The 1950s List: Discussion and Suggestions (Decade Project Vol. 4)

[domino harvey]

Viewing Log:

Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953): This completely ahistorical take on the life of Martha "Calamity" Jane Cannary (Doris Day) focuses on her time in Deadwood with Wild Bill Hickock (Howard Keel), changing just about every fact of their biographies. Here Jane is a sanitized and feminized version of the real figure, playing her as initially gruff, but still willing to put on a dress and sing songs about womanly charms. Jane recruits actress Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie) from Chicago to perform skits in the local saloon, but soon gets mad at her for some reason when she falls for military officer Danny Gilmartin (Philip Carey). Songs are sung, Jane is revealed to be a beautiful flower under her masculine exterior once they pamper her up, and ultimately there's a double wedding. Avoid this one. It's revisionist, sexist tripe.

A musical ending in a successful romantic coupling?! Why I never heard of such a thing, except for in literally every musical ever made by the studio system. What makes that “tripe”? How you could watch one of the most joyous musicals ever filmed (with one of the best numbers being an argument in which both man and woman give as good as they get, which I guess doesn’t register on your equality meter) and get bogged down by a literal genre constraint and questions about historical fidelity is beyond me

[therewillbeblus]

I'd go further (well, I guess I already did) and say that it's one of the most progressive depictions of gender fluidity and its emotional consequences against a normative milieu ever, but certainly for the era. Reading it on the surface as sexist based on how it ends is like saying The Breakfast Club is a completely unrealistic portrait of the social struggles of youth because a few people hook up and get happy endings.

[Toland's Mitchell]

Early Spring (Ozu 1956). (revisit) Is it sacrilegious to prefer this relatively unsung film to Tokyo Story? It feels refreshing for Ozu to shift gears and focus on younger people and themes less centered on family and intergenerational conflict. The adulterous liaison is sensitively written and played, and even more impactful due to the fact that it’s easy to interpret it as a result of Sugiyama’s reaction to the uncertainty and disappointments of life as a salaried worker, the film’s other theme. There’s a moving subtext throughout of these men still only in their early 30s, ten years after their participation in the war, rewarded with a life as limited in its horizon as this is.

It isn't sacrilegious to prefer this over Tokyo Story. I'm going through an Ozu phase and I also recently watched Early Spring, and I agree with everything you praise the film for. I can't say I prefer it over Tokyo Story but that's okay. Mileage varies with personal preferences on Ozu. Anyway, I also noticed Early Spring ended similarly to The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice, in that they both concern loveless marriages and the couples reconcile at the end. However, the subtext you speak of regarding the main character's disappointments in Early Spring seemed unresolved by the end. In Green Tea, the couple reconcile and seem to have finally found a spark in their marriage, whereas in Early Spring they reconcile but seemingly only out of determination to make it work. However, from what I saw, there was little to suggest their futures were looking brighter. He was working the same job, only in a small town instead of Tokyo. And there was no newly found spark in their marriage. There was hope in their relocation to a new place provided them a fresh start but we can only speculate what would happen from there.

Anyway, one more tidbit about Green Tea, the film continues to resonate and grow on me the past few days since seeing it for the first time. I can safely say it will make my list.

[Rayon Vert]

Looking forward to watching Green Tea for the first time when my order comes in!

[bamwc2]

Sorry, but Calamity Jane was one of the worst examples of queer erasure that I can think of. The real life Calamity Jane frequented brothels dressed as a man wearing a dildo. She was not interested in Wild Bill as a romantic partner. He was friend and an equal in gunslinging for her, not someone that she would ever consider marrying. The film celebrates her "progress" in accepting tradition gender norms and putting on a dress. That's not who she was. It's a complete whitewash.

[Rayon Vert]

I don't know the history, but would that by itself make it a bad film?

[domino harvey]

Sorry, but Calamity Jane was one of the worst examples of queer erasure that I can think of. The real life Calamity Jane frequented brothels dressed as a man wearing a dildo. She was not interested in Wild Bill as a romantic partner. He was friend and an equal in gunslinging for her, not someone that she would ever consider marrying. The film celebrates her "progress" in accepting tradition gender norms and putting on a dress. That's not who she was. It's a complete whitewash.

I can’t imagine why a 1953 studio musical wouldn’t have Doris Day strapping on a dildo And apparently “Secret Love” was too subtle for you? As someone who apparently cares about these things over the quality of the film itself, do you not realize the enormous queer following the film has? Wonder why that could be? Guess they need a concerned outsider to tell them they’re wrong because the version of history you choose to believe isn’t up on the screen

[therewillbeblus]

Sorry, but Calamity Jane was one of the worst examples of queer erasure that I can think of. The real life Calamity Jane frequented brothels dressed as a man wearing a dildo. She was not interested in Wild Bill as a romantic partner. He was friend and an equal in gunslinging for her, not someone that she would ever consider marrying. The film celebrates her "progress" in accepting tradition gender norms and putting on a dress. That's not who she was. It's a complete whitewash.

