1955--The Year in Review

Another stunning period for movies, as color overtakes black-and-white even further, with opulent stories given the rainbow's full magilla, while smaller, more intimate and, shall we say--pieces done about poorer people--assayed in simpler tones. As great as 1955 is, a complete box office failure now stands as its primary jewel--a dark and heavily stylized film spearheaded by a legendary actor who occupied the director's chair only once in his career. Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter was way too ahead of its time, and so it received zero Oscar love. But we can now see it as providing the ultimate vehicle both for relative newcomer Robert Mitchum and silent film veteran Lillian Gish, each playing off each other to ravishing effect (the film was penned by near-mythical film critic James Agee). The Night of the Hunter looks and feels like no other movie ever made, and for that reason alone, it deserves the top spot. But, then again, two of the finest noir pieces--Aldrich's insanely modern Kiss Me Deadly and Joseph H. Lewis' equally wild B-movie The Big Combo--give Laughton's work much competition. The foreign product this year points further to a world we've yet seen on film, with Satyajit Ray's warm Pather Panchali providing the kind of insight into India's heart rarely seen, even up to the present. France made strides with US expatriate Jules Dassin's exciting heist film Rififi, and then with Cluzot's thrilling Les Diaboliques (which provided a glaring femme fatale role for Simone Signoret that still reverberates); meanwhile, the live-action short film category was owned by two very different but equally influential French classics. In a short career, James Dean would land with two blazing performances, thus cementing his place in film history--a quick blip that would transform the art of acting. And we'd have more classics made by Dreyer, Sirk, Fellini, Kurosawa, Ophuls, Mackendrick, Bergman, and Anthony Mann, among many other filmmaking vets. And musicals would get a bump up, too, with Oklahoma!, Guys and Dolls, Daddy Long Legs, It's Always Fair Weather, Love Me or Leave Me, The Seven Little Foys, and Disney's Lady and the Tramp providing the year's soundtrack. Again, finally...gosh...Chuck Jones must now SURELY be considered among the most distinctive filmmakers of all time: even without the Warner Brothers stock company, he arrives with a froggy masterpiece. As far as the Oscars were concerned, you have to hand it to 'em for recognizing a tiny little story about a homely butcher called Marty. As good as a year as this is, even The Academy couldn't get it completely wrong. I should note: I couldn't decide between the ravishing black-and-white works of two genius cinematographers, so I had to result to a rare TIE vote. NOTE: These are MY choices for each category, and are only occasionally reflective of the selections made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The Oscars). When available, the nominee that actually won the Oscar will be highlighted in bold. 

PICTURE: THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (US, Charles Laughton)
(2nd: Kiss Me Deadly (US, Robert Aldrich), followed by:
Pather Panchali (India, Satyajit Ray)
East of Eden (US, Elia Kazan)
Rififi (France, Jules Dassin)
Lola Montes (France, Max Ophuls)
All That Heaven Allows (US, Douglas Sirk)
Les Diaboliques (France, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Ordet (Denmark, Carl Th. Dreyer)
The Ladykillers (UK, Alexander Mackendrick)
Smiles of a Summer Night (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman)
The Big Combo (US, Joseph H. Lewis)
The Man from Laramie (US, Anthony Mann)
Lady and the Tramp (Clyde Geromini, Wilfred Jackson and Walt Disney)
Marty (US, Delbert Mann)
Rebel Without a Cause (US, Nicholas Ray)
The Phenix City Story (US, Phil Karlson)
Samurai Part Two: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (Japan, Hiroshi Inagaki)
Floating Clouds (Japan, Mikio Naruse)
Summertime (US/UK, David Lean)
Guys and Dolls (US, Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
The Desperate Hours (US, William Wyler)
Mister Roberts (US, Mervyn Le Roy, John Ford)
Il Bidone (Italy, Federico Fellini)
I Live in Fear (Japan, Akira Kurosawa)
Richard III (UK, Laurence Olivier)
Battle Cry (US, Raoul Walsh)
Moonfleet (US, Fritz Lang)
The Seven Year Itch (US, Billy Wilder)
Oklahoma! (US, Fred Zinnemann)
Land of the Pharaohs (US, Howard Hawks)
The Man With the Golden Arm (US, Otto Preminger)
The Trouble With Harry (US, Alfred Hitchcock)
To Catch a Thief (US, Alfred Hitchcock)
The Quatermass Xperiment (UK, Val Guest)
It’s Always Fair Weather (US, Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly)
Daddy Long Legs (US, Jean Negulesco)
The Tall Men (US, Raoul Walsh)
Picnic (US, Joshua Logan)
Violent Saturday (US, Richard Fleischer)
The Big Knife (US, Robert Aldrich)
House of Bamboo (US, Samuel Fuller)
The Dam Busters (UK, Michael Anderson)
Killer's Kiss (US, Stanley Kubrick)
The Blackboard Jungle (US, Richard Brooks)
We're No Angels (US, Michael Curtiz)
The Court Jester (US, Norman Panama and Melvin Frank)
It Came from Beneath the Sea (US, Robert Gordon)
This Island Earth (US, Joseph M. Newman)
Bride of the Monster (US, Edward D. Wood, Jr.))



