History Unlimited Films: 1955 to 1959

Their Finest Hour Continued

Nostalgia for the triumphs of the Second World War and an emphasis on good old traditional values were soon to give way to the forward-looking brave new world of the 1960s; but British war films still provided an eccentric counterpoint to Hollywood gung-ho until an influx of American money moved the British war movie away from its documentary roots and into the realm of epic entertainment. Bridge on the River Kwai was something of a watershed.

Above Us the Waves / Ralph Thomas

1955. BW. UK. 95 mins. DVD.

Firmly rooted in the 1950s British war film tradition and the fascination with off-the-wall operations. The daring midget submarine attack on the German battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord is commanded by John Mills, with support from John Gregson and Donald Sinden.

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Ill Met by Moonlight / Powell & Pressburger

1956. BW. UK. 100 mins. DVD.

The fantasy elements that are generally associated with Powell & Pressburger are absent here — perhaps the true story was fantastic enough. Two British special operations officers, together with Greek partisans, capture the Commander-in-Chief of German forces on Crete and smuggle him across the mountains and over the sea to Egypt. Dirk Bogarde stars as a worry bead clicking Patrick Leigh-Fermor with David Oxley as W Stanley Moss, who wrote the book (available from our Bookshop). Music by Cretan composer Mikis Theodorakis (Zorba’s Dance, etc).

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Reach for the Sky / Lewis Gilbert

1956. BW. UK. 136 mins. DVD.

The inspirational story of Douglas Bader, the pilot who lost both legs in a pre-war air crash, but who went on to serve with distinction in the Battle of Britain before being shot down and captured in 1941. Bader ended his war in Colditz Castle, the Germans last recourse for inveterate escapers. Kenneth More is typecast but convincing, whether as the early Bader struggling to master his artificial limbs, as stalwart antagonist of the Luftwaffe or as irascible POW.

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Bridge on the River Kwai / David Lean

1957. Colour. UK. 115 mins. DVD.

David Lean changes gear with the first of his major epics. Lean favourite Alec Guinness plays the British officer who co-operates with the Japanese to build a bridge on the Burma Railway in order to give the POWs under his command a sense of purpose. Sessue Hayakawa is the Japanese camp commandant, William Holden the pragmatic and cynical saboteur sent to destroy the completed bridge. Differences in the conception of honour between the British and their captors are finely drawn and Guinness’s growing obsession with the building project leads to an enigmatic finale. Much criticised by ex-POWs on the grounds of an unbelievable basic premise. The two disc set has a good ‘making of’ feature and more besides.

Bridge on the River Kwai / Pierre Boulle

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Ice Cold in Alex / J Lee Thompson

1958. BW. UK. 132 mins. DVD.

A motley crew cross the desert in a military ambulance as the Afrika Corps advances on Tobruk. John Mills takes the old bus into Alexandria despite a drink problem, minefields and a spy amongst his passengers. Anthony Quayle and Harry Andrews co-star, alongside Sylvia Sim as the nurse who glows beautifully amongst the dunes. The final scene with the ice cold beer in the Alexandrian bar is an icon of British cinema and started a love affair with lager from which the country has never looked back!

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British Drama

In retrospect it seems that British cinema drama in the late 1950s was languishing on the threshold of the major creative burst of the following decade. The signals were, however, apparent elsewhere: in the ‘kitchen sink’ dramas of live theatre and in the novels of the ‘angry young men’. The Royal Court Theatre was one of a small number of venues that provided a platform for a new theatrical style and, incidentally, was a training ground for a group of British actors who were to follow distinguished film careers. The 1958 production of Room at the Top (qv) was a turning point.

