[ajzepp]

This is a shot in the dark, but does anyone own the Hitchcock blu-ray box set?

I think that seeing Psycho and Birds when I was pretty young traumatized me (lol), and subconsciously I've avoided Hitchcock films since. Just kidding. I actually had NO idea his catalog was this massive. This week I saw Vertigo, Rear Window, and Lifeboat for the first time, and it's really been a lot of fun. I'm fascinated by how great these older films look once restored and cleaned up, and then transferred to blu. Apparently they even remastered and re-mixed the audio on some of these films and included a lossless track. Some of these things look so incredible that it's like being transported decades back in time.

I'm taking a particular interest in the 1950s. If anyone has any suggestions for great films from that decade (other decades are welcome also, just have a particular interest in the 50s at the moment), pleaes drop them on me.

[brother love]

Just checked a list from the 50's & here are some gems from that decade ...

Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train from 1951 is another good one he directed.

The Night of the Hunter 1955 with Robert Mitchum is creepy good (Scorsese did a remake of this: Cape Fear, but original is far better).

Touch of Evil 1958 directed by Orson Welles is excellent.

Sunset Boulevard 1950 with Gloria Swanson & William Holden

The Searchers 1956 with John Wayne

All about Eve 1950 with Bette Davis

Seven Samurai 1954 directed by Kurosawa

Elevator to the Gallows 1958 with the beautiful Jeanne Moreau & directed by Louis Malle

[Letitroll98]

In addition to the excellent suggestion of The Searchers, John Ford's cavalry trilogy is worth watching, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande.  Ford claims they're not related, but they all star John Wayne with nearly the same set of supporting actors, with Wayne's character having the same name in two of them.

And I don't think you should pass by Harper Lee's masterpiece in film adaptation, To Kill a Mockingbird.  Perhaps I sympathise too much with my idyllic summers spent in Alabama, but I think it's one of our great treasures in film.

Others to see,
Rebel Without a Cause
On the Waterfront
The African Queen
From Here to Eternity
High Noon
Stalag 17
Forbidden Planet
Harvey

That's my list of fifties movies.

[THROWBACK]

And don't forget Cyrano De Bergerac, with Jose Ferrer.

There's a little Cyrano in all of us guys.

[WGH]

The 1950's - the decade of the epic and the intermission.

The 10 Commandments - Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 epic. DeMille's theater presentation notes: http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/roadshow_demille.htm
Around the World in 80 Days (1956)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Spartacus came out in 1960 so it just missed the cut.

These movies took the theater experience to a new level, Ben-Hur is 3 hours, 50 minutes. The big theaters like in Chicago (where I first saw it) followed the guidelines put out by the distributor:

1. The Overture .............................. 6 minutes. To start promptly at the advertised time.
2. The Nativity or Prologue ............. 7 minutes. No one is to be seated during this sequence.
3. The First Part ................ 2 hours, 7 minutes. Watch the scene just before the intermission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVa7sYna1fE
4. The Intermission ....................... 15 minutes. Heavy velvet curtains silently closed hiding the screen.
After 11 minutes of intermission, signal booth to start sound track intermission music and signal patrons to return to their seats. The curtains rolled back to start the 2nd part.               
5. The Second Part .......... 1 hour, 15 minutes
6. The Close-in.

http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/roadshow_ben-hur.htm

[WGH]

A list of 1950's films would not be complete without all the inspired, funny, wonderful and scary horror films of that era.
My favorites include:

The Fall of the House of Usher (1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
Scared Stiff (1953)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)
House of Wax (1953)
Them! (1954)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
Rodan (1956)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Bell Book and Candle (1958)
The Fly (1958)
The Blob (1958)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) called the worst movie ever made
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
The Tingler (1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Mummy (1959)

Watch them all with your favorite 10 year old. I was 10 when The Fly came out and my brother and I watched it for the first time a couple of years later when it was broadcast on Saturday night's Shock Theater. There is a scene where the fly hides then attacks a person from behind a door. After the movie I hid behind our bedroom door with the light off and waited for my younger brother. He must have jumped a foot high when I attacked. I really got in trouble for that stunt but it was worth it. 60 years later he probably still checks behind doors before entering a room.

[ArthurDent]

If you enjoy Hitchcock's '50s work I'd recommend revisiting his earliest offerings from the '30s & '40s as well. Granted they are B&W, but well done & quite interesting given some of the remakes.  The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, The Man Who Knew Too Much, etc.

For '50s classics I'd recommend The Wages of Fear, with Yves Montand. The '70s remake, Sorcerer, with soundtrack by Tangerine Dream is pretty good as well imo, but lacks some of the grit & desperation of the B&W original.

Great lists Wayne    All classics.

[S Clark]

The great musicals: 
Singing in the Rain
An American in Paris
My Fair Lady (60's)

Others:  The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Shane,  Rope ( overlooked and very fine Hitchcock- pay attention to the camera

[WGH]

Godless and The Ballad of Lefty Brown are two current westerns done in the classic 50's style, both have a leisurely pace with character development and plenty of wide screen western landscapes. The directors obviously spent a lot of time watching the classics.

The Searchers, Seven Samurai, High Noon and Shane have been mentioned but there are more not to be missed, actually too many to be all listed:

Viva Zapata! (1952)
Hondo (1953)
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (1954)
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)
Giant (1956)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Old Yeller (1957)
Rio Bravo (1959)
3:10 to Yuma (1957)

And you can watch all these films with the family, just make sure you lock everyone's phone in the car, in the garage, so there are no distractions and y'all can slow down and get into the pacing of the movies.
 

[THROWBACK]

OK, if you're gonna do musicals, my all time favorite is Carousel.  The music is out-and-out gorgeous; Gordon MacRae's performance is outstanding (shoulda received some kind of award).

