Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3.0)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#176 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:45 pm

TMDaines wrote:As someone who doesn't participate in these lists projects, primarily because I haven't watched a large enough volume of films to warrant it but who still enjoys reading the discussion and viewing the results, it seems next to nobody actually submits a list of what they believe the fifty greatest films of the decade to be. Why do people feel the need to play games so much when it will just ultimately not really reflect what the final consensus actually is. People seem to do it in order to either a) avoid being perceived as boring, b) avoid voting for something that they no no-one else will watch, c) push up the place of a few select films, which they feel others will vote for, and they want to make sure get as high as possible.

Why do people just not vote for what they to believe the greatest fifty films to be instead of just trying to be contrary?
Because determining whether you think, say, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon is the 32nd best movie of the decade (just above The Great McGinty) or the 33rd (just below it) is inescapably kind of arbitrary- you always wind up with movies that straightforwardly aren't comparable, and you come up with little tricks to break ties or resolve disputes in your head.

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Tommaso
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#177 Post by Tommaso » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:51 pm

If you only have 50 films to vote for, some of the great ones will fall off the list anyhow. "Komödianten" would have made my list at around #49, and I really can't tell whether it's better or worse than "Blood and Sand" which finally took its place. If I had made a 'strategic' list, I would never have voted for "Citizen Kane" for sure.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#178 Post by TMDaines » Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:15 pm

I know it's kind of arbitrary to decide between #32 and #33, and that may well change of any given day, but there seems to be so many comments where people are voting strategically, or arbitrarily creating new rules for themselves such as deliberately not nominating more one film of any director, or making sure they have at least one film of this nation or movement, that's all. Was just an outsider's observation.

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Tommaso
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#179 Post by Tommaso » Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:27 pm

You're certainly right with questioning the limiting of oneself if it comes to films by one director. That's why I had seven films by Michael Powell on my list. :D

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zedz
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#180 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:11 pm

TMDaines wrote:Why do people feel the need to play games so much when it will just ultimately not really reflect what the final consensus actually is. People seem to do it in order to either a) avoid being perceived as boring, b) avoid voting for something that they no no-one else will watch, c) push up the place of a few select films, which they feel others will vote for, and they want to make sure get as high as possible.

Why do people just not vote for what they to believe the greatest fifty films to be instead of just trying to be contrary?
If anybody who participates in the Lists Project is actually doing this, they're really, really, unbelievably bad at it. When you see the individual lists, you understand that people are just incredibly eclectic (yet also often unexpectedly conservative), and there's no accounting for taste etc. Any overarching 'character' that you might think you can discern from the aggregate list is, for the most part, an illusion borne of very basic statistical effects.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#181 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:22 pm

I submitted an inverse top fifty of films I wanted swo to subtract points from

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zedz
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#182 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:48 pm

Having mildly criticised the dullness of the final list, here’s my own very dull list! I really only had time for a light reshuffle of my previous submission, with a few new discoveries and reassessments tossed in the mix. As a consequence, most of the desperate and dateless are films I’ve already raved about elsewhere – or here, even.

Top twenty first, with also-rans in bold, then the waifs and strays from the rest of my list.

1. Motion Painting No. 1 (Fischinger, 1947) – as somebody else noted, this is a film that almost transcends cinema. Seeing this for the first time at an impressionable age is one of my key film-going moments.

2. Ritual in Transfigured Time (Deren, 1946)
3. Force of Evil (Polonsky, 1948)
4. Late Spring (Ozu, 1949)
5. A Canterbury Tale (Powell / Pressburger, 1944)
6. Went the Day Well (Cavalcanti, 1942)
7. There Was a Father (Ozu, 1942)
8. My Darling Clementine (Ford, 1946)

9. T-Men (Mann, 1947) – wait, what? An insane omission, especially after the noir list is done and dusted.

10. La Silence de la Mer (Melville, 1949)

11. Pattes Blanches (Gremillon, 1949) – the sooner these wonderful, strange late Gremillons become available the sooner they can fail to chart on their own merits.

