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hythm blues fans knew the music of black artists like wynonie harris and arthur big boy crudup the kind of music that elvis presley made palatable to white audiences while still retaining some sexiness and danger there s nothing sexy or dangerous about bill haley but he and his band have incredible chops and their music really moves daddio this movie also features a few other bands most notably the platters a black doo wop group who perform two of their timeless classics in this flick the great pretender and only you a good example of this film s viewpoint is the sequence in which the platters sing beautifully while standing nearly still and are then followed on stage by bill haley and his all white band performing rudy s rock with al rex lying down on stage to hump his bass while saxophonist rudy pompilli stands on top of al rex and humps him wild sexualized performances that s for white performers only dad rock around the clock came out right after heartbreak hotel topped the charts and right around the same time that elvis s first lp hit stores so it s quaint on arrival but like i said the music is great and the dancing by lisa gaye and her male partner earl barton is smoking lisa gaye is easily the best thing about this movie she s the only actor whose scenes have some sizzle and her slicked back short black hairstyle might be the most dangerous rock roll thing about this movie 1 comment posted in uncategorized bookmark the permalink strangers on a train june 30 1951 posted on january 9 2017 by adam lounsbery strangers on a train 1949 directed by alfred hitchcock warner bros sometimes i think that hitchcock s black white films don t get enough love aside from psycho which is one of his most modern and accessible films strangers on a train is one of my favorite hitchcock films and i think it s criminally underrated it s been awhile since i ve seen it but it held up wonderfully i honestly think it s one of his best films from this period and as beautiful an example of pure cinema as any film in hitchcock s body of work i don t think it s an accident that this was hitchcock s first collaboration with robert burks the cinematographer who worked with hitchcock into the 1960s and who shot nearly all of his most acclaimed color films like vertigo 1958 and north by northwest 1959 strangers on a train has a nifty little plot based on a novel by patricia highsmith but it s the way the story is told visually and rhythmically that makes it such a tremendous thriller from the opening scene which cross cuts between two passengers legs walking swiftly through a busy train station we are in the hands of a master filmmaker one of the men is conservatively dressed while the other wears loud shoes and pin striped trousers they finally take their seats on the train cross their legs bump into each other pardon themselves and then the fun begins farley granger plays a professional tennis player named guy haines and robert walker plays an unhinged man named bruno antony the film starts with an unpleasant scenario we can all relate to being cornered on public transportation by a chatty and overly familiar stranger and quickly devolves into a nightmare when bruno devises a plan in which he and guy could commit murder for each other getting rid of troublesome people in their lives while giving each other perfect alibis guy thinks it s just one more outlandish utterance from his very odd traveling companion but he quickly learns how deadly serious the insane bruno really is most of the criticism i ve seen of strangers on a train focuses on how much people dislike the film s central romantic couple played by farley granger and ruth roman but i honestly don t understand this i think granger while not the most interesting actor is perfectly cast as an attractive young man completely out of his depth and while ruth roman is pretty dull in this role the scenes in which only she and granger are on screen together occupy mere minutes of the film s running time most of their scenes together also feature her hilariously dry father a senator played by leo g carroll and her crime obsessed sister played by patricia hitchcock the director s daughter whose ghoulish interest in all things dark and sordid recalls the true crime buffs in hitchcock s shadow of a doubt 1943 strangers on a train is a first class thriller with some of the most striking black white visuals in hitchcock s career as well as one of the most memorable and drawn out murder set pieces in his body of work it s a terrific film and worth revisiting if your memories of it are less than stellar 1 comment posted in 1951 june 1951 and tagged alfred hitchcock farley granger film noir leo g carroll patricia highsmith patricia hitchcock robert burks robert walker ruth roman warner bros bookmark the permalink the prowler may 25 1951 posted on january 3 2017 by adam lounsbery the prowler 1951 directed by joseph losey united artists horizon pictures