ACTOR: Robert Mitchum, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (2nd: James Dean, East of Eden, followed by: Alec Guinness, The Ladykillers; Ernest Borgnine, Marty; James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause; Ralph Meeker, Kiss Me Deadly; Spencer Tracy, Bad Day at Black Rock; Frank Sinatra, The Man With the Golden Arm; Laurence Olivier, Richard III; Frederic March, The Desperate Hours) (10)

ACTRESS: Simone Signoret, LES DIABOLIQUES (2nd: Martine Carol, Lola Montes, followed by: Katharine Hepburn, Summertime; Hideko Takamine, Floating Clouds; Jane Wyman, All That Heaven Allows;  Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo; Susan Hayward, I’ll Cry Tomorrow; Eva Dahlbeck, Smiles of a Summer Night; Julie Harris, East of Eden) 



SUPPORTING ACTOR: Raymond Massey, EAST OF EDEN (2nd: Stubby Kaye, Guys and Dolls, followed by: Joe Mantell, Marty; Jack Lemmon, Mister Roberts; William Powell, Mister Roberts; Peter Ustinov, Lola Montes; Sal Mineo, Rebel Without a Cause; Cedric Hardwicke, Richard III; Richard Conte, The Big Combo)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lillian Gish, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (2nd: Katie Johnson, The Ladykillers, followed by: Vivian Blaine, Guys and Dolls; Jean Wallace, The Big Combo; Betsy Blair, Marty; Agnes Moorehead, All That Heaven Allows; Peggy Lee, Pete Kelly’s Blues; Jo Van Fleet, East of Eden; Harriet Andersson, Smiles of a Summer Night; Natalie Wood, Rebel Without a Cause) 

DIRECTOR: Charles Laughton, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (2nd: Satyajit Ray, Pather Panchali, followed by: Robert Aldrich, Kiss Me Deadly; Elia Kazan, East of Eden; Douglas Sirk, All That Heaven Allows; Max Ophuls, Lola Montes; Jules Dassin, Rififi; Nicholas Ray, Rebel Without a Cause; Alexander MacKendrick, The Ladykillers; Carl Th. Dreyer, Ordet) 

NON-ENGLISH-LANGUAGE FILM: PATHER PANCHALI (India, Satyajit Ray) (2nd: Rififi (France, Jules Dassin), followed by: Lola Montes (France, Max Ophuls); Les Diaboliques (France, Henri-Georges Clouzot); Ordet (Denmark, Carl Th. Dreyer); Smiles of a Summer Night (Sweden, Ingmar Bergman); Samurai Part Two: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (Japan, Hiroshi Inagaki); Floating Clouds (Japan, Mikio Naruse); Il Bidone (Italy, Federico Fellini); I Live in Fear (Japan, Akira Kurosawa))



ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: William Rose, THE LADYKILLERS (2nd: Nicholas Ray, Stewart Stern and Irving Shulman, Rebel Without a Cause, followed by: Ingmar Bergman, Smiles of a Summer Night; Philip Yordan, The Big Combo; Peg Fenwick, Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee, All That Heaven Allows; Craine Wilbur and Daniel Mainwaring, The Phenix City Story)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: James Agee, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (2nd: A.I. Bezzerides, Kiss Me Deadly, followed by: Paddy Chayefsky, Marty; Renee Wheeler, Auguste Le Breton, and Jules Dassin, Rififi; Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jerome Geromini, Rene Masson and Frederic Gredel, Les Diaboliques; Paul Osborn, East of Eden; Philip Yordan and Frank Burt, The Man from Laramie)

