Aldo Ray

  • Raoul Walsh – The Naked and the Dead (1958)

    1951-1960Raoul WalshUSAWar
    The Naked and the Dead (1958)
    The Naked and the Dead (1958)

    Hal Erickson writes:
    Despite an ad campaign wherein RKO Radio congratulated itself for its “guts”, this long-delayed film version of Norman Mailer’s bestselling WW2 novel The Naked and the Dead still had to pull most of its punches (especially when it came to four-letter words). Aldo Ray heads the cast as sadistic sergeant Croft, who’d as soon kill one of his own men as he would the Japanese. Sensitive, moralistic Lieutenant Hearn (Cliff Robertson) tries to put a leash on Croft, but he’s ordered to keep out of the situation by psychotic General Cummings (Raymond Massey), who is convinced that soldiers will fight harder the more they hate their superiors.Read More »

  • Mardi Rustam – Evils of the Night (1985)

    1981-1990CampMardi RustamSci-FiUSA
    Evils of the Night (1985)
    Evils of the Night (1985)

    Vacationing teens are systematically kidnapped and taken to a strange, rural hospital, run by a mysterious group that needs their blood.Read More »

  • Michael Curtiz – We’re No Angels (1955)

    Michael Curtiz1951-1960ClassicsComedyUSA

    At Christmas, three prisoners – Joseph, Albert and Jules – escape from Devil Island to a French small coastal town. They decide to rob a store, to get some money and clothes and travel by ship to another place. They pretend to be there to fix the roof, but pretty soon they realize that the financial condition of the family Ducotel is not good. Andre Trochard, the selfish and mean owner of the establishment, exploits the family Ducotel. The three convicts spend Christmas night with the Ducotels and are so well treated by the family that they decide to help them. Their pet will help them to fix the situation.Read More »

  • Raoul Walsh – Battle Cry (1955)

    1951-1960Raoul WalshUSAWar

    Plot Synopsis: Adapted by Leon Uris from his own novel, the film follows a group of World War II marines, from Basic Training to Battlefield. Major Van Heflin knows that his men are spoiling for a real fight, but must make do with the desultory skirmishes assigned them by the Brass. All this changes with an onslaught of heavy-duty battling in the South Pacific. Aldo Ray plays a tough leatherneck who falls in love with demure Nancy Olson, while James Whitmore, Tab Hunter, Dorothy Malone and Raymond Massey costar. And watch for young Justus McQueen, cast as private L.Q. Jones; McQueen liked his character name so much that he adopted it as his professional cognomen. Composer Max Steiner’s musical score earned him an Oscar nomination. — Hal Erickson (AMG)Read More »

  • Jacques Tourneur – Nightfall (1956)

    1951-1960250 Quintessential Film NoirsFilm NoirFranceJacques Tourneur

    Fred Camper wrote:
    This 1957 noir masterpiece by Jacques Tourneur stars Aldo Ray as a man fleeing a private investigator and Anne Bancroft as the barroom acquaintance who agrees to help him. Ray’s past is revealed gradually in a series of flashbacks, which are intercut with the couple’s flight and the investigator’s pursuit; by developing each narrative in a parallel space or time, Tourneur movingly articulates the theme of a character trapped by his history. The images have a smooth, almost liquid quality, the high-contrast lighting of most noirs replaced by a delicate lyricism that takes the natural world as the norm. Tourneur links this naturalism to Ray’s growing observational skills (“I know where every shadow falls,” he says), but it also contrasts with the story’s acute paranoia.Read More »

  • Anthony Mann – God’s Little Acre (1958)

    1951-1960Anthony MannClassicsDramaUSA

    Synopsis:
    A poor farmer is obsessed with finding gold on his land supposedly buried by his grandfather. To find it he conveniently moves a marker out of his way that designates the land on which it rests as as God’s Little Acre, where anything that comes from the ground will go to God’s work. Eventually he abducts an albino to help him find the gold. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law is suspected of fooling around with a labor activist out of work since the mill closed, and a local political hopeful actively seeks his daughter’s hand in marriage.Read More »

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