Best '50s Movies

Best ‘50s Movies
In some ways, films of the ‘50s mirrored
the laidback and colorless (some would say
repressed) overtones of the Eisenhower
years. Horror movies really weren’t very
horrific (too many irradiated mutant bugs),
and you pretty much had to book passage to
Europe to see women as unapologetic sex
objects.
But whether you liked Ike or loathed
him, the 1950s spawned its fair share of
movie classics — dig just below the surface
of many a motion picture from the decade
and you’ll find drama and intrigue of both
kinds, i.e., psychological and sexual. Millions
of viewers got hitched in the ‘50s: the
Master of Suspense is represented here by
four of his thrillers. And the master of many
genres, Billy Wilder, clocks in with a romcom,
black comedy and a screwball farce.
Finally, at least one distinctly American art
form — the musical — reached a pinnacle
early in the decade. Read on for our picks of
the best films of the 1950s. — By Tom Johnson
40. ‘The King and I‘ (1956)
In the pantheon of performances wholly
owned by the actors that originate them,
Yul Brynner, as the King of Siam, ranks
high. Brynner won a Tony Award on Broadway
in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s lilting
musical, then followed that up with a Best
Actor Oscar for the movie reprise (one of
only nine actors to win both awards for the
same role). And it helps to be aided and
abetted by Deborah Kerr as the English
governess to the king’s large brood of children.

39. ‘The Wild One‘ (1953)
Marlon Brando is the disaffected leader
of
a delinquent motorcycle gang that terrorizes
a small town in the granddaddy of all
motorcycle gang movies. Although the
movie burns rubber straight into campiness
(Brando’s getup of cap, dungarees and
jacket looks like it would better fit into another
kind of leather bar), the master thespian
still commands the screen with choice
rejoinders to questions like, “What are you
protesting?” “What have you got?” he answers.
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38. ‘Guys and Dolls‘
(1956)
“The oldest established permanent floating
crap game in New York” is the locus for
this rather tepid adaptation of the classic
Frank Loesser Broadway musical about
gamblers and their molls. Frank Sinatra
and a miscast Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson
are the sharpies who’ll take odds on
any wager. But it’s the incomparable Vivian
Blaine, singing ‘A Person Could Develop a
Cold,’ who steals every scene she’s in.
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37. ‘Marty‘ (1955)
“I’m a fat, ugly man!” says lovelorn Marty
Piletti (Best Actor Oscar winner Ernest
Borgnine) apropos of striking out yet again
with the opposite sex. But things begin to
look up for the 34-year-old Italian butcher
when he meets plain-Jane schoolteacher
Clara (Betsy Blair). Perhaps it was the
“everyman” theme that resonated with audiences
or the romantic idea that there’s a
soulmate out there for each of us. Whatever
the case, ‘Marty’ also won Oscars for Best
Picture, Director (Delbert Mann) and
Screenplay (Paddy Chayefsky), proving
that sometimes good guys do finish first.
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36. ‘An Affair to Remember‘
(1957)
A clunky mix of comedy, musical numbers
and sudsy tear-jerking moments owes
much of its allure to the potent screen
chemistry of Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant
— and the fact that the film was referenced
in a big way years later in the more winning
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‘Sleepless in Seattle.’ Still, for fans of mature
comedy starring sophisticated adults,
this story of a playboy and nightclub singer
who meet cute and plan an assignation at
the top of the Empire State Building in six
months’ time might be your ticket.
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35. ‘Ben-Hur‘ (1959)
For much of his career, it seems, Charlton
Heston dressed in togas. In ‘Ben-Hur’
the raiment paid off handsomely, delivering
manna from heaven, Tinseltown style —
a Best Actor win. As Judah Ben-Hur, an upperclass
Jew living in Jerusalem during the
time of Christ, Heston falls afoul of his best
friend (a Roman), is banished to slavery
and even hikes back to the Promised Land
in time to witness the crucifixion. The guy
got around. ‘Ben-Hur”s mother lode of 11
Oscars also included Best Picture and Best
Director (William Wyler) statues. Most
memorable scene: The chariot race, of
course.
