The Usual Choices
The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli)
The Greatest Show on Earth (Cecil B. DeMille)
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann)
The Quiet Man (John Ford)
Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly; Stanley Donen)
But how about...
The Pickwick Papers (Noel Langley)
While this is not the greatest Movie Dickens (I'd vote for Cukor's 1935 David Copperfield or Lean's 1946 Great Expectations...like most people would), it is certainly the most fun. There's a real Ealingesque feel to this (Whiskey Galore; The Lavender Hill Mob)...I expected Margaret Rutherford and Stanley Holloway to turn up. The shaggy dog saga of Mr Pickwick who has the great misfortune to cross paths with Mr Jingle, this ricochets from one comic situation to another, all bounced along by the usual eccentric Mr Dickens characters (and actors such as Nigel Patrick, Joyce Grenfell and James Donald fit their exaggerated roles perfectly). With a look at the hardships of the London poor (in this case, a debtor's prison), this manages to add some poignancy to the light comedy. If you manage to track down a copy and enjoy it, I suggest you continue on to 1935's The Mystery of Edwin Drood and 1947's Nicholas Nickleby. And I wish good will, good hope and good nature to you all.
...and what about...
Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson) + The Narrow Margin (Richard Fleischer)
These just go to show that a B-Movie doesn't always mean a Z-Movie. Both are strongly plotted tension-builders, niftily directed, perfectly cast and acted above and beyond the call of ability. The budget restraints are admirably overcome, the crime/action sequences cook and the noirish elements are woven throughout without being a design-distraction.
KCC = Mr Big & 3 Hoods (Jack Elam! Lee Van Cleef! Neville Brand!) carry out the perfect armed robbery with nice guy John Payne as the patsy. John does what he has to do to clear his name and win the girl.
TNM = Nearly-jaded detective (Charles McGraw) has to accompany and protect tough moll/informant (Marie Windsor!) from being executed by gangsters aboard the train to L.A. Watch out for the twists.
Both are made into engrossing, suspenseful movies. See, film students? It doesn't take millions...it takes talent.
...not to mention...
The Card aka The Promoter (Ronald Neame)
One of Alec Guinness's lesser known "fubsy" (his descriptive word, not mine) character comedies, and one of the best. He plays a working class lad with dreams of self-improvement and, being clever, cocky and determined, up the social ladder he climbs. Circling around three women (Valerie Hobson the Countess; Glynis Johns, his equal in cunning & opportunism...after her elderly husband dies, she blithely observes that he had "overtaxed his strength"; and Petula Clark the good girl), Alec spends his life balancing romance with ambition. An example of the "When Life gives you lemons, make lemonade" philosophy in action, you can't help but cheer Alec on as he takes advantage of one situation after another: a common-man hero we can all admire. Well-supported by the three actresses, with fun, familiar character actors turning up here & there, this is British comedy at its friendliest and most entertaining.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Above and Beyond (Melvin Frank; Norman Panama)
Disgusting...one of the most repugnant movies ever made. This is far more offensive than any slasher flick you could possibly name. The "story" of Paul Tibbets and the WWII flight of the Enola Gay, this attempts to excuse the war crime that was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki: "We didn't wanna, but gosh darn, they made us do it to them!". Now, don't get me wrong: World War II was 5 years of Hell and the USA possessed a new weapon that could possibly end it quickly, but geez...while using a nuclear device on non-combative citizens at that moment in history can be coldly explained, surely it can never be pardoned, which is what this movie tries to do...make us feel sorry for the bombers. And Robert Taylor (as Tibbets) and Eleanor Parker (as his wife)...a double blecch of an acting partnership...want us to sympathise with their side by showing us how dropping The Bomb nearly wrecked their marriage! This is vile celluloid muck that should be melted down and used to build roads.
