This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.
Zazie Dans Le Metro - Paris as seen through the eyes of a precocious child, is a magical realist playground. Combining sequences of breathless slapstick, soaring fantasy, and sly whimsy, you may become exhausted by "Zazie," and its title character, played by the winning Catherine Demongeot, but never bored. It always makes me a little sad that director Louis Malle would rarely return to such full-throated, playful comedy in the future.
Psycho - Alfred Hitchcock's most iconic film broke a lot of rules in the name of suspense, including some of his own, and left an impression that no one will soon forget. Watching the film now with more context, I marvel at the way Hitchcock played on the audiences' expectations, the established screen personas of his actors, and how he took full advantage of the black and white cinematography. Bernard Hermann's score, however, is still the MVP.
The Apartment - My favorite leading man of this era is Jack Lemmon, a wonderful comic performer with such a loveable everyman presence. Billy Wilder pairs him up here with the equally formidable Shirley MacLaine, who is at her most charming. The dialogue is crackling, the farce is elegant, and the romance is sweet. This is romantic comedy at its most entertaining and most endlessly quotable, and I wish more modern films would take their cues from it.
The Virgin Spring - Some credit this Ingmar Bergman film for birthing the slasher genre, since it would be an influence on some of the classics of that genre. This is a great irony, since Bergman's film is far more interested in the spiritual and psychological effects of seeking revenge than any of the acts of violence depicted. Max von Sydow gives a bleak, powerful performance as a father who loses himself to the grip of wrath after the loss of his child.
Two Women - Vitorio De Sica and Sophia Loren were a formidable pair in Italian cinema, and "Two Women" was the height of their collaborative success. From a script by Cesare Zavattini, the film follows the harrowing journey of a mother and daughter pair in the thick of WWII. It's an intense, difficult film that depicts the loss of life and loss of innocence in very stark terms. Loren's commanding performance is the lynchpin, one that nabbed her the Best Actress Oscar.
Le Trou - One of the few thrillers that pulls off such a shocking reveal that I screamed out loud in a screening. This is a prison escape movie of rare delights, full of betrayals, schemes, and double-crosses. All the characters are rotten scoundrels, but their machinations are so absorbing, and the filmmaking is so strong, the viewer can't help but be caught up in their plotting. Director Jacques Becker used a documentary-like style with few frills, heightening the immersion.
Never on Sunday - A romp set in Greece with Melina Mercouri in her breakout role. It's a reverse "Pygmalion" tale that pits a free-spirited prostitute against an American tourist who is determined to save her from a life of vice. Mercouri is an absolute joy as Ilya, who dances and sings with abandon, and is keen on living her life to its fullest. One has to wonder why she bothers to try and engage with the rigid American, but she clearly has a lot of fun loosening him up.
Spartacus - Stanley Kubrick's sword-and-sandals epic is probably the least Kubrick-like picture he's ever made. However, it boasts such a wealth of talent, stuffed to the gills with big stars like Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis, Peter Ustinov, and Charles Laughton. The scope is epic, the production spares no expense, and the spectacle is off the charts. Best of all, its success would give Kubrick the clout he needed to become, well, Kubrick.
The Bellboy - Jerry Lewis films can be something of an acquired taste, but I think he's at his best with simpler material. With "The Bellboy," which Lewis wrote and directed as well as starred in, there's no real plot - just a series of extended gags. He plays a hapless bellhop at a Miami Beach hotel who can never get a word in edgewise. Full of physical comedy, sight gags, and slapstick, this feels very much like a silent era comedy, and a good one at that.
Eyes Without a Face - Finally, here's a curious horror film from France's Georges Franju. At its center is one of the era's rare female monsters, the disfigured Christiane, whose father is a mad scientist intent on giving her a full face transplant. Due to significant censorship concerns in Europe at the time, pains were taken to emphasize Christiane over her monstrous father, and there's almost no gore - just beautiful, macabre imagery hinting at the depraved.
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