12. La Terra Trema (Visconti, 1948)

13. Pursued (Walsh, 1947) – oh well, one of these days the penny’s going to drop with you guys.

14. Curse of the Cat People (Wise, 1944)
15. I Know Where I’m Going (Powell / Pressburger, 1945)
16. Meet Me in St Louis (Minnelli, 1944)

17. Somewhere in the Night (Mankiewicz, 1946) – see, if you care, the eighteen other times I’ve wittered on about this Dada noir artefact.

18. Begone Dull Care (McLaren, 1949)
19. Out of the Past (Tourneur, 1947)
20. His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)

Also-Rans:

21. Daisy Kenyon (Preminger, 1947) – Far and away my favourite Preminger, and a surprisingly dark and adult film from Big Hollywood.

22. It Always Rains on Sunday (Hamer, 1947) – With all due respect to They Made Me a Fugitive (a Great Film indeed), this is for me the quintessential British noir, probably because it’s so profoundly British. Unlike the other contenders, it doesn’t seem like the relocation of American film noir tropes, but rather a parallel evolution.

29. He Walked by Night (Werker (& Mann), 1948)

31. Le Ciel est a vous (Gremillon, 1944)

34. High Sierra (Walsh, 1941) – I guess this just wasn’t Raoul Walsh’s decade (unless you were judging by the films.)

35. Le Tempestaire (Epstein, 1947) – I didn’t actually rewatch this for this iteration of the list, but – Epstein!

36. On the Town (Donen / Kelly, 1949)

38. Yellow Sky (Wellman, 1948) – Since I discovered it too late for the Western list.

39. Act of Violence (Zinnemann, 1948) – It’s still hard for me to believe that Zinnemann had a film this good in him.

43. Thieves’ Highway (Dassin, 1949)

44. The Upturned Glass (Huntington, 1947)

45. The Spiral Staircase (Siodmak, 1945) – Well all I can say is, you guys better see this film that you’ve evidently never seen before the horror lists are due.

47. Number 2: Message from the Sun (Smith, 1941)

48. Film Exercises 2 & 3 (James & John Whitney, 1944) – I must admit that I made special room for these two at the tail end of my list because of the lack of experimental cinema elsewhere (only five other titles on my list), even though I don’t find the forties particularly strong in this area (Anger’s contributions are comparatively weak, in my opinion, if nevertheless epochal). Things will be a lot different next decade.

50. Jammin’ the Blues (Mili, 1944) – Sort of the perfect number 50. I can easily rationalise prioritizing any number of films above it (such as my number 51, Lumiere d’ete), but this is one of those films I tend to drag out to wow people when I have no idea what to watch (or need to stall for time while I find something).

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#183 Post by domino harvey » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:50 pm

The Spiral Staircase is great (and on my Horror List), but I only had room for one Siodmak, and it had to be Phantom Lady

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#184 Post by Cold Bishop » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:43 am

TMDaines wrote:I know it's kind of arbitrary to decide between #32 and #33, and that may well change of any given day, but there seems to be so many comments where people are voting strategically, or arbitrarily creating new rules for themselves such as deliberately not nominating more one film of any director, or making sure they have at least one film of this nation or movement, that's all. Was just an outsider's observation.
Because it is all arbitrary! Like I mentioned in the list thread, you really have a really small group of films you're passionate about, and the rest is an inseparable mass of films you only love. You have to apply silly and arbitrary strategies because there's no real ways of extracting a list. I don't begrudge someone thinking, unquestionably, that, say, Citizen Kane is the #1 film ever made. But it if someone says that it's, the 47th greatest film of the decade, and truly means it's the 47th... well, you sound like an asshole.

There's nothing scientific or clinical about passion. Love for films is all based on series of ineffable, inexplicable emotional impulses and attractions. While one can use their critical facilities to understand why that outburst of emotions may happen, you can never add a quantitative number to it. Any method you use to control and facilitate that traffic of crisscrossing whims and constantly shifting ardor is not only valid, but necessary for this silly, boyish exercise which really is nothing more than an excuse for focused, collective discussion and navigated viewing.

