1954 poll 2.0

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No7:
HOWDY DOODY AND HIS MAGIC HAT (Gene Deitch)

https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2236619/?ref_=tt_urv
Long thought lost, this abstract animated short is mainly notable as the first credited directorial effort of innovative animator Gene Deitch. As the title implies, this was the initial effort of making a cartoon series of the popular TV puppet, Howdy Doody. Unfortunately, that puppet's creator and voice, "Buffalo" Bob Smith, didn't like the results (the fact that the whole thing had no speaking parts might have bothered him) and ordered the negative destroyed and if a copy hadn't been recently discovered at the Library of Congress, it would have remained so.

https://youtu.be/04R66KOuozs

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No8:
THE WAY TO THE SHADOW GARDEN (Stan Brakhage)

https://youtu.be/kVGA8b7UnPw

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No13:
DESISTFILM (Stan Brakhage)

https://www.sensesofcinema.com/2004/cteq/desistfilm/
...
Brakhage’s work often bears a significant relation to the horror genre – the exploration of heightened subjective vision and bodily decay; the deploying of fragmented “narrative” forms; the address to a knowledgeable clique. Many of the directors Brakhage admires – such as Méliès and Dreyer – have made striking, post-generic uses of horror, and Brakhage’s appreciation of them is often couched in mystico-shamanistic terms. The supernatural will recur in films like Cat’s Cradle (1959), The Dante Quartet (1987), The Chartres Series (1994) and The Dark Tower (1999), until it becomes indistinguishable from more spiritual expression.
...
The avant-garde has often presumed not just to break dominant narrative forms, but the social norms embedded in them. Brakhage’s often taboo-breaking subject matter – love-making in Wedlock House: An Intercourse (1959), birth in Water Window Baby Moving (1959), autopsy in The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (1971) – brings his work close to exploitation cinema, a status also suggested by the limited, non-mainstream, even furtive conditions of his films’ screening. But the emphasis on teenage anomie in Desistfilm was also typical of a time that produced films like Rebel Without A Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955) and The Blackboard Jungle (1955, Richard Brooks). For an art dedicated to liberating the eye, discourse surrounding the experimental film is often elitist and prescriptive, so it might be fruitful to position Desistfilm and its representation of anti-social subjects such as drugs, sex and violence as a left-field forerunner of such Hollywood films as The Man with the Golden Arm (Otto Preminger, 1955), Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956), Bigger than Life (Nicholas Ray,1956) and Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956).
...

https://youtu.be/gIRw7Kxz5rY

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No17:
MAN IS IN PAIN (Larry Jordan)

A woman reads Philip Lamantia's poem (from which the film gets its title), which evokes masculine angst as the hand acts out the scenario of the poem.

Man Is In Pain
by Philip Lamantia

Man is in pain
ten bright balls bat the air
falling through the window
on which his double leans a net the air made
to catch the ten bright balls

Man is a room
where the malefic hand turns a knob
on the unseen unknown double's door

Man is in pain
with his navel hook caught on a stone quarry
where ten bright balls chose to land
AND where the malefic hand carves
on gelatinous air THE WINDOW
to slam shut on his shadow's tail

ten bright balls bounce into the unseen
unknown double's net
Man is a false window
through which his double walks to the truth
that falls as ten bright balls
the malefic hand tossed into the air
Man is in pain
ten bright spikes nailed to the door

(1952)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Lamantia
His poems were often visionary, ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic, exploring the subconscious world of dreams and linking it to daily experiences, while sometimes incorporating typographical arrangements a la concrete poetry.

[sally]

hold on a sec, this larry jordan on imdb is listed as also being the director of a load of mariah carey/shania twain videos in the 90's? mind blown.

[niminy-piminy]

not to speak of billy idol, new kids on the block, and cyndi lauper!

[arkheia]

Provisional ballot, hopeful to find time to catch a few new 1954 films for this month

Narrator's voice: He didn't.

