20 Great Years of Movies, Part 18: 1955

1. Les diaboliques (director: Henri-Georges Clouzot): The movie that outdid Hitchcock; you may not have seen this (after all, it's French) but I strongly suggest you give it a chance. A man is targeted for murder by his wife and his mistress, but in the fallout this thriller starts to creep into the horror genre!
2. Bad Day at Black Rock (director: John Sturges): This is a kind of contemporary western in which a one-armed man goes to a small town to find the father of a soldier who saved his life - but everyone in the town is extremely hostile to him and unwilling to aid in his mission. Much like a standard western film, it's one righteous man against a town!
3. The Ladykillers (director: Alexander Mackendrick): Another very fine Ealing Studios black comedy, this being the great film about a team of crooks living as boarders to a sweet old lady but find themselves divided when their success means her death.
4. The Court Jester (director: Melvin Frank): I believe this is the last comedy to appear in this series of lists. This one is a particular favourite of my brother - I think at one point he would test potential friends by showing them this movie and seeing if they liked it. It's certainly Danny Kaye at his utmost! It's zany and very funny.
5. The Night of the Hunter (director: Charles Laughton): A very offbeat film - so offbeat that it feels timeless. It's the story of two children who are terrorized by an insane preacher (Robert Mitchum) who pursues them through the southern USA. It has the feeling of a somewhat-askew fairy tale.
6. Pete Kelly's Blues (director: Jack Webb): Adapted from Webb's short-lived radio series, this is a great jazz picture with Webb as horn blower Pete Kelly brushing up against the mob during the days of prohibition. A great jazz score and some nice camerawork helps this movie stand out.
7. Marty (director: Delbert Mann): Adapted from a TV movie, this is a thoughtful film about two average people who fall in love. It suceeds thanks to the well-written and well-performed characters - it really showed a way forward for movies that focused on everyday relationships.
8. The Dam Busters (director: Michael Anderson): A very good adaptation of the true story of the development of the bouncing bomb, used by the British to destroy German dams. It's rare to see a World War II film that is about the development of new technology and the trial & error involved and that helps this film stand out from many similar pictures.
9. The Prisoner (director: Peter Glenville): An unsettling film in which a communist dictatorship attempts to break a Catholic cardinal (Alec Guinness). It is not a pleasant journey, but Guinness is compelling throughout the film.
10. Land of the Pharaohs (director: Howard Hawks): This doesn't really feel like a Howard Hawks movie, but it's interesting to see him attempt a film on the scale of a Biblical epic. This one concerns the story of building the pyramids and it's a pretty entertaining fiction (also Joan Collins in vamp mode does not hurt).