Category: 1950s

Similar to War Hunt, this movie involves a Korean orphan joining up with an American soldier. Gene Evans’s Sergeant Zack is somewhere between Redford’s and Saxon’s characters in that film: cynical enough to negotiate for cigars to join a different unit’s mission but still human enough to connect with other people around him. Samuel Fuller creates a stark, unsentimental view of war, focusing simply on the unit as they prepare and fight in a singular battle from a Buddhist temple which no one but the survivors will remember. 

Sadly this was the weakest of the three Karel Zeman films from the Criterion set I watched. After finding a fossil, a group of young boys decide to climb into a boat to travel back through time to see a live trilobite. The whole production feels like a lazy river ride where the live action humans float past stop motion dinosaurs and other animals, complete with the expected ‘oohs and ahhs’ from the riders. It’s cute in a way similar to a classic live-action Disney from the same era, but it’s nowhere near as fantastic as the previous two Zeman films I’ve watched.    

After watching The Fabulous Baron Munchausen, I was eagerly looking forward to this film though I didn’t think anything could top the creativity seen there. I was wrong. While they both utilize a mix of live action and animation styles to create a fantasy world, here it is used to create the illusion of a world that is a moving, breathing line engraving. Every single part of the visuals are committed to this vision. The costumes are bold in contrasting patterns of dark and light. Even the water and sky have line etched overlays to fit right into the setting. The story brings forth a world where technology is rapidly growing, with fanciful steam machines of all types being shown, and the greatest weapon ever invented is on the horizon. A super villain is willing to do whatever it takes to get his hands on it the moment the weapon is realized. While set in the Victorian age, it is a particularly poignant reflection in the post atomic bomb age.  

Four crooks are trying to acquire uranium-rich land in Kenya. They’ve coerced Humphrey Bogart to join them in their plans, unfortunately they are waylaid by unreliable transport from Italy and a suspicious British couple waiting for passage on the same ship. This could be a serious heist film, but instead it’s a parody of the same. Jennifer Jones is the female half of the British couple and her primary personality feature is telling stories of pure fantasy. It’s a silly farce that doesn’t overstay its welcome thanks to a fairly short runtime.

Like The Defiant Ones, this film pairs an unrepentant racist with a Black man to accomplish a difficult task. Unlike that other movie, the white man, played by a dislikable Robert Ryan, has no interest in ever actually working with the other, a degenerate gambler and musician played by Harry Belafonte. Ed Begley brings these two together in an attempt to pull off a small town bank robbery to explosive results. The film doesn’t shy away from showing the parallels between the existences of the two men. Shelley Winters and Gloria Grahame are thankless as women in Ryan’s stratosphere, as Kim Hamilton is in Belafonte’s.

Like The Bicycle Thief, this film has you questioning to whom the titular character is referring. Evelyn Keyes is a woman who gets more than she bargained for when she calls the police after seeing a prowler outsider her bathroom window. The story takes some interesting twists and turns from Los Angeles to an old abandoned mining town. There’s also a rather creepy Van Heflin as one of the officers who arrive to investigate the prowling. Unfortunately, Keyes’s character is a bit of a dope whose motivations don’t make a whole lot of sense which brings the intrigue down a notch.

I haven’t watched a Barbara Stanwyck film in awhile and this was a pretty good one to revise my love. Babs is a news writer who against her better judgment falls in love and marries good-natured cop Sterling Hayden. She truly loves her husband but she hates the dull monotony that is the life of a suburban housewife in the 1950s. She instead directs her energy and ambition toward moving her husband up the ranks in his division. Raymond Burr is shrewd as the police inspector who sees behind her ruse and their chemistry in the film is truly excellent.