Favorite Movies of the 1950s?

I'll put my Top 5, and if the thread picks up, I'll add the next 5.

1. La Strada
2. The Seventh Seal
3. Ace in the Hole
4. Wild Strawberries
5. A Face in the Crowd

 

Sunset Boulevard (1950)
In A Lonely Place (1950)
The Big Heat (1953)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
North By Northwest (1959)

 

The 50s - and this is just off the top to keep the thread going - had filmmakers with great style. Not that there wasn't substance but if you consider that it covered the end of the post-war era in film and really captured the material excess and corruption of the triumphant values of capitalism it was almost to be expected. Look at the trajectory of the film industry in Italy, for instance. Fellini made movies about traveling poor players (La Strada) in the first half of the decade and by the time the 60s rolled in he was filming the good life (La Dolce Vita). Indian director, Satyajit Ray, took his Apu Triliogy of films from the poverty of Panther Panchali to the material mindset of The World if Apu. Here in America the cutting edge New York films like Side Street that featured everyday guys trying to get ahead evolved to the deep corruption of the street in films like Sweet Smell of Success. I suppose money; the lack of it and the pursuit of it dominated films from this period unlike any other except the 80s.

That said, my quick top ten would be -

All About Eve
Side Street
Seven Samurai
The Killing
Apu Trilogy
La Strada
Streetcar Named Desire
Ugetsu
Sweet Smell of Success
Floating Weeds

Kenji Mizoguchi's three films in succession, Life of Oharu (1952), Ugetsu (1953) and Sancho The Baliff (1954), in my eyes, was only equalled in excellence by Ray's Apu Trilogy, though John Ford and Sam Fuller's 50s films were fairly impressive too.

 

All about Eve
Sunset Blvd.
In a Lonely Place
Wages of Fear
The Big Heat
M. Hulot's Holiday
Les Diaboliques
Rear Window
La Strada
The Night of the Hunter
The Searchers
All That Heaven Allows
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Night of Cabiria
Paths of Glory
Sweet Smell of Success
Touch of Evil
Vertigo
Mon Oncle
North by Northwest
Some Like It Hot
Eyes Without a Face
A Bout de Souffle

+ probably some that I've missed.

 

Vertigo
Rear Window
North by Northwest
Streetcar Named Desire
On The Waterfront
Touch of Evil
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Diabolique

 

Can't forget Hitchcock - though I like his 60s stuff better.

 

A Streetcar Named Desire
A Touch of Evil
Les Diaboliques
Rear Window
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Thing from Another World

There are a number of horror movies from the 50s I really like, some of them a bit on the cheesy side but nevertheless, like House of Wax.

 

I was talking about decades a few weeks ago... The 1930s seemed like a decade of resurgence - populism, especially in the US. The 1940s were the heroic years, a ton of war movies. There's actually a great line in the movie "Crossfire" about prejudice, paraphrasing "We've been fighting for so long, now that the war (WWII) is over, we have no one to fight but ourselves", and the 50s had the comfortable suburban life and the materialism seemed to be a by-product, which also incubated a decade of rebellion. I'm glad you also mentioned "La Dolce Vita" which represented decadence. The Italian neo-realist movement was ending, and now the same characters were no longer depressed about being hungry or in war, but because after they achieved "success" they were empty, with the feeling of "What now?".. I think the 70s had their own "neo-realism" captured by a ton of gritty, realistic pictures, especially demonstrated by John Cassavetes. Or the kinda forgotten John Huston picture, "Fat City" - a great writer turned director (ala Richard Brooks) who made a great movie every decade, which you can't say about many.

 

Night of the Hunter
Touch of Evil
Wages of Fear
The Horse's Mouth
Seven Samurai
Bad Day at Black Rock
On the Waterfront
The Big Heat
All About Eve
No Down Payment
The Big Combo
Wild Strawberries
Ace in the Hole
The 400 Blows
From Here to Eternity
Rio Bravo
The Mouse that Roared
Strangers on a Train
Vertigo
In a Lonely Place

 

Five favorites alphabetically listed (with brief commentary):

1. Auntie Mame (pretty cutting edge for its time, though the second half pales in comparison to the first, probably due to the Hays code still being in place)
2. The 400 Blows (one of the early "new wave" films, which anticipates the 60's yet doesn't feel out of place in the 50's)
3. The Night of the Hunter (a shame Charles Laughton never directed another film, but I can understand his not wanting to go through the hassle of it)
4. Rear Window (very tough to pick just one Hitchcock flick, as I could easily give him all five spots, but this ranks highest on re-watchability for me)
5. Some Like It Hot (I'd say Tony Curtis is the weak link here, but the pace is fast enough that it doesn't really matter, and Jack Lemmon is just a hoot!)

I could easily list another five, but will follow the OP's lead in waiting to see whether this thread picks up steam. Personally, I think it should.

 

#6-10
On The Waterfront
12 angry men
Umberto D
Sunset Boulevard
All About Eve

 

"Sudden Fear"

 

Maybe he thought, "I am a first-time director and just made the greatest film ever. Time to quit".

 

The best decade for foreign (non-English language) films, IMO...

