’ll have room for more than All About Eve, they are mostly all worth watching.

domino wrote some analysis of Mank’s interests a while back (I believe related to All About Eve) in self-consciousness, navigating inflated ego in actuality as well as solipsistic self-deception. I’d go so far as to broaden this thesis to creating ‘social pictures’ that are complex by the nature of individual egos co-existing with other perspectives and objective realities to combat their subjective ones. I wonder if Mank’s masterful direction of his actors and formalist sensitivity to their needs comes from a place of rare objectivity, where he can use the medium to take impartial perspective, and validate all the egos that are isolated in practice, yet familiar in spirit, to his own.

I want to reframe the context of ‘ego’ at face value, since I don't think it's always inflated, but finds itself in the definition of a sense of self. This mental muscle's range clearly overwhelms enough of these characters across his filmography to be somewhat autobiographical to Mank’s own challenges navigating life, under the admission that we are our own ‘most important person’ in a milieu that doesn't agree. That latter theme, of the discord in people’s attempts at issuing control in a world that suppresses such possibilities, relates to an exploration of ego objectively in his cinema like a glove, and is one of my personal favorite ideas to explore on film.

I’ve seen all of his 50s output before, save for Guys and Dolls, so this is mostly a comprehensive set of revisits filtered through an auteurist lens rather than distinctive assessments on original works divorced of Mank’s occasionally obfuscated brand.


No Way Out

Perhaps Mank’s worst film this decade, this falls more in line with your typical ‘social problem pic’ where racism comes to a boil between deep-rooted skewed beliefs in Widmark (for reasons actually afforded some early brief sympathy) and their influence in the objective facts of science. By refusing the autopsy, Widmark blocks the option of a tangible answer that may possibly threaten his worldview in providing evidence that color is not to blame. It’s an interesting premise, in clashing perspectives in a field of pragmatism waned into tribal social-emotional instincts, as other racist feelings and selfish politics infect everyone’s actions. Widmark’s perf in early hospital scenes, powerless and chained to the bed, is quite startling in its effectiveness. Still, it's all downhill from here as the narrative is largely uninteresting in tackling this theme and there are too many ideas (including actual hypotheses) posed, without engaging with them in depth. We are left with a programmer on racial tension that doesn’t look much different than others, outside of a few careful shots as Mank directs his actors to complicated levels of stress and sentiment. Sadly these deflate on arrival of the next action


All About Eve

I already wrote up my thoughts on this in the film’s dedicated thread last year, and have little to add, other than to call it one of the most charitable expositions of ‘ego’ put on film. Mank glamorizes its possibilities in being realised, and demonstrates the risks and consequences that come with the tide of time, contesting with a pit of other social perspectives looking to exercise their own.
One aspect of the film I’ve warmed to over time is how Eve, for all her “dishonest” or “disloyal” acts, actually earns her place as replacement for Davis. Mank establishes a world in which individualism reigns and personal gain and interest are drives woven into every exchange. Mank isn’t wagging his finger at any industry or society but instead presenting a matter-of-fact authenticity than bleeds what idealists may dub to be inauthentic relationships or skeptics may reduce to terms like a “dog-eat-dog” world. There is a social fake of course, as there is in just about any culture, but the seams of any reciprocal connection are so delicate they’re transparent.

Early on, Davis recalls Baxter’s integration into her life and states all her roles in their partnership in voiceover while we see Davis reclining and basking in the pleasures of her status (taking an aggressive bite out of that baguette!) as Baxter acts as her maid in flashback. The dissonance between perspective and actuality is somewhat cheeky but taken seriously enough to not assign blame as much as question any moral arguments in the first place. So many other scenes contribute to the ending where all characters Eve steps on are complicit in their fates. Are they free now, from this world of deceit and selfishness? I don’t think so, but it would be fitting if they thought they were, still blind to the stance of ambivalence in the world at large!

The notion of responsibility is omitted from the equation throughout, and Eve’s manipulation is therefore a strength as much as a weakness. Mank furthers his worldview of impermanent position and abstract subjective determinations of happiness or status in allowing Eve to have her moment but presenting another obstacle coming in as a new threat. The existential theme of aging splits its interest to the mortality of life as well as that death as applied to social validation and position. The focus on women in particular raises the stakes, for a population who are typically left in the sidelines and whose psychological ‘offensive’ defense mechanisms sway towards relational vs physical aggression to ascends ranks in external social mobility as well as internal ego growth. Mank gives us a picture of the ideas in Sartre’s “hell is other people” played out, while acknowledging that without these people one would have nothing to aspire to, in a sense appreciating the game of maneuvering through life to achieve a sense of identity and self-imposed accomplishment. Here there is support of the power of the will and the limitations of such will power if one seeks static finite gains, and also in the idea of fate.