When I say I had to vote for a film of Fascist Italy, I'm not saying that I had some quota I had to fill, less I run affoul of Cinematic Affirmative Action, and the Movie Gods strike me down. I'm saying that I love some of these films that came out of that era, but I have no way of truly measuring them against, say, my love of Anthony Mann's film, so at one point I'm going to have to establish some limits or constraints to include all of them.

When it comes down to it, you can't make a list of the 50 Greatest Films of the Decade. Such a thing doesn't exist. All you can do is create a 50-film snapshot that represents, to the best of your ability, what you love of this decades' cinematic output.

And you should only expend the smallest amount of energy towards it, because it's ultimately meaningless.
Last edited by Cold Bishop on Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#185 Post by matrixschmatrix » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:47 am

Ordering your list probably isn't worth a whole lot, but I am totally willing to pour as much energy into the overall list project as I do into anything in my life- it's an ordered way to get me to sit down and watch a bunch of movies and a framework for thinking about them and discussing them. The list is basically an afterthought, a way of keeping track of where I stand.

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#186 Post by Cold Bishop » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:49 am

Well that's my point: the list is just a pretense.

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domino harvey
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#187 Post by domino harvey » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:55 am

Image

COULD NOT BE MORE IMPORTANT

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#188 Post by tarpilot » Wed Feb 29, 2012 3:01 am

zedz wrote:13. Pursued (Walsh, 1947) – oh well, one of these days the penny’s going to drop with you guys.
34. High Sierra (Walsh, 1941) – I guess this just wasn’t Raoul Walsh’s decade (unless you were judging by the films.)
Looks like we had a clear vote split! Mine were The Strawberry Blonde and Colorado Territory, which I also feel are his two best films period.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#189 Post by serdar002 » Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:02 am

I submitted a list but didn't rewatch much of the decade, so my list was mostly old Hollywood favorites and needs to be updated. I was the one who also voted for both Lumière d'été and Remorques, my no. 1 is Ivan Groznyy, no. 2 Genroku Chushingura, those two were definitely fixed. Opfergang, Une si jolie petite plage, Le secret de Mayerling and Lampin's L'idiot got high ratings.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#190 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Sep 17, 2012 4:49 am

1950s List Orphans:

7. Godzilla

What in the absolute hell. With a lot of the other orphans, I feel bad that I didn't talk them up, but I honestly didn't have any idea that there'd be a point here- a.) it's Godzilla and b.) it just came out on a Criterion blu. I'm honestly kind of shocked.

23. Harvey

This one, I kind of expected to be an also ran, but I do feel bad for not talking it up more- it's an absolute delight of a movie, but it's got a deeply rooted and quite compelling argument about conformity running under it. Plus, it's Jimmy Stewart at his Jimmy Stewartest, maybe the last time the character was totally undarkened in a great movie.

36. Richard III
I was kind of expecting this, since Henry V was also an orphan, and I once again didn't put together a case for it- but as my joy in the movie is largely just that Olivier's Richard is such a delight to watch, so much fun in the way he gets the audience to be complicit in his bastard's behavior, that it's hard to proselytize. I guess Olivier has become the standard bearer for dull, uncinematic Shakespeare adaptations, but I'm damned if I know why that is.


Also Rans:

19. The Furies

This one did a lot more than the vaunted Man of the West, for me- I love Stanwyck's powerful, passionate woman (who seems to be a butch version of a Sirk character in some ways), I love Walter Huston's everything, and I love the capitalist fable and the nihilism that somehow also seems not out of place as a Greek tragedy. It might just be that this was the first Mann movie I watched, but it remains among the best, for me.

25. The Burmese Harp

I can't blame myself for not writing this one up, but I can blame myself for not doing so in time for anyone else to watch it, I guess. It's a movie that's hard to explain, but harder to get out of your head once you watch it. Other than that, I guess see the writeup I did like two days ago.

34. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Damn, I knew I should have talked about this in the 50s list and not in the Musicals list. Oh, well. It's possible this one is a musical for people who don't like musicals- which is where I think I'd have to place myself, though there are some prominent exceptions- but it's a movie that's as hard hitting in forcing you to have a good time as a lot of my list is in forcing you to weep like a child, a kino-fist in a bright red sequined dress. If that's not what musicals are supposed to be, maybe I've figured out why I don't like more of them.

35. Summertime

I'm not shocked by this one, it's a quiet movie with a shitty release, but on reflection I wound up feeling more strongly about it than the bigger, more bombastic Bridge on the River Kwai- it's sort of a companion piece to Nights of Cabiria, one where the lead is a bit less naive, a bit more capable of staying in control of herself. A movie to watch with an aunt on a rainy day. Maybe that's not the best logline in the world, but I love a movie that's great at what it does, and this is absolutely one of them.

38. While the City Sleeps

This is what happens when I don't rewatch a movie for the project, I guess- I can remember how this one felt, and how it moved, and how well it combined an M archetype with a newspaper picture, but I can't really remember the whole of the movie very well. Though, I think if you want to see just how good this one is, you should watch it back to back with Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.

The rest of my also-rans are in my bottom 10, and I can't say that I fought hard enough for them to feel horrible about seeing them not quite make it- though I should write them up later, when it's not five in the morning.

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#191 Post by thirtyframesasecond » Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:29 am

Just a few from my list...

Also rans

A Midsummer Night's Dream (d. Trinka) - wow, this polled at #2 in my list. It's a stunningly animated version of Shakespeare from the director most widely known for the anti-Communist satire 'The Hand'. I saw it at a BFI retrospective, it's hard to get hold of, I'm not surprised it never got more votes, I guess.

Death of a Cyclist (d. Bardem) - I think this got a mention on the board. It polled at #11 on my list, it's a melodrama that involves a car accident - wonder if Martel had this in mind somewhat for 'The Headless Woman'. Again, it's a satire, this time on the complacent middle classes during the Franco era, with a nicely rounded ending.

Night Train (d. Kawalerowicz) - I had the iffy Polart print, but gather Second Run has released this (I think?). This was #19 on my list. I loved 'Mother Joan of the Angels', which will do well for the 60s, this is nicely taut Hitchcockian thriller with a dash of 'Le Corbeau'.

Orphans

Picnic (d. Logan) - comes in at #36, William Holden is probably too old for the role, but he has presence as the outsider who stirs up the white picket fence American suburban town. It's colourful, vivid, over the top but impressive.

Beauties of the Night (d. Clair) - Clair's done well in previous polls for me. This polled at #42, a witty and dreamlike picture about a musician's fantasies.

The House by the River (d. Lang) - polling at #49, it's a low key Lang with a memorably nasty villain.

Glas (d. Haanstra) - finishing my top 50, I thought this had its fans, but I'm also bad for picking shorts in these things.

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Siddon
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#192 Post by Siddon » Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:32 am

Orphans
House on Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959) 1

I kind of knew that House of Haunted Hill was going to likely be an orphan but to see Vertigo hit number #1 that stings. Vertigo is the Ambien to Houses 5 hour Energy, a long muddled "character study". The thing that really bugs me is that Castle made his films good but he also made them for the audience. He plotted them for commercial breaks, he gave you thrills when you were in the theater (this one had a skeleton come down from the rafters), and he really put together the modern horror film. I could watch this movie a hundred times I would still love it.

Black Orpheus (Marcel Camus, 1959) 17

Another one I don't get, this is my favorite telling of the Orpheus story. You can almost see the parallels between this and City of God that came 50 years later.

On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954) 20

I consider this to be the finest academy award winning film from this decade and Brando's best work. I'm not a Brando hater but when I think of him I think of this before I think of The Godfather.

The Tingler (William Castle, 1959) 29

Another William Castle film that got dumped on. I get it though it's not as iconic as House but it's still a lot of fun.

