1954 poll 2.0

[Curtis, baby]

i watched BORDER RIVER. it was "fine" but i just can't possibly truly get into movies where the confederacy are considered good guys, or even just non-bad guys

[Lencho of the Apes]

L'Air De Paris - Marcel Carne

A very very French version of boxing melodrama -- unlike any other with its Hamlet references and the general post-war, post-Sartre vibe, all that crippled-with-doubts stuff... Likely to make my list.

Pivotal fight scene at the end of act two is orchestrated the same way the talent-show song in Linda LInda LInda is, but to a far more maximalist effect.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

i watched BORDER RIVER. it was "fine" but i just can't possibly truly get into movies where the confederacy are considered good guys, or even just non-bad guys

Agreed, it's one of my least favourite George Sherman westerns of the '50s for this reason. A promising cast, but just can't care about that plot. I can recommend Sherman's Dawn at Socorro of this year.

[rischka]

i also enjoyed teodora in spite of the terrible print and dubbing issues -- have you seen a better copy evelyn? coincidentally dawn at socorro is up next

i visited socorro on my roadtrip east this spring and saw the VLA from afar -- closed to visitors cuz covid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array

you can see it coming for miles! took me a bit to recall what it was tho. pretty cool

edit: hold up i've already seen this movie lol. substituting greennui's light house movie that brian unaccountably failed to produce during the last genre cup

[brian d]

edit: hold up i've already seen this movie lol. substituting greennui's light house movie that brian unaccountably failed to produce during the last genre cup

i clearly failed my genre and am a disgrace to the entire esteemed professions of lighthouse keepers and architects, and have never felt so much shame in my entire life

[rischka]

edit: hold up i've already seen this movie lol. substituting greennui's light house movie that brian unaccountably failed to produce during the last genre cup

i clearly failed my genre and am a disgrace to the entire esteemed professions of lighthouse keepers and architects, and have never felt so much shame in my entire life

NOOOO i was just checking if you were still around (yay). it's a good one

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1415 ... 22656?s=20

[brian d]

it's been a long time since i've watched a movie but i'm still checking in here regularly. i definitely want to check out that lighthouse movie, it looked like a good one.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

i also enjoyed teodora in spite of the terrible print and dubbing issues -- have you seen a better copy evelyn?

Oh, I watched the .ts fandub file that is on CG and PTP, and I was happy with its image and sound - from an RAI 3 broadcast.

[Silga]

I watched Suddenly (Lewis Allen) for the poll. Not sure if it is going to end up on my final list, but Frank Sinatra shines in his role.

[rischka]

i also enjoyed teodora in spite of the terrible print and dubbing issues -- have you seen a better copy evelyn?

Oh, I watched the .ts fandub file that is on CG and PTP, and I was happy with its image and sound - from an RAI 3 broadcast.

i expect i've got too picky in my old age. the tableux were amazing regardless. btw i am currently the only seeder of hajji baba on kg

[ororama]

1. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
2. The Last Bridge (Helmut Käutner)
3. Sound of the Mountain (Mikio Naruse)
4. Godzilla (Ishirô Honda)
5. Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita)
6. Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock)
7. Pushover (Richard Quine)
8. A Story from Chikamatsu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
9. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
10. Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold)
11. Carmen Jones (Otto Preminger)
12. The Far Country (Anthony Mann)
13. Salt of the Earth (Herbert J. Biberman)
14. An Inspector Calls (Guy Hamilton)
15. Them! (Gordon Douglas)
16. Robinson Crusoe (Luis Buñuel)
17. Senso (Luchino Visconti)
18. The Country Girl (George Seaton)
19. Dov'è la libertà...? (Roberto Rossellini)
20. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)

[sally]

i watched a 1954 film! (and for continuity from 1929 it was a joris ivens one, tbh he should have stayed there)

The film evoked very different emotions in the Viennese correspondent of the Catholic Dutch daily DE VOLKSKRANT. He described SONG OF THE RIVERS as a film 'for complete morons'

we'll never get anywhere with an attitude like that!

das lied der ströme

[niminy-piminy]

fortunately enough, the mondo film genre developed in time and within the upcoming decades, the brethren in Christ with cinephile leanings could forget about the moronic "The Song of the Rivers" and instead read on the pages of DE VOLKSKRANT positive reviews of "Mondo Cane", "Shocking Asia", "Africa Addio", "Mondo Topless", "Mondo Nudo", "Mondo Bizarro", "Macabro", "Mondo Delirium", "Cannibal Holocaust", and alike.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Is there a weirder year for MGM musicals than 1954? The Freed Unit does Brigadoon and Donen does Seven Brides, each certifiably bonkers, with splendid choreography and icky-sickly nonsense plots.

