1951-1960

  • Marcel Camus – Orfeu Negro AKA Black Orpheus [+Extras] (1959)

    Drama1951-1960BrazilComedyMarcel Camus

    Screen: Legend Retold; ‘Black Orpheus’ Bows at the Plaza
    By BOSLEY CROWTHER
    Published: December 22, 1959

    ALL tangled up in the madness of a Rio de Janeiro carnival, full of intoxicating samba music, frenzied dancing and violent costumes, the Frenchman Marcel Camus presents us a melancholy tale in his color film, “Black Orpheus” (“Orfeu Negro”), which came to the Plaza yesterday.Read More »

  • Kazimierz Karabasz – Muzykanci aka The Musicians (1960)

    1951-1960DocumentaryKazimierz KarabaszPolandShort Film

    A short documentary about a group of musicions on a factory. This is one of the most famous polish short documentarys and one of Karabasz student; Krzysztof Kieslowskis favorite movies.Read More »

  • Samuel Fuller – Pickup on South Street (1953)

    1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirSamuel FullerUSA

    Quote:

    Pickup on South Street opens with a striking omission of dialogue and score, heightening our awareness of the film’s pared images and the diamond-hard editing rhythms. On a subway, a beautiful woman, Candy (Jean Peters), is scrutinized by two men who are obviously tailing her. Everything about Candy’s pose is intensely erotic, from the crook of her arm that’s holding the subway railing to the sweat on her skin, to the way she’s cramped up against the other passengers. Soon saddling up to her is Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark), who approaches her as the prey she clearly represents to his hunter. Hovering over Candy, Skip makes a show of folding a newspaper, opening her purse, rifling through it, and snatching the contents of interest to him.Read More »

  • Nicholas Ray & Ida Lupino – On Dangerous Ground (1951)

    1951-1960Film NoirIda LupinoNicholas RayUSA

    Quote:
    A superb noir thriller with a difference. Ray’s second film with producer John Houseman (the first being They Live By Night) starts off in the sinister urban jungle, with Ryan’s cop increasingly brutalised by the ‘garbage’ he is forced to deal with. Finally, his methods become so violent that he is sent to cool off in snowy upstate New York, where his search for a sex killer brings him into contact with Lupino’s blind woman and her mentally retarded brother (Williams). It’s a film about the violence within us all, about the effects of environment and family upon character (Lupino, peaceful and a healing force, even has a tree in her living room), and about the spiritual redemption of a fallen man.Read More »

  • Satyajit Ray – Aparajito (1956)

    1951-1960ClassicsDramaIndiaSatyajit Ray

    Quote:
    “Aparajito” is the second film of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apu Trilogy’ (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar) continues to document the life and maturation of one young Indian boy. The film opens with Apu, son of Harihar and Sarbajaya, wandering and exploring the Temple City of Bananas on the banks of the Ganga (Ganges river) where they reside. The story focuses on Apu leaving the embrace of his family nest to work and become educated in a more modern world than what he has become accustomed in his youth. The struggle to remain separate is exemplified by the dire need of his Mother, Sarbajaya who is deathly ill and depressed. She remains desperately lonely in her small village after the death of her husband and departure of her son. Continuing the cycle of life Satyajit Ray continues to explore the inner conflicts of conforming to a more contemporary world than our parents. The strength to overcome our bonding of birth is another universal theme of traditional respect and independent personal advancement.Read More »

  • Julio García Espinosa – Sexto aniversario (1959)

    1951-1960CubaJulio García EspinosaPoliticsShort Film

    A commemoration of the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the Cuban revolution. 500,000 campesinos invited to celebrate the occasion pour into Havana.Read More »

  • Mikhail Kalatozov – Neotpravlennoye pismo aka The Letter Never Sent (1959)

    1951-1960ArthouseDramaMikhail KalatozovUSSR
    Неотправленное письмо

    This film is based on the eponymous book by Valery Osipov. Four geologists are searching for diamonds in the wilderness of Siberia. After a long and tiresome journey they manage to find their luck and put the diamond mine on the map. The map must be delivered back to Moscow. But on the day of their departure a terrible forest fire wreaks havoc, and the geologists get trapped in the woods.Read More »

  • Xu Tao – People of the Grasslands aka People on the Steppe aka People on the Prairie (1953)

    1951-1960AdventureChinaChinese cinema under MaoDramaXu Tao

    ‘This movie was adapted according to the homonymy fiction by Malaqinfu. There was a pair of lovers in a big plain, shepherdess Sarengewa and hunter Sangbu. They were dear to each other, worked arduously, and built their pleasant life with their hands. Secret agent Baolu did something bad, and persuade Sarengewa’s father Baiyire to retreat from Huzhu group, Baiyire refused him understandingly. Then Baolu thought up another trick: he cut the rope of the livestock balustrade under the cover of storm, frightened livestock escaped all around. Read More »

  • Ken Annakin – The Planter’s Wife (1952)

    1951-1960AdventureDramaKen AnnakinUnited Kingdom

    IMDB Review
    Sweet, docile little Claudette Colbert – firing a machine gun? Anything’s possible in the movies!

    Colbert and her husband live on their rubber plantation in Malaysia (back when it was Malaya) with their small son. Her husband is too absorbed in the plantation to notice her very much, and she decides that when it’s time to take their son to school in England, she will go with him and never return. But then she is unable to leave when bandits kill one of their neighbours, then tries to kill Colbert, and the whole plantation is set up in a murderous game of cat and mouse.Read More »

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