Crazed Fruit (Kō Nakahira, 1956) 38

This is one of those sexy post war Japanese films and really it was the harbinger to the Pink films. But I loved it because I feel like it captured the frankness of boys of that age towards women.

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954) 44
The Abominable Snowman (Val Guest, 1957) 48
King Solomon's Mines (Compton Bennett & Andrew Marton, 1950) 49

I understand those not making it, they barely made my list

Also Rans
Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958) 61/3/15/+4
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952) 95/3(1)/9/+30
Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) 95/3/12/-17
Good Morning (Yasujirō Ozu, 1959) 65/4/28/-84
Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957) 63/3/23/New
Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953) 56/3/21/+30
The African Queen (John Huston, 1951) 52/3/29/New
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) 48/4/33/-1
Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959) 84/4/13/-86
Giant (George Stevens, 1956) 43/4/28/New
Alice in Wonderland (Clyde Geronimi et al, 1951) 23/4/39/-32
House of Wax (André De Toth, 1953) 7/2/47/New
Summer with Monika (Ingmar Bergman, 1953) 4/2/48/-130

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#193 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Sep 17, 2012 5:40 am

I honestly don't even see the point of comparison between Vertigo and House on Haunted Hill. They both have misleading apparently supernatural elements I guess?

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#194 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:25 am

I'm kicking myself for forgetting about Les enfants terribles! Sorry about that!

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Tommaso
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#195 Post by Tommaso » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:45 am

Damn it, I forgot about "Black Orpheus", too! This is such a wonderfully entrancing film, and it really should have been on my list. I guess that other "Orpheus"-film always overshadows it for me. So of course I think Cocteau's masterpiece should have ranked much higher...

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Siddon
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#196 Post by Siddon » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:58 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:I honestly don't even see the point of comparison between Vertigo and House on Haunted Hill. They both have misleading apparently supernatural elements I guess?
Also released at the same time, both centered around the may/December romance between a 50 year old man and 25 year old woman, both dealt with the effects of fear on characters and it's crippling aspect to it. Both Hitchcock and Castle revisited themes and were always attempting to find new ways to appeal audiences.

Have you seen many of William Castles films? Do you know much about the film maker.

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the preacher
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#197 Post by the preacher » Mon Sep 17, 2012 7:24 am

thirtyframesasecond wrote:Just a few from my list...

Also rans

A Midsummer Night's Dream (d. Trinka) - wow, this polled at #2 in my list. It's a stunningly animated version of Shakespeare from the director most widely known for the anti-Communist satire 'The Hand'. I saw it at a BFI retrospective, it's hard to get hold of, I'm not surprised it never got more votes, I guess.

Death of a Cyclist (d. Bardem) - I think this got a mention on the board. It polled at #11 on my list, it's a melodrama that involves a car accident - wonder if Martel had this in mind somewhat for 'The Headless Woman'. Again, it's a satire, this time on the complacent middle classes during the Franco era, with a nicely rounded ending.

Night Train (d. Kawalerowicz) - I had the iffy Polart print, but gather Second Run has released this (I think?). This was #19 on my list. I loved 'Mother Joan of the Angels', which will do well for the 60s, this is nicely taut Hitchcockian thriller with a dash of 'Le Corbeau'.

Orphans

Picnic (d. Logan) - comes in at #36, William Holden is probably too old for the role, but he has presence as the outsider who stirs up the white picket fence American suburban town. It's colourful, vivid, over the top but impressive.

Beauties of the Night (d. Clair) - Clair's done well in previous polls for me. This polled at #42, a witty and dreamlike picture about a musician's fantasies.

The House by the River (d. Lang) - polling at #49, it's a low key Lang with a memorably nasty villain.

Glas (d. Haanstra) - finishing my top 50, I thought this had its fans, but I'm also bad for picking shorts in these things.
Hey, we have walked together with Bardem and Kawalerowicz. I have simply voted for a different Clair, Lang and Haanstra, coudn't find place for Picnic and will probably vote for Ruka in the 60s.