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34. ‘The Diary of Anne
Frank‘ (1959)
The diary that teen Anne Frank kept
while hiding with her family and others in a
secret room in Amsterdam during WWII,
chronicling her hopes, dreams and budding
sexuality, makes a powerful transition to
the screen. ‘Diary’ underscores the implacable
optimism of the human spirit, best
embodied in the voiceover we hear as the
secret annex is discovered by the Gestapo.
“I still believe, in spite of everything, that
all people are basically good at heart,” Anne
(Millie Perkins) says. Best Supporting Actress
winner Shelley Winters donated her
statuette for display at the annex in Amsterdam.
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33. ‘The Seventh Seal‘
(1958)
The movie about a prodigal knight (Max
Von Sydow) returned from the Crusades to
a plague-ridden Europe is full of Ingmar
Bergman’s signature totems: existentialism,
allegory, an angsty preoccupation with
death and the existence of God and a dubious
view of religious zealotry (themes that
would inspire generations of later
filmmaker/acolytes like Woody Allen). Mix
in magnificent shot-making and brilliant
cinematography and what transpires is a
stark, brooding, Nordic masterpiece.
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32. ‘East of Eden‘ (1955)
James Dean (in his debut film) displays
astonishing emotional range as Cal Trask,
the “Cain-like” black sheep of a Salinas, Ca.,
farm family, who competes with his brother
for the affections of their strict, unfeeling
father (Raymond Massey). Jo Van Fleet
(also making her screen debut) won an Oscar
for Best Supporting Actress as a frowsy,
small-town prostitute who is Cal’s real
mother (unbeknownst to him). Elia Kazan
directs this adaptation of John Steinbeck’s
novel, a tragedy of Biblical proportions.
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31. ‘Sweet Smell of Success‘
(1957)
No punches are pulled in this unsparing
look at the seedy, desperate life of a smalltime
press agent (Tony Curtis) who’ll stop
at nothing to curry favor with Manhattan’s
most powerful gossip columnist, megalomaniacal
J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster).
Based on a biographical composite of the
legendary gossip potentate Walter
Winchell. On the less sanguine side, New
York City’s never looked or sounded so
good, thanks to straight-ahead jazz from
the Chico Hamilton Quintet.
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30. ‘Sabrina‘ (1954)
Audrey Hepburn is the quarry of first a
Long Island playboy (William Holden) and
then his more responsible older brother
(Humphrey Bogart) in this comedy written
and directed by Billy Wilder that underscores
the old axiom: the older the violin,
the sweeter the music. After a stint in finishing
school in Paris, Sabrina (Hepburn)
returns to the Long Island estate where her
father is chauffeur to the Larrabee family
(Holden, Bogart, etc.). She soon dazzles all.
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29. ‘Porgy and Bess‘
(1959)
The Gershwin brothers were better
served by original musicals (‘An American
in Paris,’ ‘Shall We Dance’) based on their
extensive catalog of standards than this
one, ham-handedly directed by musical
novice Otto Preminger. Still, nothing can
quell the vaulting score of this legendary
folk opera about the hopes, dreams and
jealousies of the poor folk that live on Catfish
Row. High Note: Sammy Davis Jr., who
pulls out all the stops in his scene-stealing
role as “Sportin’ Life.” The last film produced
by Samuel Goldwyn.
28. ‘The Caine Mutiny‘
(1954)
Few actors play paranoid better than
Humphrey Bogart. But Bogie one-ups himself
here as a Navy skipper slowly becoming
unhinged in this fine adaptation of Herman
Wouk’s bestselling novel. In a last-ditch effort
to save the foundering ship during a typhoon,
a shell-shocked Captain Queeg is
forcibly relieved of command by his executive
officer (Van Johnson), who is then
brought up on mutiny charges. In the ensuing
trial, Bogart’s OCD tick (fingering the
ball-bearings) should’ve merited a special
Oscar for best use of a prop.
