Party Girl
Party Girl (1958) combines the gritty truths of a showgirl’s life with the romantic garishness of MGM; it’s a balancing act between the unbridled machismo of the gangster drama and… Read more »
Tag: 1950s
There’s Always Tomorrow
Compared to the other films that director Douglas Sirk directed for producer Ross Hunter at Universal Pictures There’s Always Tomorrow (1956) is one of the more overlooked. Sirk, whose films… Read more »
The H-Man
The H-Man (1958) is one of Ishirō Honda’s most accomplished films. With an apparent ease Honda is able to combine the pulpy crime story with thrills of the atomic monster… Read more »
Forty Guns
Forty Guns (1957) opens with a stagecoach making its away down through the cinemascope frame. The coach, carrying a trio of Federally employed gunmen, ambles slowly across the vastness of… Read more »
The Balloon
The Balloon (1956) was made at the height of Yuzo Kawashima’s powers and during his most prolific period while working at Nikkatsu studio. The Balloon has all the hallmarks of… Read more »
Ilya Muromets
The boutique home video label Deaf Crocodile Films has done justice to Aleksandr Ptushko’s oft maligned masterpiece Ilya Muromets (1956). This Russian folklore epic was butchered for an American release… Read more »
The Female Animal
Universal Studios regular Harry Keller directed the Hedy Lamarr lead melodrama The Female Animal (1958). This campy riff on Sunset Boulevard (1950) sees the legendary Lamarr as Vanessa Windsor, an… Read more »
Ride Lonesome
In the year 1959 two of the greatest low budget westerns ever made were released. These are films of great narrative economy, visual minimalism, and aesthetic precision that looked to… Read more »
Olivia
Jacqueline Audry’s film Olivia (1949), based on the novel by Dorothy Bussy, is almost entirely anomalous in the history of French cinema. Not only is Olivia a film directed by… Read more »
Suddenly, Last Summer
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s film adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ one-act play is as famous today for its sensationalism as it is for the on-set clashes between the stars and the director…. Read more »
