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Posts from the ‘1951’ Category

Dec 22

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Disney’s 1951 animated version of Alice in Wonderland is a disappointment. It’s the 13th animated classic from Disney and it was a long time coming. Walt Disney wanted to pull something out of the Lewis Carroll classic for some time and thought that many of the problems of the story and of the setting could be “solved” by animating it.

Alice in Wonderland is often considered to be in Disney’s “English cycle” of pictures. The film falls in line with the likes of Peter Pan, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and The Sword in the Stone, all of which had very British feels. In the case of Alice in Wonderland, the sense of British “properness” is perhaps the film’s greatest strength, as it gives Alice an awful lot of personality and wit. Her character, voiced here by Kathryn Beaumont, is the highlight of the movie.

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Dec 1

Love Nest

1951′s Love Nest is an outmoded piece of fluff, even for its time. It is a dated comedy that manages to make each female character either a fool or a tart, so don’t expect much by way of progressive thinking here. While many associate the 1950s with gender roles of a certain type, films like All About Eve proved that women could actually be represented as figures of value and intelligence in Hollywood’s version of things.

I was hard-pressed to find a female character in Love Nest that was treated respectfully. What’s more, the womanizing creep guilty of defrauding women is uplifted as a hero for reasons that were more than a little fuzzy. With so much mixed-up nonsense, it’s hard to imagine any good reason to see Love Nest. As it is, there may be one reason: Marilyn Monroe. Don’t be fooled, though, she’s not in it much.

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Apr 28

The Lavender Hill Mob

Between 1947 and 1957, West London’s Ealing Studios was responsible for a remarkable output of comedy pictures. Right in the middle of the Ealing comedies is The Lavender Hill Mob, an Academy Award-winning picture directed by Charles Crichton. Crichton, who also directed A Fish Called Wanda, proves a terrific farce director with this funny little heist movie.

The key reason to check out The Lavender Hill Mob is for a classic Alec Guinness performance, of course. Guinness really showed his stuff in the Ealing comedies, but more casual filmgoers probably know him best as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy. Guinness had impeccable comic timing and was a master at playing a host of character. In fact, he played eight different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets.

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Jun 10

Early Summer

Early_Summer_Criterion

The films of Yasujirō Ozu are noted for their character development and honesty. There was perhaps no greater filmmaker when it came to capturing minimalistic conversation and stories that simply exist in moments without pushing forward with too much action or movement. Ozu’s Noriko trilogy clearly emphasized his feminism, with the character of Noriko featured with a tremendous independent streak.

The second film in the Noriko trilogy is 1951’s Early Summer (the first film is Late Spring and the final picture is Tokyo Story). It is not essential to see the films in order, nor do they comprise a traditional trilogy as we might understand it in modern context. They do, however, feature the character of Noriko (Setsuko Hara).

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May 29

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A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire is a classic, without a doubt. This 1951 adaptation of the play of the same name by the brilliant Tennessee Williams packed a punch that no film before it had to offer at the time, causing censors to gather in an uproar and causing audiences to be mercilessly split over the content of the daring film. Directed by Elia Kazan, who also directed the original stage production, A Streetcar Named Desire features untouchable acting and a beautifully haunting script.

The film stars Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind, 21 Days) as Blanche DuBois, one of the most infamous film characters of all time. It also stars the wonderful Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, the brutish husband of Stella Kowalski (Kim Hunter). Karl Malden, Nick Dennis and others also make up the cast. The film truly takes a lot of its strength from the impeccable performances, led by the astonishingly electric Vivien Leigh. Leigh’s performance is true textbook stuff, delivering monologues and long speeches with flair and panache and creating such an aura around the character of DuBois that one becomes lost in the film.

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