[Silga]

Oh what a great time I had yesterday watching Track of the Cat (William A. Wellman). A great western where, instead of traditional thinly veiled story of western archetypes, you get a mythological take on spirituality and fate. Great setting and photography. Loved Diana Lynn! More snowy westerns!

[Lencho of the Apes]

I haven't watched it yet, but Byron Haskin's Long John Silver seems to have a bit of that McMahonist vibe...

[rischka]

thx for l'air de paris, really enjoyed it!



a great bromance.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

FYI: Thoxans has asked me to relieve him of running the year polls, so I'll be doing the tallying henceforth including 1954. Everything else (scoring system, etc.) remains the same.

[rischka]

thx evelyn. hope you're ok thoxans

my rewatch of sansho the bailiff has been kind of amazing

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No24:
CLOSED VISION (Marc’O)

Sixty Minutes in the Interior Life of a Man

intro statement dated 1955, copyright 1953 (U.S. copyright 1954), imdb & ltbxd 1954, occasionally also from 1952.

Debuting at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival with the endorsements from Jean Cocteau and Luis Buñuel...

https://www.ubu.com/film/marco_closed.html
or
https://youtu.be/T-emZ7th7pM

[Lencho of the Apes]

Salt Of The Earth, Herman Bibetrman, USA -- underseen among this crew, and I hope people aren't going to sleep on it. Labor organizing for Evelyn, women with agency for Mags, general heartwarming agitprop with a notable knack for intersectional thinking for everybody.

[arkheia]

^ Definitely second this, it's a real gem!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Thanks for the rec - I'll prioritize it further. I expect I'll love it.

[sally]

Salt Of The Earth, Herman Bibetrman, USA -- underseen among this crew, and I hope people aren't going to sleep on it.

i'll try! i'm really struggling with sound at the minute, or maybe not sound, just the lush way film had firmly found its groove by 1954, everything seems so oily! but if i do watch anything for this poll (i have 2 to-watch-pile actual dvds and five previously-downloadeds that i'm not sure i even care about getting to) it will be this one and the lighthouse movie

[dominicano1970]

Appassionatamente (Gentilomo)
The Barefoot Contessa (Mankiewicz)
Cry Vengeance (Stevens)
Johnny Guitar (Ray)
The 'Maggie' (Mackendrick)
The Naked Jungle (Haskin)
Senso (Visconti)
Sound of the Mountain (Naruse)
Them! (Douglas)
Vera Cruz (Aldrich)

Fear (Rossellini)
A Free Woman (Cottafavi)
The Garden of Women (Kinoshita)
Jubilee Trail (Kane)
River of No Return (Preminger)
Sabrina (Wilder)
Salt of the Earth (Biberman)
Silver Lode (Dwan)
The Slave of Sin (Matarazzo)
Touchez pas au grisbi (Becker)

[greennui]

Hoping to get at least one more film over the line before the deadline, maybe the Seven Samurai rewatch. Been impossible to watch films this month.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Salt of the Earth was breathtaking. Thanks for pushing me to prioritize it, @Lencho and @arkheia. I may not get a chance for another '54, but if so, ended on a high note.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
Salt of the Earth (Herbert J. Biberman)
The Far Country (Anthony Mann)
Dawn at Socorro (George Sherman)

Homesteader Droopy (Tex Avery)
Bewitched Bunny (Chuck Jones)
Gojira (Ishiro Honda)
The Mad Magician (John Brahm)

Theodora, Slave Empress (Riccardo Freda)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold)
Gyromorphosis (Hy Hirsh)
Riding Shotgun (Andre De Toth)

Ride Clear of Diablo (Jesse Hibbs)
Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli)
Masterson of Kansas (William Castle)
Black Tuesday (Hugo Fregonese)

The Raid (Hugo Fregonese)
An American in Rome (Steno)
The Adventures of Hajji Baba (Don Weis)
Jail Bait (Ed Wood)

[Silga]

Final list:

Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock)
Riot in Cell Block 11 (Don Siegel)
An Inspector Calls (Guy Hamilton)
Drive a Crooked Road (Richard Quine)
Executive Suite (Robert Wise)

Track of the Cat (William A. Wellman)
The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
Vera Cruz (Robert Aldrich)
Apache (Robert Aldrich)
Silver Lode (Allan Dwan)
Suddenly (Lewis Allen)

[ofrene]

A Star Is Born
An Inn at Osaka
Johnny Guitar
Journey to Italy
Late Chrysanthemums
Sansho the Bailiff
Seven Samurai
Sound of the Mountain
The Crucified Lovers
Twenty-Four Eyes

Brigadoon
Free Woman
Human Desire
Nus masculins (François Reichenbach)
Rear Window
Salt of the Earth
Senso
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
Vera Cruz
Woman of Rumor