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27. ‘Gigi‘ (1958)
One of the last great MGM musicals,
‘Gigi’ earned its bonafides winning nine Oscars,
including Best Picture, Director
(Vincente Minnelli), Adapted Screenplay
and Song (the title tune by Lerner and
Loewe). Based on the novel by Colette, innocent
Parisian gamine Leslie Caron is
groomed for life as a courtesan during the
Belle Epoque, a circumstance which neglects
to factor in the unpredictable course
of true love. (Think Cinderella meets her
Prince Charming who happens to be a player.)
Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier
co-star in a production sumptuous in every
detail.
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26. ‘Lust for Life‘ (1956)
Seldom has a movie been better matched
with
a director that could do supreme justice to
the material. Vincente Minnelli — one of
the greatest “colorists” in Hollywood history
— captures the glowing, superheated intensity
of the canvases of Vincent Van Gogh
(Kirk Douglas) in this autobiographical
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look at the tortured artist’s life. Douglas’
portrayal of the ill-fated genius is gripping,
but it was Anthony Quinn as swaggering
Paul Gauguin (alpha male to a worshipful
Vincent) who snagged Oscar laurels as Best
Supporting Actor.
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25. ‘A Place in the Sun‘
(1951)
Ambitious young George Eastman
(Montgomery Clift) was born on the bluecollar
side of the tracks but resolves to work
his way up the ladder at his rich uncle’s
company. At a party, he meets gorgeous
Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor) and an
ill-fated romance ensues. The big draw
here, apart from the classic tragedy themes,
is the combustible yearning Monty and Liz
have for each other. (Taylor purportedly
fell in love with Clift during filming.) Oscars
include Best Director (George Stevens)
and Adapted Screenplay, from the novel by
Theodore Dreiser.
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24. ‘High Noon‘ (1952)
Tall Texan Gary Cooper stands
metaphorically alone (actually his wife,
played by Grace Kelly, is by his side) as a
small-town sheriff in this Western with allegorical
underpinnings to the McCarthy
witch hunts (just think of the dissembling
townsfolk as HUAC members). On the day
he hangs up his badge, Coop must face
down a gunslinger he sent to prison who’s
due in on the noon train with some major
payback in mind. Dimitri Tiomkin also won
Oscars for his scoring and the evocative
theme song that threads the action.
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23. ‘Rashomon‘ (1951)
In ancient Japan, four people involved in
a heinous murder-rape of a samurai and his
wife give widely varying accounts of the
crime. The movie, which catapulted director
Akira Kurosawa into international
renown and won an Oscar for Best Foreign
Language Film, stands as a fascinating
study on human perspective and relative
truth-telling. Well, thank God for forensic
evidence in the modern age.
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22. ‘From Here to
Eternity‘ (1953)
In the last fateful days before the Japanese
sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, dogface
Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift)
fights his own private war against the camp
commander who wants him to lace up his
boxing gloves and do battle for the honor of
the company. Eight Oscars include Best
Picture, Director (Fred Zinneman), Supporting
Actor (Frank Sinatra in a legendary
comeback performance) and Supporting
Actress (Donna Reed). Although Burt Lancaster
finished out of the awards, he did
nab one of the hottest lovemaking scenes in
moviedom — the beach tryst with Deborah
Kerr, waves foaming and lapping suggestively
over them, was as steamy as it got in
the prudish ‘50s.
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21. ‘To Catch a Thief‘
(1955)
Cary Grant has rarely been more suave as
reformed jewel thief “the Cat,” implicated
in a series of robberies on the French Riviera.
It’s up to Grant to ferret out the real
burglar and clear his name while fending
off advances from another piece of hot ice
— a regal Grace Kelly (a couple years before
she permanently relocated to the Riviera as
Princess Grace of Monaco). Hitchcock directs
one his most romantic thrillers, which
unspools like a tourist travelogue of the
South of France. Ooh la-la.