My Top 10 Films of 1952
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| Christmas, and George's mum has crocheted him another hoodie. |
#02 A The Importance of Being Earnest (Asquith)
#03 A- Kansas City Confidential (Karlson)
#04 A- The Pickwick Papers (Langley)
#05 A- The Narrow Margin (Fleischer)
#06 A- The Card / The Promoter (Neame)
#07 A- Ivanhoe (Thorpe)
#08 A- The Quiet Man (Ford)
#09 A- Angel Face (Preminger)
#10 B+ Hunted / The Stranger In Between (Crichton)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 B+ The Story of Robin Hood & His Merrie Men (Annakin)
#12 B+ Carrie (Wyler)
#13 B+ Ma & Pa Kettle at the Fair (Barton)
#14 B+ The Member of the Wedding (Zinnemann)
#15 B+ The Bad and the Beautiful (Minnelli)
#16 B+ Don't Bother to Knock (Baker)
#17 B+ I Believe in You (Relph; Dearden)
#18 B+ Pat and Mike (Cukor)
#19 B+ Viva Zapata! (Kazan)
#20 B+ The Crimson Pirate (Siodmak)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B 5 Fingers [James Mason being a smooth swine again, in a true spy story that is interesting but a little too dry]
> B My Cousin Rachel [young men in love can be such damn fools]
> B The Big Sky [wild frontier river-trek with a lot of time spent messin' about with injuns & polecats]
> B Has Anybody Seen My Gal [Americana Sweet'n'Lite comedy given a boost by Charles Coburn]
> B Mandy [deaf kid adjusts to a silent life despite all the adults fouling things up]
> B Les Miserables [well-told but the 1935 version easily outclasses it in acting and narrative impact]
> B Folly to be Wise [a quaint British comedy for members of the Alastair Sim Fan Club]
> B The Marrying Kind [very talky look at the ups & downs of middle-class marriage, 1950's American style]
> B The Holly & the Ivy [a filmed stageplay with an admittedly strong cast, but it's barely a movie]
> B- Moulin Rouge [its most significant achievement is in making Zsa Zsa Gabor bearable]
> B- Clash By Night [overly angsted-up love triangle with nowhere near enough Marilyn in the background]
> B- Ruby Gentry [just another woman-with-grand-passions-eventually-tamed-by-a-man story]
> B- Breaking the Sound Barrier [hubby goes supersonic while the missus drinks sherry and frets]
> B- So Little Time [ever-so-doomed romance between occupied Belgian woman and music-loving Nazi]
> B- Home at Seven [a terribly British murder-mystery, complete with cups of tea and chats about gardening]
> B- High Noon [overrated Western built on the premise that people are vile...and that song drives me crazy]
> B- Curtain Up [a lesser British comedy despite starring Margaret Rutherford, Robert Morley & Kay Kendall]
> B- Beware, My Lovely [Robert the psycho cleans house for Ida the widow; more unpleasant than frightening]
> C Miss Robin Hood [unfunny British comedy despite starring Margaret Rutherford & James Robertson Justice]
> C Androcles & the Lion [awkwardly-produced Shaw play weighed down even further by some surreal casting]
> C Come Back, Little Sheba [although it never comes back, I grew to hate the bloody dog anyway]
> C The Happy Time [Love-In-the-Spring schmaltz-fest refreshingly set in French Canada but so what?]
> C Monkey Business [vastly overrated screwball comedy that's far closer to stupid than to funny]
> C Talk About a Stranger [Boy-&-His-Dog story that goes sinister then hysterical...then mushy]
> C Rancho Notorious [the most peculiar (and peculiarly cast) Western ever made...Chuck-a-Luck??]
> D Limelight [a hefty wallow in self-pity, sentimentality and martyrdom]
> D The Greatest Show on Earth [aka The Ten Commandments Under the Big Top]
> E My Son John ["okay Joe...I made this movie...you won't accuse me of being a Communist now, will ya?"]