The Ladykillers / Alexander Mackendrick

1955. Colour. UK. 87 mins. DVD.

Ealing comic drama, the last from this great British studio, where the comedy resides mainly in the characters and characterisation. One of Mackendrick’s darker offerings in which Alec Guinness plays an unctuous criminal mastermind with psychotic teeth who takes lodgings with a slightly bewildered widow. His rooms are used to plan a robbery with his ill-assorted gang, posing as a musical ensemble. Things go awry when they involve the landlady in the plot. An early appearance by Peter Sellers and a sinister performance from Herbert Lom, with competent support from Cecil Parker and Danny Green. But Katie Johnson holds her own as the little old lady and walks away with the loot (and the film) in the end.

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Richard III / Laurence Olivier

1956. Colour. UK. 150 mins. DVD.

The last of Olivier’s three great Shakespearian adaptations in which the director sets his indelible mark on the role with a much-parodied performance as the unscrupulous crookback. A distinguished cast includes Ralph Richardson as Buckingham, John Gielgud as Clarence and Claire Bloom as the Lady Anne. Uncut and digitally restored, this special edition includes the 225 minute The Trial of Richard III, unseen since it was first broadcast as a television production in 1984. For an alternative view of the last Yorkist monarch, see the immensely readable Richard III by Paul Murray Kendall, available from our Bookshop.

Richard III / William Shakespeare

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Hell Drivers / Cy Enfield

1957. BW. UK. 106 mins. DVD.

Hollywood-blacklisted Cy Enfield directed Stanley Baker in six films, including Zulu(1964 qv). This was the second, a violent melodrama that smacks of the dismal British 1950s and swings wildly from the authentic to the absurd. Baker is a truck driver working for unprincipled bosses in a testosterone saturated atmosphere, where rival drivers compete on death trap roads. The action sequences are thrilling and the cast of this little known movie reads like a Who’s Who of Actors’ Equity: Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell, Sid James, Peggy Cummins, Alfie Bass, Gordon Jackson, Herbert Lom, Jill Ireland, Wilfrid Lawson and Sean Connery.

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The Horse's Mouth / Ronald Neame

1958. Colour. UK. 95 mins. DVD (Wide Screen).

Alec Guinness wrote the screenplay and starred in this adaptation of the Joyce Cary novel. Artist Gulley Jimson (Guinness) is released from prison and moves into the home of an absent collector of his work. The ascerbic and almost sociopathic Jimson was based on Cary’s friend Dylan Thomas and the artworks in the film were supplied by John Bratby. An extremely enjoyable artist vs society piece with a fine comic performance by Guinness and admirable support by Renee Houston.

The Horse's Mouth / Joyce Cary

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Room At The Top / Jack Clayton

1958. BW. UK. 113 mins. DVD.

On the cusp of the 1960s and British cinema’s flirtation with the north of England, the working classes and sex amongst the slag heaps. Laurence Harvey is a social climbing accounts clerk who abandons his married lover to wed the daughter of a local industrialist. Notorious at the time, the censor had a field day with a movie that is still regarded as a landmark. Simone Signoret is the older woman, Heather Sears the posh totty and Donald Wolfit the stereotyped northern magnate. John Braine wrote the best selling novel.

Room at the Top / John Braine

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Our Man in Havana / Carol Reed

1959. BW. UK. 111 mins. DVD.

Original novel and script by Graham Greene, shot in Cuba shortly after Castro’s revolution. In an hilarious piece that ridicules the absurdities of the secret world, spymaster Noel Coward recruits inoffensive vacuum cleaner salesman Alec Guinness and taps into a seam of greed and imagination. While feeding Coward snippets of invented information (including schematics of his stock in trade, purported to be weapon blueprints) Guinness comes under suspicion from police chief Ernie Kovacs. Guinness uses his fraudulently gotten gains to indulge his daughter (Jo Morrow) who is the subject of Kovacs’ romantic interest; and while Kovacs spies on Guinness, Guinness spies on Kovacs. But sinister moments, typical of Greeneland, intrude upon the comedy as reality rears its head; and discovery is followed by an unexpected ending. Guinness, Coward and Kovacs vie for supremacy in the acting stakes and there is more than adequate reinforcement from Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara and Ralph Richardson. Graham Greene also collaborated with Carol Reed on Odd Man Out (1946) and The Third Man (1949).