eagle productions the prowler is a queasy movie about voyeurism stalking and sexual power dynamics and it s just as relevant today as it was when it was released evelyn keyes a very good actress who appeared in a lot of small films but is mostly remembered for playing suellen o hara in gone with the wind turns in a star performance as susan gilvray a lonely and frustrated married woman who spends her nights alone in a great big house in los angeles in a brief pov shot before the opening credits we see her in her bathroom wearing a towel she looks out the window directly at the camera and screams the interesting thing about the prowler is that while that peeping tom looms large over everything that happens next we never see him and the viewer can never entirely be sure that he wasn t a figment of susan s imagination but whether or not he exists is beside the point because susan soon opens her door to a more insidious threat one of the two patrolmen who responds to the report of a prowler is webb garwood van heflin a slimy bitter superficially charming man who hates being a cop and is always looking for an angle so he can move up in the world as lapd superfan james ellroy is quick to point out in the supplemental features of the blu ray webb garwood is never specifically identified as a member of the lapd and his badge and certain identifying features of his uniform are different from the ones worn by lapd officers however garwood s black uniform and the fact that the prowler clearly takes place in los angeles seem to mark him as an lapd officer despite the filmmakers decision to err on the side of political caution but just like the mysterious and unseen creeper who sets things in motion it doesn t really matter whether webb garwood is a member of the lapd or not he s a rotten symbol of something much bigger he represents the worst possibilities of unscrupulous people who have the power of the state behind them he can sexually manipulate women commit murder and perjure himself but because of his badge juries and the general public will give him the benefit of the doubt the screenplay for the prowler based on the story the cost of living by robert thoeren and hans wilhelm was written by dalton trumbo who was no stranger to the cruel power of the state trumbo had been blacklisted but it didn t stop him from working throughout the 50s it just meant he got paid much less than he deserved his front for the prowler was hugo butler trumbo is one of the greatest screenwriters in hollywood history and the prowler is trumbo at his down and dirty best i ve seen the prowler several times and it gets a little better with each viewing evelyn keyes and van heflin embody their characters arthur c miller s black white cinematography is haunting and makes susan s hacienda look like the loneliest place on earth losey s direction is crisp lyn murray s music is powerful without being overbearing dalton trumbo s script is timeless the prowler is classic los angeles noir and one of the best bad cop movies of all time leave a comment posted in 1951 may 1951 and tagged arthur c miller dalton trumbo evelyn keyes film noir john maxwell joseph losey lyn murray s p eagle sam spiegel van heflin bookmark the permalink the idiot may 23 1951 posted on december 12 2016 by adam lounsbery the idiot hakuchi 1951 directed by akira kurosawa shochiku company as a nearly lifelong fan of director akira kurosawa the idiot is a difficult film to review watching it was an incredibly frustrating experience since major portions of the film have been lost and it s doubtful they will ever be found kurosawa s original cut of the idiot ran about four and a half hours and was intended to be released in two parts however the shochiku studio bosses trimmed it down to a little less than three hours which is the only existing version the idiot a k a hakuchi is an adaptation of the novel by fyodor dostoyevsky kurosawa followed the plot of the novel fairly closely but changed the setting from 19th century russia to postwar japan appropriately the film takes place in hokkaido the northernmost of japan s main islands the snowy landscapes give the film the look and feel of a russian novel kurosawa was always preoccupied with weather especially torrential rainstorms and the idiot is a beautiful portrait of a frigid and hostile environment the main problem with the idiot is that it appears to have been trimmed down in a completely arbitrary fashion the constant wipes a technique which usually conveys a sense of excitement and forward movement in kurosawa s films seem to always signify an elision in the idiot characters will move from one place to another with no explanation or the setting will change without warning watching the idiot in its current form is sort of like reading a novel and skipping various chapters at random the idiot is not a film i can properly review but i will say this if you have never seen a kurosawa film before make sure it s not this one however if you are a kurosawa