A Movie From Every Year: 1950-59

 This batch was half in color for the first decade and I found a few more additions to the decades best (IMO anyway). Here's a look at my ride through the 1950s.

1950.)

Title: Winchester '73

Runtime: 92 Minutes

Director: Anthony Mann

Plot: A specially made gun changes hands several times, often with deadly consequences when it is stolen from the winner of a shooting competition.

What I Thought: I thought it was a nice change of pace to see James Stewart get a little rough with somebody. The sequences are like little vignettes that put together this wonderful puzzle.

Rating:3.5/5

1951.)

Title: Death of a Salesman

Runtime: 115 Minutes

Director: Laslo Benedek

Plot: A salesman is out of touch with his work and his family as he slowly unwinds into madness.

What I Thought: It has the feel of a stage production on camera at times, but Fredric March brings his A-game in this Oscar-nominated performance.

Rating:3/5

1952.)

Title: Invasion U.S.A.

Runtime: 73 Minutes

Director: Alfred E.Green

Plot: A group at a bar witness a Soviet invasion that overtakes America.

What I Thought:  Not spoiler, it's all part of hypnosis and the people vow to do better in the fight against Communism. I assume HUAC was responsible for this.

Rating: 0.5/5

1953.)

Title: Indiscretion of an American Wife

Runtime: 63 Minutes

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Plot: An American woman on vacation tries to end her affair with an Italian playboy.

What I Thought: So this movie is not great, but it's because of the tumultuous behind-the-scenes activity. Producer David O. Selznick and De Sica butted heads throughout causing him to heavily edit the movie in post-production. Selznick's wife, Jennifer Jones, was struggling to deal with the death of her previous husband and collapsing marriage with Selznick. Also, Montgomery Clift is Italian?

Rating: 2/5

1954.)

Title: Johnny Guitar

Runtime: 110 Minutes

Director: Nicholas Ray

Plot: A saloon owner is wrongly accused of murder and bank robbery and must fight off a lynch mob led by her nemesis.

What I Thought: What a fantastic film. The colors pop, Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge are top-notch in their feud against another, and Sterling Hayden oozes cool. The final showdown between the two leading ladies is unlike anything I've seen in a Western.

Rating: 4/5

1955.)

Title: The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell

Runtime: 100 Minutes

Director: Otto Preminger

Plot: A general in the Army openly complains to the press about his superior's efforts to ignore the pilots and their planes. This leads to his court-martial and a showdown with the men he accused of negligence.

What I Thought: I didn't look at how accurate this is, but it would be disheartening if most of it happened. If you enjoy talking and no action, then this is the movie for you.

Rating: 3/5

1956.)

Title: The Brave One

Runtime: 100 Minutes

Director: Irving Rapper

Plot: A journey of a young boy and his pet bull as they embark on a collision course with a famous matador.

What I Thought: It was kind of meh throughout, but that final 20 minutes are pretty intense and I was satisfied with the ending.

Rating: 3/5

1957.)

Title: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Runtime: 122 Minutes

Director: John Sturges

Plot: Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp take on a cattle rancher at the O.K. Corral.

What I Thought: Not once did Kirk Douglas say, "I'm your Huckleberry." This was unacceptable.

Rating: 3/5

1958.)

Title: Cowboy

Runtime: 92 Minutes

Director: Delmer Daves

Plot: An ideal hotel clerk (Jack Lemmon) wants to become a cattle rancher to win the approval of the father of the girl he loves in Mexico. He butts heads with the famous trail boss that eventually hardens him along the way.

What I Thought: Well this was the second movie in the batch ghostwritten by Dalton Trumbo after he was blacklisted. Unlike The Brave One, this one didn't win for screenplay, despite another scene with a bull.

Rating: 2/5

1959.)

Title: Attack of the Giant Leeches

Runtime: 62 Minutes

Director: Bernard L. Kowalski

Plot: Giant leeches (allegedly) wreak havoc on a backwoods community.

What I Thought: The picture says it all.

Rating: 0/5

A Movie From Every Year: 1940-49

 Westerns, war propaganda, and Technicolor. The 1940s featured more color films than any decade previously and it's nice to see some color after all these films. I also took in my share of originals, including the first movie on this list.

