20 Great Years of Movies, Part 20: 1957

1. 12 Angry Men (director: Sidney Lumet): Another great adaptation of a TV film, this one starring Henry Fonda. It's a pretty simple idea - 12 jurors get into a debate about the case they've been asked to provide a recommendation for. Slowly, one man changes the minds of the rest of the jury. It's also fascinating as a crime story which is told out-of-sequence as details about the murder being tried are only revealed as jurors mention them.
2. Paths of Glory (director: Stanley Kubrick): A film as rough and challenging as the original book. This is Kubrick's great World War I picture about three French soldiers who are chosen to be killed in order to set an example; Kirk Douglas plays the officer who tries to defend those men, but the system is more cynical than he imagined.
3. The One That Got Away (director: Roy Ward Baker): I'm really into this under-appreciated gem - the true story of a German pilot who repeatedly escaped the Allies and finally got back to Germany. It's an interesting companion piece to Paul Brickhill (The Great Escape)'s stories about various British pilots' escapes from the Germans.
4. Throne of Blood (director: Akira Kurosawa): This is Kurosawa's amazing version of Macbeth adapted to the culture of feudal Japan. It's a real trip, especially if you love Macbeth. Kurosawa would revisit Shakespeare later in his career and it was a win every time.
5. Witness for the Prosecution (director: Billy Wilder): A really fun adaptation of Agatha Christie's play with Charles Laughton as a defense lawyer; the film changed the ending (that often happened to Christie, it seems), but it's still a great mystery film.
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai (director: David Lean): Once you've finished Paths of Glory, how about another "feel-good" war picture? This one famously concerns British POWs who build a bridge for their Japanese captors, apparently oblivious to how they've become collaborators.
7. Sweet Smell of Success (director: Alexander Mackendrick): I've heard this film called a companion to The Bad and the Beautiful; whatever, they're both fine films about horrible men. This concerns Burt Lancaster as a newspaper columnist who seems to enjoy making Tony Curtis squirm as Curtis tries to curry his favour. It's very different from the other films on this year's list and well worth seeking out.
8. Old Yeller (director: Robert Stevenson): The childhood classic about a boy and his dog (most notorious for its climax). This film didn't register as strongly with me as it seems to have with others, but it's a very good children's film.
9. Night of the Demon (director: Jacques Tourneur): Tourneur ought to be a great adaptor of M. R. James' horror fiction which are about unseen menace; after all, he pioneered unseen menace with Cat People. Yet this film breaks from the original story by showing you the demon in all his glory. I should be upset, but dang it, that demon is instantly memorable.
10. The Devil Strikes at Night (director: Robert Siodmak): And here's a German film which is hard to get with English subtitles. This one is about a serial killer on the loose in Nazi Germany. The killer keeps getting away because the Nazi's are unwilling to admit to the public that serial killers exist in their "perfect" society. A very fascinating subject and a different kind of look at Nazi culture.

And with that, the lists are done. Thank you for following this series of posts, I hope I shed some light on under-appreciated films.