The Usual Choices
The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (John Sturges)
Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick)
Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick)
12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
But how about...
The Shiralee (Leslie Norman)
This really is the only film (Aussie-made or otherwise) which enhances the Lord-I-was-Born-a-Ramblin'-Man myth of the Great Depression years in the Great South Land. Peter Finch, like Chips Rafferty and Bryan Brown, is the embodiment of Bloke: no-nonsense; a belief in absolutes; reluctantly emotional; a loner who can be relied upon as long as he's not drinking; sentimental around an evening fire. Throw in city is bad / country is good, a pub brawl, swags & swigging, dirt roads, sheep and a few bloodys, and you've got our version of a great guy just caring for his kid. This is the iconic Anglo-Saxon Australian character; track down a copy of Bill Beatty's Tales of Old Australia if your appetite is whetted and you'd like to meet more of them.
...and what about...
Across the Bridge (Ken Annakin)
Rod Steiger took on the mantle of Mr Shouty (having had it passed to him from Edward Arnold and Lee J. Cobb), thinking that great volume = great acting (hell, it won him an Oscar). But there were times when his throat must've hurt and his doctor told him to turn it down...this movie was made during one of those breaks. AtB is a little movie about a crooked financier who flees over the Mexican border and tries to stay there, but soon finds that he is not the fisherman; he is the fish. A Graham Greene story, it has The Third Man touches about it with an extra dollop of fatalism. Bloody dogs.
...not to mention...
The Tin Star (Anthony Mann)
Not a huge Anthony Mann Western fan (too many neurotics, too often), I was pleasantly surprised by this minor gem. More about authority than aggression, the film is almost pastoral in its minimal-violence and pacifist theme. Henry plays my favourite Fonda role (strong, quiet type who knows hard times) and Anthony Perkins is just a kid starting out in life, taking on more than he can handle, without a drop of psycho to be seen. A Western where a single gunshot shocks because you haven't been numbed by rounds and rounds being fired off. Entertaining, engrossing, endearing.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Desk Set (Walter Lang)
Both too old for their roles, Spence and Kate galumph through this light & frothy romantic comedy as if they'd just had a large lunch. The plot revolving around evolving technology instantly ages the thing way past quaint, Spence's face displays the overturned earth of his alcoholic lifestyle and Kate's career-woman has the crispest of collars and angular cheekbones that you could hang a coat from. While Joan Blondell and Gig Young are in fine form, the machine which is the cause of all the commotion (EMERAC...The Electronic Brain) is inevitably dumb, clunky and unstable. Just play your Xbox instead.
My Top 10 Films of 1957
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| "Trust me. As compensation for a small penis, this works every time. NRA Guaranteed." |
#02 A 12 Angry Men (Lumet)
#04 A Witness for the Prosecution (Wilder)
#05 A The Bridge on the River Kwai (Lean)
#06 A- Across the Bridge (Annakin)
#07 A- Paths of Glory (Kubrick)
#08 A- The Enemy Below (Powell)
#09 A- The Tin Star (Mann)
#10 A- Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (Huston)
Overflow: More A-/B+ Films
#11 A- 3:10 to Yuma (Daves)
#12 A- Men in War (Mann)
#13 A- The Wings of Eagles (Ford)
#14 A- Woman in a Dressing Gown (Thompson)
#15 A- The Incredible Shrinking Man (Arnold)
#16 B+ The Admirable Crichton / Paradise Lagoon (Gilbert)
#17 B+ 20 Million Miles to Earth (Juran)
#18 B+ The One That Got Away (Baker)
#19 B+ Lizzie (Haas)
#20 B+ A Hatful of Rain (Zinnemann)
#21 B+ Nightfall (Tourneur)
#22 B+ Edge of the City (Ritt)
#23 B+ Not of This Earth (Corman)
#24 B+ Old Yeller (Stevenson)
#25 B+ Man of a Thousand Faces (Pevney)
#26 B+ Until They Sail (Wise)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> B An Affair to Remember [I have testicles]
> B Operation Mad Ball [madcap & zany when it means to be funny]
> B The Smallest Show on Earth [the two dramatic leads are shown up by the two comedic supports]
> B Night of the Demon / Curse of the Demon [too much demon; not enough night]
> B Raintree County [quite ghastly really but it has always fascinated me]
> B The Strange One [bullying in a US military college...gosh...do things like that really happen?]