Brigadoon (Vincent Minnelli)
Viaggio in Italia (Roberto Rossellini)
Sansho the Bailiff (Kenji Mizoguchi)
The Crucified Lovers (Kenji Mizoguchi)
The Love of a Woman (Jean Grémillon)
The Far Country (Anthony Mann)
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Jacques Becker)
Twenty-Four Eyes (Keisuke Kinoshita)
The Adventures of Hajji Baba (Don Weis)
Cattle Queen of Montana (Allan Dwan)
A Free Woman (Vittorio Cottafavi)
Garden of Evil (Henry Hathaway)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
Red Garters (George Marshall)
Salt of the Earth (Herbert Biberman)
Susan Slept Here (Frank Tashlin)
Godzilla (Ishiro Honda)
Silver Lode (Allan Dwan)

[niminy-piminy]

"subversive" imdb makes jekyll & hyde of the poor larry.

[rischka]

go hajji baba. i'm watching amar w/dilip kumar (rip)



he cut a dashing figure. madhubala and dilip kumar were a real life couple and not too long after this, madhubala's father sued her studio for trying to make her shoot on location as he felt it was only an excuse for dilip kumar to be alone with her. she supported her father and kumar testified against them. the end of romance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naya_Daur ... Production

https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1412 ... 17219?s=20

still she's probably my favorite bollywood actress of this period. very good looking film and quite interesting themes. i will finish it tmrw

edit: amazing melodrama

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No19:
SOCIAL LION (Jack Kinney)

https://youtu.be/OnWrX1WWi6I

[niminy-piminy]

1954 poll No20:
BY WORD OF MOUSE (Friz Freleng)

https://vimeo.com/27001423

[pabs]

1. Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock)
Vera Cruz (Aldrich)
La Strada (Fellini)
Johnny Guitar (Ray)
Viaggio in Italia (Rossellini)
On the Waterfront (Kazan)
A Star Is Born (Cukor)
Senso (Visconti)
Touchez Pas au Grisbi (Becker)
Salt of the Earth (Biberman)


Watched for this poll:

Salt of the Earth
Kutasek a Kutilka
Late Chrysanthemums
Are you among them?



Hope to see:

Man is in Pain
Leuchtfeuer
An Inn at Osaka
Taza.Son.of.Cochise
French.Cancan
Cattle Queen of Montana
Abismos de pasión

[rischka]

Cottafavi's whirlpool of sin was pretty great in spite of saintly mama. Even jacked a scene from out of the past https://twitter.com/rbgscfz/status/1413 ... 23912?s=19

I probably only have room for one cottafavi though

[Angel]

I probably only have room for one cottafavi though

One Cottafavi, one Freda and one Matarazzo, that it is the right thing to do.

[sally]

1954 is full of typical sexist garbage that is not fun to watch. am struggling to find any female directors working - lotte reiniger is on fire, there's two by muriel box that look bloody awful and there's jacquline audry's huis-clos.


anyone got any others?

[rischka]

There's an Edith carlmer I was gonna get to...

Also I have freda's messalina slave empress, dunno how feminist it may or may not be. It's a dub too

[niminy-piminy]

on KM one of the search filters is "female director" and combined with "1954" it offers 30 entries...
https://www.kinometer.com/?year=1954&fe ... ear-latest

1x Shirley Clarke
11x Lotte Reiniger (1x with Vivian Milroy, 1x with Carlo Koch)
2x Muriel Box
1x Jacqueline Audry
1x Edith Carlmar

and then...
BRIDE WITH A DOWRY (Tatyana Lukashevich)
PROBLEM CHILD (Tatyana Lukashevich)
BORIS GODUNOV (Vera Stroyeva)
AN ORANGE THROAT (Aleksandra Snezhko-Blotskaya)
A STRAW BULLOCK (Olga Khodatayeva)
NOT FAR FROM WARSAW (Maria Kaniewska)
LIBAN, TERRE DES HOMMES ET DES DIEUX (Louise Weiss)
THE TECKMAN MYSTERY (Wendy Toye)
THE LITTLE CHIMNEY SWEEP (Vivian Milroy) ... IMDb 1955
HENDES STORE AFTEN (Annelise Reenberg)
LOWLANDS (Leni Riefenstahl)

and then (half-made)...
TIGER GIRL (Aleksandr Ivanovsky, Nadezhda Kosheverova)
SUSPICIOUS PERSON (Soja Jovanović, Predrag Dinulović)
THREE BAGS OF TRICKERIES (Olga Khodatayeva, Pyotr Nosov)

in sum, there are (currently in KM database) 826 "1954" entries and thus (if i count right) females made (as directors or co-directors) ca. 3,6% of all the "1954" movies.

