Friday 5 April 2019

50s Films to See

The other day I was talking to some students about my 50s cinema book project and they asked for a list of 'must-sees'. I am obliging here with a list of ten 50s Hollywood films. Some of these will feature in the book, but not all will fit the theme (see the last post). These aren't necessarily my favourite films of the period but rather the ones that I think best sum up the decade while also being interesting and educational to watch. I'm not including period pieces (difficult as it was to leave out Singin' in the RainEast of Eden, and Some Like It Hot) because I'm after films that teach about the '50s in a more direct way. I've left out two of my very favourite films (Sunset Boulevard and Vertigo) because to my mind they don't actually say all that much as specifically 1950s films and I've written about them elsewhere.

Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder), 1951
A down-at-heel journalist (Kirk Douglas) manipulates a situation of a man stuck in a cave for good copy. A number of these films make us question the idea of the 50s as being all about sweetness and conformity, but Ace in the Hole takes the cake. This is one of the most pessimistic films ever made; it's all about human mendacity and venality. None of the characters have any redeeming features and the film hints that neither has the audience. It's somehow also very fun to watch, largely because Kirk Douglas chews the scenery with such gusto; he doesn't care that his character is despicable.

From Here to Eternity (Fred Zinnemann), 1953
The corruption of the army just before the attack on Pearl Harbor is exposed through multiple narratives: Montgomery Clift as a regimental bugler being forced to box, Frank Sinatra as an abused soldier, Burt Lancaster having an affair with his superior officer's wife (Deborah Kerr). While it's set in the 40s From Here to Eternity is a good example of a film that questions mid-century certainties, a surprisingly frequent 50s project. The acting is excellent and director Fred Zinnemann packs an extraordinary amount of mood and narrative into two short hours.

On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan), 1954
Marlon Brando plays a dock worker who runs afoul of a corrupt union. I debated whether to include Waterfront or A Streetcar Named Desire (another Brando/Kazan collaboration), eventually settling on Waterfront because it says more to me about the 1950s. This is perhaps the film most ingrained in the HUAC witch hunts, as it is a clear attempt by Kazan to explain and atone for his naming of names before the committee (Kazan's assertions of the contrary notwithstanding). This also has Leonard Bernstein's only film score, which combined with the quintessentially 'method' acting makes for a very intense viewing experience.

The Cobweb (Vincente Minnelli), 1955
The staff and patients of a sanitarium are thrown into disarray over the need for new drapes in the front room. The heightened mise-en-scène, acting, and music (the first twelve-tone score for a Hollywood film) combine to make this a perfect example of Minnelli's style in particular and of mid-century melodrama in general. A multi-generation cast also exhibits the multitude of acting styles that were available in the 50s.

All That Heaven Allows (Douglas Sirk), 1955
Another melodrama, in which widowed Jane Wyman falls in love with the much younger Thoreau-like Rock Hudson and their relationship is met with derision and dismay from the entire community, including Wyman's children. I'm working on my Sirk chapter at the moment and he's giving me no end of trouble; this film and his other melodramas are filled with contradictions and problems, but that makes them even more fascinating. In this film colour, design, and music act as metaphors for the central relationship and together create an aesthetic of excess that no other film of the period can really match. Minnelli's melodramas are more coherent and, being made at MGM, usually had higher production values than Sirk's for Universal, but Sirk has the edge in his creation of mood using all of the elements of cinema.

Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton), 1955
Two orphaned children go on the run from a fake preacher (Robert Mitchum) who is after money supposedly hidden by their father. The first time I saw this I couldn't get onto its wavelength but on a second viewing I was mesmerised. I'm not sure what changed, but this film is emotionally wrenching, terrifying, and wonderful, a study of innocence and guilt, love and hate, that is unmatched in the corpus. This is actor Charles Laughton's only film as a director, and one feels he put everything into it that he possibly could; he didn't need to direct any other films after. It was also very influential: it's visible in work by Scorsese, PT Anderson, Clint Eastwood, any of the more recent auteurs who are interested in those themes. The film also has an excellent score by Walter Schumann, one of those working-stiff composers who when given the opportunity came up with a masterpiece. This one is sui generis, very difficult to fit into our standard narratives of 1950s cinema.

Bigger Than Life (Nicholas Ray), 1956
There was also a toss-up between this film and Rebel Without a Cause. Both of these Ray films should really be on the list (and James Dean is such a 50s icon that he ought not to be left off) but I've chosen Bigger Than Life for a few reasons, largely because I think it's simply a better film. James Mason is extraordinary in the role of a stereotypical suburban father who becomes addicted to cortisone and goes mad, thinking that God is telling him to sacrifice his son like Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac. Ray skewers two of the decade's leading supposed certainties, the infallibility of the father and the perfection of religion. His mise-en-scène plays into this, as he uses the wide CinemaScope frame to graphically place the characters in relation to each other and to their surroundings in unexpected ways.

The Pajama Game (Stanley Donen, George Abbott), 1957
Doris Day plays a pajama factory worker who falls in love with her superintendent (John Raitt). This is the quintessential 50s musical, in a film adaptation of a stage musical that can stand in stylistically for the other film adaptations of the time, and it stars Doris Day, who personifies the 50s. Is it the best 50s musical? No: it's not Singin' in the Rain or The Bandwagon, nor is in an adaptation of a show as good as Guys and Dolls or Kiss Me Kate, but there's something about its very mediocrity that tells us more about 50s musicals than most others. We also get Bob Fosse's 'Steam Heat', which sticks out from the rest in such an odd way that it's rather wonderful. It also tells us a lot about 50s gender politics.

North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock), 1958
Cary Grant is mistaken for a spy, and is chased around the country by enemies. We need a Hitchcock film, and this is a good one to stand in for all of his 50s work because a) it's such fun and b) it's a great example of cold war paranoia. It's full of iconic moments: the crop-duster chase (without music), the Mount Rushmore chase (with Bernard Herrmann's mad fandango), the sexy dialogue between Grant and Eva-Marie Saint that pushes the envelope about as far as it could be pushed at this time.

Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph Mankiewicz), 1959
Elizabeth Taylor is treated by psychiatrist Montgomery Clift after she witnesses the mysterious death of her brother. Maybe a choice from left-field, this one really explodes our common view of what was 'permissible' in the 50s. Tennessee Williams' screenplay is about lobotomies, homosexuality, cannibalism, incest, and more, all acted out by Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Katharine Hepburn in some of their best performances. This one does not hold back at all, albeit resulting in a very different kind of excess from Sirk. This southern gothic tale is all about dark human desires, while Sirk was interested in the more positive side of desire as quashed by 'polite' society.