Here, I’m taking my next look at a classic film that A Reader Recommended. Last time out, I gave you my take on the martial arts horror film The Boxer’s Omen. This time, my thanks to reader GUNNY KOON USMC…
Read more →The D.I.
1950s Movies
Classic 1950s movie reviews, movie articles and information. Movie reviews from classic movies from 1950 to 1959, the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Classic Noir: Crime Wave
Noir 101. The Essentials. Crime Wave. Really? If this little policier from Warner Bros. (filmed in 1952, released in ’54) isn’t part of your vocabulary then it needs to be; and considering it was finally released on DVD a few…
Read more →Touch of Evil (1958): Classic Movie Review
Guest blogger Alex DeLarge presents this review of the film noir classic Touch of Evil (1958): In the explosive purgatory between moral boundaries, two men seek Justice by different means: one servant to the Rule of Law and the other…master. This…
Read more →The Big Country: For People Who Don’t Like Cowboy Movies
Guest blogger Victoria Balloon writes: Some people refuse to watch Westerns on the grounds that the predictable parade of horses, gunfights and tumbleweeds makes them ultimately shallow and boring. They are missing out; there were Westerns made in the 1950s that…
Read more →Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959): Classic Movie review
The Tarzan movies that I watched as a kid on Saturday morning TV have all blurred into my head as one vine-swinging meta-narrative of a cartoonish jungle hero battling cartoonish villains. But of all those films, one stood out from…
Read more →Goodbye, My Fancy (1951): Movie Review
Goodbye, My Fancy is an interesting, if not completely satisfactory, film about a woman with a successful professional life but a habit of running out on challenging relationships and personal situations. It’s the story of Congresswoman Agatha Reed (Joan Crawford),…
Read more →Singin’ in the Rain: Guest Movie Review
It’s interesting how some of the best Hollywood movies of the early ’50s—thinking specifically of Singin’ in the Rain and 1950’s Sunset Blvd. but several others fit the bill as well—seized the moment to look back acidly on the transition of…
Read more →Westbound (1959): Classic Movie Review
I enjoy college football — specifically, USC Trojan football — but I never watch pro football. Instead, I spent my Super Bowl Sunday enjoying another great American pastime, the Randolph Scott Western. Westbound is one of the seven late ’50s…
Read more →I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951)
In 1945 John E. Rankin, the long serving, bombastic, and racist congressman from Mississippi stated “one of the most dangerous plots ever instigated for the overthrow of this government has its headquarters in Hollywood … the greatest hotbed of subversive…
Read more →Tammy and the Bachelor (1957): A Classic Movie Review
This review of Tammy and the Bachelor was chosen in honor of the late Leslie Nielsen, the film’s leading man. I’d never seen the film before, and for the first 15 minutes or so, I wasn’t quite sure what to make…
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