Wild Is the Wind

George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind is a pulpy melodrama that is wonderfully enjoyable, honestly. Anna Magnani and Anthony Quinn are what you’d expect. They give fire and fire. They fight and yell and chew the scenery like method actors in the 1950s ought to do. Anthony Franciosa is honestly even more wonderful in this. He is a sort of villain here who gives a nuanced, delicate performance that I loved. But of course Magnani and Quinn are the stars and they’re absolutely magnetic. Cukor’s direction leans full into the melodrama. And that song. It’s haunting and great, and there’s a reason it’s still a favorite.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is garbage except for a great performance by a young Dennis Hopper and an attempt at something (but a fail) by the genius Kirk Douglas. Oh I like John Ireland too, as always. But this is just nonsense through and through. Its politics are actually insane. It’s edited well and shot beautifully, but the art direction is a mess. More important is the propaganda this film is selling – which is some kind of pro-police thing, even though it is very clear throughout the whole film that the police are out of control, that Wyatt Earp has severely overreached his own jurisdiction, and is even overreaching in his own jurisdiction. He imprisons a woman playing cards – which everyone agrees is perfectly legal – because a woman playing cards might cause more women to play cards. He calls this disturbing the peace. But seriously. Why are these guys with guns better than those guys with guns? And why do these ones deserve to die and the others don’t? The film actually doesn't do a very good job of making any of it make sense.

I suppose there is an interesting reading of this film as a love relationship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and the film is definitely invested in their affection for one another, but I don't even think homosexuality could make this better.

The Enemy Below (1957)

I don't really understand the politics of The Enemy Below. It's a film about a U.S. Navy captain battling it out with a Nazi submarine captain. Their battle is one of strategy and cleverness, and the two men fight until they are both destroyed, although technically the U.S. Americans win. 

And then the two men, like, toast one another and share a cigarette. This doesn't seem related to a kind of shared humanity, though. It seems, instead, as though they share something else – white masculinity, perhaps? I'm opposed to war, and it appears as though the two men at the center of The Enemy Below are also opposed to war. Instead, they both really understand what they're doing as a kind of job. It's their job to kill one another, to try to destroy each other. The film doesn't wave the American flag – it actually doesn't appear in the movie, and neither does the German flag – so this isn't a movie about American exceptionalism or military power. It's rather a jaded view of things.

But, then... the score is rousing and filled with brass and actually feels quite old fashioned. This feels like a late 1950s military movie trapped inside a mid-1940s military movie. Thankfully, Robert Mitchum and Curd Jürgens are both very cool. Mitchum is given none of the film's dumb lines about hope and the future. Those are all given to Russell Collins, who plays the ship's doctor. He dutifully says them, but they ring hollow as Mitchum gives him a withering stare and says only maybe. 

In any case, this is a weird movie. It's shot in beautiful Cinescope, but in many ways it needn't be. We're stuck on these two ships and the camera never really pans out for wide shots except for when Mitchum's ship is bombing the hell out of Jürgens. These are The Enemy Below's best moments, and the special effects needed to make them happen are worth the watch, even if its politics are weird.

Perri

Perri is a cute enough story about a squirrel – why they've gone and named her Perri is anyone's guess. Walt Disney takes documentary nature photography and gives it narration and makes a melodrama out of forest interactions – with songs that aren't too bad. This is diverting enough, but its heteronormativity is so annoying. Oh well. I guess that's the 1950s for you.

Les Girls (1957)

I loved Kay Kendall in this, and I don't recall ever having seen her in anything before, but this movie as a whole is rather lackluster. I wanted more musical numbers and more Gene Kelly.

Mother India (1957)

Oooo the drama. Mother India (मदर इण्डिया) is an epic (three-hour) musical melodrama from Mehboob Khan, but it is mostly enjoyable, and there are elements that are absolutely brilliant. The most important aspects are the film's struggle between honor and justice. This is the central question of the film, and it is embodied by Radha and her son Birju, who represent honor and justice, respectively. This is a hard and emotional battle, and although honor wins in the end, the film really isn't sure whether it's right to choose honor. It's a very interesting movie.

I Am Waiting (1957)

 I Am Waiting (俺は待ってるぜ) is another Nikkatsu noir picture. This one stars Ishihara Yūjirō in an early-career turn as a boxer who befriends a cocktail singer played by Kitahara Mie. He's great. She's gorgeous, but more importantly she's also very, very good. I liked this one a lot.

Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory is gorgeously shot. The photography is actually stunning. And its portrait of WWI and trench warfare is truly excellent. Kubrick does a masterful job of portraying the fight sequences and I found every bit of the film's first act stunning.

But Paths of Glory is a wartime drama. It's not a war film. The poster is more than a little bit of a lie. We spend most of our time with Adolphe Menjou discussing things calmly in a finely appointed French mansion in a very different kind of movie than a war movie. There's a court martial and a set of political machinations, and the whole thing sort of fails to deliver what it promised.

It isn't that the ethical and political questions that the film asks aren't interesting. They are. And Kirk Douglas is – as he always is – really excellent in Paths of Glory. Indeed, I love how this second act of the film is shot and directed too. It's just that these really feel like two distinct pictures, and they didn't hang well together for me.