1940.)

Title: The Shop Around the Corner

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

Plot: Two shop employees can't stand each other, but it turns out that they're each other's penpals, whom they are deeply in love with.

What I Thought: This was the first of two Christmas movies that I watched well after Christmas, but it was still pretty good. This movie served as the inspiration to You've Got Mail, but I find it to be much more enjoyable.

Rating: 3/5

1941.)

Title: Meet John Doe

Runtime: 122 Minutes

Director: Frank Capra

Plot: A writer invents a man who plans to jump off the Empire State Building on Christmas Eve. A man in need of money pretends to be said man and sparks a political revolution in the process.

What I Thought: Barbra Stanwyck is a fast-talking reporter at the beginning of this movie, but really settles down as it goes. The middle part lulls after an excellent start and a pretty 1940s finish. As usual, Frank Capra has provided something to feel good about at the end.

Rating: 3/5

1942.)

Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

Runtime: 68 Minutes

Director: Roy William Neill

Plot: Sherlock Holmes has to stop Nazis and his nemesis, Moriarty, from capturing a scientist who could change the course of the war.

What I Thought: After watching The Hound of the Baskervilles, this ends up being a real disappointment. It's your run of the mill WWII propaganda film that was so prevalent during the late 30s and early 40s, especially in British filmmaking. Basil Rathbone has a terrible haircut and uses less deduction and more disguises. Just not what I want from Baker Street.

Rating: 1.5/5

1943.)

Title: The Kansan

Runtime: 79 Minutes

Director: George Achainbaud

Plot: A deadshot stops a bank robbery and is named marshall of the town. He must also save the town from a corrupt banker.

What I Thought: It's a Western with a big gunfight and a saloon fight. Otherwise, there's not much there.

Rating: 2/5

1944.)

Title: The Princess and The Pirate

Runtime: 96 Minutes

Director: David Butler/Sidney Landfield

Plot: An actor gets mixed up with pirates and ends up escaping with a princess. They embark on an adventure together but run into trouble on an island of criminals. 

What I Thought: A random selection from what was available on Amazon and I am glad that I picked it. Bob Hope is hilarious in this and I was not expecting him to break the fourth wall or for it to be so meta, like when he loses the girl to Bing Crosby in a cameo role.

Rating: 3.5/5

1945.)

Title: Brewster's Millions

Runtime: 79 Minutes

Director: Allan Dwan

Plot: A man returns home from war to find out he has to spend  $1 million, and he can do it in two months, he'll inherit $7 million. The catch is that he can't tell anyone about the money or the stipulations.

What I Thought: This was a pretty good version of a movie that's been made roughly 100 times. I probably enjoy the Richard Pryor version a little more.

Rating: 3/5

1946.)

Title: Lady in the Lake

Runtime: 103 Minutes

Director: Robert Montgomery

Plot: Robert Montgomery stars and directs this Film Noir that is shot from the POV of Phillip Marlowe (more famously from The Big Sleep). Marlowe gets caught up in a murder and now the cops are after him.

What I Thought: This gimmick grew tiresome and I've seen it done better after the fact. There's just not enough interesting things unfolding before our eyes and Montgomery's.

Rating: 2/5

1947.)

Title: Angel and the Badman

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Director: James Edward Grant

Plot: An injured gunfighter is nursed back to health by a Quaker woman. She tries to persuade him to give up his violent ways.

What I Thought: This is the first movie that John Wayne also produced, but it's lacking something for me. Despite its relatively short runtime somehow it feels long. Lots of talking and minimal action until the third act. I did like the ending though.

Rating: 3/5

1948.)

Title: Louisiana Story

Runtime: 79 Minutes

Director: Robert J. Flaherty

Plot: A boy and his raccoon have their lives interrupted by an oil company that''s starting to drill nearby.

What I Thought: I watched this because it was nominated for writing, but then I found out that big oil also backed the production of this movie. Aside from essentially being a propaganda piece, nothing really happens and they definitely gloss over an oil spill.

Rating: 1.5/5

1949.)

Title: Sands of Iwo Jima

Runtime: 100 Minutes

Director: Allan Dwan

Plot: A hardnosed Sgt. leads his men into battle on the shores of Japan in WWII. There they begin to understand his way of doing things.

