Film Store, 20th Century: 1950 to 1954

The Ealing Legacy

Ealing Studios were to continue production until 1959. Output slowed after The Ladykillers (1955 qv), by no means the least accomplished of the Ealing Comedies. But over a ten year period Ealing had created an idiosyncratic approach to comedy that was to serve other British producers well over the coming half century.

The Lavender Hill Mob / Charles Crichton

1951. BW. UK. 77 mins. DVD.

An apparently meek bank clerk is all the while planning a bullion robbery with his friend, a manufacturer of tourist souvenirs; a couple of petty crooks are entrapped into joining the gang. Lower middle class suburbia goes bad in the nicest possible way, with Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway enlisting the criminal support of Sid James and Alfie Bass. A typically gentle Ealing handling of what, in other hands, would be darker material. Look out for a fleeting glimpse of a young Audrey Hepburn.

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The Man in the White Suit / Alexander Mackendrick

1951. BW. UK. 81 mins. DVD.

Social satire with a hard centre, typical of the work of Alexander Mackendrick. A naïve scientist in a northern textile mill invents a fabric that repels dirt and will never wear out. Initial acclamation is rapidly replaced by aggressive denunciation as management and unions realise what the miracle textile will mean for their industry and jobs. Alec Guinness is now well embarked on the Ealing chapter of his career, with tragi-comic characterisations developing the repertoire of one of Britain’s most distinguished actors.

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The Importance of Being Earnest / Anthony Asquith

1952. BW. UK. 114 mins. DVD.

Anthony Asquith adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s stage play. British comedy with cultural credentials, although the film smacks rather too much of the theatre. Ealing regulars, notably Margaret Rutherford and Joan Greenwood, turn up alongside Michael Redgrave and Michael Denison. The Importance of Being Earnest must be unique in that, if for no other reason, it will always be remembered for just two words delivered by Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell — ‘A handbag?’

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The Captain's Paradise / Anthony Kimmins

1953. BW. UK. 94 mins. DVD.

Genteel amorality in the Ealing strain. The captain of the Gibraltar-Tangier ferry maintains a wife in each port to cater to the opposite poles of his personality. Celia Johnson is the demure English housewife who keeps his pipe and slippers at the ready, Yvonne de Carlo is the fiery beauty who dances him through the night. The problems begin when each wife begins to turn into the other. Alec Guinness is the skipper whose paradise is lost.

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Hobson's Choice, The Sound Barrier / David Lean

1953/1952. BW. UK. 213 mins. DVD.

David Lean’s versatility is demonstrated in this double bill. Hobson’s Choice is a classic North Country comedy based on the play by Harold Brighouse. A drunken bootmaker gets his comeuppance when his eldest daughter marries his best craftsman and opens a rival shop. Charles Laughton is the inebriated tyrant, Brenda de Banzie the hard-nosed, soft-centred northern lass and John Mills the dim manipulated husband — dazzling performances from all three. In The Sound Barrier Lean switches from brilliant comedy to fairly standard melodrama with a storyline that was totally topical. Ralph Richardson is an aircraft manufacturer obsessed with creating a plane that will fly faster than the speed of sound. His fixation has dire consequences for family and friends. Script by Terence Rattigan. [A note to aspiring aviators from the editors, who are also the publishers of Gremline — The Online Flight Safety Digest: reversing the controls to overcome vibration at the threshold of mach 1, as recommended in the film, will result in what is known technically as CFIT — Controlled Flight Into Terrain!]

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Reliving Their Finest Hour

Britain entered the dismal fifties in the throes of reconstruction, carrying the burden of war debt and locked into a long and sometimes bloody disengagement from empire. The euphoria of wartime victory evaporated rapidly but the memories remained. British cinemas supplied a steady flow of war films, well grounded in incident and authenticity, that provided a boost to national self-confidence. But these were different times, and the egalitarian strain that had been necessary for wartime propaganda was replaced by focus on the officer-as-hero: other ranks are scarcely represented. A reflection, perhaps, of social change and a resurgence of the middle classes after the first post-war Labour government.

The Desert Fox, The Desert Rats / Henry Hathaway / Robert Wise

1951/1953. BW. US. 174 mins. DVD.

Field Marshall Irwin Rommel returns to Germany from North Africa in the first film from this double bill. Disillusioned with Hitler and the Nazi leadership, he becomes involved in a plot to depose the German dictator. The prequel features Richard Burton in his second film role, as a British officer commanding an Australian division at the siege of Tobruk. Robert Newton co-stars as a boozy and unashamed coward. James Mason is the commander of the Afrika Korps in both movies — the success of the first led to the immediate production of the second.