Davis recognizes what is happening early on but is powerless to stop the movement. Is this because of Baxter’s will opposing her opposition, following a social form of Newton’s laws of physics, or because of the support of the men in the industry, or simply because it is fate, the way of the world, the circle of life? As Davis desperately tries to hang on to her significance and role in her social context, the director declares that actors never die, actors never change- as if making a plea to hold onto the facade that is their worldview, preventing vulnerability and acceptance of existential death. The joke is on everyone here (but it’s not a mean joke) because as they pine against reality for that cemented statuses in denial or full awareness, and even momentarily achieve such serenity through selfish means, fate bars the sustainable wishes of their dreams. And yet what is life but a series of moments where you can look at yourself in that mirror, see your passion, desires, ambitions, and dreams, and appreciate what you see?

To some people, like Eve, who have something to aspire to, there is a hope which drives lively participation in the system of life, no matter how flawed. This is contrasted with people like Davis who have achieved these aspirations and scrapple in anxiety and paranoia to hang onto that which fate’s gravity will pull from them, living in complacency and stagnation. The ideas of belongingness and achievement make life worth living, even if there is pain through and on the other side, but it’s the process - that which Eve takes and that Margot has already taken- that really make one feel alive. I think about the studies that show how drug addicts fire most dopamine prior to shooting up, even more than all that fires as a result of the drug itself. Eve reaches her dreams but that moment will be short lived, and perhaps ironically she’ll never understand that it was about the journey there and not the actual end, even when she too becomes complacent and apathetic until her back is also against a wall and she enters the crisis part of the cycle.

Mank’s technical prowess and willingness to meet his characters where they are at is probably used best here, in his best film. Why is it his best film? Well, how many filmmakers can flesh out so many characters in such a socially aggressive drama, and leave the audience engaging with all parties equally without an aggressive urge in our bodies, while also moved with ephemeral camerawork that dances with the content and doesn’t repeat the same choice twice?

This is a film that is, among many things, about our societally driven psychologies that support ignorance of the present, including possible contentment, relationships, or morality, in favor of the past and future. Mank doesn’t damn us, but he exposes the satire with an objective cold kind of empathy for all playing the game in this melodramatic machine of life, without any interest in becoming didactic. A bold avenue to take, and assimilated into the excellent performances, script, spacial design, and countless other perfect attributes of this film I haven’t even touched on, the product blossoms into a beautiful flower whose name we can pronounce but whose contents we can’t, which only makes it more pronounced as a whole. The wonderful self-reflexive exchange between Sanders and Baxter toward the end refers to the content of the film and the history of the 20th century as melodrama, before then turning inward succumbing to, and becoming, such a melodramatic peak cinematically, puts a cherry on top of the genius already exhibited in this magnum opus and layered defining work of the industry, social experience, and the art form itself.

People Will Talk

This was so much worse on a revisit - Though I never really liked it too much, I recalled being more interested in the ‘mystery’ behind Grant’s trial. This outing I had forgotten the answer but found myself drawn to the romance, looking exhaustingly for sparks in its stale zone. The dialogue portion of the script is still fire, but the narrative itself -especially its bifurcated attempt at tackling two distinct portions of the story- carry unclear tonal aims, and I found myself continuously bored (I hate that word, but I cannot think of a better one here) by the attempts at drama. The personalities on display are as obstructed as the egos behind them are headstrong, so we are never offered a pathway into aligning with any of them- and when everything on the screen is a banal puzzlement, then regardless of how good a writer Mank is, the film becomes a wash. Still, the man has a way with words, and there is a very interesting film buried in here- one where maybe we can care more about these dense, (probably?) complex characters.


5 Fingers

I have to admit that I’ve never understood the adoration for this suave spy film that others have, and a rewatch didn’t change that. That doesn’t mean it’s not a solid film, and if anything this film finds genuine pleasure in dignified behavior to mitigate the anxiety of the thriller to a place of externally civilized charm, hitting the meat of espionage by remaining with the masks we wear. The entire structure seems to be based on people quietly struggling to cope with inflated weight they place on their predicaments, while also trying to forge superficial relationships, cooly with reservation. How can anyone trust anybody but themselves? And regardless of whether they can or not, what qualities do we champion, one’s soul or their actions?

