Greeting A New Year

Jesse Walker is now back to 1951:

https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2022/01/hello-2022-and-1951-too-this-blog-has.html

This was the year An American In Paris won the Oscar for Best Picture.  Hard to explain--it's a well-done MGM musical, but hardly their best (though I suppose doing Gershwin in Paris helped convinced the voters it was high art).  But what is Jesse's top ten?

1.  Ace In The Hole

2.  Strangers On A Train

3.  The Thing From Another World

4.  A Streetcar Named Desire

5.  The Tales Of Hoffman

6.  The Lavender Hill Mob

7.  Miracle In Milan

8.  The Man In The White Suit

9.  Pandora And The Flying Dutchman

10.  Bellissima

Note the top four films are from four major Hollywood directors.  Ace In The Hole was probably Wilder's most bitter film, and thus a flop, but it holds up pretty well.  Many of Hitchcock's 50s films are overpraised, but Strangers On A Train is one of his best.  The Thing--which is a Hawks film, no matter what they say--was in a genre then considered disreputable (now mainstream), but the Hawksian no-nonsense characters and plot pull it out of B-picture status and makes it a lot of fun. Streetcar is a classic American play, and while I think the stage is where it works best, Kazan did a solid job adapting it to screen.

The Tales Of Hoffman looks beautiful, like much of Powell and Pressburger, but I don't think it's for me.  I feel somewhat the same of Pandora And The Flying Dutchman.

The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man In The White Suit may be the two best examples of Ealing Studios comedies (starring Alex Guinness)--not sure which one I prefer.

Miracle In Milan is okay (haven't seen it in a long time) and I haven't seen Bellissima.

Here are Jesse's honorable mentions:

11.  People Will Talk

12.  The African Queen

13.  Four Ways Out

14.  Diary Of A Country Priest

15.  On Dangerous Ground

16.  He Ran All The Way

17.  Susana

18.  Rabbit Fire

19.  The Man From Planet X

20.  The Tall Target

Looking at the list, I see more big-name Hollywood directors, but are the films among their best.  Usually not.  For instance, 11 is an intriguing film that doesn't quite work.  12 is vastly overrated.  (In general, both Manckiewicz and Huston are overrated, not that they didn't make some fine movies.)

Haven't seen 13.  14 is one of Bresson's best.   15 is okay Ray.  16 is alright.  17 is Bunuel in his Mexican period--not one of his great works, but pretty good.  18 is a short. Once you accept 19 is very low budget Ulmer (is there any other kind?) you can enjoy it.  20 is period piece noir--passable at best.

Here are some other films that would have made my top ten or twenty:

Detective Story

The River

Royal Wedding

The Steel Helmet

Other films of interest:

Abbott And Costello Meet The Invisible Man, Alice In Wonderland, Angels In The Outfield, Atoll K, Bedtime For Bonzo, The Big Night, The Blue Veil, Bride Of The Gorilla, Bright Victory, The Browning Version, Bullfighter And The Lady, Call Me Mister, Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N., Come Fill The Cup, Comin' Round The Mountain, Cry The Beloved Country, David And Bathsheba, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Dear Brat, Death Of A Salesman, Decision Before Dawn, Double Dynamite, Early Summer, Father's Little Dividend, Flight To Mars, Flying Leathernecks, Ghost Chasers, Go For Broke!, Golden Girl, The Great Caruso, The Harlem Globetrotters, Here Comes The Groom, The House On Telegraph Hill, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, I Want You, I Was A Communist For The FBI, I'll See You I My Dreams, The Idiot, Jim Thorpe – All-American, Kind Lady, The Lady Of Musashino, The Lemon Drop Kid, Let's Go Navy!, Lost Planet Airmen, The Magic Box, The Mating Season, Miss Oyu, The Model And The Marriage Broker, Murder Inc., My Favorite Spy, No Highway In The Sky, On Moonlight Bay, On The Riviera, Peking Express, A Place In The Sun, Quo Vadis, The Red Badge Of Courage, Rich Young And Pretty, Scrooge, Show Boat, Sirocco, The Stooge, The Strip, Summer Interlude, Superman And The Mole Men, That's My Boy, Three Arabian Nuts, Too Young To Kiss, Two Tickets to Broadway, The Well, Westward the Women, When Worlds Collide