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Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Sept. 13, 1956)
This is a much less interesting movie than director Fritz Lang’s other collaboration with star Dana Andrews, While the City Sleeps. That movie was about the way the media covered a serial killer and...
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The Violent Years (1956)
The Violent Years follows a quartet of teenaged girls as they rob gas stations, carry out “lover’s lane” attacks (tying up a young woman and gang-raping her boyfriend), use their connections to stay...
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On the Bowery (September 1956)
30th Academy Awards Retrospective On the Bowery, nominated for Best Documentary Feature Lionel Rogosin’s visual diary of New York’s skid row in the mid-1950s was one of three documentaries nominated...
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I vitelloni (Aug. 26, 1953)
30th Academy Awards Retrospective I vitelloni, nominated for Best Original Screenplay I vitelloni, Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical film about a group of ne’er-do-well young men living in a...
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Rock Around the Clock (March 21, 1956)
This movie is corny as hell, but it’s an incredible document of the early days of rock & roll, with great performances and lively dance numbers. The kind of music Bill Haley and His Comets played...
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Strangers on a Train (June 30, 1951)
Strangers on a Train (1949) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Warner Bros. Sometimes I think that Hitchcock’s black & white films don’t get enough love (aside from Psycho, which is one of his most...
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The Prowler (May 25, 1951)
The Prowler (1951) Directed by Joseph Losey United Artists / Horizon Pictures / Eagle Productions The Prowler is a queasy movie about voyeurism, stalking, and sexual power dynamics, and it’s just as...
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The Idiot (May 23, 1951)
The Idiot (Hakuchi) (1951) Directed by Akira Kurosawa Shochiku Company As a nearly lifelong fan of director Akira Kurosawa, The Idiot is a difficult film to review. Watching it was an incredibly...
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The Thing (From Another World) (April 27, 1951)
The Thing (From Another World) (1951) Directed by Christian Nyby RKO Radio Pictures / Winchester Pictures I’m probably one of the few people my age who fell in love with the original version of The...
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Tarzan’s Peril (March 10, 1951)
Tarzan’s Peril (1951) Directed by Byron Haskin Sol Lesser Productions / RKO Radio Pictures The lavish spectacle King Solomon’s Mines (1950) rewrote the rules of the “jungle adventure” film, since it...
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The Steel Helmet (Feb. 2, 1951)
The Steel Helmet (1951) Directed by Samuel Fuller Lippert Pictures This movie is a good example of why placing films in their proper context is so important. When I first watched Samuel Fuller’s The...
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The Enforcer (Jan. 25, 1951)
The Enforcer (1951) Directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh United States Pictures / Warner Bros. I wasn’t expecting much from this fictionalized account of the exploits of Murder, Inc., but I...
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Storm Warning (Jan. 17, 1951)
Storm Warning (1951) Directed by Stuart Heisler Warner Bros. Storm Warning is an incredibly frustrating film. It was one of the first films made since D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915) to...
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Halls of Montezuma (Jan. 4, 1951)
Halls of Montezuma (1951) Directed by Lewis Milestone 20th Century-Fox The American public never really loses its appetite for war movies, it just gets full sometimes and needs to take a nap. That was...
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The 10 Best Films of 1950
Here’s the countdown of my 10 favorite films from 1950. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment… 10. Caged Caged is one of the first true “women-in-prison” films. It’s a tough, tragic, intelligent film...
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Los Olvidados (Nov. 9, 1950)
Los Olvidados (1950) Directed by Luis Buñuel Ultramar Films Most serious film nerds know about Luis Buñuel, even if they’ve never seen any of his movies. And even if they’ve never seen Buñuel’s first...
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King Solomon’s Mines (Nov. 9, 1950)
King Solomon’s Mines (1950) Directed by Compton Bennett and Andrew Marton Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer King Solomon’s Mines was the first Hollywood production to be filmed in Africa since the disastrous Trader...
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Dial 1119 (Nov. 3, 1950)
Dial 1119 (1950) Directed by Gerald Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Dial 1119 is an exceedingly well-made B-movie. It’s suspenseful, well-acted, and holds up extremely well. You don’t have to be a fan of...
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Atom Man vs. Superman (15 chapters) (June 19-Sept. 25, 1950)
Atom Man vs. Superman (15 chapters) (1950) Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet Columbia Pictures Atom Man vs. Superman was the second of two Columbia serials that starred Kirk Alyn. The film serials...
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Devil’s Doorway (Sept. 15, 1950)
Devil’s Doorway (1950) Directed by Anthony Mann Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The great director Anthony Mann worked in a lot of different genres, but he’s most revered today for his noirs and his westerns....
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