There is a romanticism unveiled where people admire and despise one another at once, as they threaten each subject’s position but mirror their virtues. The film may be inconsistently engaging due to its mild temperament, but I find the last act thrilling in a very tranquil way as Mason processes his own feelings and stances of judgement, only aloof while moving toward his own committed drive. The ending is perfect too, and professes the truth about what will satisfy the ego most when on the losing end- schadenfreude.


Julius Caesar

I wrote a blurb about this for the Shakespeare project, where it placed high, because who better to direct Shakespeare than Mank? His ability to measure both sides of the conflict without allegiance challenges the audience to do the same, so when Brando gives the most famous speech in the play, we are convinced along with the crowd. Here Mank makes a show of the greatest potential of the ego, the superpowers of agency that he clearly relishes and finds joy exploring so vividly hidden in an adapted work.

The capabilities of expression find manipulation and raw emotional honesty in the same breath, so we are never clear which part of the ego is being fed, the mind for self-gain or the heart for validation and emotional triumph. It’s about as perfect a Shakespeare adaptation as there ever was, especially a play like this which is so difficult to pull off, relying on that central speech to make or break its effect.


The Barefoot Contessa

This one I actually liked a lot more this revisit, thanks to less of a focus on the story and more on Mank’s acidic script and formidable competition of egos. The initial scene in the club magnifies the souls of several eccentric characters by playing them off of one another, making deceptively simple people like Kirk Edwards complicated. Edwards is a narcissist who plays God but chastises others for blaspheming, because his solipsism holds religious values that he was raised on cemented as truths, or because he empathizes with the creator whose superiority he identifies with?

Ego here falters on the line of confidence- Bogart and Gardner are both self-assured but humble enough to process their abilities to reach their dreams. Bogart particularly understands his limitations because he knows the politics of the industry and the limitations of power in the world at large, while Gardner abides by a code that solidifies her own self-regard as stable without comprehension of foreign milieus and an admitted need for a codependent relationship.

The narrative told from different points of view helps establish Mank’s interest in collective subjectivity- taking the reality of our limitations and transforming it into as close to God’s omniscient view as we can get, fittingly in step with Kirk’s obsession and Mank’s own interest in using cinema to explore multiple truths under the concession that life is far more handicapped in this respect. Through this procedure of firing off fallible rounds, Mank strokes his own ego in paradoxically acknowledging humility, while still allowing himself to reach for the stars in searching for objective perspective, exercising his ego from a safe, concealed place. This reminds me of his previous Shakespeare film on that respect- obscuring his intention through a variety of larger-than-life characters, witty dialogue, and expert direction; though realistically he may not even be aware of his posture, disguised even from himself by giving his whole self into his art.

Unfortunately the narrative loses steam for me in the middle once Gardner begins her series of relocations, though the theme of issuing her will to hunt for happiness is worthwhile if only for the incongruity of her beaming smile and Bogart’s apprehension during their scenes together, yet still bound in calm harmony not crisis. Bogart warns her of the difference between fairy tale and humanity’s dark sides, but her self-deception, whether as a sensitive coping mechanism or a fault of inflated ego, leads to destructiveness- and the culmination of violence is a direct result of a sleeper character’s unrestrained ego overthrowing his emotional regulation.

Bogart’s worldliness, as defined by his self-acceptance with external awareness and considered restraint, seems like the closest Mank has come to drawing an idealistic persona on the screen (no coincidence, likely, that he’s also a director who seeks liberation from the obviously flawed egos in the industry around him!) - After reading through a chunk of Hawks’ biography, Mank seems to be doing what others have argued Hawks did, and what many directors were doing at the time- realising his fantasies through cinema, here in a character of how he wants to see himself.


Guys and Dolls

Funny, ostentatious, playful musical, stuffed to the brim with eclectic expressions of characters mingling, manipulating, deceiving, collaborating, and wisecracking on the path to self-actualization. Musicals rarely flaunt this much ego, which is saying something! Every element is so extravagant, where even personalities are fronts of confident artifice, like Mason in 5 Fingers transported into a colorful dreamscape. Brando and Sinatra flood the atmosphere with their swollen confidence, and their execution of gags like Sinatra’s one-sided banter on the phone are subtle bits of gold.

