1951-1960

  • Michel Deville & Charles Gérard – Une Balle dans le Canon AKA A Bullet in the Gun Barrel (1958)

    1951-1960Charles GérardCrimeFilm NoirFranceMichel Deville

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    Synopsis
    The story concerns a couple of ex-servicemen who engineer a robbery, only to run afoul of professional criminals.

    Dick et Tony, parachutistes rapatriés d’Indochine ont accepté de rendre un petit service au Maltais. Pour une commission de deux millions de francs, ils ont fait transiter 25 millions, mais au moment de rendre l’argent, le Maltais n’est pas là. Ils investissent alors cet argent dans une boîte de nuit.
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  • John Sturges & Fred Zinnemann – The Old Man and the Sea (1958)

    1951-1960AdventureFred ZinnemannJohn SturgesUSA

    Quote:
    An old Cuban fisherman’s dry spell is broken when he hooks a gigantic fish that drags him out to sea. Based on Ernest Hemingway’s story.Read More »

  • Mikhail Kalatozov – Letyat zhuravli AKA The Cranes are Flying (1957)

    1951-1960DramaMikhail KalatozovRomanceRussia

    Quote:
    Based on a play by V. Rusov, this Russian film is a love story set during the early years of WWII. Widowed by the war, Tatyana Samoylova reluctantly marries her late husband’s cousin, hoping that he’ll be a surrogate for her fallen spouse.Read More »

  • René Clément – Gervaise (1956)

    1951-1960ClassicsDramaFranceRené Clément

    Synopsis:
    Gervaise Macquart, a young lame laundress, is left by her lover Auguste Lantier with two boys… She manages to make it, and a few years later she marries Coupeau, a roofer. After working very hard a few more years, she succeeds in buying her own laundry (her dream)… But Coupeau starts to drink after having fallen from a roof, and Lantier shows up… A faithful adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel “L’Assomoir”, depicting the fatal degeneration of a family of workers, mainly because of alcohol.Read More »

  • Claude Chabrol – Le beau Serge (1958)

    1951-1960ArthouseClaude ChabrolDramaFrance

    Synopsis:
    Of the hallowed group of Cahiers du cinéma critics turned filmmakers who transformed French film history, Claude Chabrol was the first to direct his own feature. His absorbing landmark debut, Le beau Serge, follows a successful yet sickly young man (Jean-Claude Brialy) who returns home to the small village where he grew up. There, he finds himself at odds with his former close friend (Gerard Blain)—now unhappily married and a wretched alcoholic—and the provincial life he represents. The remarkable and stark Le beau Serge heralded the arrival of a cinematic titan who would go on to craft provocative, entertaining films for five more decades.Read More »

  • Mark Donskoy – Foma Gordeev (1959)

    1951-1960ArthouseDramaMark DonskoyUSSR

    Synopsis
    Gordeev Thomas is the son of a wealthy bourgeois tsarist. He enjoys all the privileges of his condition but can not bear the sight of social misery. He falls in love with a married woman, broke with her when he discovers his frivolity and indulges in debauchery. On the death of his father, he became head of a major grain trading. But it does not handle his affairs. He is only interested in human relations. His background, which scorns the Mavericks, rejects. He chose to break with his peers to live with the poor.

    Awards :
    Award for best director at the Locarno Festival, 1960Read More »

  • Roberto Rossellini – Fear (1954)

    1951-1960DramaItalyRoberto RosselliniThriller

    Synopsis:
    Roberto Rossellini directs his then-wife Ingrid Bergman in the suspenseful drama La Paura (Fear), based on the book by Stefan Zweig. Guilt-stricken Irene Wagner (Bergman) is forced to hide her secret affair with Erich Baumann (Kurt Kreuger) from her husband, Professor Albert Wagner (Mathias Wieman), a scientist in the midst of a serious breakthrough. However, Erich’s ex-girlfriend, Joanne (Renate Mannhardt), finds out and threatens blackmail. This throws Irene into a fit of homicidal and suicidal rage.Read More »

  • Frank Lloyd – The Last Command (1955)

    1951-1960Frank LloydUSAWestern

    It’s 1834. Texas is being strangled by the tyrannical military rule of General Santa Anna (J. Carrol Naish, Canadian Pacific), Mexico’s power-mad president. When frontier hero Jim Bowie (Sterling Hayden, Naked Alibi) returns to his besieged homeland, he finds the embittered Texans plotting rebellion against his old friend Santa Anna. When Santa Anna’s cruel grip tightens around his fellow Texans, Bowie soon realizes he must side against the Mexican despot. Commanding a ragtag regiment of frontier fighters, Bowie prepares to make a final stand at the famed Fort Alamo against superior forces. Though they are all doomed to die, the outnumbered Texan defenders fight heroically for freedom in one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles in American history.Read More »

  • Alain Resnais – Le chant du Styrène AKA The Song of Styrene (1958)

    1951-1960Alain ResnaisDocumentaryFranceShort Film

    Quote:
    From a plastic bowl to petroleum, we trace back through the complete industrial process that leads to the manufacture of plastic objects. The force of the commentary composed in alexandrine verse by Raymond Queneau matches the wide screen of CinemaScope proportions.Read More »

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