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: NIGHT AND FOG (France, Alain Resnais) (2nd: The Red Balloon (France, Albert Lamorisse), followed by: The Bespoke Overcoat (UK, Jack Clayton); Le Maitres Fous (France, Jean Rouch); The Face of Lincoln (Edward Freed))

ANIMATED SHORT FILM: ONE FROGGY EVENING (Chuck Jones) (2nd: Blinkity Blank (Canada, Norman McLaren), followed by: All Fowled Up (Robert McKimson); The Legend of Rock-a-Bye Point (Tex Avery); Speedy Gonzales (Friz Freleng))

BLACK-AND-WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY: TIE: Stanley Cortez, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and John Alton, THE BIG COMBO (2nd: Ernest Laszlo, Kiss Me Deadly, followed by: Henning Bendtsen, Ordet; James Wong Howe, The Rose Tattoo; Gunnar Fischer, Smiles of a Summer Night) 

COLOR CINEMATOGRAPHY: Russell Metty, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (2nd: Christian Matras, Lola Montes, followed by: Robert Burks, To Catch a Thief; Ted McCord, East of Eden; Robert Surtees, Oklahoma!; James Wong Howe, Picnic) 


BLACK-AND-WHITE ART DIRECTION: THE ROSE TATTOO, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Night of the Hunter, I'll Cry Tomorrow, The Desperate Hours

COLOR ART DIRECTION: LOLA MONTES, Guys and Dolls, To Catch a Thief, All That Heaven Allows, Picnic

BLACK-AND-WHITE COSTUME DESIGN: SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT, I'll Cry Tomorrow, The Rose Tattoo, Queen Bee, The Night of the Hunter

COLOR COSTUME DESIGN: LOLA MONTES, Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, To Catch a Thief, The Seven Little Foys

FILM EDITING: THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, Kiss Me Deadly, East of Eden, The Blackboard Jungle, The Desperate Hours


 
SOUND: REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, Mister Roberts, Oklahoma!, The Night of the Hunter, The Bridges at Toko-Ri



ORIGINAL SCORE: Elmer Bernstein, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM (2nd: Ravi Shankar, Pather Panchali, followed by: Maurice Le Roux, The Red Balloon; George Duning, Picnic; Leonard Rosenman, East of Eden; Frank Skinner and Joseph Gershenson, All That Heaven Allows) 



ADAPTED OR MUSICAL SCORE: Robert Russell Bennett, Jay Blackton and Adolph Deutsch, OKLAHOMA! (2nd: Jay Blackton and Cyril J. Mockridge, Guys and Dolls, followed by: Andre Previn, It's Always Fair Weather; Oliver Wallace, Lady and the Tramp; Alfred Newman, Daddy Long Legs) 



ORIGINAL SONG: "Bella Notte" from LADY AND THE TRAMP (Music and lyrics by Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee) (2nd: "Unchained Melody" from Unchained (Music by Alex North, lyrics by Hy Zaret), followed by: "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" from Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (Music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster); "He's A Tramp" from Lady and the Tramp (Music and lyrics by Sonny Burke and Peggy Lee); "(Love is) The Tender Trap" from The Tender Trap (Music by James Van Heusen, lyrics by Sammy Cahn); "Something's Gotta Give" from Daddy Long Legs (Music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer))

SPECIAL EFFECTS: THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI, Conquest of Space, It Came from Beneath the Sea

MAKEUP: THIS ISLAND EARTH, Richard III

Film #67: Duel in the Sun

Duel in the Sun, as shameless and vulgar as it certainly is, remains one of producer David O. Selznick’s most watchable post-Gone With The Wind motion pictures, even when one considers his infinitely more valuable productions like Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 40), Gaslight (George Cukor, 44) and Since You Went Away (John Cromwell, 44). The film also represents Selznick’s most blatant and unsurprisingly inaccurate attempt to match the huge success he had with Margaret Mitchell’s Civil War epic back in 1939. Still, Duel in the Sun is a fine film in which to take some guilty pleasures, thanks to a great cast—Jennifer Jones (Mrs. David O. Selznick, overacting in an obviously rigged Oscar-nominated role), Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotton, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish (also Oscar-nominated—she’s terrific
in this), and a whole lotta character actors: Walter Huston (two years before his Supporting Actor Oscar win for his son John’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), Herbert Marshall, Hank Worden (the tall, elderly waiter in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks!!), Harry Carey (the Speaker of the House in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Charles Bickford, Butterfly McQueen (GWTW’s Prissy), Sidney Blackmer (husband to Ruth Gordon in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby).