What I Thought: John Wayne is his usual hardnosed self, but this time in the South Pacific. I liked that they used a handful of men who fought at Iwo Jima to appear in this movie.

Rating: 3/5

 

A Movie From Every Year: 1930-39

It's talkies only for this list, but there is at least one German film in here. It's also the first time I took in a Laurel and Hardy picture. So here's what the Depression Film Era had to offer.

1930.)

Title: Conspiracy

Runtime: 69 Minutes

Director: Christy Cabanne

Plot: A writer helps a woman clear her name of a crime and bust a gang of criminals.

What I Thought: Well it's a movie. Ned Sparks makes a really weird choice, and Bessie Love gets lost in the shuffle. It should've been a red flag when it didn't even have a Letterboxed rating.

Rating: 1/5

1931.)

Title: Rich and Strange aka East of Shanghai

Runtime: 83 Minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: An unexpected inheritance causes a married couple to drift apart on a cruise.

What I Thought: Yikes, it's a good thing I didn't watch Alfred Hitchcock movies in chronological order because I never would have made it to The Lady Vanishes.

Rating: 1/5

1932.)

Title: Vampyr

Runtime: 75 Minutes

Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer

Plot: A drifter stumbles upon an inn where a girl has been bitten by a vampire.

What I Thought: I needed to do some side reading while watching this to fully make sure I was understanding what was happening. It gets crazy weird at the end and there's this bizarre out of body experience the main character has that got me lost.

Rating: 3/5

1933.)

Title: Ace of Aces

Runtime: 76 Minutes

Director: J. Walter Ruben

Plot: A pacifist is guilted into joining the war effort and then becomes obsessed with gunning down German fighter planes.

What  I Thought: There are some really cool plane sequences in a movie that I picked because it was short and available on TCM. It also carries the rare anti-war movie in an era that is post-World War I and pre-World War II.

Rating: 3/5

1934.)

Title: The Defense Rests

Runtime: 70 Minutes

Director: Lambert Hillyer

Plot: A shady lawyer meets his match when a new lawyer challenges his sleazy way of doing business.

What I Thought: Reading other reviews I tend to agree that the love plotline of this movie seems forced to say the least. An average courtroom movie.

Rating: 2.5/5

1935.)

Title: Tit for Tat

Runtime: 19 Minutes

Director: Charley Rogers

Plot: Following the events of Them Thar Hills, Stan and Ollie get into a back and forth with their storefront neighbor and an old nemesis.

What I Thought: I chuckled quite a bit through this movie, but really felt like most of these gags could have easily been prevented had the person waiting for them to be done simply moved out of the way.

Rating: 3.5/5

1936.)

Title: Come and Get It

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Director: Howard Hawks/William Wyler/Richard Rosson

Plot: A greedy lumberjack abandons the girl who loves him to marry for money. Later he tries to get with the woman's daughter.

What I Thought: Walter Brennan (left) picked up the first-ever Best Supporting Actor for his role as the friend who marries the woman Edward Arnold left behind. The first part is interesting and the logging scenes filmed by Rosson are cool, but you can tell Hawks left this movie halfway through, and Wyler took over. A nice piece of history, but not for me.

Rating: 2/5

1937.)

Title: Bulldog Drummond Comes Back

Runtime: 64 Minutes

Director: Louis King

Plot: Bulldog Drummond's girlfriend is kidnapped by the wife of a former enemy that Bulldog put in jail.

What I Thought: Ok, so I had no idea who Bulldog Drummond was, but after this, I don't think I need to find out. This makes 60 minutes feel long. A mystery that doesn't challenge you to think.

Rating: 2/5

1938.)

Title: Give Me a Sailor

Runtime: 79 Minutes

Director: Elliott Nugent

Plot: Two brothers are in love with the same woman and one of the brothers uses the aid of the girl's sister to get him to the inside track. But it's a screwball comedy so they fall in love instead.

What I Thought: The first half is pretty funny. At one point Bob Hope has to punch Martha Raye to get her out of a plaster face mask she applied incorrectly. It's kind of blah from there as you can see how things are going to play out if you've seen any comedy from this era.

