BEST FILMS OF 1955
by Mike Lorefice

All That Heaven Allows
Douglas Sirk

***

Bad Day At Black Rock
John Sturges

***1/2

Blackboard Jungle
Richard Brooks

***

Death of a Cyclist
Juan Antonio Bardem

Hoping to avoid the revelation of their lengthy affair, a couple abandon the cyclist they ran over rather than try to save his life. Bardem, whose symbolic socially conscious films and writings frequently landed him in Franco's prisons, is very critical of the way things work in Spain (not that it's much different anywhere else). Juan (Alberto Closas) and Maria Jose (Lucia Bose) happen to have money and a position in high society due to their family connections, while the man who dies from their neglect is poor so the authorities don't really care about capturing his killers. This functions as a metaphor for the way the bourgeois and Franco prop each other up, as well as depicting the inhumanity of a society that allows for such ridiculous gaps between the rich and the poor. Juan & Maria always loved each other, but she married for standing while he was off at war. Their affair is the highlight of her boring life, but it's only good because there's no possession and it comes with that certain amount of danger that doesn't present any real threat. The accident introduces a complication that causes their love and every other aspect of their life to crumble. Guilt eats away at Juan & Maria, but Maria is largely concerned that her husband will discover her adultery. She doesn't care that it would hurt him, but the disclosure would reduce her social standing. Her torment is greatly increased when revenge thirsty critic Rafa (Carlos Casaravilla) toys with blackmailing her as a way of attaining her monetary level. Rafa is allowed to attend their circle's functions because he supposedly represents art, but since he'll never be wealthy these spoiled selfish snobs will never accept him, and that eats him up. Like many of Bardem's films Cyclist is really about the character named Juan. He actually has a conscience and is so distracted by his guilt he embarrasses and fails a good student Matilde (Bruna Corra) because he's not in the mood to pay attention to her presentation. When she protests and the school rallies against the system - specifically the nepotism that got Juan his job and keeps him in high standing - he realizes he's lost track of his values and ideals. These two events bring things to a head for him, causing him to realize his hopes and dreams were thrown away long ago and his life is little more than an oppressive lie. He sees his old fire and quest for justice in her (and some of her supporters), and wonders if he really wants to do the wrong thing just because he has the power to get away with it. Stylistically this doom- laden psychodrama is a combination of film noir and neorealism. The cruelly ironic ending where the evil woman gets her comeuppance was forced by the censors, but I actually like it as a startling bit of poetic justice. [10/12/06] ***1/2

Diabolique
Henri-Georges Clouzot

***1/2

East of Eden
Elia Kazan

***1/2

The Ladykillers
Alexander Mackendrick

***

The Last Frontier
Anthony Mann

***

Full Movie Review

Lola Montes
Max Ophuls

Elegantly rendered film of exceptional grace and beauty. From a technical perspective this motion picture can be said to do no wrong. It's one of the first great uses of widescreen and Technicolor. The continual highly choreographed movements required very difficult camera movements - pans, tracks, and tilts often in combination - but are all captured with such agility they seem effortless. The sets are intricately weaved into these shots, foreground and background details not only provide beauty but interact with the characters/shots, regularly yielding new designs. Ophuls was one of the greatest architects, but that strength also has downsides such as the characters coming off as nothing more than puppets. That often plays into Ophuls theme though, his films show external beauty but interior shallowness, a world where no amount of opulence brings happiness. Lola (Martine Carol) is sometimes very independent and outspoken, when she's free, but she's usually a kept woman. We first see her in her lowest state in an exploitational circus act that recounts her past scandals, and through a series of flashbacks we see earlier incarnations where she belonged to men of great power and wealth, even a king. The same ideas are often repeated, but shown from two different perspectives; the circus representing the absurd and the flashbacks the more realistic. Some have claimed there's great psychology here, but that the film is not as captivating as it could have been because of a poor lead performance. To me this is largely a stylistic exercise and Carol is no more or not less than she's asked to be. The problem is the film is designed for her to be another set piece rather than a three dimensional human being that's being explored. Carol's name value was required to get investors to put up the then exorbitant $1.5 million, so maybe if Ophuls had a different actress the film would have been better. Certainly Joan Fontaine delivered a lot more in Letter from an Unknown Woman, but Lola Montes would have had to be a quite different film, and maybe then some of its visual energy and creativity would have been sacrificed. [4/22/06] ***

The Man From Laramie
Anthony Mann

***1/2

The Man With The Golden Arm
Otto Preminger

***1/2

Mr. Arkadin
Orson Welles

***

Night and Fog
Alain Resnais

****

Night of the Hunter
Charles Laughton

****

Rebel Without A Cause
Nicholas Ray

****

Rififi
Jules Dassin

***1/2

The Rose Tattoo
Daniel Mann

***

Run For Cover
Nicholas Ray

***

Samurai II - Duel at Ichijoji Temple
Hiroshi Inagaki

The epic mythmaking continues with the machismo rubbish rising to new heights as Miyamoto willingly walks into an ambush by 80 trained fighters for fear of being called a coward if he didn't show up for the scheduled fight against their leader. It's better than part 1, largely because of the last 20 minutes where this and a subsequent battle take place. What Inagaki does so well is convey the formalism of the sword fighting. In the west it's always some swashbuckling form of fencing traced to the 3 Musketeers or Robin Hood, but Inagaki understands the psychology. He knows that it's all about setting your opponent up because once you strike someone usually dies within a few seconds. Though the killings in part 1 are actually swifter because Miyamoto was fighting thugs rather than warriors, there are so many deaths in part 2 that the legitimate two-sword technique of the real Miyamoto and the speedy deaths are much more noticeable. Part 2 deals with Musashi's transformation from warrior to samurai, and the fact that the more knowledge he gains the more he realizes that the fellow samurai have not lived up to the groups guiding principles and have no higher purpose. As the middle portion there are no real resolutions, but there is enough action that you won't care without the film coming close to being nothing but action like that tedious LOTR: The Two Towers. Unfortunately, one of the main diversions from the action, the love story, is just driving me crazy by this point. We are asked to feel for a female lead who does nothing but whine, cry, and whimper while offering to do anything to get Miyamoto to give her the time of day. [1/25/06] ***

Smiles of a Summer Night
Ingmar Bergman

Bergman's first success and most overrated film is a midsummer night's sex comedy on man's inability to escape the desires of the loin, loneliness of the mind, and emptiness of the heart. Razor's edge humor where someone reaches out for a rope only to be provided with a strand of barbed wire. Love is just a game of oneupsmanship that everyone loses in various prescribed manners such as the eternal banality pact known as marriage. Bergman plays puppet master giving us four mismatched pairs and, after a weekend of musical chairs, or more accurately humiliations, having them end up with the "right" partner. Despite the happy ending to what Bergman describers in the Criterion extras as a cheerful and carefree light comedy, in addition to lacking the thematic depth brought on by Renoir's technical prowess that allows him to tell the story of a society rather than a handful of characters, Bergman fails to capture the folly and absurdity of mankind in the humorous manner that sets Renoir's The Rules of the Game apart. Rather than the ridiculousness of Moliere, who seems an influence on this theatrical work, we get wickedness that theoretically traps the men into a better but ultimately still hopeless situation. A clever and insightful work, but there's a reason this comedy stands alone on Bergman's resume, his pessimism, though hardly unfounded, is simply better suited for dark penetrating drama. [12/11/06] ***

To Catch a Thief
Alfred Hitchcock

***