Correcting the error of People Will Talk’s choice to split its narrative into avenues, this second try at division works wonders. The exposition is mostly a conglomeration of different visual ideas that serve as tools for the actors to trigger their shades of identity or surfaces to bounce their egos off of, yet the compact crowded nature of stimuli reminds one of Mank’s awareness of a greater power that keeps him right-sized. The only scenes where we can breathe in reprieve from the overpopulated mayhem is when romantic energy is passing between two characters. Even when other people are in the room in the midpoint scene of Brando and Simmons in the church, the silence is deafening in contrast with the commotion; and we are able to see deeper, fuller colors of a personality and needs that have been hidden beneath the posed exteriors.

This film revealed a new iteration of Mank’s exhibition of egos- that of soulmates (which don’t always have to be romantic). In Mank's worlds, his characters don’t masquerade, but there are secret sections of an identity encrusted within, only provoked by the ‘right’ partner who can match them with a similarly defined self-assured individualism. This isn’t a steadfast rule, and Mank most often paints tragedies where this fails. Still, there is a clear brewing attraction between two people who respect one another, even if he won’t pretend that a person can save another human being from the pitfalls of their own self, society, or even that this soulmate will be able to modulate their own wills for the sake of the other.

Julius Caesar is a direct example of the latter as is 5 Fingers, The Barefoot Contessa the former, All About Eve also the former specifically toward society’s neutral void of allegiance, and Suddenly, Last Summer - well, that’s a special one taken to psychological extemes!

Guys and Dolls, though, is the most purely optimistic fantasy of this power in partnership (fittingly for a musical!) especially as Brando and Simmons each awaken new potential in one another when together. The barfight where Simmons proves that she's capable of escaping her prudish cocoon, culminating in a drunken uninhibited chant in the park (the great If I Were a Bell number) is sublime, and impressively pitched as satisfactory evidence for herself of her own abilities, rather than sourced only to persuade Brando of her worth.

Brando’s own self-discovery is heightened by Simmons’ charms as indicative of his grand gesture toward the end. The irony of egoists sitting in a church under a higher power is great, as is Brando and Simmons wrestling with their self-aggrandizing or self-driven courses under the roof of biblical morality. This mimics the already-discussed theme of finding a kinetic balance between the self’s drive to control and limitations from powers beyond one’s control, very well established in musical form.


The Quiet American

This felt like 5 Fingers with all glamorous appeal removed. The clear primary concern of propaganda extinguishes whatever intricate ego-combatants were possible in an otherwise important story. Redgrave’s emotional dysregulation feels forced rather than a product of Mank’s exploration of existential crisis resulting from failed control against greater systems, which is still present but so one-note it feels like a Lifetime programmer and, frankly, disrespectful to audiences looking for an actual authentic script. The dialogue feels like it’s breaking the fourth wall to wink at us constantly, labeling specific American nationalist concerns openly on its sleeves.

Mank thrives on drawing dense characters, who appear impenetrable but are granted shades of humanity through objective participation with others. In this one they just say it all, express it all, and still come away appearing as empty vessels communicating air. The plot almost helps this one from becoming his clear-worst of the decade, but if I’m being honest, it has to be for compromising his strengths so tenaciously.


Suddenly, Last Summer

Mank’s second best of the decade comes at the opposite end of it, a psychological study that is as tangled as the visual metaphor of a jungle existing in a mansion- a sinister, complicated, wild savage core hidden within socially-constructed appearances of wealth and prominence. The chanting mentally ill patients operating on id as Taylor’s presence enters the scene is indicative of the threats to the secure sense of self by primal forces- but also represents the organic activation that transpires when a vessel of agency moves through a territory occupied by sexually-impetuous beings, with other aims at serving the self. Mank may even be asking - when boiled down to self-indulgence, are these intentions so different?

Hepburn’s early speech of creating art -whether by social manipulation or doctor operations here- as optimal in allowing a person to become a God, is Mank allowing his characters to openly call a spade a spade for him whilst recognizing the ridiculousness of this belief beyond desire. The phrase “the sharp knife in the mind kills the devil in the soul” reinforces mankind’s ego seeking to control the unmanageable nature swallowing us up. Here that nature is enigmatically internal rather than overwhelmingly externalized in a greater environment, and the failure to do so marks one of Mank’s most humble messages tucked away in his most lavishly exaggerated in performance and content.