Our Man in Havana / Graham Greene

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Peeping Tom / Michael Powell

1959. Colour. UK. 97 mins. DVD.

A deeply disturbing film that destroyed the career of one of the leading British directors of the 1940s. Mark Lewis (Karl Boehm) is a focus puller and part-time pornographer who develops a taste for murdering women and recording the events on film. Powell’s direction and use of POV involve and almost implicate the viewer in the outrages — victims include a street prostitute and a dancer played by Moira Shearer. In the meantime Lewis develops a relationship with his young tenant, Helen Stephens (Anna Massey) and fights off temptation by leaving his camera at home when escorting her. In the background are scenes of childhood abuse perpetrated and filmed by Lewis’s quack-psychologist father. Powell and his film were vilified by the British press; Peeping Tom was butchered by the studio; and the film saw very limited distribution until Martin Scorsese pushed for a restoration in 1979.

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American Cinema

Given the massive output of the 1950s it would be surprising not to find some classics amongst the mediocrity. While mainstream Hollywood re-visited earlier epics and still managed to produce the occasional superior comedy, new directors and old hands alike examined powerful themes through powerful drama. And Ed Wood staked his claim on immortality ...

The Night of the Hunter / Charles Laughton

1955. BW. USA. 89 mins. DVD.

Charles Laughton’s only directorial effort is a weird, unique and frightening fantasy of good and evil, scripted by James Agee. A deranged misogynistic preacher is convinced that two children know the whereabouts of money stolen by their dead father. He marries and murders their mother as he attempts to prise out the secret. Lighting, camera angles and sound merge magnificently to produce haunting metaphors as the archetypal plot moves relentlessly forward. With Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish.

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Rebel Without a Cause / Nicholas Ray

1955. Colour. USA. 106 mins. DVD.

James Dean consolidates his rebel persona as a middle class teenage delinquent trying to make an impression as the new kid on the block. The film was novel in its suggestion that adolescent violence was not confined to the slums and scored high at the box office as the Dean cult gathered pace. With Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo as the insecure youngster who comes to a tragic end.

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Moby Dick / John Huston

1956. Colour. USA. 110 mins. DVD.

‘Call me Ishmael.’ So begins Herman Mellville’s Great American Novel, and so begins the narrator (Richard Basehart) in this ambitious film adaptation, scripted by director John Huston and Ray Bradbury. The itinerant Ishmael falls in with pagan harpooner Queequeg (Friedrich Ledebur) in the New England whaling port of New Bedford. The two sign on as crew for the Pequod, under the enigmatic Captain Ahab (Gregory Peck). Almost from the outset the film sets an ominous tone that is brought into sharper focus by the brooding intensity that Peck brings to his role as the monomanic captain, torn through ‘body and soul’ by an encounter with the legendary white whale. The scene is set for the allegorical quest for the beast that Ahab sees as the embodiment of all the evils that oppress mankind. Peck is supported by an impressive (mainly British) cast, including Leo Genn as first mate Starbuck; Harry Andrews as Stubb; Bernard Miles as The Manxman; Mervyn Johns as Peleg; and James Robertson Justice as Captain Boomer. An added bonus is a cameo by Orson Welles as Father Mapple, who delivers his sermon on Jonah and the Whale from a pulpit fashioned as a ship’s prow (this role was reprised by Peck in a 1998 TV mini-series). Compressing Melville’s monumental work for the screen was a daunting task, but the writers achieved a reasonably successful compromise that added pace while imparting a flavour of the symbolism and metaphysical deliberation that marks the novel. Most absorbing is the retention of much of Melville’s sonorous Quakerese, down to Ahab’s last battle with his ineluctable nemesis: ‘From hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee, thou damnéd whale’.

