Sunday, July 19, 2009

1959

Al Capone (1959)
Alias Jesse James (1959)
The Alligator People (1959)
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
The Angry Hills (1959)
Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)
The Bat (1959)
The Beat Generation (1959)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Best of Everything (1959)
The Big Fisherman (1959)
The Black Orchid (1959)
Black Orpheus (1959)
Blue Denim (1959)
A Bucket of Blood (1959)
Career (1959)
Compulsion (1959)
Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959)
The Devil’s Disciple (1959)
The Diary of Anne Frank (1959)
A Doll’s House (TV) (1959)
Drunken Angel (1959)
The FBI Story (1959)
Fires on the Plain (1959)
The Five Pennies (1959)
Flame over India (1959)
Floating Weeds (1959)
The 400 Blows (1959)
The Fugitive Kind (1959)
The Gazebo (1959)
The Giant Gila Monster (1959)
Gidget (1959)
Good Morning (1959)
Green Mansions (1959)
The Hanging Tree (1959)
Hercules (1959)
A Hole in the Head (1959)
The Horse Soldiers (1959)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Imitation of Life (1959)
It Happened to Jane (1959)
It Started With a Kiss (1959)
John Paul Jones (1959)
The Journey (1959)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
The Killer Shrews (1959)
The Last Angry Man (1959)
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)
Le Beau Serge (1959)
Libel (1959)
Li’l Abner (1959)
The Lovers (1959)
The Magician (1959)
The Man in the Net (1959)
The Mating Game (1959)
Middle of the Night (1959)
The Mouse That Roared (1959)
The Mummy (1959)
Never So Few (1959)
No Name on the Bullet (1959)
North by Northwest (1959)
The Nun’s Story (1959)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
1001 Arabian Nights (1959)
On the Beach (1959)
Operation Petticoat (1959)
The Perfect Furlough (1959)
Pickpocket (1959)
Pillow Talk (1959)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Porgy and Bess (1959)
Pork Chop Hill (1959)
The Rabbit Trap (1959)
The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959)
Return of the Fly (1959)
Ride Lonesome (1959)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Room at the Top (1959)
Sapphire (1959)
The Savage Innocents (1959)
Say One for Me (1959)
The Scapegoat (1959)
Season of Passion (1959)
Shadows (1959)
The Shaggy Dog (1959)
Shake Hands with the Devil (1959)
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1959)
Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Solomon and Sheba (1959)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
The Sound and the Fury (1959)
The Story on Page One (1959)
Stranger in My Arms (1959)
Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
A Summer Place (1959)
Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959)
Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)
Tempest (1959)
Ten Seconds to Hell (1959)
Terror is a Man (1959)
That Kind of Woman (1959)
These Thousand Hills (1959)
They Came to Cordura (1959)
The 30-Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959)
This Earth is Mine (1959)
The Tingler (1959)
A Touch of Larceny (1959)
Up Periscope (1959)
Verboten! (1959)
Warlock (1959)
Westbound (1959)
When Comedy Was King (1959)
Wild Strawberries (1959)
The World of Apu (1959)
The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1959)
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
The Young Land (1959)
The Young Philadelphians (1959)

(July 2009 - October 2009) There are at least 20 solidly entertaining movies from this year. Again, foreign films stand out with The 400 Blows, Wild Strawberries, and The Lovers represented in my top 10 list. North by Northwest and Some Like it Hot are my two favorite movies of the year and they are equally wonderful. It's hard to pick which of the two is the best. I want to make a point to mention movies like The Best of Everything, A Bucket of Blood, and The Tingler, each of which I found to be a lot of fun to watch, but not exactly masterpieces. I find it hard to believe that the 1950s have come to an end. The number of movies that I watch keeps rising with each passing year. The French New Wave is just beginning to seep into mainstream America and the Hollywood studio system is declining. All of this makes my movie-watching experience/addiction so much more entertaining. Bring on the 1960s!

Top 10 - Anatomy of a Murder, Ben-Hur, The 400 Blows, The Lovers, North by Northwest, Rio Bravo, Sleeping Beauty, Some Like it Hot, Suddenly, Last Summer, Wild Strawberries