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20. ‘The African Queen‘
(1951)
Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart), boozer
skipper of a rusted-out tub called the
African Queen, agrees to transport a spinster
missionary (Katharine Hepburn)
downriver to safety during WWI. But during
their journey things change and together
they hatch a desperate plan to use the
Queen to sink a German gunboat that’s
menacing East Africa. Largely a two-character
study, the breezy banter between two
of Hollywood’s most gifted pros is a joy to
behold. And in a career studded with classic
performances, ‘Queen’ marked a capstone
for Bogart — his only Oscar win, for Best
Actor.
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19. ‘An American in Paris‘
(1951)
The glorious score by George and Ira
Gershwin, director Vincente Minnelli’s lush
color palette and Gene Kelly’s exhilarating
dances (including the groundbreaking 17-
minute ballet to Gershwin’s titular tone
poem that ends the movie) conspired in
one of the greatest upsets in Academy
Award history. ‘Paris’ beat out ‘A Streetcar
Named Desire,’ ‘A Place in the Sun’ and
‘The African Queen’ for Best Picture on its
way to winning six other Oscars, including
a special award for Kelly’s choreography.
C’est magnifique!
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18. ‘All About Eve‘ (1950)
Worshipful ingénue Eve Harrington
(Anne Baxter) worms her way into the good
graces of venerable stage diva Margo Channing
(Bette Davis) and then proceeds to
usurp her at every turn. Six Oscars include
Best Picture, Supporting Actor (George
Sanders as imperious theater critic Addison
DeWitt) and two for Joe Mankiewicz,
as director and scriptwriter. As Margo cautions
her dinner-party guests when Eve’s
treachery becomes apparent: “Fasten your
seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
You know it.
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17. ‘Giant‘ (1956)
Directed by George Stevens with the kind
of scope that captures the endless, empty
sprawl of West Texas, ‘Giant’ is perhaps the
most fully realized adaptation of any Edna
Ferber soap-operatic novel. Rock Hudson
as “Bick” Benedict has never been better, as
scion of an enormous cattle ranch who
marries an Easterner (Elizabeth Taylor)
and then brings her back home where she’s
a fish out of water. In his final film role before
his tragic car crash, James Dean makes
an indelible impression as Jett Rink, illegitimate
black-sheep relation of the Benedict
clan who is despised by Bick. (It doesn’t
help that Jett’s got quite a hankerin’ for
Taylor.)
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16. ‘The Day the Earth
Stood Still‘ (1951)
A rather dapper alien (Michael Rennie)
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lands on Earth and warns civilization that
they face total annihilation (from him!) if
we don’t get our act together and avoid nuclear
gamesmanship, etc. How little we’ve
learned. A landmark science-fiction film
more than five decades ago, the movie is
(unfortunately) still topical today. Just
avoid the lackluster 2008 remake at all
costs.
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15. ‘Vertigo‘ (1958)
Perhaps Hitchcock’s truest masterpiece,
‘Vertigo’ finished out of the Oscar gilt. Regardless,
this edge-of-your seat thriller
about an acrophobic retired detective (Jimmy
Stewart) and his dangerous obsession
with a mysterious blonde (Kim Novak) is
one of Hitch’s most haunting movies; and
it’s loaded with plenty of iconic shot-making.
Composer Bernard Herrmann does his
usual standup job contributing a score that
enhances each bittersweet scene — really a
collection of indelible moments that merit
re-discovery with each viewing.
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14. ‘Roman Holiday‘
(1953)
Seldom has an actress made such a stunning
(and Oscar-winning) screen debut as
Audrey Hepburn playing a cosseted
princess who breaks free of her royal rut by
hooking up with a couple of expatriate Yankee
journalists (Gregory Peck and Eddie Albert)
and going on a spree in Rome. A prescient
Peck (after seeing the radiant Audrey
in early rushes of the film), insisted that she
share top billing with him — a generous
gesture to the newcomer that was wellfounded
in light of her big win on Oscar
night. Directed by William Wyler.
