Top 10 Films of 1953

1. "The Band Wagon" (Vincente Minnelli, USA)

2. "Stalag 17" (Billy Wilder, USA)

3. "The Big Heat" (Fritz Lang, USA)

4. "From Here To Eternity" (Fred Zinnemann, USA)

5. "La Salaire de la peur" (Henri-Georges Clouzot, France)


6. "Shane" (George Stevens, USA)

7. "Ugetsu" (Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan)

8. "Madame de..." (Max Ophuls, France)

9. "Les Vacances de M. Hulot" (Jacques Tati, France)

10. "Tokyo Story" (Yasujirô Ozu, Japan)

Other great films:

The 5000 Fingers Of Dr.T

Alaston malli karkuteilla (Finland)
Calamity Jane
The Captain's Paradise (UK)
Le Carrosse d'or (Italy)
Easy To Love
El (Mexico)
Gate Of Hell (Japan)
Genevieve (UK)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
The Girl Next Door
Glen Or Glenda
Hondo
I Vitelloni (Italy)
Kiss Me Kate
Lili
The Living Desert

Lucrèce Borgia (France)

Maternite clandestine (France)

Mogambo
The Moon Is Blue
The Naked Spur

Peter Pan
Pickup On South Street

Quand tu liras cette lettre (France)

Sawdust And Tinsel (Sweden)
Small Town Girl
Sprawa do zalatwienia (Poland)
The Star (Soviet Union)
The Story Of Little Mook (East Germany)

Summer With Monika (Sweden)

Trzy opowiesci (Poland)

Virgin In Hollywood

The War Of The Worlds

Short Top 3:

1. "Kolejarskie slowo" (Andrzej Munk, Poland)

2. "Eaux d'artifice" (Kenneth Anger, USA)

3. "The Living City" (Haskell Wexler, John Barnes, USA)

Other great shorts:

Bear Country
Operation Blue Jay

Prowlers Of The Everglades
Return To Glennascaul (Ireland)

Varley (Canada)

Top Commercial:

"Lucky Strike" (Lucky Strike)

Other great commercials:

Mother Knows Best

Top TV:

"I Love Lucy: Lucy Goes To The Hospital" (William Asher, CBS)

Cartoon Top 10

1. "Duck Amuck" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

2. "The Tell-Tale Heart" (Ted Parmelee, Columbia)

3. "Duck Dodgers In The 24 1/2 Century" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

4. "Toot Whistle Plunk And Boom" (Ward Kimball, Charles Nichols, Disney)

5. "The Unicorn In The Garden" (William T. Hurtz, Columbia)

6. "Much Ado About Nutting" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

7. "Rugged Bear" (Jack Hannah, Disney)

8. "A Mouse Divided" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

9. "Melody" (Ward Kimball, Charles Nichols, Disney)

10. "Football: Now and Then" (Jack Kinney, Disney)

Other great cartoons:

Barney's Hungry Cousin
Ben And Me
Bully For Bugs
Catty Cornered
Christopher Crumpet
Don's Fountain Of Youth
Don't Give Up The Sheep
Duck! Rabbit! Duck!
Easy Peckin's
For Whom The Bulls Toil
Fowl Weather
From A To Z-z-z-z
Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony
Hare Trimmed
Heir Bear
Hot Noon
Hotsy Footsy
How To Sleep
Hypnotic Hick
Jerry and Jumbo
Just Ducky
Kiss Me Cat
Little Boy With A Big Horn
The New Neighbor
Of Rice And Hen
Plop Goes The Weasel
Punch Trunk
The Simple Things
Snow Business
Southern Fried Rabbit
A Street Cat Named Sylvester
There Auto Be A Law
The Three Little Pups
TV Of Tomorrow

Two Little Frosts (Czechoslovakia)
Two Little Indians
Upswept Hare
Wild Over You
Working For Peanuts
Zipping Along

Weak films of 1953:

Call Me Madam

Fear And Desire
House Of Wax
How To Marry A Millionaire
I Confess
Invaders From Mars
Julius Caesar
The Robe
Roman Holiday
The Stars Are Singing
The Twonky
Zolnierz zwyciestwa (Poland)

Weak shorts:

The Alaskan Eskimo
They Planted A Stone (UK)

Weak cartoons:

Ancient Fistory
Ant Pasted
Belle Boys
Buccaneer Woodpecker
Canvas Back Duck
Cat's Aweight
Cat-Tails For Two
Cobs And Robbers
The Emperor's New Clothes
Father's Day Off
Father's Weekend
Forward March Hare
Half-Pint Palomino
How To Dance
Life With Tom
Magoo Slept Here
Magoo's Masterpiece
The Missing Mouse
Muscle Tussle
Operation Sawdust
A Peck O'Trouble
The Plywood Panic
Robot Rabbit
Safety Spin
Snow White And Red Rose (UK)
Spare The Rod
That's My Pup
Tom-Tom Tomcat
Wee-Willie Wildcat
What's Sweepin'
Wrestling Wrecks

