Tag Archives: 1950s

When American reporter Steve Martin investigates a series of mysterious disasters off the coast of Japan, he comes face to face with an ancient creature so powerful and so terrifying, it can reduce Tokyo to a smoldering graveyard. Nuclear weapon testing resurrected this relic from the Jurassic age, and now it’s rampaging across Japan. At night, Godzilla wades through Tokyo leaving death and destruction in his wake, disappearing into Tokyo Bay when his rage subsides. Coventional weapons are useless against him; but renowned scientist Dr. Serizawa has discovered a weapon that could destroy all life in the bay – including Godzilla. But which disaster is worse, Godzilla’s fury, or the death of Tokyo Bay?
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During 1798,Bushrod Gentry is a Kentucky trapper who travels from place to place,sometimes staying with settler families for a night or two before moving on.Being a handsome man he often breaks the hearts of the unmarried young daughters of his hosts and it always leads to proposals of marriage from the girls’ part.This causes Bushrod to quickly pack his gear, give the smitten girl his standard speech about why he cannot marry or settle down and depart in a hurry, leaving the girl in tears.But one day,after being saved from an Indian attack by young Scotish woman, Mary Stuart Cherne, he takes shelter with her family until his broken arm can heal.Invariably,the girl falls for his charm and asks him to marry her.Bushrod gives her his standard speech and thinks he’s off the hook but stubborn Mary Stuart is not so easily dissuaded.This leads to lies, insinuations, evasive actions, hilarity, fist fights with her brothers, a shooting contest, broken promises and a shotgun wedding.
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Witness the birth of a new kind of documentary, as legendary diver, conservationist and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau takes you deep beneath the waves to explore a wealth of life that was previously hidden from view. As much of the technology for shooting film underwater was developed by Cousteau’s team, this was the first time such amazing sights could be captured on film. The result, a Technicolor 1950s masterpiece, succeeds both in revealing an untouched world of beauty, life and drama, as well as evoking a sense of adventure, freedom and boundless possibility. Set on board and below the good ship Calypso during an exploratory expedition, this feature-length documentary was co-directed by Cousteau and Louis Malle, whose first film this was (Cousteau selected Malle for this assignment immediately upon the latter’s graduation from film school). Highlights include a shark attack on the carcass of a whale, and the discovery of a wrecked, sunken vessel. A window into the world beneath the sea as well as the colourful and nostalgic world of the 1950s, The Silent World was the start of an entire movement, and is now available on DVD as a vital part of any collection. This classic film is one of few to have won both the Academy Award (Best Documentary Feature) as well as the Palme D’Or in 1956.
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Jim Trask, former sheriff of Abilene, returns to the town after fighting for the Confederacy to find everyone thought he was dead. His old friend Dave Mosely is now engaged to Trask’s former sweetheart and is one of the cattlemen increasingly feuding with the original farmers. Trask is persuaded to take up as sheriff again but there is something about the death of Mosely’s brother in the Civil War that is haunting him.
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Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon always wanted to be something his old man wasn’t: a guy on the right side of the law. But for a good guy, he’s awfully vicious. After several complaints over his roughing people up, his boss, Insp. Nicholas Foley, demotes him. Foley tells him he’s a good man, but needs to get his head on straight and be more like Det. Lt. Thomas, who has just gotten a promotion. Meanwhile, Tommy Scalise has an illegal dice game going and is looking to make a sucker out of the rich Ted Morrison, who was brought in by Ken Paine and his beautiful wife Morgan. She figures out too late her husband is using her as a decoy. Paine strikes her when she refuses to play along. The chivalrous Morrison intervenes but Paine knocks him out cold. That seems to be the worst of it, but later it turns out the guy is dead; and Paine looks guilty. Soon Dixon has fallen in love with Morgan – but not before losing his temper again and committing a terrible deed that he tries to cover up. Morgan’s father, a tale-spinning taxi driver, may take the rap for it. It’s up to Dixon to try to pin the blame on Scalise.
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U.S. narcotics agent Charles Sturgis trails international dope smuggler Frank McNally by following his reluctant accomplice, Gina Broger, through the “pickup alleys” of New York, London, Lisbon, Rome, Naples and Athens. When Gina is finally arrested by Interpol, she helps Sturgis trace McNally and his $3,000,000 consignment back to New York.
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A stage director (Raymond Rouleau) becomes the prime suspect in the death of his assistant, who may or may not have been fooling around with the director’s wife (Jeanne Moreau). The wife helps her husband hide out from the police, taking over his responsibilities in the theater. Soon she is flourishing in the world of make-believe, and she has fallen under the spell of the duplicitous rat who started all of the trouble in the first place. Saving the day is the director’s good-hearted secretary (Etchika Choureau), who has long harbored a crush on her boss.