Also, it's a musical.. and there is a clear contrast between non-musical numbers and the musical numbers in how comfortable or torn Jane is in her own skin. In musical numbers she's able to express what she cannot under the pressures of society and her own nonconforming identity. I think you're ignoring the creative ways that Day and the filmmakers established her different vocal tones depending on the scenes in a range of pitch conforming to stereotypical genders norms, as well as the fact that male characters serve as the MPDG tropes for her to self-actualize. In the end, yes she gets to self-actualize but she has her cake and eats it too- she hasn't wholly conformed whatsoever, and clearly retains the masculine aspects of that identity. Sure, it's what the magic of the movies can do, but that doesn't mean that all the depth explored is invalidated because the movie has a happy ending and Jane isn't depicted in a historically-accurate way. Why even bother watching a 50s Hollywood musical when you can't address it on the terms of genre and time period, and apparently need the film to resemble a docudrama?

[bamwc2]

I'm not interested in arguing this further, but I will say that if Doris Day wore a strap on and sang a song the Deadwood brothel, it would have been a significantly better movie.

[domino harvey]

Feel free to forgo any future one line critiques at the end of your paragraph of plot descriptions then, because this is a discussion forum, not Leonard Maltin’s Video Guide

[bamwc2]

Domino, I've been a member of the Criterion forms (including the previous two incarnations) on and off since 2000. I think that I know the score by now. I just don't see this as a particularly fruitful avenue of discussion.

Edit: I'm also in the midst of very severe bipolar depression. Getting into shouting matches online is the last thing I need for good mental health.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm sorry to hear that bamwc2, and am always available to chat via PM if you want to check in about anything at all.

I also didn't read the exchange as a shouting match, so I apologize if you did. I do think it's a fruitful avenue of discussion though, because we're clearly both interested in how the film works in the context of gender, and even if I'm giving the film more rope and seeing progressiveness in certain areas where you aren't, further engagement would certainly flesh out your points and undoubtedly be complementary to forming a more comprehensive set of perspectives that assess the film in that framework.

In general I find that the 50s are a fascinating era for analysis pertaining to how Hollywood studio films were able to issue flexibility to challenge social norms and the expression of psychology revolving around contextually-abnormal behaviors or feelings, so the opportunities for a constructive conversation are endless on this topic. Even if I disagree, I get a lot out of the discussion on this forum and in many cases have completely shifted my own stance on a film, whether from lurking or participating, so if you are ever up for continuing the dialogue, I'd love to do so, or send me a message if you'd like to do it privately. I hope you feel better.

[Feego]

I'll just chime in to say my chief complaint about Calamity Jane is that it's frontloaded with all of its best numbers. I'm fond of the movie, but even now I had to look up the Wikipedia synopsis to remind myself what happens after the ball. "Secret Love" is fine, but the second half of the film is a bit of a disappointment after the whirlwind of energetic numbers staged in, what, the first 30 minutes?

[domino harvey]

It is definitely front-loaded, I will cop to that willingly

[therewillbeblus]

I do think the best numbers come early but the thematic turmoil just gets more and more complex in the second half, which makes up for it as the film moves from pure entertainment to psychosocialsexual implosion. The Black Hills of Dakota is one of the movie's best scenes for me because of the vocal shift Jane makes toward femininity. That car ride pierces through this idea that the artificial space of a musical number is the only place to be happy and wanted by putting on the mask of a feminine subject willingly in a bout of impermanent safety via make-believe.

[bamwc2]

Thanks for the offer, therewillbeblus, but I'm good on that front. I'm a member of a Facebook group for academics with mental illness, and always have a lot of friends there to rely on. I'm taking a new mood stabilizer right now, but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick. Thankfully, I'll see my psychiatrist tomorrow.

It may sound strange since I'm a philosophy PhD, but I almost always shy away from arguments. I'm fine with tearing apart a position in print, but I hate giving papers because of the back and forth from them. I try to keep all my disagreements civil, but violated that rule a few times over politics recently. It's a major trigger for me, and I consider my time here to be a refuge from that acrimony. The less disagreements that I get into here, the better.