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Angels One Five / George More O'Ferrall

1952. BW. UK. 98 mins. DVD.

Semi-documentary slice of life on an RAF fighter station during the Battle of Britain. Massively successful in the UK, the focus is more on stiff upper lips than on action. A solid and very British cast includes Jack Hawkins, John Gregson and Michael Denison.

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The Cruel Sea / Charles Frend

1952. BW. UK. 121 mins. DVD.

A box office success from a best-selling novel by Nicholas Monsarrat, with a script by Eric Ambler. The British tradition of understated and unglamorous war films is continued in this story of the Atlantic convoys and their Royal Navy escort vessels, fighting against hostile elements and the unseen menace of the German U-boat packs. Jack Hawkins is the captain who is tortured by life-and–death decisions. The strong supporting cast includes Donald Sinden, Stanley Baker, Denholm Elliott, Virginia McKenna and Moira Lister.

The Cruel Sea / Nicholas Monsarrat

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The Dam Busters / Michael Anderson

1954. BW. UK. 120 mins. DVD.

A reasonably accurate account of the efforts of Barnes Wallis to develop the bouncing bomb that was designed to breach the Ruhr Valley dams. The technical sequences are fascinating and include actual footage of the bombing trials. Michael Redgrave is the slightly scatterbrained scientist who has to fight against official opposition. In a delightful scene Barnes Wallis is trying to arrange the loan of a Wellington bomber through a middle-ranking minion and enquires mildly: ‘Do you think it would help if you told them I designed it?’ Richard Todd plays Guy Gibson, leader of 617 Squadron. The attack sequences are gripping and The Dambusters March has become almost a signature tune of Britain at war.

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Mainstream vs Method

The complacent consumerism of 1950s America was reflected at the populist end of Hollywood production: flimsy comedies, glossy, if often dark, musicals, conventional Westerns, historical epics that were mainly notable for big budget spectacle. The Korean War accelerated the short career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose anti-communist witch hunts thinned out Hollywood talent. But a counterbalance came from the growing influence of the Actors Studio that had been established in the late 1940s by Cheryl Crawford and Elia Kazan. Under artistic director Lee Strasberg it became known for the study of the acting techniques of Konstantin Stanislavsky. Of the young actors that came to notice, Marlon Brando was the most notorious for his adoption of the Method — the emphasis on realism and identification with character produced more than a little sniping from the traditional long grass. The Actors Studio produced some of the most impressive American stage and screen actors of the coming years and its impact was felt far beyond the shores of the USA.

The Asphalt Jungle / John Huston

1950. BW. USA. 112 mins. DVD.

One of the earliest caper movies from the criminals’ point of view. An ex-con masterminds a robbery and the film tracks the meticulous planning, the robbery and the crumbling aftermath. This exemplary production and seminal theme spawned a genre that is by now virtually exhausted. The Asphalt Jungle has fallen a little short of the long-term standing that it deserves, partly because it seems chiefly to be remembered for the first screen appearance of Marilyn Monroe. Sterling Hayden and Sam Jaffe star.

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Cyrano de Bergerac / Michael Gordon

1950. BW. USA. 112 mins. DVD.

Jose Ferrer reprises his stage role in Edmond Rostand’s play about the long-nosed poet, soldier and duellist who helps a protege retain the affections of the woman they both love. A Hollywood attempt at the culturally worthy that is let down a little by variable production values and an over-theatrical approach. Ferrer is, nonetheless, well worth the watching as is Mala Powers as the beauty in search of a lover with a poet’s soul.

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The Enforcer / Bretaigne Windust

1950. BW. USA. 87 mins. DVD.

Not to be confused with the film of the same title from the Dirty Harry series and better known in the UK as Murder, Inc. Typically raw, slick, gangster yarn of the period, high on suspense and well-characterised. Humphrey Bogart is a crusading DA in pursuit of a gang that murder for profit. With Everett Sloane and a young Zero Mostel.