Nature wins out hard here, and Sebastian’s soiled ethos is a case in point- or is it? Like his other work dealing with perspective, Mank has two skewed accounts -this time from two potentially-insane people- to paint a picture of a mystery man’s character. The way Hepburn substitutes the search for God in place of deviant homosexuality is a creative form of self-protecting insanity, with her approaching her own form of delusion, no more stable than the one locked up. Taylor even suppresses the truth to maintain her distance from trauma, part of which is rooted in dissonance between Sebastian’s true character and the picture of how she wants to see him. However, her troubled memory curiously only developed as murky once she was gaslit and sectioned away after disclosing Sebastian’s behavior to her family, suggesting that perhaps the effects of broad social invalidation on the ego created just as detrimental trauma to her brain as the incident itself. Oh what an overwhelming force this incorrigible, oppressive world is!

The challenge of creating a tangible truth is further complicated by the process of grief on both female victims. Taylor’s speeches are scattered and full of contradictions and inner turmoil, while Hepburn unravels herself when slips from careful verbalizations are recognized and called out. This is an environment where people don't identify what is meant to be buried. Even Taylor’s immediate family are self-gratifying egoists, refusing to acknowledge their complicit actions in planning to lobotomize her, distressing over her direct address of the consequences of their actions. Everyone here represses the truth in favor of a preferred narrative that services the ego, forming a bubble that is vulnerable to popping by a pinprick of unexpected honesty- often in an opposing perspective which proposes a different version of the truth. Objectivity doesn’t matter as much as the threat to one’s own subjectivity-as-objectivity self-as-God fantasy. Hepburn winds up ironically most-crazed through a failure to find her own catharsis in acceptance, as Taylor releases hers in a step towards her own sanity.

Going back to the ‘ego-soulmate’ theme, this film goes for broke as it finds a novel pathway in that definition, concocting an elaborate ruse of oblivious defense mechanisms to hold onto an idealized version of a mother’s soulmate in her son- to sickening consequences. The power of perspective is exhibited without filter, serving each character’s worldview to cope with what cannot be understood, that in the soul that cannot be controlled with the mind.

Sebastian’s greatest error, per Taylor, was in “trying to correct a human situation” for the first time in his life. He has always manipulated people, but he made a forceful effort to exert control over an unstoppable mass in his final moment. In succumbing to his flaws under the heat of invalidation, Sebastian sealed his fate- an emblem of the inevitable downfall caused by total ignorance of the augmented ego.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#470 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jun 26, 2020 7:49 pm

The Teahouse of the August Moon

I got a huge kick out of Glenn Ford, who I typically hate (I even argued that his awful character in The Big Heat makes the movie better!) but here he is such a doofus, comically rung out to dry and misunderstood countless times over. Brando’s Asian character is ridiculous, but the camaraderie with Ford, especially the reciprocal dynamic where Ford is helpless without Brando’s translation and wisdom, makes both the comedy and drama effective. The actors stay on top of every tone the play throws at them, and while this is a wild mess of intention, I think that plays to the film’s strengths. In some kind of post-war confusion of how to manage attitudes and social engagement cross-culturally, the film doesn’t dip into the disillusionment of noir or melodrama, but a goofy comedy with pockets of romance and drama. The most interesting aspect is that these more serious moods are quickly diffused, almost nervously in this foreign milieu with a stamp of shame, in favor of another distraction in slapstick banter. The movie postures in the direction of confronting psychological depths only to retreat- the water’s too cold, or the bodies are still warm. I still can’t get over how much I liked Ford here, enough to even consider it for my list.


Born to be Bad

This wasn’t my first rodeo with this film, but after studying the social disease of patriarchal oppression throughout this list project, I had a much keener eye this revisit in how twisted the atmosphere is before Joan Fontaine even enters the picture. Mel Ferrer and even Bess Flowers spit enough rationale for social climbing as the only viable option in the opening minutes that Fontaine’s mysterious character is validated without developing a real personality of her own.

Her lack of identity is rather sad, and the attraction for Ryan piercing through her other ambitions, threatening to ruin it all, is as close as we come to truly understanding her. She doesn’t even understand herself at the end, and for a moment when she professes her love to Ryan we believe her- though what I’m really believing is that she believes herself. Fontaine’s resilience via adaptability comes off as extraordinary instead of purely ‘evil’ or whatever kind of binary label one wants to put on it. Ray takes his knack for social critique and doubles down on the cynicism, thereby liberating everyone in his audience to some degree or another. What a sensitive auteur, who paradoxically almost always used aggressive emotional surges to provide earnest validation.