[Red Screamer]

I liked Calamity Jane when I first saw it, but felt similarly let down by the ending in the face of all the possibilities of its premise. I loved it after a revisit for this project. Like any period film, it's more about the era it was made in than the era it's set in. I don't think it's a stretch to argue that the film reaches some conservative conclusions about gender roles, but it would be wrong to say that it's mindless or dishonest about the experience of them. At every turn, it pulls back the curtain to show the social pressures surrounding gender and how they function in the western genre, not to mention in 1953 America. If I remember correctly, its version of Deadwood even consists entirely of men, except Calamity, until the ball. As if the townies we see have no wives, daughters, mothers, etc. (kind of like My Sister Eileen's harsh, masculine vision of NYC, as my girlfriend pointed out). For me, its loose doubling structure in place of a more forward-moving plot leaves room for exploration of these ideas more than strict commandments about them. Like the two separate scenes where Katie and Francis have to perform a larger-than-life version of femininity onstage for a bar full of men who make it clear that the stakes of such a performance are very high. There's your GWSS 101 thesis, right there. Or, as domino and twwb mentioned separately, the doubling of Keel/Day duets, in which the first one is a gruff talk-singing call-and-response and the second is a ballad, with their classically trained voices coming out in full effect for some sublime harmonies.

From a feminist perspective, it's probably a letdown for Calamity to wind up accepting some version of traditional, heterosexual femininity. But, like twwb pointed out, the spectrum of how she expresses herself is remarkable and as an audience, we (or at least I) get as much of a kick from her scrappy cowboy side as from her appearance as belle of the ball. And now I read the ending not as her giving up her old ways, but as a fusion of these two sides of her personality: she wears a glamorous but functional riding getup and can ride-by-kiss Howard Keel on horseback as she's on her way to, uh, work. Call it a bisexual compromise. Not that Calamity Jane is anything like an academic exercise or a socially conscious manifesto. But looking at the queer tradition of reading against and/or into the film ("Secret Love", of course, but don't forget about the wonderful and suggestive "A Woman's Touch"), the ideas it puts into conversation structurally, and its own focus on the (usually painful) processes and (often cumbersome) materials of femininity, I certainly wouldn't dismiss it as sexist tripe not worthy of a second thought. At the very least, it's more open and interesting as a work of art than it would be if it were simply a declaration of the presumed sexual politics of its makers. But to each their own.

On another note, members who love both musicals and jazz couldn't do much better than the pulse-pounder that is Art Blakely & the New Jazz Messengers' 9-minute jam on "Secret Love".

[senseabove]

I was already looking forward to a rewatch of Calamity Jane during the orphan salvation/my personal rewatch month portion of the list, but after all that I'm even more curious. And thanks for that Blakey rendition of "Secret Love," Red Screamer.


Now for one that was an orphan last time, it seems, so if whoever voted for it then is still around, identify yourself, because you have found an ally:

The Mating Season (Leisen, 1951) Thelma Ritter plays Thelma Ritter, lifelong- but now ex-owner of a now bank-owned Jersey City burger joint; John Lund is her college-educated son, ladder-climbing his way into the top brass at some indistinct mid-western corporation; Gene Tierney is the woman he sweeps of her feet in a meet-cute, who is not a snob despite being the boarding-school-raised daughter of a dear, departed diplomat and Miriam Hopkins, who plays, from what I've heard, Miriam Hopkins (definitely a snob). This being a late screwball very much in the vein of Leisen's 30s masterpieces (so you know where I stand), hijinks ensue when Tierney, mistaking Ritter for the help Lund ordered from the employment agency, ushers her into the kitchen as the rescue cook for that oh-so-mid-century marital trial, the Couple's First Dinner Party. I'll let the movie explain how Lund and Ritter end up playing the deception for far longer than they should (of course), but Leisen keeps everything at the perfect pitch, each character just desperate or histrionic or understanding or upset enough to carry it through to a hilarious breaking point, with Hopkins crouched by the fridge in the middle of the night overhearing a completely mis-contextualized conversation. And the script spreads out mid-century class anxieties in a fascinating way, giving even the villains enough of a background sketch for them to be a pointed contrast, not just a foil, to Lund and Tierney's uncertain relationship to the ill-fitting classes they keep finding themselves mixed with. Which isn't to say this is a treatise or anything—it's just hilarious, without trying too hard for the moral or the mug, but playing our expectations against everyone's expectations of everyone else's expectations beautifully. If you're fond of Leisen, I can't recommend this one enough.

[swo17]

Uh, so apparently this deadline is in about 2 1/2 weeks? How about that

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN

[domino harvey]

RonPaul.wmv

[senseabove]

Sorry, didn't mean to be the bell that tolls for whom by mentioning my orphan/rewatch month plans.