Rating: 2.5/5

1939.)

Title: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Runtime: 80 Minutes

Director: Sidney Lanfield

Plot: Sherlock Holmes and Watson must solve a mystery in the Baskerville Manor as a series of deaths seem to be related to a legendary beast.

What I Thought: I'm a sucker for a good whodunnit. Since I had not read this story before, I didn't know how it ended. Also, the black and white film helps build the creepy atmosphere of the moor.

Rating: 3.5/5

 

A Movie From Every Year 1920-29

The Roaring 20s and the end of the silent film era. This set features a film on race, a twisted New Year's Eve Christmas Carol, and Hitchcock's first talkie and last silent picture.

1920.) 

Title: Within Our Gates

Runtime: 79 Minutes

Director: Oscar Micheaux

Plot: An educated black woman heads south after her fiance leaves her. There she works for a poor school that takes in impoverished black youth. Her horrific past is revealed.

What I Thought: An important piece of work historically as Oscar Micheaux is one of America's first black directors and storytellers. It's a bit choppy and unbalanced at times. The flashback sequence is a bit unsettling.

Rating: 2.5/5

1921.) 

Title: The Phantom Carriage

Runtime: 107 Minutes

Director: Victor Sjostrom

Plot: A  man finds out the truth about who has to drive death's carriage when he becomes the first person to die on New Year's. The old driver, an old friend, shows him the errors of life, and he is forced to face his misdeeds.

What I Thought: This was a cool and creepy venture that's pretty much A Christmas Carol, but darker. There's a scene that very likely could have served as the inspiration for the axe in the door scene in The Shining. The ending is also very suspenseful. A very different feel from the other movies I've watched on this list.

Rating: 3.5/5

1922.)

Title: Haxan

Runtime: 91 Minutes

Director: Benjamin Christensen

Plot: A semi-biographical look at the history of witchcraft.

What I Thought: I was a little disappointed in this one. It never got as weird as I thought it would, but there were some crazy parts to it.

Rating: 2.5/5

1923.) 

Title: Our Hospitality

Runtime: 65 Minutes

Director: John G. Blystone/Buster Keaton

Plot: A man returns home and falls in love with a girl who happens to be from the family that is the archenemy of his family. Antics ensue.

What I Thought: This took a little while to get going, but Buster Keaton is a master of slapstick. The train scene as well as the waterfall sequence are breathtakingly dangerous and hilarious.

Rating: 3.5/5

1924.) 

Title: Greed

Runtime: 140 Minutes

Director: Erich von Stroheim

Plot: A woman wins $5,000, but refuses to spend it. The winnings also create tension between friends and lovers.

What I Thought: A two-hour-plus silent movie seemed like a bad match for me, but this movie really delivers in the final act. Mayhem and bad luck come to a head, especially in the desert scene pictured.

Rating: 3.5/5

1925.)

Title: The Freshman

Runtime: 77 Minutes

Directors: Fred C. Newmeyer/Sam Taylor

Plot: A freshman in college tries anything to become popular on campus.

What I Thought: Harold Lloyd gets third billing behind Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, but if you haven't watched one of his movies, please do so. All the football sequences are gold, and I identify with a nerdy dude trying to gain approval.

Rating: 3.5/5

1926.)

Title: The Black Pirate

Runtime: 88 Minutes

Director: Albert Parker

Plot: Seeking revenge, a young man joins the pirate band that killed his father.

What I Thought: I had never watched a Douglas Fairbanks movie before, but he certainly has the ability to capture attention with his stunt work. If it were not a silent movie, I would say that it would do pretty well to hold its own against any modern-day adventure story.

Rating: 3/5

1927.)

Title: The Kid Brother

Runtime: 82 Minutes

Directors: Ted Wilde/Harold Lloyd/Lewis Milestone/J.A. Howe

Plot: A sheriff's loser son has to save the day against con artists that come to town.

What I Thought: Maybe there were too many cooks in the kitchen as far as director visions, but I felt like this was easily the weakest Harold Lloyd picture I've watched. I might be in the minority as it did make the 1,001 movies you should watch before you die list. 

Rating: 2.5/5

1928.)