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In this British comedy, a formerly rakish submarine captain is transferred to a desk job. His reputation as a hero and playboy precedes him. He meets an old comrade and his gorgeous fiancee, a Yankee widow. His buddy is quite wealthy and the retired captain realizes that he too must make plenty of dough to steal the woman away. He immediately engineers an elaborate quick money scheme. First he makes it seem as if he has become a traitor in order to get the newspapers to write bad things about him. He then plans to sue them all for libel. He leaves his phony trail and then maroons himself on a desert island. He is later rescued and interrogated by the Special Branch. Fortunately, he convinces them of his innocence and continues with his plan. He then goes to the woman’s home and is there discovered by his buddy. The friend sees that the two really are in love and gallantly bows out.
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Two middle-aged men work as caretakers on an isolated dam construction site high in the snow-capped Italian Alps. When one of them leaves for the valley to spend Christmas vacation with his family he is temporarily replaced with an adolescent boy. The other man is both annoyed and intrigued by the boy and his habits: he listens to loud music, sleeps too long in the mornings and doesn’t drink any alcohol. They barely speak to one another in the first couple of days. But when an avalanche cuts their small hut from electricity they slowly start growing more fond of each other.
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The D-Day invasion of 1944 provides a backdrop for the Allied Artists actioner Screaming Eagles. Tom Tryon plays Private Mason, an ill-tempered member of the 101st Airborne Infantry division. Mason makes plenty of enemies with his negative attitude until good-guy lieutenant Pauling (Jan Merlin) straightens him out. The 101st’ s main objective (once all personal travails are swept away, that is) is to capture and hold a vital bridge in Normandy. Jacqueline Beer, later one of the costars of TV’s 77 Sunset Strip, provides the feminine interest as an attractive resistance fighter (were there ever any unattractive resistance fighters?) Featured in the cast are TV favorites Martin Milner and Alvy Moore and second-generation thespian Edward G. Robinson Jr.
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Producer Howard W. Koch’s impoverished Bel-Air company lensed this quasi-horror film somewhere in California’s Death Valley. Affecting a none-too-convincing British accent Mark Dana stars as Captain Storm, heading a colonial escort to a lonely archeological dig in Egypt in 1902. Along the way, the party, which includes the American wife (Diane Brewster) of the chief archeologist (George N. Neise), encounters a mysterious girl, Simira (Ziva Shapir aka Ziva Rodann, “Miss Israel of 1957), who warns them not to mess with the dead. They do anyway, of course, drawing the ire of the Gods. One by one, the scientists are decimated by Simira’s brother Numar (Alvaro Guillot), who is the reincarnation of the tomb keeper and grows older by the minute.
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Ilya is a cripple without the use of his legs. When he aids some weary travellers, they surprise him by giving him a potion that restores his legs. He immediately becomes powerful and sets off to prove himself to his King. Doing so, he fights the evil Tugars, a wind demon that looks like a cross between a goblin and The Noid, a zeppelin-like ambassador, and the evil Tugars. Ilya gets framed for a crime he didn’t commit, then is freed, then finally dispatches the Tugars and their dragon.
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Set in the Taish? period of Japan (dating from 1912 to 1926), Untamed follows the fiery Oshima (in a superbly eccentric performance by Takamine) as she passes from one suitor to another, a series of calamities befalling her along the way. Characteristic of Naruse’s work, urban and rural settings are juxtaposed: the moody Tokyo streets against a majestic mountain village. At each point, the various situations Oshima is caught in seem uncannily bound up with her surroundings. It’s worth noting that the film, while not widely known, is singled out for praise by critic Chris Fujiwara.
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After making such American noir classics as Brute Force and The Naked City, the blacklisted director Jules Dassin went to Paris and embarked on his masterpiece: a twisting, turning tale of four ex-cons who hatch one last glorious robbery in the City of Light. Rififi is the ultimate heist movie, a mélange of suspense, brutality, and dark humor that was an international hit, earned Dassin the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and has proven wildly influential on the decades of heist thrillers that have come in its wake.
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Angered that her sister Celia has stolen her fiance, Dell Faring kills her and allows Celia’s husband David, knocked out in an argument with Celia, to take the blame and end up on death row. Later Dell, finding out that David’s young daughter Susan was witness to the crime and is undergoing psychiatric treatment, plans to eliminate her before her memory returns.
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