Top 3 Musicals of 1953

1. "The Band Wagon" (Vincente Minnelli, MGM)


2. "Kiss Me Kate" (George Sidney, MGM)

3. "Small Town Girl" (Laszlo Kardos, MGM)

Summer With Monika (1953) ****

The Band Wagon (1953) *****

Fred Astaire's best musical of the 50's. Musical numbers:

"By Myself" ***
"A Shine On Your Shoes" ***
"That's Entertainment" ***
"Beggar's Waltz"  *
"Dancing In The Dark" ***
"I Love Louisa" ***
"New Sun In The Sky" ***
"I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan" ***
"Louisiana Hayride" ***
"Triplets" ***
"Girl Hunt Ballet" ***
"That's Entertainment" (reprise) ***

Sawdust And Tinsel (1953) ****

Superb Ingmar Bergman's film set in a circus.

Gate Of Hell (1953) ***

Japanese drama set in 12th century Kyoto.

Trzy opowiesci (1953) ***

A perfect example of Polish Stalinist cinema. Social realism at its best (and worst).

Alaston malli karkuteilla (1953) ***

The film is available here.

Maternite clandestine (1953) ***

The Story Of Little Mook (1953) ***

Impressive children fantasy film from East Germany.

The Star (1953) ***

Soviet war drama, filmed in 1949, inexplicably banned for 4 years by Communist censors, and only released after Stalin's death.

Lucrèce Borgia (1953) ***

Virgin In Hollywood (1953) ***

Quand tu liras cette lettre (1953) ***

Sprawa do zalatwienia (1953) ***

Suprisingly subversive comedy made in Poland during the Stalin era. While seemingly very pro-Communist, the film inadvertently reveals numerous absurdities of the ruling system.

Call Me Madam (1953) **

Julius Caesar (1953) **

A conventional adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play about the death of the first Roman emperor.

Roman Holiday (1953) **

Audrey Hepburn is delightful in this hopelessly conventional romantic comedy set in Rome.

I Confess (1953) **

Hitchcock thriller set in Quebec City, about a priest falsely accused of murder and unable to defend himself because of the secret of the confession.

The Twonky (1953) *

Awful comedy about an evil television set.

Zolnierz zwyciestwa (1953) *

A perfect example of a bad, ineffective, heavy-handed and ham-fisted Stalinist propaganda film from Poland. Unlike many other contemporary socialist-realist works (such as "Miasto nieujarzmione", "Gromada", "Trzy opowiesci", "Celuloza" or "Pod gwiazda frygijska") which use the Stalinist propaganda effectively and convincingly, this is such an inept and ridiculous attempt that one is almost tempted to suspect a self-sabotage on the part of its otherwise talented director, Wanda Jakubowska (whose "Ostatni etap", a leftist, but non-Stalinist work, was the best Polish film of 1948). Allegedly a biographical drama about a famous Polish Communist general, Karol Swierczewski, the film spends so much time and energy on countless supporting characters, parallel storylines and other digressions, that its narrative structure literally collapses in a heap of rubble. Attempting to trace the highlights of Swierczewski's career (from his participation in the Soviet Revolution, through the Spanish Civil War to the battlefields of World War II and the repression of the Ukrainian resistance in the Bieszczady Mountains, where he died in 1947), the film often forgets its nominal hero, and focuses on many other subjects, unrelated to his life. Ultimately, it feels less like a biopic, and more like an epic drama about the fight between Communism and Fascism in the first half of the 20th century, but a horribly disjointed and confusing one.

How To Marry A Millionaire (1953) *

One of the worst comedies of the 1950's - stupid, sexist, hopelessly dated, unbelievably boring and incompetently directed.

Bear Country (1953) ***

Mother Knows Best (1953) ***

A vintage Campbell Soup commercial.

Return To Glennascaul (1953) ***

An Irish ghost story. Nominated for an Oscar. Costarring Orson Welles as himself.

The Living City (1953) ***

Oscar-nominated short documentary about urban planning.

Operation Blue Jay (1953) ***

Oscar-nominated short documentary about the construction of an Air Force base in Greenland.

Lucky Strike (1953) ***

Prowlers Of The Everglades (1953) ***

Eaux d'artifice (1953) ***

An eerie and oneiric film, that uses water fountains of Villa d'Este in Tivoli as visual metaphors symbolizing sexual arousal and orgasmic pleasure.

Varley (1953) ***

Kolejarskie slowo (1953) ***

Socialist realist documentary about brave railway workers keeping trains running on time in Stalinist Poland.