Moby Dick / Herman Melville

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The Searchers / John Ford

1956. Colour. USA. 114 mins. DVD.

More than 25 years after John Ford and John Wayne came together to bring the Western to maturity with Stagecoach (1939 q.v.), and after a succession of competent but conventional films, Ford and Wayne brought this dark and complex epic to the screen. Embittered Confederate veteran Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) turns up at his brother Aaron’s homestead three years after the end of the Civil War, with a quantity of gold and a past that might not stand up to detailed investigation. Almost immediately most of the menfolk, including Ethan, head off in pursuit of a raiding party led by Comanche chief Scar (Henry Brandon). When the men return to the farm they find that Aaron’s two young daughters have been abducted and the rest of the family slaughtered. The ravaged body of the older daughter is soon discovered and the hunt for the younger girl continues. All this is serves as preamble to the main storyline, an obsessive search by Ethan and Aaron’s adopted son Martin (Jeffrey Hunter) that lasts for seven years. Ethan is a virulent Indian-hater, Martin is part-Cherokee. Ethan’s main purpose is to find and kill the contaminated Debbie (Natalie Wood) who has been absorbed into tribal society and is of marriageable age; Martin is determined to prevent him. The racial tension between Ethan and Martin is often palpable, reflecting Ethan’s more general racism. Flickering in and out of the action is Mose Harper (Hank Worden), a holy fool who holds out the hope of peace and tranquillity when all is done. Wayne’s last exit, a silhouette framed in the doorway of the Edwards farmstead, has become an emblem for the Western genre.

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The Ten Commandments / Cecil B de Mille

1956. Colour. USA. 220 mins. DVD.

More than thirty years after his first production of The Ten Commandments (1923, not available from Amazon) Cecil B de Mille returned to the Biblical epic with Charlton Heston as the leader of the Israelites. The original silent version spared us the verbosity of the remake, otherwise the directorial style had not changed discernibly over the years. There are, nonetheless, some memorable moments — the parting of the Red Sea was an impressive special effect in the days before computer graphics. With Yul Brynner, Edward G Robinson and Anne Bancroft, among many, many others.

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Gunfight at the OK Corral / John Sturges

1957. Colour. USA. 122 mins. DVD.

Somewhat dour interpretation of a legend that had been invested with a little more life in John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946 qv) and was to remain a staple of the genre. Nevertheless, the film remains a classic: Burt Lancaster is solid as Wyatt Earp and Kirk Douglas equally so as his friend, the gunslinging gambler Doc Holiday. The theme of lawmen at hazard and ambivalent citizens has been repeated too many times to bear an exhaustive list of references, but Gunfight at the OK Corral added to the status of the Western and, together with The Searchers (1956 qv), raised it from threatened consignment to the B movie basement. Rhonda Fleming and Jo Van Fleet flicker in and out of the obligatory stoicism as the obligatory floozies. Beautiful photography by Charles Lang, script by Leon Uris and music by Dimitri Tiomkin.

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Paths of Glory / Stanley Kubrick

1957. BW. USA. 84 mins. DVD.

David Lloyd George described the battles of the Somme, Verdun and Paschendaele as the story of ‘the two or three individuals who would rather the million perish than that they as leaders should own — even to themselves — that they were blunderers’. Paths of Glory shows, in brilliant microcosm, how the corrupt motives of the high command trickled downwards. A French general is promised promotion if his troops capture an impregnable German position. After the predictable failure and resultant carnage three men are selected as scapegoats for court martial and execution. Kirk Douglas plays the commanding officer who defends them, George Macready the self-serving general who ordered the attack. Stanley Kubrick made his name as writer and director with this film, and Kirk Douglas delivers one of his finest performances. The War Memoirs of David Lloyd George are available from our Bookshop. The Battle of the Somme (1916 qv) was a reconstruction, shot within a mile of the frontlines while the offensive was still underway.