> B Gunfight at the O.K. Corral [tries hard to be a classic Western, but it's merely, er, O.K.]
> B No Down Payment [aka Suffering in Suburbia aka Don't Meet the Neighbours]
> B Funny Face [wonderful colour, wonderful Fred & Audrey; only two wonderful songs & a dance routine]
> B- The Three Faces of Eve [one is a slut, one is a wimp, one is lovely and dull...guess who stays?]
> B- Crime of Passion [wow...the lengths to which some bored housewives will go just to avoid cooking dinner...]
> B- Jailhouse Rock [c'mon...it's good to see the King...if only he was more than just presence]
> B- Mister Cory [OMG, Tony Curtis was a handsome man...oh, and the movie is bland]
> B- Peyton Place [naughty, naughty...but not any more...now it's just soapy, soapy]
> B- Brothers in Law [rejig of Doctor in the House, this time with lawyers but sadly, no Justice (James Robertson)]
> B- The Young Stranger [teen angst story featuring Angry Son Vs Clueless Father]
> C Joe Butterfly [Audie Murphy's only comedy. There's a reason for that.]
> C Fire Down Below [zero chemistry between the stars so the story just sits there]
> C The Spirit of St Louis [how could a Jewish director make a film about a guy who was a fan of the Nazis?]
> C Desk Set [A Personal Unmentionable]
> C The Amazing Colossal Man [watch The Incredible Shrinking Man instead and don't be so hung up about size]
> D The Invisible Boy [dumb sci-fi for kids, most of whom would be too smart to ever watch it]
> E Beau James [cynical perversion of political history done as a Bob Hope musical-comedy]
"Ah!..Sweet Mystery of Life...": 1957 Films I Apparently Still Need to See
Abandon Ship (Sale); All Mine to Give (Reisner); Baby Face Nelson (Siegel); The Bachelor Party (Mann); Band of Angels (Walsh); Bitter Victory (Ray); The Curse of Frankenstein (Fisher); Decision at Sundown (Boetticher); Dragoon Wells Massacre (Schuster); Forty Guns (Fuller); The Happy Road (Kelly); Hell Drivers (Endfield); Johnny Tremain (Stevenson); The Joker is Wild (Vidor); Les Girls (Cukor); Lucky Jim (Boulting); The Mark of the Hawk / Accused / Shaka Zulu (Audley); Monkey On My Back (De Toth); The Pajama Game (Abbott); Pal Joey (Sidney); The Passionate Stranger / A Novel Affair (Box); Plunder Road (Cornfield); Quatermass II / Enemy From Space (Guest); The Ride Back (Miner); The River’s Edge (Dwan); Sayonara (Logan); The Story of Esther Costello (Miller); The Sun Also Rises (King); The Tall T (Boetticher); The Tarnished Angels (Sirk); Time Limit (Malden); T-Men (Mann); Town on Trial (Guillermin); The Undead (Corman); Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (Tashlin); Yangste Incident (Anderson)
Best Performances of 1957
Andy Griffiths (A Face in the Crowd)
Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr Allison)
Burt Lancaster (Sweet Smell of Success)
Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)
Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)
Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)
But how about...
Tony Curtis in Sweet Smell of Success
What a toady. Kowtower. Lickspittle. Brown nose. Leech. Who woulda guessed that the handsome but mediocre actor who had buckled his swash as The Purple Mask and Son of Ali Baba, was capable of playing such an urban slimeball as Sidney Falco...and doing it so superbly? Using just a hint of shuddering, Tony shows us his limitless self-disgust, revolted by how low he is prepared to go to get higher up the greasy pole. With Burt "Buzzcut" Lancaster as his dominatrix, Tony sweats ambition and tastes bile: Uriah Heep reborn. It's a classic performance.
...and what about...
Anthony Perkins in Fear Strikes Out
The first time Anthony played the crazy-mixed-up-kid part which was going to, unfortunately, become his professional trademark. As a talented baseball player with Daddy issues, Anthony succumbs to his mental fragility and has a "nervous breakdown". Emotionally incommunicado and pitching mood swings, Anthony portrays a misunderstood, put-upon youth as completely as James Dean did in Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden, but without all the histrionics and self-consciousness. This poor kid is believable without the camera-support of tilted-angle melodramatics. He just needs a hug.
...not to mention...