Title: The Farmer's Wife

Runtime: 128 Minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A widower finds it hard to find a replacement wife to help with his farm.

What I Thought: This is Hitchcock's last silent film and thank goodness. Long, unfunny, and boring.

Rating: 1/5

1929.)

Title: Blackmail

Runtime: 85 Minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: After killing a man that tries to rape her, she is blackmailed by a man who witnessed the crime.

What I Thought: Hitchcock's first talkie is a bit uninspired, but it certainly beats his previous movie. Anny Ondra does an excellent job as one of Hitchcock's early heroines.

Rating: 3/5

A Movie From Every Year: 1910-1919

Earlier this month I had never watched a movie from the 1910s, but then I watched 10 in a week. Here's the wild spread of debuts and weird interpretations from the decade that gave us the Spanish Flu Pandemic and Babe Ruth being traded.

 

1910.) 

Title: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Runtime: 13 Minutes

Director: Otis Turner

Plot: It's an abridged version of The Wizard of Oz with a lot of creative choices.

What I Thought: Rarely do I think something should be longer, but 13 minutes is not nearly enough time to hit on what happens in this story. Apparently, it's based on the stage play and not the book, overall not great.

Rating: 2/5

1911.)

Title: Dante's Inferno

Runtime: 71 Minutes

Director: Francesco Bertolini/Adolfo Padovan

Plot: Loosely based on the first part of Dante's Divine Comedy, a man (Dante) travels through hell with a tour guide (Virgil).

What I Thought: This has some really cool and creepy imagery.

Rating: 3/5

1912.)

Title: The Land Beyond the Sunset

Runtime: 14 Minutes

Director: Harold M. Shaw

Plot: A young boy joins a field trip to the country and dreams of escaping his miserable life.

What I Thought: Well, I liked the ending, but everything before was just ok.

Rating: 2.5/5

1913.)

Title: Suspense

Runtime: 10 Minutes

Director: Phillips Smalley/Lois Weber

Plot: A mother and a child are home alone in the middle of nowhere and her husband must arrive before a drifter wreaks havoc.

What I Thought: Apparently this film is credited for creating the split-screen technique (see image) for movies. This was the idea of Lois Weber who served as the first American female director, joined by her husband for this effort. The film meets its name as you're not sure what'll happen. It was easily the best of the previous movies I had watched when I began this project.

Rating: 3.5/5

1914.)

Title: His Prehistoric Past

Runtime: 22 Minutes

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Plot: The Tramp falls asleep on a bench and dreams he's in the stone age.

What I Thought: There are some gags that work, but you can tell this is one of his first movies.

Rating: 2.5/5

1915.

Title: The Champion

Runtime: 31 Minutes

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Plot: The Tramp finds a horseshoe and uses it to help win a boxing bout. Lots of boxing antics ensue.

What I Thought: A precursor for the silliness that is City Lights, this is still a pretty amusing romp.

Rating: 3/5

1916.)

Title: Police

Runtime: 34 Minutes

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Plot: The Tramp has recently been released from jail, but he immediately gets himself in trouble with the law.

What I Thought: I wasn't super blown away with this one, but the stairs scene was fun.

Rating: 2.5/5

1917.)

Title: The Adventurer

Runtime: 24 Minutes

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Plot: The Tramp breaks out of prison, rescues two women from drowning, and goes to a swanky party. The latter gets his picture in the paper and the police on his trail.

What I Thought: There's a really fun sequence that involves balcony hopping and running around the house.

Rating: 3/5

1918.)

Title: Just Rambling Along

Runtime: 9 Minutes

Director: Hal Roach

Plot: A thief follows a woman in the diner and then gets stuck with her bill instead.

What I Thought: It's the oldest surviving role for Stan Laurel and while it's nothing special, I enjoyed it more than most apparently.

Rating: 3/5

1919.)

Title: The Wicked Darling

Runtime: 59 Minutes

Director: Tod Browning

Plot: A woman steals a necklace, but takes refuge in the home of the woman's former fiance (Lon Chaney).

What I Thought: I was kind of excited because Tod Browning would go on to direct Dracula and Freaks, but he's still honing his craft here.

Rating: 2/5