[sally]

LOWLANDS (Leni Riefenstahl)

this doesn't count. she used roma from the concentration camps as extras and after they were done filming they were returned and murdered. if anyone watches this i hope they go blind. (can't believe i was following four people that hearted this on letterboxd)

but thanks for the info jiri! 3.6% is pretty impressive! woohoo

[niminy-piminy]

i also checked the previous poll year (1929) and the score is 7 out of 380 (1,8%).

and if decade-jumping from 1954 towards nowadays...
1964 ... 30 out of 1185 (2,5%)
1974 ... 77 out of 1512 (5,1%)
1984 ... 101 out of 1328 (7,6%)
1994 ... 170 out of 1464 (11,6%)
2004 ... 329 out of 2460 (13,4%)
2014 ... 558 out of 3306 (16,9%)

all these numbers/counts taken from a single film database are certainly not flawless but i guess the reality is not much different.
we are marching towards the bright future quite slow!

[Lencho of the Apes]

That was cute, in Cattle Queen Of Montana, where they backed the covered wagon up to the loading dock to take on their gear.

The movie was bollocks, though.

[Angel]

EDIT. Here's a proper (unranked) ballot:
Black Horse Canyon
Cry Vengeance
Drive a Crooked Road
Jivaro
La schiava del peccato (The Slave of Sin)
La spiaggia (The Boarder)
Magiki polis (The Magic City)
Miyamoto Musashi (Samurai I)
Non credo più all'amore - La paura (Fear)
Onna no sono (The Garden of Women)
Piatka z ulicy Barskiej (‎Five from Barska Street)
Sabrina
Salt of the Earth
Silver Lode
Siraa Fil-Wadi (The Blazing Sun)
The 'Maggie'
The Naked Jungle
Them!
Ulisse (Ulysses)
Yama no oto (Sound of the Mountain)

20 that have not yet been mentioned:
Beachhead
Black Horse Canyon
Bolshaya semya (A Big Family)
Cronache di poveri amanti (Chronicle of Poor Lovers)
Cry Vengeance
Dangerous Mission
Hayat ou maut (Life or Death)
Jivaro
La schiava del peccato (The Slave of Sin)
Le rouge et le noir (The Red and the Black)
Naked Alibi
Neelakkuyil (The Blue Koel)
Non credo più all'amore - La paura (Fear)
Peccato che sia una canaglia (‎Too Bad She's Bad)
Piatka z ulicy Barskiej (‎Five from Barska Street)
River of No Return
Robinson Crusoe
The Egyptian
The Good Die Young
The Naked Jungle

20 already mentioned:
Chikamatsu monogatari (A Story from Chikamatsu)
Die letzte Brücke (The Last Bridge)
Drive a Crooked Road
La spiaggia (The Boarder)
Magiki polis (The Magic City)
Miyamoto Musashi (Samurai I)
Onna no sono (The Garden of Women)
Sabrina
Salt of the Earth
Silver Lode
Siraa Fil-Wadi (The Blazing Sun)
The Barefoot Contessa
The Far Country
The 'Maggie'
Them!
Touchez pas au grisbi
Ulisse (Ulysses)
Una donna libera (A Free Woman)
Vera Cruz
Yama no oto (Sound of the Mountain)

HM:
Raíces (segment "Las vacas")

Deliberately excluded (IMDb/TSPDT/S&S top 500):
A Star Is Born
Dial M for Murder
Johnny Guitar
La strada
On the Waterfront
Rear Window
Sanshô dayû
Senso
Shichinin no samurai
Viaggio in Italia

To see before the deadline:
Avant le déluge
Bildnis einer Unbekannten
Camilla
Murder by Proxy
Pane, amore e gelosia (rewatch)

Wanted:
Avanzi di galera
Ernst Thälmann
Il cavaliere di Maison Rouge
Les révoltés de Lomanach
L'ombra
Stärker als die Nacht
Taiyo no nai machi
This Is My Love

[arkheia]

Decided to revisit The Adventures of Hajji Baba and felt a similarly ambivalent appreciation to my first time for its unique artistry. Still definitely recommended though.

