When Johnny Met Mary Sue: Xander's Film Registry, Part I

Welcome to a six-part series bearing witness to CX's true love of the motion picture. In the next six posts, I will cover 10 films each from six decades-- films that everyone, in my sincere opinion, everyone should see, for many reasons which will be made clear. After all, what do I know better than movies?

... nothing.

*The 1950s*-- the era romanticized in Grease, lamented in the modern world, and packed with malt shops, psychological repression, and ill-fated teenage rebellion. (Ah, if we could only go back.) A decade wherein movie audiences were lured back to movie theatres (after abandoning them for the more comfortable, in-your-own-home convenience of TV) with blockbuster movie spectacles featuring big names and colossal budgets. The infancy of widescreen. These ten films represent, not necessarily the best of the fifties, but the absolute must-sees. Don't ask me why the two aren't mutually exclusive.

FYI-- the movies in this series will be listed in chronological order... mostly.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)- Recently remade as a Keanu Reeves vehicle (there should have been a freaking mourning period when they greenlit that movie!!), Robert Wise's original black-and-white classic still possesses supreme power. One of the most emotionally legitimate and technically impressive films ever made (despite the clunky 50s special effects-- it wasn't a DeMille movie, for crying out loud), Earth was really the first film to use an ambassador from outer space to explain to us why we need to stop killing each other and ourselves. The idea of there being aliens out there who actually want to see us... ya know, not self-destruct, is one of the most awe-inspiring thoughts the human mind can produce. Not to mention strong performances and good dialogue. Buy a copy on DVD, then shatter a copy of the remake... I recommend a sledgehammer.

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)- Okay, so it's more like the Most Melodramatic Movie on Earth-- or it was, before Titanic. But some scenes in Cecil B. DeMille's circus drama are actually amazing. Example: there's a trick where a girl lays down under an elephant's foot with the help of a trainer, but when the trainer gets jealous that the girl has found a new love... well, there's a close call. They don't make 'em like this anymore... because if they did, no one would ever go to the movies ever again. Nevertheless, it's a good reminder that the overblown, big-budget films of today could have been so much better with the right direction from a bygone age, and performances from Charlton Heston and James Stewart definitely don't hurt.

The Robe (1953)- I called the 1950s the infancy of widescreen. Well, labor began with Abel Gance's 1920s Napoleon, but the bundle of joy didn't finally arrive until The Robe, the Richard Burton vehicle that introduced the world to one of the widest of widescreen camera techniques. The drama is a little sparse, and it does sometimes feel preachy and sanctimonious (it's a story about Jesus and Pilate), but, again, it really makes you wish Transformers could have been handled with class like this.

Guys and Dolls (1955)- What do you get when Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, and director Joseph Mankiewicz team up? An absorbing gambling dramedy with a great jazzy score! Don't worry, that wasn't an attempt at a joke. It's the truth. You have an illegal floating crap game (that desperately needs a new place to play), a comically obnoxious woman who seems to be permanently engaged to Sinatra's character (that'd be Adelaide), and an attempt by Brando to woo and win a Salvation Army bell-ringer, played by Jean Simmons (no, not Gene). Some of the messages may be a little dated (the that's-so-offensive crowd might even consider them "politically incorrect"), but it's still a pretty good way to spend two and a half hours.

Daddy Long Legs (1955)- One of the lesser-remembered widescreen musicals in Fox's library, this Fred Astaire comedy sees him sponsor an 18-year-old (or something like that) French girl while the world questions the appropriateness of such an act. Thin on story, morbidly obese on showmanship, but absolutely memorable one way or another. Particularly great is a scene at a French orphanage in which one of the little guys declares that he wants a hamburger with chocolate sauce.

The King & I (1956)- What more needs to be said? Great humor, a believable story (because it really happened, duh), two impossibly high-caliber leading performances, and legendary show music. A real milestone!

Carousel (1956)- Cut out the preachy, far-fetched scenes in "Heaven" and you've got a great story, taken from a European drama with a way-more tragic, way-less uplifting finale. Its message is essentially that it's not how you spend your life that defines you-- it's the basic goodness in your life, and your devotion to those close to you. Criticized widely as a film that glorifies the deadbeat lifestyle and cuts too much out of the story (namely a lot of songs that really don't do much to further said story), Carousel is still funny and sad, and definitely gets a response.

The Ten Commandments (1956)- Apart from its technical innovations, I really can't find anything good to say for Cecil B. DeMille's 1923 silent version of The Ten Commandments. It's dull, boring, confusing, and it feels waaaaay too much like a Sunday school lesson to have any legitimate entertainment value. But when he went back and re-did the movie, taking out the original story's 20th-century segments and fleshing out a story of unbridled scope and focus, he atoned for his sins (no pun intended). It's not the grand master of Biblical epics (read a little further down), but the gaudiness of the sets and costumes and the absolute camp of the performances somehow combine to make a thrilling movie experience that both betrays its director's obvious bias and also overcomes it to produce universally accessible entertainment. And Yul Brynner rocks.

Gigi (1958)- This is what we in the business like to refer to as a "total chick flick," but it's the rare chick flick that anyone can get into. It includes hilariously overt talk about sex, at least for 1958, and a hilarious performance from French legend Maurice Chevalier. There's nothing that comes across quite as well as his singing "I'm Glad I'm Not Young Anymore" and reminiscing about a past relationship while being told by the ex that everything he says is absolutely not true in "I Remember It Well." Oh, and some girl falls in love.

Ben-Hur (1959)- This is the grand master of Biblical epics. It does the impossible at every opportunity: depicts Jesus without being overly operatic or holier-than-thou; shows mammoth spectacle without losing sight once of the human characters; and features a score that even ranks above John Williams' Star Wars as the best in movie history. Winner of 11 little gold action figures in 1960, William Wyler's supreme drama of the ancient world remains one of the most amazing achievements ever. And for the last time, people, no one actually died in the chariot race! All the victims look like dummies, respond like dummies, and are, in fact, dummies!

Tune in next time as we here at XC examine the swingin' sixties, from Lawrence of Arabia to Medium Cool.