1951-1960

  • Antonio Pietrangeli – Il sole negli occhi aka Empty Eyes (1953)

    1951-1960Antonio PietrangeliDramaItaly

    Quote:
    Miseries, grandeur, daily life of Celestina, orphaned country girl who arrives in Rome to be a maid, at first in a well-to-do houshold, then for a couple of loving retirees, then in a wealthy family. She falls in love with a plumber, gets pregnant, attempts suicide, then decides to survive for the child that will come.
    The first film by scriptwriter A. Pietrangeli (1919-68), and the beginning of a rich gallery of female characters, which is perhaps his greatest title of glory.Read More »

  • Mauro Bolognini – Il Bell’Antonio AKA Bell’ Antonio (1960)

    1951-1960ArthouseDramaItalyMauro Bolognini

    PLOT: A newly wedded and extremely handsome young bourgeois Antonio faces a scandal in a city of Sicily in 1950’s when the public and her family hears that his beautiful wife is still “untouched” after their 12-month long marriage.Read More »

  • Arthur Swerdloff – Roadracers (1959)

    1951-1960ActionArthur SwerdloffDramaUSA

    The father of a race car driver blames him for a death on the track, disowns him, and sponsors a rival racer.Read More »

  • Dan Milner – From Hell It Came (1957)

    1951-1960Dan MilnerHorrorSci-FiUSA

    Beware Tabonga! On a remote South Seas island, no one is safe from this hideous…and unique…monster. Tabonga is part man, part tree, all doom. Formerly an island prince, he was unjustly put to death by a witch doctor. Now he’s returned to life with roots, branches and a vengeance. Against natives. Against visiting American scientists who investigate the tree’s radioactive green sap. Against anyone unwise enough to expect a tree to stay put. A macabre medley of creature feature, Polynesian kitsch and Atomic Age cautionary tale, From Hell It Came is the killer-tree movie you woodn’t want to miss!Read More »

  • Hu Sang – Zhu Fu AKA New Year Sacrifice (1956)

    1951-1960ChinaClassicsDramaHu Sang

    Quote:
    NEW YEAR SACRIFICE is based on the short story by the prolific Chinese author Lu Xun and was recently named one of the top 100 Chinese films of all time by Asia Weekly. In a mountain hamlet in eastern China, a poor woman faces trial after trial. Sold into marriage as a child, she is left a young widow and enslaved by her mother-in-law, who sells her to a poor peasant. Her second marriage turns out to be happy until fate takes away her husband and son. Now seen as a bearer of bad luck, she becomes a social outcast. When the New Year comes, can this poor woman find any hope in this society?Read More »

  • Kôzaburô Yoshimura – Bijo to kairyu AKA The Beauty and the Dragon (1955)

    1951-1960DramaJapanKôzaburô Yoshimura

    Equally successful was Yoshimura’s 1955 The Beauty and the Dragon (Bijo to Kairyu), a period-film in which the famous Kabuki play Narukami was brought throughly up to date. Somewhat in the manner of Henry V, the film opens with a reconstruction of a classical performance of the play, accurately recreating a historical presentation in the proper style; it then moves, as a film, into a more cinematic interpretation. As in the Olivier movie, the acting style shifts from stage technique to cinema technique, and Yoshimura’s aim, like Olivier’s, was not a total reconstruction of the past but the use of a historically literal presentation as means toward something more modern in conception.Read More »

  • Daisuke Itô – Shunkin monogatari AKA Story of Shunkin (1954)

    1951-1960ClassicsDaisuke ItôDramaJapan

    Based on the novel by Junichiro Tanizaki. Story of the beautiful blind daughter of a wealthy businessman who falls in love with a servant.Read More »

  • Harald Philipp – Strafbataillon 999 aka Punishment Battalion 999 (1960)

    1951-1960DramaGermanyHarald PhilippWar

    One of the worst of many inhuman aspects of World War II were the “penalty” battalions in the German army, dramatized in this excellent film about several men serving in these units. Director Harald Phillipp spares no ounce of realism in first relating what kinds of men are conscripted, and then how they are treated. One man’s crime was not returning to his unit on time, another did not follow unscrupulous orders, yet another supposedly mutilated himself in order to escape the draft. Once in a penalty battalion, the assignments and the superior officers are brutal. The men are sent to the most dangerous battle fronts, they are asked to de-mine without equipment, and no one balks at leaving them without weapons if a hasty retreat is in order. Sobering and well-photographed, the men’s stories are engrossing from beginning to end.
    allmovie.comRead More »

  • Anthony Mann – The Tall Target (1951)

    1951-1960Anthony MannCrimeThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    A New York City detective, traveling by train between New York and Baltimore, tries to foil an on-board plot to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln before he reaches Baltimore to give a major pre-Inauguration speech in 1861.Read More »

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