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Kim / Victor Saville

1950. Colour. USA. 113 mins. DVD

Rudyard Kipling’s notions of paternalistic imperialism, and his views that the western world had little point of contact with the cultures of the East, disguised a deep fascination with the Indian sub-continent, its tribal villages, its heaving city bazaars and the traffic of the Great Trunk Road. Kim, in and of its time, is still regarded as one of the best books written about India. Kimball O’Hara (played by Dean Stockwell in his best childhood role) is the son of an Indian mother and a now deceased Anglo-Irish non-com. The Calcutta street urchin searches for clues to his paternity while attaching himself to a Buddhist Lama (Paul Lukas), who is embarked on his own spiritual quest. Kim’s origins are eventually revealed by a British colonel (Robert Douglas) and he is taken from the streets, schooled, and introduced to the skills of intelligence-gathering under the ultimate guidance of unscrupulous Afghan horse-trader and spymaster Mahbub Ali (Errol Flynn). The Lama’s pilgrimage provides cover for a secret mission and Kim, loyal to both his holy man and his British mentors, enters The Great Game, played against Russian infiltrators on the North West Frontier. Victor Saville’s location work captures much of the atmosphere of Kipling’s late-19th Century India in this cheerful and at times poignant adaptation. Ironically, Kim provided the nickname for Kim Philby, the high ranking Indian-born intelligence officer who was, in fact, one of the most successful KGB agents in the British Secret Service.

Kim / Rudyard Kipling

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The Men / Fred Zinnemann

1950. BW. USA. 85 mins. DVD.

Marlon Brando’s film debut in a virtuoso performance as a paraplegic WWII veteran. Brando’s girlfriend (Teresa Wright) and a doctor in the veteran’s hospital (Everett Sloane) battle against the embittered and uncooperative main character and encourage him to master his predicament. An unsentimental study of severely wounded men with little hope of recovery.

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Sunset Boulevard / Billy Wilder

1950. BW. USA. 105 mins. DVD.

A classic of black humour and a savage swipe at a self-absorbed Hollywood. Hack scriptwriter William Holden is recruited to help a faded silent movie star’s fanciful attempt at a come-back and moves into her decaying mansion. The deluded diva is cushioned from reality by her protective butler (and former director) as she descends into madness. There is more than a touch of deliberate irony in the choice of Gloria Swanson and Eric Von Stroheim for Norma Desmond and Max von Mayerling, which is underlined by a short appearance by Cecil B de Mille: the film sounds a death knell for a tinsel town that was vanishing beyond recall. Full of Gothic moments and engrossing from start to finish.

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Treasure Island / Byron Haskin

1950. Colour. UK. 96 mins. DVD.

The UK was host to the Disney production of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous children’s adventure story. A competent and cheerful adaptation that would probably have passed into movie limbo had it not been for a super-saturated performance by Robert Newton as Long John Silver that has become the archetype of the roguish sea dog and the stock in trade of every aspiring mimic.

Treasure Island / Robert Louis Stevenson

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The African Queen / John Huston

1951. Colour. UK. 101 mins. DVD.

British production of a WWI adventure by one of the greatest Hollywood directors. Humphrey Bogart is a vulgar, gin-sodden river boat captain who is persuaded by prim missionary Katherine Hepburn to attack a German gunboat on an East African lake. During the dangerous river trip the mismatched couple develop a mutual respect that turns to love. The special features include a commentary by cinematographer Jack Cardiff that describes the almost mythical difficulties faced by cast and crew on location. James Agee wrote the script from the novel by C S Forester. The lead roles are played with sympathy and humour. See also Clint Eastwood’s White Hunter, Black Heart (1990 qv), which takes the location work as the springboard for an ancillary plot.

The African Queen / C S Forester

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Othello / Orson Welles

1951.BW. USA/Fr. 90 mins. DVD.

Orson Welles takes another shoestring crack at rewriting Shakespeare. Begun in the same year as his Macbeth (1948 qv), lack of funds prevented completion until some four years later. The original release was of poor technical quality, albeit containing the usual flashes of brilliance from the actor/director. This DVD version is restored from an original negative.

Othello / William Shakespeare

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Quo Vadis / Mervyn LeRoy

1951. Colour. USA. 171 mins. DVD.

Forerunner of a new generation of Hollywood epics. A centurion falls in love with a Christian slave girl in Nero’s Rome to the ultimate benefit of the lions. Over-solemn, proselytising, brutish and long, but with many spectacular moments. Robert Taylor and Deborah Kerr are the victims of Peter Ustinov’s Nero.

Quo Vadis / Henryk Sienkiewicz

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Strangers on a Train / Alfred Hitchcock

1951. BW. USA. 96 mins. DVD.

Strangers on a Train marks the watershed between Hitchcock’s stylish British period and the cruder suspense of his most typical Hollywood work. A tennis player meets an unbalanced admirer on a train. The two men agree on the theoretical benefits of swapping murders so as to dispose of the tennis player’s unfaithful wife and the other man’s despotic father with apparently motiveless crimes. A few days later the tennis pro’s wife turns up dead and he is called upon to fulfil his part of the contract. Hitchcock plays engaging games with visual symbolism and the suspense increases in intensity. Robert Walker is a convincing psychopath and Farley Granger his unwilling dupe. Raymond Chandler heads the screenwriter credits.