The Lusty Men

This one struck me harder on a revisit, especially in those breezy opening scenes of romantic disillusionment, which breathe intimacy into even solemn circumstances. There is a grand meditation of social influence breeding chaos, where the presence of a man and their unique circumstances elicits desire in another man who encounters them. knives’ thoughts on the “female gaze” earlier in the thread are interesting, and the film absolutely takes a stance that is skeptically romantic. Seemingly a paradox, the objectivity can’t remain in a space that doesn’t gravitate toward surging emotion for long. Even Mitchum, who I agree is the most stale figure, is granted a community introduced a half hour in, humanizing him right along with the central couple. Nobody in Ray's universe is allowed to remain two-dimensional, even if we aren't granted the inside scoop of their mental clockwork, the camera is always curious and generous with its active listening read to take in what can be expressed.

Mitchum represents a fatalistic position reminiscent of noir, while Hayward represents the optimism of love the the pursuit of happiness, under an acknowledged flawed existence. Kennedy is right in the middle, a dog unsure of which owner to move toward- the magic promise of thrills in a unique identity, or to find that authentic passion in his comfortable world of 'home.' Hayward issues agency to ensure her husband is safe, refuses romance on another path in order to choose her fate, and embodies a belief that perspective and attitude can rule within the restrictions of our imposing environments. Ray's complex narrative culminates in a solution that wonders- can we actually find happiness in our familiar social context organically due to the qualities of such a context, or in the comparison by which we must measure our existence? Is there liberation where we see restriction? Is Mitchum's sacrifice necessary for the happy ending, or would if have happened without him? I think Kennedy needed to have that experience to see the greener grass to be grateful for what he has, as did Hayward, which is a sad or heartening truth- however you want to look at it. Ray knows we live in a social world, so I don't think he would like that first question- and would instead say, the fate spawned from all these social variables is organic. And I would agree.


Callaway Went Thataway

Here’s an interesting beast- a sweet and cute tale of taking advantage of opportunities, also mirroring as a searing glance at the dishonest entertainment industry. The main focus seems to be an attack on unethical leaps to sell in advertising, with MacMurray’s smarmy persona fitting for a nervous fake hot-shot agent of nothingness that emits boredom. I appreciated the adventure of life-experimentation in casually shifting identity, a fantasy in itself and one that is greater than the ruse these folks put on to save their skin superficially.

The narrative pokes fun at western idol worship too, though I was more interested in what it said about the broad immortalization of icons, and how when one disappears all hands on deck will stop at nothing to fabricate that personified idea for a culture. Objective honesty matters less than the subjective reality this brings the public, so the film becomes both a satire on fraudulent practice to achieve a socially-conscious goal, but also a sensitive encouragement that celebrates the high importance of these artificial heroes’ effects on us.

Perhaps I’m looking at it too optimistically, but as someone who has been very open about subjective realities outweighing objective ones in respect to ‘meaning’ this was a great reminder of how even something ‘fake’ on the silver screen can produce authentic emotional responses and shape lives, sometimes just as much as ‘real’ person-to-person interactions. I’m torn on whether I prefer this or the previous year’s The Reformer and the Redhead- and Frank’s Li’l Abner, a different beast entirely, probably takes the cake- but I’m interested in seeking out the duo’s other work now after three great pictures.


Mogambo

There isn’t a whole lot more to say about this that Tag Gallagher didn’t already say better. As opposed to my negative feelings on Hatari!, I love this film. I hadn't seen it since I was much younger, so it was like a completely new experience, and in contrast with the flat Hawks film I was immediately taken with the inquisitiveness of these characters to animals’ idiosyncrasies providing an outlet to look up and notice one another. The animalistic equivalence finds harmony in the essence of disharmony- and Ford uses this idea to grant us a beautiful romantic picture expressed under a peculiar shade of romantic filmmaking, that may just procure our most natural states! Looking at the sunset silently in safe, meditative tranquility shifts into an aggressive sexual impulse taken- an effect that would be jarring if it didn’t sum up humanity in a nutshell.