fan it is a film you must see at least once it s a gorgeous piece of work with wonderful performances by the radiant setsuko hara who also appeared in kurosawa s no regrets for our youth 1946 and masayuki mori who gives a haunting performance as the idiot of the title a man deeply traumatized by war kurosawa mainstays toshiro mifune and takashi shimura have less to do but turn in dependably good work i wrote in my review of the quiet duel 1949 that it might be shimura and mifune s least interesting pairing for kurosawa but this one definitely is mostly because they don t really interact much leave a comment posted in 1951 may 1951 and tagged akira kurosawa foreign films fyodor dostoevsky japanese cinema masayuki mori setsuko hara shochiku eiga takashi shimura toshirô mifune bookmark the permalink the thing from another world april 27 1951 posted on december 1 2016 by adam lounsbery the thing from another world 1951 directed by christian nyby rko radio pictures winchester pictures i m probably one of the few people my age who fell in love with the original version of the thing before seeing john carpenter s 1982 version back in high school i d watch any piece of 1950s sci fi schlock at least once but the thing from another world was far from schlock and i watched my vhs copy at least six or seven times when i was a teenager maybe more in fact i loved the thing so much that i didn t really like john carpenter s remake the first time i watched it i loved the optimistic capable characters in the original and all their rapid fire overlapping dialogue and i found carpenter s version pessimistic and depressing however like most of carpenter s films from the 70s and 80s the thing gets better every time i watch it and it s now easily one of my favorite sci fi horror films revisiting the original version of the thing was a strange experience at least for the first 20 minutes i hadn t seen it in a long time and carpenter s version has in many ways replaced it in my heart once you ve seen the innovative gory special effects of carpenter s version it s hard to go back to james arness in a bald cap spacesuit and claw hands the 1951 version also lacks the central idea of a shape shifting alien who can mimic human form so there isn t the same level of paranoia which is a huge part of carpenter s version after the first couple of reels however i settled back into the rhythm of the original and enjoyed it as much as i always did it s a completely different movie from carpenter s version and what it does it does brilliantly it may not have much in the way of paranoia but it s a suspenseful film that establishes a real sense of isolation and claustrophobia one thing that struck me on this viewing of the thing is how much of its gruesomeness and horror is dependent on the viewer s imagination descriptions of things like a plant based alien humanoid who lives on blood or scientists hanging upside down with their throats slashed are only referred to in dialogue this probably played better for audiences weaned on radio dramas and i m not sure how well it will hold up for younger viewers accustomed to explicit shocks on the other hand the decision of the filmmakers to keep the alien monster mostly off screen has dated the film well the thing holds up as superior entertainment that is head and shoulders above most 50s sci fi movies the cast is full of actors who never became household names but they deliver deft character work and seem like real people what the film lacks in budget it more than makes up for with an intelligent script and tight pacing it s a terrific movie that i can watch over and over and it still feels fresh 1 comment posted in 1951 april 1951 and tagged christian nyby douglas spencer horror howard hawks james arness kenneth tobey margaret sheridan rko radio pictures robert cornthwaite science fiction bookmark the permalink tarzan s peril march 10 1951 posted on september 26 2016 by adam lounsbery tarzan s peril 1951 directed by byron haskin sol lesser productions rko radio pictures the lavish spectacle king solomon s mines 1950 rewrote the rules of the jungle adventure film since it was shot on location in sub saharan africa and instantly made all the b movies shot on soundstages and backlots look ridiculous first and foremost it showed that there was a lot less jungle in africa than kids raised on tarzan movies assumed there was the distant rolling plains we saw in king solomon s mines bore little resemblance to the dense jungles where tarzan swung on vines so producer sol lesser and rko radio pictures picked up the gauntlet and decided to shoot their next tarzan picture not only in color but on location in kenya unfortunately something went wrong with the color footage so tarzan s peril was released in black white a fair amount of the location footage found its way into the final product but it s not integrated very well into the main narrative we never see lex barker strutting in his loincloth through the grasslands of keny...