Top 10 Films of 1954

1. "The Seven Samurai" (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)

2. "Rear Window" (Alfred Hitchcock, USA)

3. "On The Waterfront" (Elia Kazan, USA)

4. "Beat The Devil" (John Huston, USA)

5. "A Star Is Born" (George Cukor, USA)

6. "La Strada" (Federico Fellini, Italy)

7. "Johnny Guitar" (Nicholas Ray, USA)

8. "Them!" (Gordon Douglas, USA)

9. "Magnificent Obsession" (Douglas Sirk, USA)

10. "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" (Stanley Donen, USA)

Other great films:

20 000 Leagues Under The Sea
Abismos de pasion (Mexico)
The Barefoot Contessa
The Caine Mutiny
Carmen Jones
Celuloza (Poland)

Chikamatsu (Japan)
The Country Girl
Dial M For Murder
Ernst Thalmann: Sohn seiner Klasse (East Germany)

Garden Of Eden

The Glenn Miller Story
Godzilla (Japan)
Gwiazdy musza plonac (Poland)
Hobson's Choice (UK)
Jail Bait

Le Mouton à cinq pattes (France)

The Naked Jungle
Piatka z ulicy Barskiej (Poland)
Pod gwiazda frygijska (Poland)

Putkinotko (Finland)
Przygoda na Mariensztacie (Poland)

Robinson Crusoe (Mexico)
Sabrina
Salt Of The Earth
Sansho The Bailiff (Japan)
Senso

La Spiaggia (Italy)

Suddenly
There's No Business Like Show Business
Three Coins In The Fountain
Tiefland (Germany)

Touchez pas au grisbi (France)
True Friends (Soviet Union)
The Vanishing Prairie
Vera Cruz
Viaggio in Italia (Italy)
Victory At Sea
The Wild One

Short Top 3:

1. "Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome" (Kenneth Anger, USA)

2. "Thursday's Children" (Lindsay Anderson, Guy Brenton, UK)

3. "Paul Tomkowicz Street-Railway Switchman" (Roman Kroitor, NFB, Canada)

Other great shorts:

Berenice (France)

Sommerparadiset (Norway)

Top Commercial:

"White Rain" (White Rain Shampoo)

Top TV:

"The George Burns And Gracie Allen Show: Columbia Picture Doing Burns And Allen Story" (Frederick De Cordova, CBS)

Cartoon Top 10

1. "Pigs Is Pigs" (Jack Kinney, Disney)

2. "Crazy Mixed-Up Pup" (Tex Avery, Universal)

3. "Convict Concerto" (Don Patterson, Universal)

4. "When Magoo Flew" (Pete Burness, Columbia)

5. "I'M Cold" (Tex Avery, Universal)

6. "No Barking" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

7. "Baby Buggy Bunny" (Chuck Jones, Warner)

8. "Sandy Claws" (Friz Freleng, Warner)

9. "How Now Boing-Boing" (Robert Cannon, Columbia)

10. "The Little Chimney Sweep" (Lotte Reiniger, UK)

Other great cartoons:

Baby Butch
Bewitched Bunny
Billy Boy
Bird-Brain Bird Dog
Bringing Up Mother
Bugs And Thugs
By Word Of Mouth
Casey Bats Again
Claws For Alarm
Design For Leaving
Dixieland Droopy
Dog Pounded
Donald's Diary
Drag-along Droopy
Dragon Around
A Drop Too Much (Czechoslovakia)
The Flying Squirrel
Fudget's Budget
Gone Batty
Grand Canyonscope
Grin And Bear It
Hic-cup Pup
Little Boy Boo
Little School Mouse
The Lone Chipmunks
Lumber Jack-Rabbit
Man On The Flying Trapeze
Pet Peeve
The Seapreme Court
Sheep Ahoy
Sleepy-Time Squirrel
Stop Look And Hasten
The Three Wishes (UK)
Touche Pussy Cat
Under The Counter Spy
Wild Wife
Yankee Doodle Bugs

Weak films of 1954:

Brigadoon
Guacho (Argentina)
The High And The Mighty
Island Monster
Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (Japan)
White Christmas
Young At Heart

Weak shorts:

The First Piano Quartette

Siam
A Time Out Of War

Weak cartoons:

Alley To Bali
Ballet-Oops
Bell Hoppy
Captain Hareblower
Cat's Bah
Cinderella (UK)
Destination Magoo
Devil May Hare
Doctor Jerkyle's Hide
Downhearted Duckling
The Farm Of Tomorrow
Feline Frame-Up
The Flea Circus
The Frog Prince (UK)
Goo Goo Goliath
Homesteader Droopy
Hot Rod Huckster
I Gopher You
The Impossible Possum
Kangaroo Courting
Magoo Goes Skiing
Mice Follies
Muzzle Tough
My Little Duckaroo
Neapolitan Mouse
No Parking Hare
The Oily American
Posse Cat
Private Eye Popeye
Puppy Tale
Quack Shot
Real Gone Woody
Satan's Waitin'
Social Lion
Spare The Child
Spare The Rod

Top 3 Musicals of 1954

1. "A Star Is Born" (George Cukor, Warner)


2. "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers" (Stanley Donen, MGM)

3. "Carmen Jones" (Otto Preminger, 20th-Fox)

The Seven Samurai (1954) *****

One of the greatest films of all time. An exciting, powerful and deeply moving story of a small village trying to defend itself from ruthless bandits by hiring seven ronins (unemployed samurai).

Gwiazdy musza plonac (1954) ***

Impressive documentary about Silesian coal miners.

Pod gwiazda frygijska (1954) ***

The continuation of "Celuloza" (1954). The story of Szczesny, a member of the Polish Communist Party and his revolutionary struggle. Socialist realism in its purest form.

Robinson Crusoe (1954) ***

Celuloza (1954) ***

A perfect example of socialist realism in Polish cinema. A story of a poor peasant who finds work in a wood factory and becomes a Communist sympatizer. His story is continued in "Pod gwiazda frygijska" (1954).

Przygoda na Mariensztacie (1954) ***

A beautiful young peasant girl (Lidia Korsak, all photos) dreams of becoming a bricklayer. Only in a socialist realist film made in Communist Poland in 1954. But its ridiculous premise aside, it's still a charming musical comedy about the battle of the sexes. This is the kind of film that would later be deconstructed and demythologized in Andrzej Wajda's "Czlowiek z marmuru".

Chikamatsu (1954) ***

Touchez pas au grisbi (1954) ***

True Friends (1954) ***

Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.

Garden Of Eden (1954) ***

Dial M For Murder (1954) ***

A typical Alfred Hitchcock's suspense film.

Le Mouton à cinq pattes (1954) ***

Ernst Thalmann: Sohn seiner Klasse (1954) ***

East German drama about the future leader of the German Communist Party in the 1920's. More conventional than its more interesting sequel, "Ernst Thalmann: Fuhrer seiner Klasse" (1955).

Tiefland (1954) ***

Legendary German film directed by Leni Riefenstahl. It had the longest production time of a film to date - 14 years (a record broken since only by Orson Welles' "The Other Side Of The Wind"). The filming started in Spain in 1940, continued in the Alps, and then in the Dolomites, as well as in the Babelsberg Studios in Berlin. Afterwards, the Barrandov Studios in Prague were used for more shooting that lasted until 1944. After the war, the footage was confiscated and kept by French authorities for several years, but eventually returned to her. After its final editing, the movie was released in 1954.

Viaggio in Italia (1954) ***

Roberto Rossellini's best film, starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders as a British couple visiting Italy.

La Spiaggia (1954) ***

Putkinotko (1954) ***

The film is available here.

Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) **

Less impressive than Kenji Mizoguchi's 1944 version.

The High and The Mighty (1954) **

Basically, it's the story of a passenger plane taking off in Honolulu and then... SPOILERS ALERT!.. landing safely in San Francisco. Pretty tense, nonetheless, because of what might have happened.

White Christmas (1954) **

An inferior remake of "Holiday Inn" (1942), again starring Bing Crosby, but with Danny Kaye instead of Fred Astaire.

Guacho (1954) **

Classy Argentinian melodrama about a fisherman's wife adopting the son her husband had with his former mistress.

Brigadoon (1954) *

Probably the worst MGM musical of the 1950's.

Thursday's Children (1954) ****

Oscar-winning documentary short about deaf children. Codirected by Lindsay Anderson. Touching and memorable.

Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome (1954) ****

Bérénice (1954) ***

A short film by Eric Rohmer. Very different from his later films.