> F Above and Beyond [A Personal Unmentionable]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1952 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Affair in Trinidad (Sherman); Angels One Five (O’Ferrall); Belles on Their Toes (Levin); Bend of the River (Mann); The Big Trees (Feist); The Black Castle (Juran); Boots Malone (Dieterle); Brandy for the Parson (Eldridge); The Brave Don’t Cry (Leacock); The Captive City (Wise); Caribbean / Caribbean Gold (Ludwig); Castle in the Air (Cass); Deadline USA (Brooks); The Devil Makes Three (Marton); Diplomatic Courier (Hathaway); Dreamboat (Binyon); Father’s Doing Fine (Cass); Finders Keepers (De Cordova); The Gentle Gunman (Dearden; Relph); Gift Horse / Glory at Sea (Bennett); Hoodlum Empire (Kane); Invitation (Reinhardt); The Lusty Men (Ray); Macao (von Sternberg; Ray); The Man Who Watched Trains Go By / The Paris Express
(French); Mutiny! (Dmytryk); My Man and I (Wellman); My Six Convicts (Fregonese); No Room for the Groom (Sirk); No Time for Flowers (Siegel); O. Henry’s Full House (Hathaway; Hawks; King; Koster; Negulesco); Othello (Welles); Park Row (Fuller); Phone Call from a Stranger (Negulesco); Retreat, Hell! (Lewis); Room for One More (Taurog); Scandal Sheet (Karlson); Scaramouche (Sidney); Secret People (Dickinson); Shadow in the Sky (Wilcox); The Sniper (Dmytryk); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (King); Something for the Birds (Wise); Something to Live For (Stevens); Son of Paleface (Tashlin); Springfield Rifle (De Toth); The Star (Heisler); The Steel Trap (Stone); Stolen Face (Fisher); Stop, You’re Killing Me (Del Ruth); Strange Fascination (Haas); Sudden Fear (Miller); The Thief (Rouse); Time Gentlemen Please (Gilbert); The Turning Point (Dieterle); The Voice of Merill / Murder Will Out (Gilling); Wait ‘Til the Sun Shines, Nellie (King); Walk East on Beacon (Werker); Washington Story (Pirosh); Way of the Gaucho (Tourneur); We’re Not Married (Goulding); Where’s Charley? (Butler); Without Warning (Laven); Women of Twilight / Twilight Women (Parry); The World in His Arms (Walsh); Young Man with Ideas (Leisen)
Best Performances of 1952
Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba
Gary Cooper in High Noon
Kirk Douglas in The Bad and the Beautiful
Gloria Grahame in The Bad and the Beautiful
Jean Hagen in Singin' in the Rain
Judy Holliday in The Marrying Kind
Anthony Quinn in Viva Zapata!
John Wayne in The Quiet Man
But how about...
Jean Simmons in Angel Face
The portrayal of a woman who comes to accept that she is genuinely insane, and dangerously, tragically so. Starting off as a fairly standard femme-fatale noirish sex-on-a-stick bitch, Jean takes this character into quite unusual directions by increasingly doing less (she talks quietly, keeps physical mannerisms to a minimum to the point of barely blinking...as if practising for the onset of a coma). A rich, young woman who adores her father but loathes her stepmother, Jean is clearly the smartest person in any room she enters, but still can't entirely get her own way...which just spurs her on to even more extreme behaviours (don't let her do the driving). Hell, this woman is so strong-willed and devious, she's even able to manipulate Robert Mitchum into unwittingly doing her bidding...now that's a super-power. And yet, somehow Jean makes her someone we feel sorry for. Evil and sad.
...and what about...
Charles Coburn in Has Anybody Seen My Gal
While this is more a case of perfect casting than cutting-edge acting, it is also one of the very rare leading roles given to a character actor usually in support (like Roland Young's star turn in Topper). And Charles is one of the most endearing & purely entertaining character actors Hollywood churned out during its Golden Years. In this role, Charles is a grumpy skinflint who is suffering in his deathbed from a combination of hypochondria, old age & boredom. Reflecting on his wealthy but empty life, he decides to throw off the blankets and look up the offspring of a girlfriend from his past, who is recently deceased. Within minutes, he ingratiates himself with her family, going through a Scrooge-like transformation after many culture & generation clashes. Charles is the whole show (nobody else in the large cast even comes close to sneaking into his spotlight) and he takes full advantage of it: Charles razzes up a rather bland story into an amusing romp. Standing ovation deserved.
...not to mention...
Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock
While Marilyn entered cinematic immortality via her platinum sexpot / dumb blonde roles, I always thought that her early dramatic performances (Niagara; The Asphalt Jungle; Clash By Night) were the more impressive. In this well-directed thriller, Marilyn plays a recently-released mental patient who takes on a casual job child-minding (Yikes!). The woman's sanity increasingly drains away, revealing a history of attempted suicide and aggression, which the likes of Richard Widmark and Elijah Cook Jr(!) try in vain to manage. Marilyn is truly scary'n'creepy in this (you know the child is in serious trouble), but the actress's major achievement is in not overdoing the psycho-isms...we are frightened for the little girl but still pity the disturbed adult. The unmannered & fresh style shown in this performance was all but ruined when Marilyn started studying The Method at the Actors Studio in 1955...such a shame.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Charles Chaplin in Limelight
Okay...yes, yes, it's Charlie Chaplin, one of the pioneering giants in film history. But I gotta tell you...I infinitely preferred him when he didn't speak. From The Great Dictator's soppy closing speech to Monsieur Verdoux's smarmy fabrications, Charlie was at his best when his innate sentimentality was passed onto us via his body...his non-talking body. Whenever the great man tried to put it into words, he slipped into schmaltz and phrase-heavy pleas to be loved (and, even worse, pitied...the clown begs us to cry for him).