Patricia Neal in A Face in the Crowd
While everyone zoomed in on Andy Griffiths' performance (I always thought that he was not much more than merely loud; his attempted slathering was unconvincing, and try as I did, I always viewed him in this as the Sheriff of Mayberry having a psychotic episode), I was far more impressed by Patricia. With her sardonic Southern drawl and always bemused gaze, she seems to be immediately aware of Andy's animal magnetism and the forces she's about to unleash. But she doesn't stop (until the end) because she loves the rush - like sitting in the back of a slamming whitewater raft. Her eventual switch from thrill to revulsion is beautifully done.
...and one personal unmentionable...
Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County
The worst of all combinations: Elizabeth Taylor playing a mentally disturbed Southern Belle in a big hoop dress and a pumped-up bosom. Just a recipe for turgid emoting served with a fat, sizzling slice of ham. I can't pinpoint when this English rose (the Queen made her a Dame!) decided to slip on a Deep South accent (Vivien Leigh has a lot to answer for), but she stuck with it in various forms right through her mature years. And as soon as a director yelled "Liz...ACT!", off she went, the greater the soap opera, the bigger the suds she made. Her special guest star appearance in General Hospital was always meant to be. Raintree County is where it all started to go wrong.
My 10 Favourite Performances of 1957
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| "I bought the Chopmaster 5000 from a shopping channel, and they threw in this free set of steak knife." |
#02 Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success)
#03 The Jury (12 Angry Men)
#04 Anthony Perkins (Fear Strikes Out)
#05 Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
#06 Yvonne Mitchell (Woman in a Dressing Gown)
#07 Dan Dailey (The Wings of Eagles)
#08 Patricia Neal (A Face in the Crowd)
#09 John Wayne (The Wings of Eagles)
#10 Eleanor Parker (Lizzie)
Overflow: More List-Worthy Performances
#11 James Cagney (Man of a Thousand Faces)
#12 Cary Grant & Deborah Kerr (An Affair to Remember)
#13 Deborah Kerr & Robert Mitchum (Heaven Knows, Mr Allison)
#14 Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)
#15 Diane Cilento (The Admirable Crichton / Paradise Lagoon)
#16 William Holden (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
#17 Henry Fonda & Anthony Perkins (The Tin Star)
#18 Sidney Poitier (Edge of the City)
#19 George Macready (Paths of Glory)
#20 Jean Simmons (Until They Sail)
#21 Lloyd Nolan (A Hatful of Rain)
#22 Errol Flynn (The Sun Also Rises)
#23 Karl Malden (Fear Strikes Out)
#24 Nigel Patrick (Raintree County)
#25 Barbara Stanwyck (Crime of Passion)
Sorry, They Didn't Make It...
> Sessue Hayakawa in Bridge on the River Kwai [he seems to bizarrely play it for humour at times]
> Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve [Eleanor Parker in Lizzie is better]
The Alternate Oscars for 1957 are:
FILM of the YEAR
GOLD: The Shiralee (Leslie Norman)
SILVER: 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)
BRONZE: Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick)
LEAD ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Peter Finch (The Shiralee)
SILVER: Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success)
BRONZE: Anthony Perkins (Fear Strikes Out)
LEAD ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Yvonne Mitchell (Woman in a Dressing Gown)
SILVER: Patricia Neal (A Face in the Crowd)
BRONZE: Eleanor Parker (Lizzie)
SUPPORTING ACTOR: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Dan Dailey (The Wings of Eagles)
SILVER: George Macready (Paths of Glory)
BRONZE: Lloyd Nolan (A Hatful of Rain)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)
SILVER: Diane Cilento (The Admirable Crichton / Paradise Lagoon)
BRONZE: Una O'Connor (Witness for the Prosecution)
ENSEMBLE or PARTNERSHIP: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Martin Balsam & John Fiedler & Lee J. Cobb & E.G. Marshall & Jack Klugman & Edward Binns & Jack Warden & Henry Fonda & Joseph Sweeney & Ed Begley & George Voskovec & Robert Webber (12 Angry Men)
SILVER: Cary Grant & Deborah Kerr (An Affair to Remember)
BRONZE: Deborah Kerr & Robert Mitchum (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)
JUVENILE: PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
GOLD: Tommy Kirk (Old Yeller)
SILVER: Dana Wilson (The Shiralee)
BRONZE: TBA
The Alternate Razzies for 1957 are:
CRAP FILM of the YEAR
Beau James (Melville Shavelson)
CRAP MALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Burgess Meredith (Joe Butterfly)
CRAP FEMALE PERFORMANCE of the YEAR
Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)
