The 50s

A new decade brought new challenges to the movie industry, by the time the 1950s came around, people were surrounding a new form of motion picture: the television, this became a cheaper more conveient way for people to spend their time. They didn't have to leave home and could still be thorougly entertained.

Hollywood tried to up the ante by adding new ways to experience movies. Three-projector Cinerama, widescreen CinemaScope, and stereiophinic soundtracks debuted in the early 50s to great success, making way for monumental sword and sandal epics like "The Robe", "Quo Vadis", "The Ten Commandments", and "Ben Hur". 3-D became a fad at this time usually used in horror films like "House of Wax" or "The Blob", to induce more terror (I suppose). Hitchcock even got into the 3-D action using it with his thriller "Dial M for Murder", although this was often perceived as a gimmick.

Perhaps the most fun of these gimmicks (because it was purely just that) was contributed by horror-meister William Castle for his film "The Tingler". Castle actually wired up seats in the movie theatre for his film to buzz thus giving theatre goers a real spine chilling experience.

In other ways, the 50s saw the turning of the tide with more realism happening on screen. There was a new generation of actors which included Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Montgomery Clift who came from the same background, often under the direction of mentor Elia Kazan. With this new form of acting, a more intense natural performance was observed creating a new wave of young actors that today is still being felt.

New directors were coming into the forefront than ever before. Douglas Sirk became a master of melodrama, Vincent Minnelli perhaps had his greatest creative wave of films ever in this decade. But perhaps more than any other director in Hollywood, the decade belonged to Hitchcock. More than any other decade he worked on, Hitchcock showed a tremendous artful form in his filmmaking creating a memorable body of work. Beginning with "Strangers on a Train" and ending with "North by Northwest", with films like "Rear Window", "The Wrong Man", "To Catch a Thief", and "Vertigo" in between, Hitchcock was on a creative role.

For me personally, the thing that I found most interesting was the rise of Japanese cinema into western culture during this time. Very little of Japanese cinema was seen before the 1950s, but that all came crashing down in 1951 when Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" took home the Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Film Festival. The Japanese studio that made the film had little faith in it, and was in fact shocked at its popularity. The industry responded to this demand by making this type of Japanese film that would appeal to western audiences. This films were mostly "historical" dramas often thought of as a Japanese takes on the western. Kurosawa in particular excelled in this with masterpieces such as "Seven Samurai" and "Throne of Blood". His contemprary Kenji Mizoguchi would also make classics such as "Ugetsu" and "Sansho the Baliff". Soon other Japanese filmmakers would find acceptance with western audiences (although Ozu would have to wait until the 1970s to be discovered there.)making its culture one of the most important film cultures in film history.

World cinema itself was expanding rapidly, as we would see the first films directed by Fellini from Italy, and Bergman from Sweeden both of whom influenced generations of filmmakers., A new wave of film critics were also making a noise in Europe with a new film publication known as "Cahiers du cinema". These young french film fans were soon pointing out their own theories about the history of film in general, and soon put there words into practice when they would go out and make their own films. By the end of the decade we would in fact see the premier film of one of these film critics named Francois Truffaut, the film was "The 400 Blows", and soon the world of cinema would become a much different place.

The Top Ten List

This may have been one of the easier decades to do my top ten list because as a matter of fact the first five films on my list happen to be five of my favorite films of all time, in fact if you're an avid reader of my blog, I've written about these films before in some capacity, so there's a little hint. Still it's hard to choose just five from such a rich decade as this. I regret to say I've failed to find room for Minnelli's "The Bandwagon", or Renoir's "The River", or even Ophuls "The Earrings of Madame de..." which just goes to show just how awesome this decade was. And for those of you who think I'm somewhat biased with black and white film, fear not for you will see color with my picks. As per usual, I'm interest to hear feedback about it so let me know. Cheers.