And then there's Limelight. A twist on the old A Star is Born trajectory, an old English Music Hall performer cares for a young, suicidal dancer; he sinks down down down while she climbs above. Charlie's performance is all about "feel sorry for me"; his martyrdom is irritating and icky, and he comes across as more frustrating wuss than tragic figure. And, most painful of all, his stage antics are not funny. Savour that for a moment...Charlie Chaplin is not funny. Now that is something to cry about.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1952
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| "I promise you Jean...we'll find your fringe." |
#02 The ensemble cast of The Importance of Being Earnest
#03 Laurence Olivier in Carrie
#04 Donald O'Connor in Singin' in the Rain
#05 Ethel Waters in The Member of the Wedding
#06 Barry Fitzgerald in The Quiet Man
#07 Brandon deWilde in The Member of the Wedding
#08 Charles Coburn in Has Anybody Seen My Gal
#09 Julie Harris in The Member of the Wedding
#10 Jean Simmons in Angel Face
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 James Donald in The Pickwick Papers
#12 Alec Guinness in The Card
#13 Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin
#14 Judy Holliday & Aldo Ray in The Marrying Kind
#15 Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock
#16 James Mason in 5 Fingers
#17 Cecil Parker in I Believe in You
#18 John Wayne & Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man
#19 Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain
#20 Alastair Sim in Folly to Be Wise
#21 Glynis Johns in The Card
#22 Jon Whiteley in Hunted / The Stranger In Between
#23 Anthony Quinn in Viva Zapata!
#24 Marilyn Monroe in Clash By Night
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Shirley Booth in Come Back, Little Sheba [I never felt any sympathy for the poor dear...only irritation]
> Gary Cooper in High Noon [he looks like he needs a cup of tea and a lie down]
> Jose Ferrer in Moulin Rouge [plays Toulouse-Lautrec as a talented runt with girl trouble]
> Kirk Douglas in The Bad and the Beautiful [ideal casting but the performance is nothing startling]
> Gloria Grahame in The Bad and the Beautiful [plays a smart Southern Belle as if she's a ding-a-ling]
> Richard Burton in My Cousin Rachel [unfortunately better at sulking than smouldering]
> Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata! [plays better as a Western action hero than an illiterate Mexican revolutionary]
And so...onto the annual awards (with a nod of appreciation to Danny Peary)...
The Alternate Oscars for 1952 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly; Stanley Donen)
SILVER: The Importance of Being Earnest (Anthony Asquith)
BRONZE: Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Laurence Olivier (Carrie)
SILVER: Charles Coburn (Has Anybody Seen My Gal)
BRONZE: Alec Guinness (The Card)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Julie Harris (The Member of the Wedding)
SILVER: Jean Simmons (Angel Face)
BRONZE: Marilyn Monroe (Don't Bother to Knock)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Donald O'Connor (Singin' in the Rain)
SILVER: Barry Fitzgerald (The Quiet Man)
BRONZE: James Donald (The Pickwick Papers)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Jean Hagen (Singin' in the Rain)
SILVER: Ethel Waters (The Member of the Wedding)
BRONZE: Marie Windsor (The Narrow Margin)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Michael Redgrave & Michael Denison & Edith Evans & Joan Greenwood & Margaret Rutherford & Dorothy Tutin & Miles Malleson (The Importance of Being Earnest)
SILVER: Judy Holliday & Aldo Ray (The Marrying Kind)
BRONZE: John Wayne & Maureen O'Hara (The Quiet Man)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Brandon deWilde (The Member of the Wedding)
SILVER: Jon Whiteley (Hunted / The Stranger In Between)
BRONZE: Mandy Miller (Mandy)
The Alternate Razzies for 1952 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Above and Beyond (Melvin Frank; Norman Panama)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Charles Chaplin (Limelight)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Eleanor Parker (Above and Beyond)