Seven Samurai
The Seventh Seal
Sunset Boulevard
Some Like It Hot
North by Northwest
Diabolique
The African Queen
The Night of the Hunter
Strangers on a Train
From Here to Eternity
The Wages of Fear
The Apu Trilogy
Sweet Smell of Success
Nights of Cabiria
Umberto D.
Los Olvidados
Smiles of a Summer Night
The Earrings of Madame de...
Forbidden Games
I Vitelloni

 

Lots of great stuff listed here so I'll just add this one from 1952, one of the best noirs ever made:

 

No one's mentioned "Decision Before Dawn" yet. One of the best WW II movies ever. 1951

 

I see your point about "What Now?" with regard to the bourgeoisie in Italy but directors like Olmi and later, Pasolini, showed that things had not improved for a significant portion of the population. In fact, Pasolini would continue to criticize the seeming aimlessness and depravity of the moneyed classes in Italy.

 

They made movies in the 50's?????

 

Oh man, some of the best WWII movies were made in this decade. Some of my faves:

Decision Before Dawn ('51)
Fron Here To Eternity ('53)
Stalag 17 ('53)
Fires On The Plain ('59)
A Man Escaped ('56)
The Cain Mutiny ('54)
Kanal ('57)
The Cranes Are Flying ('57)
Odette ('50)
U-Boat 39 ('52)
Mister Roberts ('55)
The Bridge ('59)
Hiroshima, My Love ('59)
South Pacific ('58)
Dunkirk ('58)


There's a fine film about a German man during the war who grows estranged from his Nazi son. I believe the film is titled, Regeneration, made during this period but I can't find any info on it! Some great set pieces in it, though; including a sequence where Berliners hiding underground are drowned as a result of a decision made by authorities who took over the city.

 

1.Thunder Road
2.Night Of The Hunter
3.Les Diaboliques
4.On The Waterfront
5.The Girl Can't Help It

Honorable mention:Forbidden Planet

 

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man (1952)

also We're No Angels - Bogart (1955)

 

After a war, I'd imagine things getting better automatically, regardless of country/system and a hope that past struggles would bring about better days. It is hard to distinguish progress; if it's organic, happenstance, or because the many tides of interests going against each other bring a certain compromised outcome. Sometimes information changes and perception changes along with it, despite the real outcomes.

I remember Pasolini criticizing the protestors because they had "faces of rich daddies", maybe trying to say they could never understand their plight, but I think it's a broad brush. In the same sentence during an interview, he says "Although the police is an arm of authority" they had the faces from sons of the working-class. Many Italian directors with left-of-center leanings were "sons of rich daddies" - Visconti, etc... Pasolini might be an exception, but it seems the family was intellectually rich, his mother being a teacher. Unfortunately, almost all of his (Pasolini) interviews are only in Italian, and I only know a little. His first 2 movies were great, but I haven't been able to finish any other of his movies, so I move right along to something else.

As for Olmi, I see I've looked at "The Tree of Wooden Clogs" - will keep my eye out. Thanks!

 

Oh well, progress and the human being... if you don't mind let's not even go there.

The thing I love about Olmi's material is that he uses ordinary people from the Italian countryside to show the many facets of humanity. Check out his 1958 first feature, Time Stood Still, when you get a chance.

 

Kirk Douglass as McCloud in Detective Story ('51)
A prototypical crime procedural flick, it formed one of the most characteristic movie tropes of the decade. There were so many that by the 60s it was easy to parody. Certainly television took several turns at it. One of the worse aspects of this type of film were the soundtrack scores; brassy and alarmist, with dreadful monotone narration introducing, bookending and/or commenting on the action. The best apects are the snappy dialogue, realistic situations with edgy tones and quick pace. My favorite of the period, as I mentioned, is Kubrick's The Killing ('56) - a perfect send-up of the crime procedural with Stanley's humorous stylistic touches.

 

1. Vertigo
2. Ace in the Hole
3. Rear Window
4. Sunset Blvd.
5. Horror of Dracula
6. Curse of the Demon (Night of the Demon)
7. The Killing
8. The Bicycle Thieves
9. Night of the Hunter
10.Les Diaboliques
11 .On The Waterfront
12. Some Like It Hot
13. Strangers On A Train
14. The Naked Spur
15. Winchester 73
16. The Day The Earth Stood Still
17. The Thing (From Another World)
18. Touch of Evil
19. Run Silent Run Deep
20. Singing In The Rain
21. An American in Paris
22. A Hatful of Rain
23. War of the Worlds
24. Othello
25. Mr. Arkadin
26. North By Northwest
27. The Searchers
28. Giant
29. Rebel Without A Cause
30. East of Eden
31. Imitation of Life
32. Harvey
33. Them!
34. The Third Man
35. A Street Car Named Desire
36. Creature From The Black Lagoon
37. The Incredible Shrinking Man
38. Forbidden Planet
39. Anatomy of A Murder
40. Ben Hur
41. Oklahoma
42. 12 Angry Men
43. Marty
44. From Here to Eternity
45. Wild Strawberries
46. The Seventh Seal
47. Smiles of A Summer Night
48. Revenge of Frankenstein
49. The Hound of the Baskervilles
50. The Mummy
51. The Man Who Knew Too Much
52. The Mummy
53. The Wrong Man
54. Dial M For Murder
55. The Wages of Fear
56. Narrow Margin
57. Harvey
58.
59.
60. three spots for great movies I overlooked.