1951: A Place in the Sun (George Stevens)

1951: A Place in the Sun (George Stevens)
Goddamn Shelley Winters is annoying in this movie!  Okay now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's have a quick discussion.  

I first saw this one in the same theater in Paris, Rue Mouffetard, where I saw You Only Live Once and The Blue Angel.  It's not even that great of a theater, but for some reason almost every time I went there, I saw something that became a favorite.  I wonder if others experience this phenomenon.  Even when I was living in Los Angeles, it happened. Some theaters I would go to, I almost always disliked the movie I saw. Other places were almost batting a 1,ooo.  Anyway, this theater on Mouffetard still holds one of the best records for me.

I guess if I had to boil down my reasons for loving this one as much as I do, I would say it has almost all to do with Montgomery Clift's vulnerability meeting Elizabeth Taylor's staggering beauty.  Paired with one of these doomed romance stories (based on Theodore Dreiser's famous novel An American Tragedy), this one becomes an incredibly powerful concoction for me.

I have a thing for tragedy in general, I almost always love Clift, and Taylor's beauty at this point in her career is about as convincing as anything I've ever seen.  George Stevens, the director,  just confidently delivers the goods.  The emotions are there, and I'm along for the story from almost minute one until the very end.

Other contenders for 1951: A year, like any other, where there are some things I still need to see.  These include:  Anthony Mann's The Tall Target, Federico Fellini's The White Sheik, Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet, Mikio Naruse's Repast, Georges Franju's Hotel des Invalides, Albert Lewin's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, and Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still.  I really like Stanley Donen's Singin' in the Rain (yes, Mom, that pick's for you :), Vittorio De Sica's Miracle in Milan, Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Nicholas Ray's Flying Leathernecks.  I love Raoul Walsh's Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N.  However, my closest runner-up would be another Ray film, On Dangerous Ground.

11/10/10 I watched Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still.  An incredibly useful tool to see the mindset of our country in the early fifties and full of Wise's extremely solid craftsmanship.  Michael Rennie suggests Tony Perkins circa-Psycho, and this film certainly wasn't lost on Spielberg and his Close Encounters.

11/11/10 I watched Federico Fellini's The White Sheik.  The director's sensibility is already large and well on display in this, his second feature.  The acting and Rota's music are both superb, but the story's not always entirely captivating.  Fellini shows promise that will produce greater work in the years that follow.  

11/17/10 I watched Samuel Fuller's The Steel Helmet.  Fuller's expressionistic style and inventiveness under constrained circumstances elevate this film to great interest.  Raw and full of engaged subtext, it's maybe not as thoroughly engrossing as his Pickup on South Street, but it's still an incredibly original film for its time.  

11/25/11 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's Early Summer.  Ozu mixes up the approach a little, adding more music than usual and quite a number of incredibly expressive tracking shots.  The cumulative effect though is about the same as I have to come expect with Ozu's cinema - piercing and majestic as anything the cinema has ever produced.  Feeling rattled or a bit adrift, I would think anyone coming in with the right amount of patience would leave Ozu's cinema, (this work definitely included), reminded of the lyrical beauty of life.  Ozu has gotten short shrift, too, when it comes to a reputation as something austere and wholly cerebral.  There's a nice playfulness at times with this one, as well as a real lively spirit.     

3/2/13 I watched Alexander Mackendrick's The Man in the White Suit.  A great little film I never knew much about.  Alec Guinness is wonderful as the vulnerable scientist.  And Mackendrick keeps things suspenseful, fun, and heartfelt.  One of those films that will be great fun to watch for years to come.

3/8/14 I watched Joseph Losey's The Prowler.  Shot by the great Arthur Miller, Losey brings a western, expansive aesthetic to noir.  Full of Losey's typical psychological discomfort, Heflin is spot-on as the sociopathic stalker.  Nothing is rosy here and trouble is announced nearly at second one.  Working its story more psychologically than viscerally, it is up there with the upper shelf artistic noirs. 

10/18/14 I watched Albert Lewin's Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.  A stately film with Cardiff behind the camera and a bit of the Powell-Pressburger aura is a bizarre work that is part confounding, part moving.  Gardner seems more exposed than ever and you can't help but think about the Cardiff-Gardner collaboration a few years later.  I liked this one less than I had hoped but am glad to have finally caught up with it.  

4/24/16 I watched Ida Lupino's Hard, Fast and Beautiful.  Possibly the first Lupino feature I have seen in its entirety impresses with its expressionistic camerawork and unconventional emotional passages such as the film's poetic final few frames.  Lupino has a big reputation as a marginal, early independent American filmmaker and after seeing this it is obvious why.  

1/19/19 I watched Sacha Guitry's La Poison.  Another excellent performance from Simon but Guitry's style just feels a little too cute to me.

12/30/21 I watched Jacques Becker's Edouard et Caroline.  It's the ninth of his thirteen features I have seen and what impressed me more than anything is how modern the narrative construction still feels today.  The film consists of only two sets and bears more resemblance in its scope to many low-budget American indies than to the other films of Becker.  It seems to have lots to say about the importance of art in post WWII French society.  

9/30/23 I watched Anthony Mann's The Tall Target.  The text is interesting in how similar it still speaks to the political landscape in this country 72 years later.  But the film itself and the way it unfolds is not very visceral or entertaining.