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13. ‘Sunset Blvd.‘ (1950)
A hack Hollywood screenwriter (William
Holden) ready to chuck the whole thing and
move back to Ohio becomes the “kept man”
of faded silent screen diva Norma
Desmond, who convinces him to write her a
comeback vehicle. Director Billy Wilder
(who shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar)
fashioned the blackest of comedies and
then found the real thing (silent star Gloria
Swanson) on which to peg his cautionary
tale of the flipside to Tinseltown glamour.
Holden’s cynical voiceovers are priceless as
is the brief appearance of comic legend
Buster Keaton as one of Desmond’s “waxworks”
friends.
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12. ‘12 Angry Men‘ (1957)
Henry Fonda — the lone holdout on a
murder trial jury — is indefatigable in his
mission to convince his 11 fellow jurors of
the innocence of the defendant in this taut
procedural that boasts a great cast of veteran
character actors (Martin Balsam, Jack
Klugman, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G.
Marshall, Ed Begley, etc.). Sidney Lumet
directs, and the movie is shot almost entirely
on one claustrophobic jury-room set during
a sweltering New York City summer’s
day. The mercury isn’t the only thing rising
as jurors clash over whether to render a
guilty verdict.
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11. ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof‘
(1958)
Although plenty watered down from the
original Tennessee Williams stage play
(you practically need a Geiger counter to
detect the homoerotic themes at the crux of
the drama), Elizabeth Taylor sizzles as
Maggie “the Cat,” who’ll stop at nothing to
woo her recalcitrant husband, Brick (Paul
Newman), back into the boudoir. Standout
performances from all, especially Burl Ives
as “Big Daddy,” a man who can buy everything
save his own immortality. Just beware
those little “no-neck monsters.”

10. ‘North by Northwest‘
(1959)
Cary Grant’s at his debonair, most selfdeprecating
best as a harried Manhattan ad
exec who’s mistaken for a spy in this timeless
Hitchcock thriller. Taking it on the lam,
Grant commandeers planes (beware the
crop duster!), trains and automobiles as he
makes his way cross-country to a harrowing
climax — clinging perilously from Abe
Lincoln’s left nostril atop Mt. Rushmore.
But take heart, suspense fans; Eva Marie
Saint’s on hand to soften any bumpy landings.
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9. ‘Paths of Glory‘ (1957)
Fact-based story of a French regiment
during World War I ordered to mount a
suicidal charge against entrenched Germans
that tragically fails. In the aftermath,
the general who ordered the assault directs
that three soldiers from the regiment be
cherry-picked and executed as punishment
for the unit’s “cowardice” under fire. Stanley
Kubrick directs this riveting anti-war
statement that gets more potent with each
passing year. Standout performance from
Kirk Douglas as the regiment’s colonel (and
a lawyer in peacetime) who acts as counsel
for the condemned.
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8. ‘Cinderella‘ (1950)
Moviedom’s most famous wallflower gets
the full Disney musical treatment in an animated
fairytale with catchy tunes like “Bibbidi,
Bobbidi, Boo” and “A Dream Is a Wish
Your Heart Makes” (which became a kind
of Disney anthem). Enhancements to the
traditional story include a couple of mice
cutups named “Gus” and “Jaq” and the
voiceover stylings of Mike Douglas as
“Prince Charming” (yeah, that Mike Douglas.)
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7. ‘The Searchers‘ (1956)
Director John Ford turned John Wayne
into
a household name in a series of seminal
Westerns that reached their apogee with
this grim tale of the years-long pursuit of
the band of rampaging Comanche that
murdered a prairie family. Monument Valley
has never looked more stunning than
depicted through Ford’s viewfinder, and
the last iconic scene of Wayne standing in
the homestead doorway is a tribute to silent
Western star Harry Carey Sr.’s signature
pose. Fun Fact: The Duke’s catchphrase in
the film (“That’ll be the day”) was co-opted
by rocker Buddy Holly for one of his biggest
hits.