I love how ‘loneliness’ can elicit opposing parts of different people using the same signifier- Kelly and Gable both openly admit that he is lonely, but which one means emotionally and which perhaps means biologically? Are they even different when stripped away of differentiating concepts? Are they malleable and unpredictable even to the one experiencing them? Gable sure seems surprised and confused by his own emotions at times, just as Kelly is destroyed by hers, but perhaps for different reasons. Scenes like Kelly resisting her husband’s advances in a dark-lit room, disallowing the audience reprieve from this uncomfortable moment of a wife refusing her husband but trapped with him- not wanting to give an explanation as he asks for one- resembles the flip side to the awe the cast has in spectating animals in nature or staring across landscapes. The enigma of powerlessness, over other living beings (animals or people) or space (the interconnected physical nature or the inability to escape from a binding spouse) can be safely intriguing and also aggressively painful to endure.

Tag Gallagher’s analysis of Kelly’s experience at the end of his essay clarifies why I love this film so much. To go just one step further, her movement from a stereotyped role- that of the 50s nuclear American wife- into the possibilities of the chaotic lawless world, undergoes all of the conflicting emotions he lays out, but the unbearable horrors implicit in the experience itself- no matter how thrilling and erotic- are what trump the others. Being unequipped to handle the emotional and existential flood nearly destroys her, and Gardner’s more experienced wilding who retains her sense of humanity, provides the sacrificial empathy to save her, like the kind of messiah that exists out in the jungle.


Le Rouge et le noir

I have a soft spot for epic novelizations on film when done right, which is rare. This piece falls somewhere in the middle-upper tiers, for as RV says, it’s engrossing- though moreso from its infatuation with attempting to ‘know’ the characters in first-person internal monologues than allowing them to remain enigmatic in third-person narration, often a direction I prefer (Vale Abraão and Comment je me suis disputé... (ma vie sexuelle) being the two best). I was also struck by Danielle Darrieux’s perf right away, and her expression of inner conflict was complex enough to feed part of that mysterious journey in acclimating to a human rather than a space.

Gérard Philip’s inner voice as he enters Darrieux’s room, contesting with whether to walk away or stay- to participate further in embracing romance or retreat while feeding his ego safely- is more exciting than the average first-person adaptation. The psychological process of arguing to himself that he has followed through on his mission, without actually culminating in romance, is funny and earnest in its fear of actually acting upon the urge that will change life forever.

Once the characters get together, the dialogue in commingling is very direct, at times obnoxiously so, but the mist of romance distracts from these clear pronouncements driving the story, and we are continuously pulled back from the hand-holding to greater thematic introductions. “Female perversity” is acknowledged quickly in the text, which could fall into the familiar highlight of discrimination against one gender’s ability to self-actualize, but instead it’s exhibited purely as a self-inflicted process that Darrieux undergoes alone- grappling with society’s enforced role vs. her passionate magnetism. Of course the actions have real, externally-imposed consequences, but for that moment we join with her like floating in a dream. Thankfully, this topic doesn’t become over-explained like the narrative, and we instead get beautiful depictions of the shame and isolation woven into the excitement of nervously breaking free norms for Darrieux, during her slow hesitant walk to Phillip.

I love how her own walks through the corridors are absent of the voiceover Phillip gets- not necessarily propelling her into the role of “enigmatic woman” of MO’s work(s) but affording her the ability to express her inner conflict nonverbally, which works so much better, especially in contrast to the narrator’s own (actually welcome) monologues. We get the best of both worlds here as a result of this division in frameworks for characterization. Unfortunately after this well-balanced first act, the film lost much of my interest in following Julien through the middle of his journey battling between a conformist mask and his true self, which could have been more of an eccentric kind of spy’s tale in another film.

However, when we land in the last act and encounter a new secret relationship of attraction, the film picks back up. Mathilde, whose own conflict between norms and sexuality breeds a more theatrical -but no less amusing- exploration of identity politics, is a perfect bookend to counter the earlier relationship. While the Darrieux courtship was more sensitive and innocent in its shy, sensual movements toward actualization, Antonella Lualdi plays a less experienced, less tired woman bogged down by societal constraints, and thus more privy to influence from her era. Power games take the place of the gentle transparency in Darrieux’s courting, and I love how the film (and likely novel) has the audacity to suggest that these deceptive tricks of disinterest can produce genuine love! Personally I believe this to be true, but there is a boldness in how the cast interprets the materials, with Lualdi especially fantastic at exhibiting pompous and kittenish qualities to straddle the line of questionability but still win us over as surrogates for our protagonist.