The plot of Duel in the Sun is simple to reduce: mixed-breed orphan Pearl (Jones) is sent to live with a rich family cousin (Gish). The film follows her good-guy romance with Gish's son Joseph Cotton, and her bad-guy lust for younger Gish son Lewt (Peck, looking quite strange as a villain).

You can see where things would get rather lurid, with a synopsis like that. But making the film worth noting is its shocking color photography (by Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan and Hal Rosson, and King Vidor’s (at least, by today’s standards) tongue-in-cheek, overly soap-operatic direction. Now that I check the IMDB, I see the movie was directed by six other uncredited people (it worked with GWTW so why not here?). These directors including Selznick himself—no surprise there, since he directed the Burning of Atlanta sequence in GWTW—Josef Von Sternberg, William Dieterle, Otto Brower, Sidney Franklin and color expert William Cameron Menzies, one of the most interesting figures in cinema history. Menzies' involvement must have been on the art direction and cinematography level here; these are the elements the raise the status of Duel in the Sun immeasurably.

Now I feel compelled to review the career of William Cameron Menzies. He started off as the production designer of a 1918 film called The Naulakha. In fact, Menzies came to the movies with such a prodigious gift that he downright invented the term “production designer.” To enjoy his efforts: Look at Raoul Walsh’s 1924 version of The Thief of Bagdad with Douglas Fairbanks (he also assisted on the more famous 1940 version). Or the cave sequences in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Norman Taurog, 38). Or the glorious visage of Gone With The Wind (still, the fastest 4 hours you’ll ever spend watching a movie). Or the space-aged brilliance of at least two of his directorial efforts: 1936’s Things to Come (above--and notice how much that miniature set looks like modern-day hotels) and 1953’s Invaders From Mars (he oversaw the art department on both titles). He won a Special Award (actually, it was just a plaque, not a
statuette) from the Academy in 1939 for his “outstanding achievement in the use of color for the enhancement of dramatic mood in Gone With The Wind.” (By the way, Gone With The Wind is one of the few titles for which I feel strange not capitalizing each word, for whatever that means.) Menzies was a master writer, director, art director, special effects man, color specialist, and producer (his last film was the Academy Award-winning Around the World in 80 Days). Unique is too weak a word to describe his career.

What’s perhaps most amazing about Duel in the Sun is the fact that it was made six decades ago, when Hollywood was still under intense pressure from the Hayes Code—the Byzantine, long-standing Hollywood list of on-screen do’s and don’ts, morality-wise. Even more threatening were the roving (too much so) eyes of the town’s newspaper mavens like Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Even after walking those gauntlets, though, Selznick managed to retain much of Duel in the Sun’s sordid, retarded sexuality. This said, it still had to bear the brunt of not only the condemnation of some of Hollywood’s premier denizens, but also of the Catholic Church’s humorously deemed Legion of Decency. Despite all this noise, and probably because of it, Duel in the Sun made quite a bit of money in 1946.

I prefer, quite frankly, not to read too much into this film that Martin Scorsese credits as being his childhood introduction to the wonder of the movies. There is, naturally, the negative view of racism taken, and the stock battle between the good and the evil. But also a stand is ALMOST taken in the film regarding the repression of sexuality in women. The question: should women such as Pearl remain sexually timid or should they run the risk of finding real love (or lust, as the film’s derisive Hollywood nickname “Lust in the Dust” might attest), even if it may cost them their lives? Good question; only problem is, one cannot surmise whether the film condones or condemns such repression; it just brings it up and ends. Which will it be, guys? Choose. C’mon!! Choose!! No? Okay…I guess because SPOILER ALERT Pearl dies in the end, we’re supposed to think she made a lot of bad choices. Well, not necessarily…

I must admit that, even though I enjoy the audacity (especially visually) of Duel in the Sun, this one unsettled facet to the film prevents me from praising it sky-highly. Ultimately, it’s a slick-looking piece of 1940s schlock presented as a now-venerated but, in the end, preachy western. Still, it’s historically important and entertaining as all get out. Even if it makes you laugh uncomfortably, you’ll long remember it.