Top Movies By Year
1950: Samson and Delilah, 1951: Quo Vadis, 1952: The Greatest Show on Earth, 1953: The Robe, 1954: White Christmas, 1955: Cinerama Holiday, 1956: The Ten Commandments, 1957: The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1958: South Pacific, 1959: Ben-Hur
Hit Songs of the Decade
"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Gene Autry, "If" by Perry Como, "Wheel of Fortune" by Kay Starr, "Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes" by Perry Como, "Mr. Sandman" by the Chordettes, "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets, "Que Sera, Sera" by Doris Day, "Too Much" by Elvis Presley, "Volare" by Domenico Modugno and "Mack the Knife" by Bobby Darrin.
Popular Novels of the Decade
Isaac Asimov's I, Robot, Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man, Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, James A. Michener's The Bridges at Toko-Ri, Ian Fleming's Live and Let Die, Graham Greene's The Quiet American, Julian Symons' The Paper Chase, Chin Yang Lee's The Flower Drum Song, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
All of the movies discussed below can be viewed in their entirety on YouTube. Every title is linked to the full version. Be aware that some of the movies below have been colorized.
Instead of attempting to place these movies into "Excellent," "Good," "Bad" and other categories, I'm just listing them in the order I enjoyed them. I haven't watched that many 50s movies in my lifetime, and I don't feel that I have enough of a frame of reference to say how or why these movies are better or worse than others from the same decade.
Small town vs. motorcycle gang, with Marlon Brando stuck between his attraction toward a local girl and his hatred of authority. It's easy to see why so many people embraced this movie, and also why generations of filmmakers have often come to the (mistaken) conclusion that they can top The Wild One by adding more sex, more violence or both.
Fun Fact: Marlon Brando is one of the highest-earning deceased celebrities in the world. His estate still earns millions every year.
Sexual politics in small town America. It was quite daring for its time, and if you have the patience it's well worth the effort. Many critics disliked it, primarily because they considered it a sanitized version of the original novel, but I think they expected too much from a wide release picture.
Jayne Mansfield: the higher octane version of Marilyn Monroe. You could argue that Marilyn was more talented, but then again you could also argue that Jayne Mansfield was more to the point.
Sexual innuendo abounds in this comedy featuring many hit songs of the day, and on the whole it's a fun movie. Nobody in it was going to win any Academy Awards, but it's easy to see where later directors like John Waters drew from. Tom Ewell, who stars in this movie opposite Mansfield, also starred opposite Marilyn Monroe the previous year in The Seven Year Itch.
A struggling actor finds himself at odds with friends and family in his quest for stardom. You want to talk about people saying hurtful things to one another? At one point or another in this movie every character says something hurtful, but in the end it all adds up to fuel for one actor's ambition. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, and star Tony Franciosa is excellent in it.
William Holden stars as a journalist investigating organized crime. It's a solid movie about good people who decide to stop looking the other way when bad things happen.
Richard Widmark pilots a sub to an unnamed North Atlantic island in search of atomic weapons... OR a French scientist endures sexual harassment in a confined space over an extended period of time. You be the judge. The casual sexism of its characters aside, it's a well put together action movie with some interesting twists and turns.
Humphrey Bogart stars as a riverboat captain in Africa, with Katharine Hepburn as a missionary bent on sabotaging the Germans. John Huston directed, and I'd have to say it's MUCH better than his Night of the Iguana, which I also saw recently. It's rather formulaic, and the characters seem strangely lighthearted for what's essentially a suicide mission, but it's not a bad movie. It would win Bogart an Academy Award for Best Actor the following year.
Fun Fact: The boat from this movie was restored in 2012, and is now a tourist attraction in Key Largo, Florida.
8. Trio (1950)
Filmed adaptation of three W. Somerset Maugham stories, each prefaced by an introduction from the author himself. Trio is the second movie in a trilogy of films based on Maugham's stories, the first being Quartet and the third being Encore. I really enjoyed the first two segments of Trio, but I felt that the third segment was overly sentimental and lacked focus. Jean Simmons, who'd later appear opposite Kirk Douglas in Spartacus, has a prominent role in this third segment.
Sad Fact: In 1951 Jeans Simmons' contract was sold to RKO pictures, where studio head Howard Hughes took an immediate romantic interest in her. The trouble came when Simmons then-husband Stewart Granger ordered the wealthy magnate to leave Simmons alone. Hughes responded by hounding Simmons at every opportunity.
9. Loving You (1957)
Did they really turn around, and drive 40 miles in the other direction? Just so Elvis could show his manager a tombstone?
Loving You features The King in full-on sex symbol mode, brought to you in VistaVision. There's a line in this movie about the girls in the audience one day being grandmothers. In 2022 great-grandmothers would seem more likely. 1957 was a while ago, but in a way this movie still feels fresh, given that it's a oft-told tale regarding the art and industry of rock n' roll.
I can't, by the way, bring myself to watch director Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. The subject matter interests me, but I've never been a fan of the director.
Fun Fact: This movie was Elvis' first starring role. He'd previously appeared in a supporting role in 1956's Love Me Tender.
10. The Blob (1958)
Teenagers vs. a gelatinous mass. If you've seen the 80s remake (in the 80s we didn't use the term "reboot"), the 1958 original follows the same trajectory. The problems with the original, which left a lot of room for improvement are 1) almost everyone in this movie who's not Steve(n) McQueen can't act, and 2) the script stalls around the halfway mark.
Fun Fact 1: This was Steve McQueen's first movie.
Fun Fact 2: The original title of this movie was The Glob.
11. Virgin Sacrifice (1959)
A jungle explorer attempts to save his ladylove from homicidal natives. This movie promises boobs early on, but then substitutes the promised boobs with dudes chasing each other through the jungle. Guys who saw this in a grindhouse-style theater back in the 50s probably felt very frustrated by it.
12. The Trouble with Harry (1955)
Shirley MacLaine's first movie! In this Hitchcock film several residents of a small town come to several puzzling conclusions about a body found in a field. It's a movie with a very, very dry sense of humor, and I can't say it always works.
Fun Fact: When the crew showed up in rural Vermont they discovered that most of the trees had lost their leaves. This was a huge problem for Hitchcock, who was looking for a spring setting. The crew later glued many of the leaves back onto the trees to give them a springtime look.
13. Invaders from Mars (1953)
Mutants. (Mew-tants).
Invaders from Mars is a healthy dose of Cold War paranoia, a dash of science fiction, another dash of science fact, and several UFO conspiracy theories of the time. The first half is very dull and very low budget, but things pick up once the "scientist" starts spouting his ridiculous theories. Tobe Hooper remade this movie in 1986, and I'd say it's a close race between the two versions.
14. You're Never Too Young (1955)
Martin and Lewis. Physical comedy sandwiched between dialogue and outpourings of song. I just couldn't do it. I've been OK with Dean Martin in other things (such as Career above), but I have a VERY low tolerance for Jerry Lewis.
15. The Terror of the Tongs (1951)
Hammer
film in which Christopher Lee and several other British actors engage in yellowface. From that premise you can
probably judge the quality of this movie without watching it.
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