Ike Has A Heart Attack

Jesse Walker has gone back to the 50s:

https://jessewalker.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-year-of-warsaw-pact-ive-picked-best.html

Here's his top ten list for 1955:

1. One Froggy Evening

2. The Trouble With Harry

3. Smiles Of A Summer Night

4. The Night Of The Hunter

5. Kiss Me Deadly

6. Diabolique

7. East Of Eden

8. Pather Panchali

9. The Man From Laramie

10. Rebel Without A Cause

Looking at this list, it reminds me that in the 50s Hollywood was way behind the best of the rest of the world.

All the foreign language films--Smiles Of A Summer Night, Diabolique, Pather Panchali--are great.  The Hollywood stuff tends to be okay, but overrated.

I'm not sure why Jesse is so taken with the oddball trifle The Trouble With Harry. (I guess it's better than Hitchcock's big film for the year To Catch A Thief.)

The Night Of The Hunter is visually spectacular, but the story isn't much.

Kiss Me Deadly is a fun B-movie.

East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause are both overrated. (So is Giant.) At least I sort of like Rebel--don't know if I'd even watch Eden again.

The Man From Laramie is a decent Western, like the others Jimmy Stewart made with Anthony Mann, but is no classic.

One Froggy Evening is a short.

Honorable mentions:

11. Ordet

12. Rififi

13. Water-Mirror Of Granada

14. Mama Don't Allow

15. Cellbound

16. Hare-Brush

17. The Criminal Life Of Archibaldo De La Cruz

18. Gumbasia

19. Killer's Kiss

20. The Ladykillers

11 and 12 continue to demonstrate the superiority of Europe this year. 17 is good Bunuel from his Mexican period. 19 is Kubrick starting to show what he can do, but he's not quite there yet.  20 is a "classic" Alec Guinness comedy that I don't rate as highly as his other classics--maybe it's that I don't like the story.

The rest are shorts (some of which I like very much).

Here are some other films that might have made my top ten:

 

Cinerama Holiday (for spectacle)

 

It’s Always Fair Weather

Here are some other films I like:

Artists And Models, Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy, The Big Combo, Blackboard Jungle,  Daddy Long Legs, Guys And Dolls, House Of Bamboo, La Pointe Courte, Lady And The Tramp, Lola Montes, Marty, Moonfleet, My Sister Eileen, Oklahoma!, The Phenix City Story, Richard III, The Seven Little Foys,  You're Never Too Young

Other films of note: 

Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops, The Adventures of Quentin Durward, All That Heaven Allows, The Americano, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Beast with a Million Eyes, The Big Knife, Blood Alley, The Cobweb, The Colditz Story, The Constant Husband, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, The Dam Busters, The Desperate Hours, Dreams, The Far Horizons, The Fast And The Furious, Foxfire, Francis In The Navy, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Good Morning Miss Dove, Hell's Island, Hit the Deck, How to Be Very Very Popular, I Am a Camera, I Died a Thousand Times, I Live in Fear, I'll Cry Tomorrow, Illegal, Interrupted Melody, It Came from Beneath the Sea, Jupiter's Darling, The Kentuckian, Land Of The Pharaoh’s, The Last Frontier, The Last Ten Days, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Love Me or Leave Me, Mambo, A Man Alone, The Man With The Golden Arm, Man with the Gun, Man Without a Star, Mister Roberts, Mr. Arkadin, My Sister Eileen, The Night of the Hunter, Not as a Stranger, Pete Kelly's Blues, Picnic, Prince of Players. The Prisoner, The Private War of Major Benson, The Quatermass Xperiment, The Racers, Rage At Dawn, The Rains of Ranchipur, The Rose Tattoo, Scandal in Sorrento, The Sea Chase, The Seven Year Itch, The Shrike, So This Is Paris, The Spoilers, Strategic Air Command, Summertime, The Swindle, Taira Clan Saga, Tall Man Riding, The Tall Men, The Tender Trap, This Island Earth, Three for the Show, Tight Spot, To Catch a Thief, To Hell And Back, Trial, Unchained, The Violent Men, The Virgin Queen, We're No Angels, White Feather, Wichita, Women's Prison