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A Streetcar Named Desire / Elia Kazan

1951. BW. USA. 122 mins. DVD.

2 Disc Edition. Tennessee Williams’s sombre screen adaptation of his sombre stage play. Marlon Brando emotes his heart out in his Broadway role as the sweaty mumbling thug who terrorises his sister-in-law into madness. Ironically, actors’ Oscars were awarded to Vivien Leigh as the wistful and whispish Southern belle who has fallen on hard times; to Kim Hunter as Brando’s wife; and to Karl Malden as Leigh’s aspiring suitor: Brando merely received a nomination. Some of the doom-laden sexuality of the original had to be excised for the screen.

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High Noon / Fred Zinneman

1952. BW. USA. 109 mins. DVD.

Classic Western, sparsely shot, brilliantly edited and masterfully paced. Citizens refuse to help a marshal defend their town against the vengeful badmen who are due on the midday train. The plot apparently enraged John Wayne, who insisted that such a betrayal could never have occurred in the heroic Old West! Gary Cooper reaped an Oscar for one of his best-loved roles and Dmitri Tiomkin did likewise for the score. Grace Kelly is Cooper’s new bride.

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Limelight / Charles Chaplin

1952. BW. USA. 145 mins. DVD.

Silents virtuoso Charlie Chaplin develops a surprising intoxication with words as a faded music hall comic who achieves a final tragic triumph through the encouragement of a young ballerina. In some respects Limelight sums up his own career in a melodrama that would have been humdrum in other hands.

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Moulin Rouge / John Huston

1952. Colour. UK. 114 mins. DVD.

Atmospheric biopic of Henri Toulouse Lautrec set against the heady and hedonistic backdrop of 19th century Montmartre. Jose Ferrer exudes bitterness and cynicism as the stunted absinthe-addicted artist who takes as his subjects the performers and denizens of the Moulin Rouge. Colette Marchand plays the prostitute who is the object of his affections and Zsa Zsa Gabor is the wonderfully flighty artiste who brings light into the sombre shadows. But arguably the billing should be given to the supporting cast who bring the Moulin Rouge to life: the first twenty-minute can can sequence is totally exhilarating and was stolen shamelessly for the recent film of the same title.

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The Quiet Man / John Ford

1952. Colour. USA. 129 mins. DVD.

The Taming of the Shrew with blarney. A brawling comedy that pits boxer John Wayne against a combustible Maureen O’Hara when he returns to his native Ireland in search of a wife. John Ford’s labour of love wears out every Irish cliché in the book and does it gloriously. Support is provided by Ward Bond, Barry Fitzgerald and by Victor McLaglen, who shares the laurels with Wayne in one of the longest fistfights in movie history.

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Viva Zapata / Elia Kazan

1952. BW. USA. 108 mins. DVD.

John Steinbeck scripted the moody star vehicle for Marlon Brando as the Mexican revolutionary leader who is betrayed by his compadre. A handsome production that pays lip service, but no more, to history.

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The Big Heat / Fritz Lang

1953. BW. USA. 90 mins. DVD.

Violent thriller in which a police detective goes under cover after his wife is killed by a bomb meant for himself. Fritz Lang is still going strong and attracting attention after thirty years. Glenn Ford delivers a typical performance and Gloria Grahame notoriously receives a jug of boiling coffee in the face in a scene that makes Cagney’s grapefruit sequence look like a normal breakfast conversation. Look out for Lee Marvin.

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The Robe / Henry Koster

1953. Colour. USA. 128 mins. DVD.

Biblical epic notable mainly as the first release in Cinemascope. Richard Burton plays the centurion who wins Christ’s robe at the foot of the Cross. There are notable performances by Victor Mature as Burton’s slave and Jay Robinson as Caligula. Otherwise the film plods through the vicissitudes of those who come into contact with the robe and was carried by the crowd scenes and the novel wide screen format.

The Robe / Lloyd C Douglas

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Vera Cruz / Robert Aldrich

1953. Colour. USA. 90 mins. DVD.

An early Western from Robert Aldrich, featuring a couple of adventurers who are hired by the Emperor Maximillian to escort Denis Darcel and a consignment of gold across revolutionary Mexico. Double-cross and double-double-cross get in the way, as do Juaristas and outlaws. Gary Cooper is the austere cowboy clinging to the shreds of his integrity and pitted against an unscrupulous and deceptively amiable Burt Lancaster.