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the preacher
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#198 Post by the preacher » Mon Sep 17, 2012 11:53 am

Methodology, strategy and orphans:

As always I have voted one film per director. This is not to annoy our host, only to halve the looong list of films I equally love.
Also, I have deliberately excluded two movies in my all-time top 10 because I was sure that they would work well without my help: Vertigo and Tokyo Story. A small sacrifice for a decade with so many great movies.

Orphans. A lot? Looking a the sixties list, probably not.

Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959)
I know, I know, Box Office and Academy Awards records…

Bienvenido Mister Marshall (Luis García Berlanga, 1953)
The CLASSIC in this country

Die Brücke (Bernhard Wicki, 1959)
Just a coin toss against Konrad Wolf's Stars

Circle of Danger (Jacques Tourneur, 1951)
Just one of the many Tourneurs I love

Due soldi di speranza (Renato Castellani, 1952)
Forgotten Golden Palm with the best female performance of the decade

Fanfare (Bert Haanstra, 1958)
Orange comedy Ealing-style; Haanstra won an Academy Award that year for Glass

La grande guerra (Mario Monicelli, 1959)
The absurd reality of war, Monicelli's best

Nine Lives (Arne Skouen, 1957)
Norwegian resistance during World War II

Nogiku no gotoki kimi nariki (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1955)
Heartbreaking love story told in flashback

O drakos (Nikos Koundouros, 1956)
A film noir following the rules of ancient Greek tragedy

Oyû-sama (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1951)
Love triangle with Mizoguchi's trademark style

Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan, 1950)
Great script and fine location shooting

Porte des Lilas (René Clair, 1957)
I'm probably the only one who thinks Clair's best films are in the fifties

Rosaura a las 10 (Mario Soffici, 1958)
Rashomon-like structure, far better than Kurosawa's classic

Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
Classic western is splendid in every way (photo, music, Palance, etc.)

Il sole negli occhi (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1953)
Neorealism + Woman's Picture at his best

Surcos (José Antonio Nieves Conde, 1951)
Greatest Spanish film of the decade

Tennessee's Partner (Allan Dwan, 1955)
Greatest Hawks' film that he never made

The Tiger of Eschnapur / The Indian Tomb (Fritz Lang, 1959)
East meets West; as Renoir's The River, a miracle

Ulisse (Mario Camerini, 1954)
The best movie ever about Greek mythology

Un maledetto imbroglio (Pietro Germi, 1959)
A murder mystery by my favorite underrated filmmaker

The Vikings (Richard Fleischer, 1958)
On behalf of Fleischer's wonderful films he shot this decade

The World in His Arms (Raoul Walsh, 1952)
On behalf of Walsh's wonderful films he shot this decade

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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#199 Post by Yojimbo » Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:18 pm

the preacher wrote:Methodology, strategy and orphans:

As always I have voted one film per director. This is not to annoy our host, only to halve the looong list of films I equally love.


Porte des Lilas (René Clair, 1957)
I'm probably the only one who thinks Clair's best films are in the fifties

Tennessee's Partner (Allan Dwan, 1955)
Greatest Hawks' film that he never made
'Les Belles de Nuit' is probably my favourite Clair; 'Paris Qui Dort' probably my next fave; I haven't seen 'Porte des Lilas'.

Tennessee's Partner' is a fun film, with spectacular colour cinematography, particularly in the climactic later scenes, but I much prefer his 'Slightly Scarlet', mainly for Arlene Dahl, and for John Alton's stunning colour noir cinematography,
(and thats even though I normally prefer Rhonda Fleming, in my canon of favourite redheads)
Last edited by Yojimbo on Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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swo17
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Re: Defend Your Darlings, You Sad Pandas! (Lists Project v 3

#200 Post by swo17 » Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:35 pm

colinr0380 wrote:I'm kicking myself for forgetting about Les enfants terribles! Sorry about that!
Tommaso wrote:Damn it, I forgot about "Black Orpheus", too!
A note for future reference: One of the reasons I included this list of films from the decade appearing on They Shoot Pictures, Don't They's website in the first post of the thread was so that people could skim through it and remind themselves of what's eligible.

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