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Sweet Smell of Success / Alexander Mackendrick

1957. BW. USA. 92 mins. DVD.

Mackendrick goes to Hollywood. The dark side of the Ealing director is fully mature in this story of an overweening showbiz columnist (Burt Lancaster) who sets out to use a sycophantic press agent (Tony Curtis) to break up his sister’s relationship with a musician. The night-time New York locations and James Wong Howe’s cinematography provide an appropriate backdrop for a brutal depiction of metropolitan man. Lancaster and Curtis dominate with powerful performances.

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Twelve Angry Men / Sidney Lumet

1957. BW. USA. 112 mins. DVD.

Sidney Lumet debuts with a totally absorbing ‘courtroom drama without the courtroom’. Henry Fonda plays his typical reasonable man as the one doubting member of a jury who are about to find a defendant guilty of murder. As he reviews the evidence the prejudices of his fellow jurors are revealed. Lee J Cobb gives a memorable performance as the last man to accept Fonda's arguments. A screen representation of what has lately been dubbed ‘groupthink’.

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Witness for the Prosecution / Billy Wilder

1957. BW. USA. 113 mins. DVD.

The courtroom drama is, when skilfully crafted, a genre that allows intricate storylines and intelligent dialogue. Witness for the Prosecution exploits the format fully and adds texture with a number of sub-plots. Charles Laughton gives a rumbustious performance as a convalescent QC who takes on a murder case against the wishes of his doctor and his domineering nurse (played by Laughton’s real-life spouse Elsa Lanchester). Tyrone Power is the innocent defendant and Marlene Dietrich his devious wife. Based on a short story and stage play by Agatha Christie.

Witness for the Prosecution and Selected Plays / Agatha Christie

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The Defiant Ones / Stanley Kramer

1958. BW. USA. 96 mins. DVD.

Stanley Kramer tackles bigotry in a compelling drama about a black convict who escapes from the chain gang still shackled to racist Tony Curtis. The moral is perhaps too obviously stated but the worthiness of the film is salvaged by the story and the lead characters. Sidney Poitier built a career in movies based on similar themes, including the earlier No Way Out and the later Odds Against Tomorrow, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (not listed here) and In The Heat of The Night (1969 qv).

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Jazz on a Summer's Day / Aram Avakian, Bert Stern

1958. BW. USA. 85 mins. DVD (NTSC Format Only).

The 1959 Newport Jazz Festival was a defining moment and the Avakian/Stern film of the event rapidly acquired cult status. Thelonius Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Chico Hamilton and scat virtuoso Anita Day mingle with Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden, Mahalia Jackson and Chuck Berry. No more need be said.

Jazz on a Summer's Day / Soundtrack Album

Format: 1 Disc. 16 tracks.

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Touch of Evil / Orson Welles

1958. BW. USA. 105 mins. DVD.

Orson Welles was recalled to Hollywood from his European wanderings to take a lead part in this cult film noir, now rescued somewhat from the studio edit. His co-star Charlton Heston convinced the studio that Welles should also direct the film; Orson also virtually rewrote the screenplay; and as was almost mandatory with Welles’ Hollywood productions, the film was mangled before release. Heston is a Mexican narcotics investigator who clashes with Welles, the seedy but effective police chief of a US border town. Heston’s new bride is kidnapped as the twisting plot develops. Janet Leigh is the wife and the supporting cast includes Akim Tamiroff and Marlene Dietrich. The incredible opening tracking shot goes on for ever and is firmly ensconced in the movie hall of fame.

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Some Like It Hot / Billy Wilder

1959. BW. USA. 117 mins. DVD.

Billy Wilder does what Billy Wilder does best. Musicians Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon don drag and join an all-girl band after witnessing the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The resulting comic situations are predictable but vastly enjoyable. Curtis makes a play for lead singer Marilyn Monroe with a famous impersonation of Cary Grant. Lemmon fends off the advances of loony retired millionaire Joe E Brown. All the while Chicago crime boss George Raft is in pursuit. Lemmon is manic, Curtis is cool, Monroe heavy-breathes her way through some well known numbers and Joe Brown is relentlessly randy. All good stuff.