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Carmen Jones / Otto Preminger

1954. Colour. USA. 105 mins. DVD.

One of very few musicals featured on these pages, Bizet’s opera is transposed to a southern US army base with an Afro-American cast. A worthy experiment in cultural relocation that has many good moments but lacks overall unity and suffers from the over-dubbing of the songs. Dorothy Dandridge oozes sensuality as Carmen, Harry Belafonte is drawn into her web, Pearl Bailey plays in support. Oscar Hammerstein II rewrote the libretto.

Carmen Jones (Original Broadway Cast) / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 14 Tracks.

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Bad Day at Black Rock / John Sturges

1954. Colour. USA. 81 mins. DVD.

Powerful drama that sets the standard for the ‘town with a guilty secret’ plot device. A one armed stranger arrives in a somnambulant desert town in search of the father of his Japanese-American comrade in arms. He is greeted with a hostility that is palpable from the outset and increases in menace as the story progresses. Robert Ryan is the chauvinistic town bully, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine his thuggish cronies. Impressive support from all concerned, and Spencer Tracy never bettered his performance as the put-upon outsider. Import: packaging language Dutch.

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East of Eden / Elia Kazan

1954. Colour. USA. 112 mins. DVD.

The first, and arguably the best, of the three films that made a cult of James Dean. Based on John Steinbeck’s reworking of the Cain and Abel story, Dean is the son who tries to gain the respect and affection of his father, in the meantime learning that his supposedly-dead mother runs a brothel in a nearby town. Raymond Massey is the stern and inflexible parent.

East of Eden / John Steinbeck

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Johnny Guitar / Nicholas Ray

1954. Colour. USA. 105 mins. DVD.

A saloon-keeper and former lover of Johnny Guitar is maliciously accused of taking part in a robbery. Joan Crawford is the innocent Vienna, Sterling Hayden the hero, Mercedes McCambridge the vindictive accuser and Ward Bond the local lawman. Initially dismissed as a run-of-the-mill Western, some critics were to discover hidden depths and profundities and parallels with McCarthyism. Now regarded as a classic.

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On The Waterfront / Elia Kazan

1954. BW. USA. 103 mins. DVD.

Marlon Brando excels as a punchdrunk longshoreman who is pushed into facing up to corrupt union bosses by an idealistic priest and the sister of a murdered co-worker. Elia Kazan brings a new social realism to the screen with a powerful marriage of authentic locations with proteges of the Actors Studio. Karl Malden is the priest, Eva Marie Saint is the sister and Lee J Cobb the grasping union leader. Brando’s speech to exploitative brother Rod Steiger is so well known as to need no repetition here. Multi Oscar winning, with Brando picking up Best Actor.

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The Wild One / Laslo Benedek

1954. BW. USA. 79 mins. DVD.

Archetypal biker-gang movie that was frequently banned because the hoods escaped just retribution. Marlon Brando is the leader of a bunch of misfits who are in revolt against everything and nothing: ‘What are you rebelling against?’ ‘What have you got?’ Leatherwear emerges as radical chic.

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Foreign Cinema

No sideways glance at world cinema can afford to ignore the immensely influential work of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

Rashomon / Akira Kurosawa

1951. BW. Japan. 86 mins. DVD.

A classic of the emerging post-war Japanese cinema by a major director and featuring his favourite actor — a partnership that would continue to make an outstanding contribution to cinematic art. Four people (including a ghost) give contradictory versions of a murder and rape. As the narratives progress it becomes clear that each account (including the ghost’s) is self-serving and self-regarding, highlighting the conflict between objectivity and subjectivity. Vividly atmospheric and shot against a set that could serve equally well for Waiting For Godot, Toshiro Mifune makes his mark as the villain, with Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori and Takashi Shimura adding their own perspectives on the supposed outrage.

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Seven Samurai / Akira Kurosawa

1954. Bw. Japan. 190 mins. DVD.

Kurosawa was heavily influenced by the American Western in the making of this medieval Japanese hommage. In the process he raised the genre to new heights — a fact that did not escape Yul Brynner, whose acquisition of the US rights resulted in The Magnificent Seven (1960 qv). A group of peasants enlist the services of unemployed samurai to protect them from bandits. Toshiro Mifune leads as the farmer’s son ambivalently masquerading as a warrior. The climactic battle scene in the mud and pouring rain is stunning. A masterpiece.

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