There is plenty of irony in this film, nothing more obvious than the label of ‘social climber’ given to a man who we know is much more, or less(?), than that. The most interesting ironic expression is the way authenticity is treated under a coat of lies, from pretending to be from another class to the strategies inherent in the courting processes, living a life of hypocrisy in order to obtain sincere emotional harmony and honest transformation of identity. In the end, the terrific first and third acts silenced the second’s transition period, and I found myself as philosophically drawn to the social politics as I was entertained by the narrative, helped significantly by the female performers.

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Rayon Vert
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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#471 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jun 26, 2020 8:27 pm

Nice (and deep as usual) read, on the Autant-Lara, twbb. I agree that the start of the second "époque" after the Darrieux longer first half drags a little, and it then picks up again with Mathilde (to my gratification, because the first part is so good it would have been a shame to have the rest be a let-down), and that role and the actress' performance as well is in large part responsible for it. I think the complexities you uncover are in the novel itself - the film definitely felt like it embraced the spirit of what I remember from the novel and the many layers it contains (the Romantic themes, social politics, the irony, etc.).

Btw, the edition I read (over 30 years ago!) used an image from the film on its front cover, so it was great to finally see this decades later (it's a revisit, but I only saw it for the first time a few years ago) and find out that it didn't bring the novel to shame!

Image

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#472 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:13 pm

Just reading through the wikipedia summary for the novel right now I see that it's quite faithful - it's unclear how tense the Mathilde games are in the source (almost surely sped up a bit for the sake of the film's runtime) but I thought she came across much more agreeable than the plot of the book seems to indicate. Though Lualdi's versatility makes her transitions seamless, which serves the romantic pull of the story perfectly.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#473 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:20 pm

I forgot this about the novel too:
André Gide said that The Red and the Black was a novel ahead of its time, that it was a novel for readers in the 20th century. In Stendhal's time, prose novels included dialogue and omniscient narrator descriptions; Stendhal's great contribution to literary technique was the describing of the psychologies (feelings, thoughts, and interior monologues) of the characters. As a result, he is considered the creator of the psychological novel.
Which explains the emphasis on the interior monologues you picked up on.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#474 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jun 26, 2020 9:38 pm

Very interesting, I wonder if the novel also just stayed with Julien Sorel for monologues, because it seemed like the women were allowed to remain as third-person observations while he used the first-person voiceover for psychological musings.

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Re: The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions

#475 Post by Rayon Vert » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:41 pm

Summer with Monika (Bergman 1953). Starting with those shots of the dirty Stockholm port, this story of a working-class couple is very much in the vein of Port of Call. One difference is that Monika is such an immature pest - we see signs of her being ruled only by the pleasure principle and of her self-absorption right from the start (she’s looking at herself in her portable mirror when she tells Harry she loves him). It’s ultimately a depressing film (Bergman being Bergman, he has to throw in some humiliation as well, when we later find out who turns out to be one of her lovers), but it’s that middle, escape-from-civilization chunk of the movie that’s so appealing – quite magically shot, sensual in so many ways (the feel of the reflection in the water and the clouds in the skies), and in some ways like the scenes in the superb Summer Interlude but with a greater sense of escape and adventure. I guess in the end the experience of the film for me is a bit like the experience for the characters, such a sense of contrast and comparative disappointment with that… summer interlude.


The Browning Version (Asquith 1951).
It’s a bit on the nose but a fine and moving film nevertheless. The thing with The Crock, and this is certainly in part a measure of Redgrave’s appearance, is that he’s presented as this nasty, dead corpse of a teacher, but we sense his vulnerability, and he therefore elicits our pity, from almost the beginning. As the humiliations pile up, our sympathy for him grows exponentially, but it was there from the start. It’s not only Redgrave who’s wonderful to watch here – all the players are absorbing, including the kid playing Taslow. A level of restraint makes this a soul-stirrer rather than the overly sentimental corn it could have been.


Il Bidone (Fellini 1955).
I was comparatively underwhelmed here the second time around. Some sequences that I didn’t remember seemed less inspired and dragging a bit – that overly long party scene especially, then some hanging out moments of these criminal layabouts (which in some ways is a continuation of I Vitelloni but in a more purely dramatic key). But those stand out scenes, especially the parallel, powerful ending, are in many ways the equal of La Strada.

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