May 10, 1970

Top 10 Films of 1950

1. "The Gunfighter" (Henry King, USA)

2. "Sunset Boulevard" (Billy Wilder, USA)

3. "Los Olvidados" (Luis Bunuel, Mexico)

4. "Aventurera" (Alberto Gout, Mexico)

5. "All About Eve" (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, USA)

6. "Rashomon" (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

7. "La Ronde" (Max Ophuls, France)

8. "The Asphalt Jungle" (John Huston, USA)

9. "Cronaca di un amore" (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy)

10. "Variety Lights" (Federico Fellini, Italy)


Other great films:

Adam's Rib
Annie Get Your Gun
Bajaja (Czechoslovakia)
Broken Arrow
Caged
Cinderella
La Congolaise (France)
Cossacks Of The Kuban (Soviet Union)
Deburau (France)
Dona Diabla (Mexico)
Father Of The Bride
The Flame And The Arrow
Harvey
Heart Of Stone (East Germany)
In A Lonely Place
King Solomon's Mines
Let's Dance
The Men
Miasto nieujarzmione (Poland)
Winchester '73

Short Top 3:

1. "Eaten Horizons" (Wilhelm Freddie, Jørgen Roos, Denmark)

2. "Storstrom Bridge" (Carl T. Dreyer, Denmark)

3. "Rabbit's Moon" (Kenneth Anger, USA)


Other great shorts:

Un Chant d'amour (France)
My Country 'Tis Or Thee

Top Commercial:

"Goldilocks" (Halo Shampoo)


Top TV:

"The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show: The Kleebob Card Game" (Ralph Levy, CBS)


Cartoon Top 10

1. "Gerald McBoing-Boing" (Robert Cannon, Columbia)


2. "The Rabbit Of Seville" (Chuck Jones, Warner)


3. "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" (Chuck Jones, Warner)


4. "Boobs In The Woods" (Robert McKimson, Warner)


5. "Puss-Café" (Charles Nichols, Disney)


6. "Hillbilly Hare" (Robert McKimson, Warner)


7. "Motor Mania" (Jack Kinney, Disney)


8. "The Ducksters" (Chuck Jones, Warner)


9. "Trouble Indemnity" (Pete Burness, John Hubley, Columbia)


10. "Stooge For A Mouse" (Friz Freleng, Warner)


Other great cartoons:

8 Ball Bunny
Big House Bunny
The Brave Engineer
Bunker Hill Bunny
Bushy Hare
Cat Happy
The Cuckoo Clock
Dog Gone South
A Fractured Leghorn
Garden Gopher
Golden Yeggs
Goofy Goofy Gander
His Bitter Half
Hold That Pose
Homeless Hare
Home Tweet Home
It's Hummer Time
Leghorn Blows At Midnight
Lion Around
The Lion's Busy
Morris The Midget Moose
Mutiny On The Bunny
Out On A Limb
The Peachy Cobbler
The Popcorn Story
Short'nin' Bread
Texas Tom
Trailer Horn
Ventriloquist Cat
What's Up Doc?

Weak films of 1950:

Au dela des grilles (France)
Born Yesterday
Cyrano de Bergerac
Dom na pustkowiu (Poland)
Francis
Les Lumieres de ma ville (Canada)
The Magnificent Yankee
No Way Out
Panic In The Streets
With These Hands

Weak shorts:

Crashing The Movies
Grandma Moses

Top 3 Musicals of 1950

1. "Two Weeks With Love" (Roy Rowland, MGM)


2. "Annie Get Your Gun" (George Sidney, MGM)


3. "Summer Stock" (Charles Walters, MGM)


Los Olvidados (1950) *****

Shocking film about wretched poor people in Mexico City.

Variety Lights (1950) ****

Federico Fellini's first film.

Cronaca di un amore (1950) ****

Michelangelo Antonioni's film debut.

Adam's Rib (1950) ****

Hepburn and Tracy's best film, a comedy about a DA whose wife is defending the case he's prosecuting.

La Ronde (1950) ****

Series of short vignettes about love. Extremely sophisticated.

Rashomon (1950) ****

Classic film by Akira Kurosawa, presenting different points of view of a single event.

Heart Of Stone (1950) ***



The Men (1950) ***

Marlon Brando's first film.

So Long At The Fair (1950) ***

Excellent British film set in Paris in 1889, starring Jean Simmons as a young English tourist whose brother has mysteriously disappeared.

The Toast Of New Orleans (1950) ***

Seraphin (1950) ***


Miasto nieujarzmione (1950) ***

Originally, it was supposed to be a film about a solitary man hiding from the Nazis in the ruins of Warsaw in the fall of 1944. Inspired by the adventures of Wladyslaw Szpilman (told years later by Roman Polanski in "The Pianist"), it would have been a story of Robinson Crusoe of Warsaw. However, under the pressure from the Communist Party, it became a film about the resistance in Warsaw after the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and before the Red Army captured the city in January 1945. A solitary man hiding from the Nazis is still there, but he is a relatively minor character. The film, however, is quite interesting, a superior example of socialist realist cinema, full of Communist propaganda.

Dona Diabla (1950) ***


The Munekata Sisters (1950) ***

Story of two sisters, one of them married to an alcoholic.

Annie Get Your Gun (1950) ***

Many showstoppers in this entertaining MGM musical about two competing sharpshooters on rival Wild West shows.

Shadow On The Wall (1950) ***

Tense thriller about a child in danger. Probably Nancy Reagan's (then known as Nancy Davis) best film.

Cossacks Of The Kuban (1950) ***


A fabulous opening scene (excerpted in "East Side Story"), but otherwise a routine musical set in Southern Russia. A perfect example of Stalinist propaganda.

La Congolaise (1950) ***


Bajaja (1950) ***


Two Weeks With Love (1950) ***








Jane Powell is as delightful as ever, but it's Debbie Reynolds who steals the show as her younger sister in this nostalgic musical set in the Catskills. Musical numbers include:

"A Heart That's Free"  **
"That's How I Need You"  *
"The Oceana Roll"  ***
"Aba Daba Honeymoon"  **
"By The Light Of The Silvery Moon"  **
"Beautiful Lady"
"My Hero"  **
"Row Row Row"  **