[S Clark]

How could I forget "Giant"   
Add the Magnificent Seven (1960)... not the horrible remake.  Great soundtrack by Elmer Bernstein - very Copland-esque

Yep, definitely add Carousel to the musical list.

[Tyson]

This is a shot in the dark, but does anyone own the Hitchcock blu-ray box set?

I think that seeing Psycho and Birds when I was pretty young traumatized me (lol), and subconsciously I've avoided Hitchcock films since. Just kidding. I actually had NO idea his catalog was this massive. This week I saw Vertigo, Rear Window, and Lifeboat for the first time, and it's really been a lot of fun. I'm fascinated by how great these older films look once restored and cleaned up, and then transferred to blu. Apparently they even remastered and re-mixed the audio on some of these films and included a lossless track. Some of these things look so incredible that it's like being transported decades back in time.

I'm taking a particular interest in the 1950s. If anyone has any suggestions for great films from that decade (other decades are welcome also, just have a particular interest in the 50s at the moment), pleaes drop them on me.

Your feelings match mine, almost exactly.  Cleaned up older movies on bluray or 4k can look simply stunning on a good 4K projector.  You are exactly right, it's like having a time machine.  Or at least a window back in time. 

Check here for some of the movies I've gone back and "discovered" for the first time:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=147879.0

And there are also some individual reviews (mostly visual essays) on some of the ones that really connected with me, if you search on the word "haiku" in the Cinema forum here on AC.

[randytsuch]

Any Hitchcock list HAS to include North by Northwest.

[ajzepp]

Wow, you guys rock! These are great suggestions...this weekend I'm going to add everything I haven't seen yet to my queue.
Anything else you want to suggest, please keep 'em coming. I'm really having a lot of fun! I feel as if an entire world of cinema has just been sitting there waiting for me to appreciate it. I sort of always knew it was there, but never really understood just how enjoyable these films could be.

Just watched Hitchcock's "The Wrong Man". I think the fact that it was based on a true story sort of prevented Alfred from doing his thing, at least to a degree. I thought it was a very solid film, and the acting was solid, but not in the same league as Rear Window and Vertigo.

I think North by Northwest and To Catch a Thief are next.

Thanks again all!

[ajzepp]

Your feelings match mine, almost exactly.  Cleaned up older movies on bluray or 4k can look simply stunning on a good 4K projector.  You are exactly right, it's like having a time machine.  Or at least a window back in time. 

Check here for some of the movies I've gone back and "discovered" for the first time:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=147879.0

And there are also some individual reviews (mostly visual essays) on some of the ones that really connected with me, if you search on the word "haiku" in the Cinema forum here on AC.

Thanks man! The BFI and AFI lists you posted, are those their lists? Or are those your own rankings of films that are on those lists?

EDIT: Never mind, I see how you have it now...thanks for the link!

[WGH]

Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in 39 of his 52 surviving major films, usually at the beginning. Here are his cameos from the films you have seen.
See if you can spot him in your next film.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Alfred_Hitchcock_cameo_appearances

Hitchcock cameo in The Wrong Man




Hitchcock's cameo in Vertigo (1958) occurs about 10 minutes into the film.
 



Hitchcock's cameo appearance in Rear Window (1954) occurs about 26 minutes into the film, where he is seen winding a clock in the appartment of the songwriter (played by Ross Bagdasarian).




Hitchcock's cameo in Lifeboat (1944) occurs about 25 minutes into the film, where he appears in a newspaper advertisement for the "Reduco Obesity Slayer" weight loss system, manufactured by fictional The Reduco Corporation.

[wushuliu]

I think North by Northwest and Night of the Hunter are two of the best that decade has to offer.

[wushuliu]

The Night of the Hunter 1955 with Robert Mitchum is creepy good (Scorsese did a remake of this: Cape Fear, but original is far better).

I think you're thinking of the original Cape Fear, which also starred Mitchum (in the DeNiro role).

[Randy]

A list of 1950's films would not be complete without all the inspired, funny, wonderful and scary horror films of that era.
My favorites include:

The Fall of the House of Usher (1950)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
Scared Stiff (1953)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)
House of Wax (1953)
Them! (1954)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954)
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956)
Rodan (1956)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957)
Bell Book and Candle (1958)
The Fly (1958)
The Blob (1958)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959) called the worst movie ever made
House on Haunted Hill (1959)
The Tingler (1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Mummy (1959)

Watch them all with your favorite 10 year old. I was 10 when The Fly came out and my brother and I watched it for the first time a couple of years later when it was broadcast on Saturday night's Shock Theater. There is a scene where the fly hides then attacks a person from behind a door. After the movie I hid behind our bedroom door with the light off and waited for my younger brother. He must have jumped a foot high when I attacked. I really got in trouble for that stunt but it was worth it. 60 years later he probably still checks behind doors before entering a room.

Two great 50s sci fi you don't list are "Invaders from Mars" and "It Came from Outer Space."   My big brother took us to see the latter on a Christmas Eve, when our parents decided they wanted all of us out of the house. Circa 1954.  "Invaders from Mars," is typically 1950s hokey in places, slow in others ( the scene at the observatory seems to go on and on) but it's all part of the charm of those old movies.  A truly scary and upsetting scene is the transformation of the kid's dad and when he slaps the kid in the face.  The movies is helped out by its very weird and creepy music.

[brother love]

I think you're thinking of the original Cape Fear, which also starred Mitchum (in the DeNiro role).

You are correct sir. Thanks for catching my faux pas. Original Cape Fear came out on 1962 with Robert Mitchum & Gregory Peck. Good movie, but Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum from the 50's is much better IMO.