Favorite Films By Decade: 1950s

My picks for favorite films of the decade leading up to the Napa Valley Film Festival and the opening of the new Century theater. This is the 1950s edition, limited to 20, some with notes.

In no particular order:

In A Lonely Place (Bogart plays a Hollywood screenwriter with anger management issues. One of his best performances and most people have never heard of the film.)

North By Northwest

Paths Of Glory (Great Kirk Douglas peformance in a great Stanley Kubrick anti-war film that shows the politics and personal ambition behind military decisions.)

A Face In The Crowd (Andy Griffith, yes, that Andy Griffith in one of the best pefromances of the decade as Lonesome Rhodes, a hobo drifter who becomes a local TV, and eventually national TV personality with political clout, drunk on power and disdain for his audience. More timely than ever.)

Seven Samurai (Remade as the western The Magnificent Seven. It's good but the original is better.)

The Sweet Smell Of Success

The Killing

Rear Window

Stalag 17 (Very funny and deadly serious movie about American POW's in a German prison camp at the end of WW2.)

Kiss Me Deadly (A very dark, nasty film noir with a mean "hero" as it's protaganist. A fist to the eye of the placid, all is well, 1950s.)

The Bridge On The River Kwai

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Low budget sci-fi that is really well directed by Don Siegel and still holds up as a film. Remade many times.)

The African Queen

On The Waterfront (Brando.)

Rebel Without A Cause (Dean.)

The Quiet Man

12 Angry Men (As relevant as the day it was made.)

The Day The Earth Stood Still (Smart, adult sci-fi that is, unfortunately, still relevant.)

Rio Bravo

Sunset Boulevard