Also sorry "again" means it is definitely TheGiantFromTwinPeaks.gif

[Rayon Vert]

The Flame and the Arrow (Tourneur 1950). (1st viewing) Picking up the trail of the swashbucklers started in the two previous decades lists. Burt Lancaster shows off his acrobatic flair (and then some!) as Dardo, Lombardian mountaineer fighting off the grip of Frederick Barbarossa’s empire over his region. The tone is light, very much in the spirit of WB’s Robin Hood. I wouldn’t put this at the top of the genre, but it’s definitely miles ahead of late 40s dreck like The Three Musketeers. Not original in the least but well-paced, humorous and fun, and length-wise doesn’t overstay its welcome. Sets could have been a bit more appealing, though, for this highest-grossing WB film of the year.


No Way Out (Mankiewicz 1950). (1st viewing) The mix of crime thriller and social problem drama is bringing back what WB in the 30s did with films like Black Legion. What’s so powerful and stunning in the progressivism in this film is how, whereas the racism of the Bogart character in that earlier film is made understandable (though of course still completely reprehensible and disturbing) over watching a more recent immigrant get the job he covets, here the racism is just a given. It’s not just the “psychotically racist” Ray (“Who’s ever loved me?” – you kind of guessed or felt that was the root of it, and it’s great when we eventually get to those lines), or all of the white working class community at Beaver Canal, but you take note of it even in the hospital prison ward staff. Those initial scenes, the film’s best for my money, are both so well-written and shocking – it’s hard not to hate a character as much as Ray here. A stand-out, powerful film, though yes it is a little hampered by some scenes as the film progresses, especially those revolving around the Linda Darnell character, that don’t sustain the same level of dramatic interest and quality of writing.


Equinox Flower (Ozu 1958). (revisit) This is another I like even though it isn’t threatening at all to my list. Ozu comes back to the theme of intergenerational conflict over the adult children’s decisions to choose their own marriage partners, and his fixation on it here is neurotic to the point of keeping the focus on this single talking point for the whole of the two hours, but it merges subtle, ironic comedy to the drama. Part of the film’s appeal is the almost constant play with geometric and color patterns (the latter mostly focused on the green and orangish red), as Ozu seems to delight in the tremendous vibrancy that the use of color can add to his art.


Cage of Gold (Dearden 1950). (1st viewing) Good actors here, Jean Simmons and David Farrar, in a noir melodrama with expressionist touches involving a blackmailing/con artist husband. A multitude of events and twists and turns fit for a two-hour film are condensed at a ridiculous pace into just over 80 minutes. It ends being a little underwhelming despite the efforts put in, with characters that aren’t developed sufficiently to invite deeper viewer attachment, and the furious pace not helping. It feels like intended A-grade elements have been spoiled into a minor B film.


Peyton Place (Robson 1957). (1st viewing) Even with all the praise this has received earlier in the thread, especially by TWBB’s incredible analysis, I still experienced this as a revelation – an astoundingly good film. I was expecting something a lot more soapy, but the controversial elements are played sincerely, and as noted very humanly and non-judgmentally, and without any (much?) sensationalism, even though they are surprising in their frankness, especially in regards to the sexuality. It’s hard to categorize this film as genre – it’s definitely a melodrama but not merely a romantic or family one. It becomes more narratively focused toward the end (the only mild disappointment in the film is that it has to coalesce into a courtroom section, even if that makes sense with what’s at stake in the trial given the film’s concern with hypocrisy vs. truthfulness) but the most apt comparison that comes to mind is one of those scrawling Altman “social tapestry” epics (Nashville, Short Cuts), the whole town being the subject – again twbb articulated this in more detail and depth. And here the similar length allows for all those extremely well scripted and played characters and stories to really breathe and make us get attached to and feel we inhabit this town. I’m a sucker for beauty and this feels both beautiful and true on a moral level, but it’s also a visually superbly gorgeous film. And the film is graced by an incredible score as well by Waxman, especially striking in the scene where Lucas chases Selena in the woods. Like TW, this also is easily my favorite melodrama of the decade, perhaps of any. At this point in the game, I get surprised if anything breaks into my list, but this one actually easily makes it into my top fifteen. Many thanks to this board for making me aware of and consider this film that I will treasure from here on!


The Lavender Hill Mob (Crichton 1951). (revisit) For my money nothing gets close to Kind Hearts and Coronets in terms of Ealing comedies, but this comes in second. Nowhere near as inspired, but it’s a lot of fun and it generates laughter all the way through. The first half is amusing for the wit and charm in the setup, the second for going into hyperdrive and creating at once suspenseful and hilarious sequences.

[therewillbeblus]

Great appreciation, glad you got so much out of Peyton Place!

[Rayon Vert]

I just hope I don't disappoint you with My Sister Eileen! With musicals I'm less confident (even though I was definitely on the same page as you with On the Town and Good News in the previous decades lp).

btw, are there other great 50s Jerry Wald melodrama productions? (Where have these films been all my life?) I'll be watching The Long, Hot Summer of course.

[domino harvey]

Have I been on mute all these years or