Also watched the John Brahm horror film The Mad Magician with Vincent Price. Fun enough Price performance but wouldn't add it to my list.

Lol, sorry Lencho if my ballot for Cattle Queen put you onto it. Please don't mind my occasional lapse into French cinephilia / late-Dwan auteurism

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

That's a great point in your review about the oneiric atmosphere of Hajji Baba. I'd previously found the repetition of the middling Nat King Cole title tune really annoying, but I like it better if I think of it as an incessant lullaby, and my concern about the film's orientalism is also moderated by the emphasis on dreaming. I'll have to move it up slightly in my favourite films of '54, though it's still not the pinnacle of Don Weis auteurism for me (which shall forever be I Love Melvin).

[Lencho of the Apes]

No prob, arkheia; I'm French-influenced enough that CQ was a must-see from the outset (and "other" enough that I looked forward to it as a chore. )

Right now I'm more receptive to the year's noirs -- Black Tuesday, A Life At Stake and Bait were all flawed but had qualities that set me a-tingle.

[arkheia]

That's a great point in your review about the oneiric atmosphere of Hajji Baba. I'd previously found the repetition of the middling Nat King Cole title tune really annoying, but I like it better if I think of it as an incessant lullaby, and my concern about the film's orientalism is also moderated by the emphasis on dreaming. I'll have to move it up slightly in my favourite films of '54, though it's still not the pinnacle of Don Weis auteurism for me (which shall forever be I Love Melvin).

Thanks! Much of the film's dream-like aspect really only clicked for me after seeing it a second time, particularly the deliberateness in the blocking at times for how frequently we see the characters lying down and resting. And yes, I definitely share your enthusiasm for I Love Melvin as well, one of the sheer delights of cinema!

Right now I'm more receptive to the year's noirs -- Black Tuesday, A Life At Stake and Bait were all flawed but had qualities that set me a-tingle.

Ah, these are all good leads. I'm going to try and watch one this week

[rischka]

yay fellow hajji baba fans. the music is what sold me on it.

[MrCarmady]

Watched Susan Slept Here the other day which was cute and icky at the same time.

Really weak year for me but these will make the list for sure:

Rear Window (Hitchcock)
Vera Cruz (Aldrich)
Drive a Crooked Road (Quine)
Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
Johnny Guitar (Ray)

maybes/re-watch pile:
Magnificent Obsession (Sirk)
Sabrina (Wilder)
Dial M for Murder (Hitchcock)

to see list is countless but here's a few:
Sound of the Mountain
Senso
Track of the Cat
Twenty-Four Eyes
Them!
The Crucified Lovers
Touchez pas au grisbi
Silver Lode
La paura
The Far Country

[arkheia]

yay fellow hajji baba fans. the music is what sold me on it.

Lol, that theme's been drifting in and out of my head now since I rewatched it. I'll post a link in the tree house to the copy I watched for anyone else who might be interested in giving it a look.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I enjoyed Riccardo Freda's Theodora, Slave Empress. If you have a taste for peplum, it's quite interesting both in visual style and narrative themes. If any one wants to see it and needs help finding it, just let me know.

[rischka]

yay i've got it lined up too. but first westerns



broken lance is not bad; nice use of cinemascope and an interesting 'trial' film. spencer tracy and katy jurado as his wife are quite good. the problem is mainly with robert wagner their 'half-breed' son old spence goes to war (in court) with a copper company for poisoning the water on his land. thinly disguised 'king lear' theme with brothers