Yugoslav partisans grimly crop the hair of a village quintet of women believed to have consorted with the occupational Nazis. Four, for various reasons, have indeed – and their seducer is a lone, swaggering sergeant whom the partisans briskly emasculate. Escorted out of town by the sheepish Nazis, the forlorn ladies link up, patriotically and romantically, with a band of tough mountain guerrillasRead More »
Vera Miles
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Martin Ritt – 5 Branded Women (1960)
Martin Ritt1951-1960DramaUSAWar -
Alfred Hitchcock – The Wrong Man (1956)
1951-1960Alfred HitchcockFilm NoirUSAQuote:
Hitchcock’s long-standing fear of the police is what originally attracted him to a newspaper account of a family man wrongly identified as an armed robber. The Wrong Man pays scrupulous attention to such things as the details of police procedure and the eventual apprehension of the real culprit – before the conviction of the wrongly accused man (Fonda), but after the stress has driven his wife (Miles) to mental breakdown. The result is Hitchcock’s most sombre film, unrelieved by his usual macabre humour; the black-and-white photography and the persecuted Fonda’s sharply chiselled features lend an impressive documentary feel. It’s not generally rated among the master’s best works, largely because of the intractability of the source material (or Hitchcock’s unwillingness to dramatise the events). But there’s still plenty here for Hitchcockophiles: a Jesuitical strain (the man happened to be a devout Catholic), a complicity of guilt (as the wife irrationally comes to blame herself); and it’s pure noir.Read More » -
John Ford – The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
USA1961-1970ClassicsJohn FordWesternQuote:
There are arguably no bigger cinematic icons of America than John Wayne – the right wing side of America steeped in violence and guns, and James Stewart – the left wing side of America rooted in humanity, understanding and intelligence. And there is arguably no finer chronicler of America’s mythology and past than John Ford. Put them together and you get one of the finest westerns ever made.Read More » -
Jack Cardiff – Beyond This Place AKA Web of Evidence (1959)
1951-1960DramaJack CardiffMysteryUnited KingdomPlot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Beyond This Place is a tame murder mystery based on a novel by A. J. Cronin. Van Johnson is cast as an American citizen whose British father has supposedly been dead for years. On a visit to London, Johnson discovers that his father is very much alive, serving a life sentence for murder. Johnson inaugurates his own investigation, retraces the trail of circumstantial evidence, and unearths the real culprit. Director Jack Cardiff was not happy with his work on Beyond This Place, possibly because he was obliged for box office purposes to use an American star in an essentially British story. The film was released in the US as Web of Evidence.Read More » -
Henry Hathaway – 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956)
1951-1960DramaHenry HathawayThrillerUSAtvguide wrote:
Van Johnson plays a blind American writer who is renting an apartment on Baker Street while in London for the opening of his new play. After a row with his former fiancée (Vera Miles), he decamps to the local pub to drown his self-pity with a drink. There, his acute hearing picks up hushed snatches of conversation from the next booth. Convinced that a kidnap plot is in the offing, he rushes to the police, who are polite but refuse to believe him. However, Johnson knows what he heard is true and engages the help of Vera and Cecil Parker, his secretary, to find the kidnappers and save the unknown victim.Read More » -
Alfred Hitchcock – The Wrong Man [+extras] (1956)
1951-1960Alfred HitchcockClassicsFilm NoirUSASynopsis:
Manny Ballestero is an honest hardworking musician at New York’s Stork Club. When his wife needs money for dental treatment, Manny goes to the local insurance office to borrow on her policy. Employees at the office mistake him for a hold-up man who robbed them the year before and the police are called. The film tells the true story of what happened to Manny and his family.Read More » -
John Ford – The Searchers [+Extras] (1956)
1951-1960ClassicsJohn FordWesternSYNOPSIS:
Ethan Edwards, returned from the Civil War to the Texas ranch of his brother, hopes to find a home with his family and to be near the woman he obviously but secretly loves. But a Comanche raid destroys these plans, and Ethan sets out, along with his 1/8 Indian nephew Martin, on a years-long journey to find the niece kidnapped by the Indians under Chief Scar. But as the quest goes on, Martin begins to realize that his uncle’s hatred for the Indians is beginning to spill over onto his now-assimilated niece. Martin becomes uncertain whether Ethan plans to rescue Debbie… or kill her.Read More » -
Alfred Hitchcock – Psycho (1960)
1951-1960Alfred HitchcockHorrorThrillerUSAfrom AllMovie
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen’s master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). Read More »