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6. ‘The Bridge on the River
Kwai‘ (1957)
The colonel (Alec Guinness) of a contingent
of British POWs helps the Japanese
build a railroad supply bridge in Burma.
But as the Herculean construction project
begins to consume him, he forgets that his
prime directive is not to aid the enemy. A
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buff William Holden co-stars in this David
Lean epic as an American Navy Commander
charged with dynamiting the bridge,
thus exposing the colonel’s passion as the
ultimate cross-purpose pipe dream. The
movie won a clutch of Oscars including
Best Picture, Director and Actor (Guinness).
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5. ‘Rear Window‘ (1954)
Wheelchair-bound photographer L.B.
“Jeff” Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) wiles away
the time before the cast can come off his
broken leg by keeping tabs on the doings of
his neighbors; spying on them from his big
apartment window in Greenwich Village.
But his innocent voyeurism takes an ominous
turn when he witnesses what he
thinks is a cover-up to a murder committed
in the apartment across his courtyard.
Grace Kelly drips with class as Jeffries’
haute couture girlfriend, while Alfred
Hitchcock ingeniously directs all the suspenseful
action from the single POV of the
shut-in Jeffries.
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4. ‘Some Like It Hot‘
(1959)
Director Billy Wilder’s surefire comic
touch informs every frame of this classic
gender-bender, which ranks in the top tier
of funniest films of all time. Tony Curtis
(channeling Cary Grant) and Jack Lemmon
(channeling the butchest drag queen you’re
ever likely to see) have never been better as
two Chicago musicians lamming it incognito
to Florida after witnessing the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre. Joe E. Brown’s
final line of the film is, hands down, the
greatest punchline ever delivered in a
movie.
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3. ‘Singin’ in the Rain‘
(1952)
Everything gels in the greatest movie
musical ever made — one that mercilessly
satirizes the harrowing transition from
silent films to talking pictures in Tinseltown,
circa 1927. Jean Hagen is a scream
(literally) as a silent film diva with a voice
that could peel wallpaper, and Gene Kelly
finds two of his greatest dancing partners
in Donald O’Connor and Cyd Charisse.
Highlights include O’Connor’s comical
tour-de-force (‘Make ‘Em Laugh’), the
rousing athletic tap number ‘Moses Supposes’
and, of course, Kelly’s joyous solo
adagio during a California downpour. The
movie sings in more ways than one.
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2. ‘A Streetcar Named Desire‘
(1951)
By reprising his career-making Broadway
role as the brutish “manimal” Stanley
Kowalski in this stellar adaptation of Tennessee
Williams’ play, Marlon Brando
burst onto the Hollywood scene like a (sexual)
tsunami. In only his second film role,
he ushered into the movie mainstream
Method Acting, thus changing the profession
forever. And as psychologically fragile
Blanche DuBois, Vivian Leigh gave her
most memorable performance (and won a
Best Actress Oscar) since turning heads in
her hoop skirt as Scarlett O’Hara. Best Supporting
Actor laurels in this Elia Kazan-directed
production went to Karl Malden and
Kim Hunter, which just leaves us to say:
STELLAAAA!
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1. ‘On the Waterfront‘
(1954)
Ex-palooka Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando)
“coulda been a contenda” but spends
most of his time feeding pigeons on the roof
of his Brooklyn brownstone — when he’s
not vying for daywork down at the docks or
doing errands for corrupt union boss Johnny
Friendly (Lee J. Cobb, who is decidedly
not). Malloy has a crisis of conscience when
he witnesses a murder and resolves to do
the right thing. The movie was more than
an Oscar contender, taking eight, including
Best Picture, Director (Elia Kazan), Actor
(Brando), Supporting Actress (Eva Marie
Saint) and Screenplay (Budd Schulberg).
And Leonard Bernstein’s score is one of the
most haunting in the history of film soundtracks.