20 Great Years of Movies, Part 13: 1950

1. Gun Crazy (director: Joseph H. Lewis): This film is not quite as unconventional as the short story it's based upon, but it's an interesting look at a Bonnie and Clyde-type couple whose mutual love of gunplay seems to naturally segue into a career in crime. The bank heist scene is a terrific single-shot sequence.
2. Rashomon (director: Akira Kurosawa): This is one of those movies you have see if only to be able to understand all the references made throughout culture ("Oh, it's like Rashomon..."). A man is dead; both of the witnesses testify and even the dead man testifies through witchcraft - but not only do none of the stories quite agree on what transpired, each implicates themselves more than any of the others. If you want a good conversation starter, this is your film.
3. Sunset Blvd. (director: Billy Wilder): This film has become so celebrated and ingrained in popular culture that although you might know about this film, you might not be aware how controversial it was on its release and how many Hollywood big shots despised this film for its unsentimental look at their business. So that alone should tell that yes, this film has some bite, it's become a nostlagic film but in its time it was anti-nostalgia.
4. In a Lonely Place (director: Nicholas Ray): Another noir that doesn't hit as hard as the original book, but this is a tough film and not as well known as most of Bogart's output from the time. It's a tough role as Bogart has to play a protagonist with some personal demons who is pretty much an anti-hero. Oh yeah, he might also be a serial killer. Even softened from the book, it's still not exactly a conventional Hollywood story.
5. Night and the City (director: Jules Dassin): A fascinating noir with Richard Widmark as an American heel in London trying to play a fast game against his creditors by investing in a wrestling scheme, but his house of cards collapses spectacularly in the climax.
6. No Way Out (director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz): Not as tough about race relations as two movies I highlighted from the previous year (Intruder in the Dust and Home of the Brave) but this was considered a tough film in its time with Richard Widmark as a racist piece of trash and Sidney Poitier as the noble physician who proves himself the better man.
7. Harvey (director: Henry Koster): An amusing light-hearted fantasy about a man who claims he's accompanied by an invisible friend named Harvey - who is a giant rabbit. It's quite fun.
8. Cinderella (director: Clyde Geronimi): A very good Disney film with memorable songs and strong animation.
9. Born Yesterday (director: George Cukor): A lightweight but fun movie about a streetwise woman receiving Pygmalion-style education (also a bit of Ball of Fire thrown in). It's won over primarily because Judy Holliday had a one-of-a-kind delivery and made her character the reason to see the movie.
10. House by the River (director: Fritz Lang): A very good thriller about a man who commits murder then gets his brother to help him cover it up, resulting in tensions which continue to simmer as the brother finds himself a suspect in the crime.