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Anatomy of a Murder / Otto Preminger

1959. BW. USA. 161 mins. DVD.

High on the list of classic courtroom dramas and, like a number of contemporary examples of the genre, radical because there was no on-screen depiction of the events that led to the trial. A down-home James Stewart defends a hopeless case against a slick big city legal eagle (George C Scott). Ben Gazzara is the soldier who admits to murdering the bar owner who is alleged to have raped his trashy wife (Lee Remick). The film attracted controversy because of the detailed descriptions of the rape. An interesting historical footnote: the trial is presided over by Joseph Welsh, a real-life judge who came to prominence through his spirited stance as a US Army lawyer during the McCarthy hearings. Duke Ellington provided the brilliant score.

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Ben Hur / William Wyler

1959. Colour. USA. 213 mins. DVD.

William Wyler revisits Governor Lew Wallace’s novel in a glossy and hugely expensive remake of the 1926 silent epic (qv). Charlton Heston is Judah Ben Hur, the Jewish aristocrat who arouses the animosity of his Roman childhood friend, played by Stephen Boyd. The degradation of Ben Hur and his family is interwoven with the Ministry and Passion of Christ. The chariot race in the Circus Maximus is legendary and was not without casualties, but overall the film is a little marred by the sense of its own importance common to many Hollywood epics of the period. The DVD includes a documentary feature.

Ben Hur / Lew Wallace

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Plan 9 From Outer Space / Edward D Wood Jnr

1959. BW. USA. 78 mins. DVD.

Highly acclaimed as possibly the worst movie ever made and as such worthy of inclusion in any list! This bizarre project rejoices in props which include cardboard tombstones, barely concealed stunt mattresses and saucepan lids masquerading as flying saucers. What passes for a plot is disrupted by a total lack of continuity. The edits cut from night to day and back again; and Wood’s determination to use a few feet of footage of Bela Lugosi, shot two years before for a totally different project, results in frequently repeated sequences. And there’s more! Lugosi had died shortly after his sequences were filmed. Wood’s solution to his absence was to substitute his wife’s chiropractor, who masked his face with Lugosi’s signature cape. The lowest of low budget productions, it is nonetheless difficult to see where the money was spent. We guarantee that you will be amazed. The director was the subject of a film by Tim Burton (Ed Wood, 1994 qv).

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Foreign Cinema

We have selected an influential film from France, a landmark film from India and a Shakespearian adaptation from the Japanese master.

Rififi / Jules Dassin

1955. BW. Fr. 118 mins. DVD.

Although The Asphalt Jungle (1950 qv) was in the vanguard of caper movies, Rififi was probably the more influential and spawned an endless stream of imitators. An ex-con reluctantly undertakes one last job but the thieves fall out and it all ends in tears and bloodshed. The backstreets of Paris are nicely evoked and the elaborate robbery sequence, 25 minutes of complete silence, is classic.

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The Apu Trilogy / Satyajit Ray

Pather Panchali (1955)

Aparajito (1957)

The World of Apu (1959)

1955-59. BW. India. 333 mins. DVD.

Pather Panchali was the remarkable and poetic first film from a now-famous director that brought Indian cinema to worldwide attention. The joys and tribulations of village life are drawn with great sympathy and set against an encroaching modern world. The trilogy as a whole chronicles the life and recurring tragedies of the central character, Apu, as he grows to manhood. Beautifully filmed and beautifully acted, set against the music of Ravi Shankar.

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Throne of Blood / Akira Kurosawa

1957. BW. Japan. 105 mins. DVD.

A sprawling and powerful adaptation of Macbeth, set in medieval Japan. Toshiro Mifune is by now firmly established as Kurosawa’s favourite actor and leads as a samurai who is encouraged to murder his lord by his wife and a spirit. The influence of Noh theatre is apparent, nowhere more so than in the almost passive performance of Isuzu Yamada as the wife who spurs on the samurai’s ambition. The final battle scene is spectacular, savage and horrifying.

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