High Noon 1951
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1950's
This is like goodnight and goodluck if it were a western it deals with the very same issue ‘The Red Scare’.
On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, lawman Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller’s gang, who are waiting for him at the station…
Tags: Corruption, Cowboy, David and Goliath, Hidden Agenda, Red Scare
Johnny Guitar 1954
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1950's
Im gonna Kill you......
Camp western classic with hidden Mcarthy agenda and subtle glbt themes
Vienna (Joan Crawford) has built a saloon outside of town, and she hopes to build her own town once the railroad is put through, but the townsfolk want her gone. When four men hold up a stagecoach and kill a man the town officials, led by Emma Small (Lesbian Icon Mercedes Mccambridge’ the Voice of Reagan in the Exorcist) come to the saloon to grab four of Vienna’s friends, the Dancin’ Kid and his men. Vienna stands strong against them, and is aided by the presence of an old acquaintance of hers, Johnny Guitar(Sterling Hayden), who is not what he seems,
This is a Watershed Lesbian Classic That the French critics have raved about Calling its a ”Western” Beauty and the Beast Story..
Of Course the Beauty in this case is Sterling Hayden
There was not a lotta love lost between Crawford , Hayden and Mccambridge apparently , Crawford Wanted Claire Trevor for her arch Enemy Mistress who had been a big Feature in Westerns Featuring John Wayne (specially stagecoach 1939)and had an Oscar for her troubles in ”Key Largo”, But they Opted for ‘younger’ Mccambridge, which kind of makes the Animosity between the characters Believable
One of the last feature film produced by the Independent studio Republic Pictures better know for their John Wayne Movies
Like Destry and Ranch Notorious (both with Marlene Dietrich) The Woman Takes Center Stage in a Male dominated Gene . and Does a Damm good Job of it!
Tags: Camp, Closeted Lesbian, Cowboy, Desert, Guns, Hidden Agenda, Lost Love, Of Lesbian Interest, Red Scare, Saloon
Our Man In Havana 1959
Posted by spheer2002 | Filed under Film, Films of the 1950's
Our Man Alec
Our Man Alec
Highly recommend this one…
Based of Graham Greene novel
Jim Wormold(Alec Guinness ‘Bridge on the river Kwai, Star Wars’) is an expatriate Englishman living in pre-revolutionary Havana with his teenage daughter Milly. He owns a vacuum cleaner shop but isn’t very successful so he accepts an offer from Hawthorne(Noel Coward .’The Italian job’ and the second coming of Oscar Wilde ) of the British Secret Service to recruit a network of agents in Cuba. Wormold hasn’t got a clue where to start but when his friend Dr. Hasselbacher(Burl Ives, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) suggests that the best secrets are known to no one, he decides to manufacture a list of agents and provides fictional tales for the benefit of his masters in London. He is soon seen as the best agent in the Western Hemisphere but it all begins to unravel when the local police decode his cables and start rounding up his “network” and he learns that he is the target of a group out to kill him Also starring Maureen O’Hara(The Quiet Man) as British intelligence
Written in the wake of the popularity of the James Bond Novel Phenomena, and released three years before the franchise begin with ”Doctor No” Spys and the Cold war were a score of fear and speculation at the time, the Novel and the film more so make fun of this as well as present a possibility of real espionage and contract killing as the result of ‘Hype’ of the Red Scare , this film although a parody shows the real consequences of what happens when you dont check your facts and believing in ‘Santa clause’
Although the New Government of Cuba was More than happy for Graeme Greens novel about the baptista regime, showing it to be corrupt and the thoughtless meddling s foreign spies from both Brittan and America , The Book and the Film were subsequently withdrawn after Greens comments about the treatment of Intellectuals and Gays and Lesbians ,People don’t realize when they put posters of Che Guevara on their wall , they forget when he worked with Fidel Castro he actually supported putting intellectuals and Homosexuals in concentration camps, subsequently this important film about the change in power in Cuba from the Batista’s seems to be little know in its own country.
as a time capsule of a period in history its fascinating to watch a generation who lived in fear of the Bomb and the blunderings of both sides to resolves this the best way they can by sheer stupidity.
Alex Guinness is great as a British ‘Jimmy Stewart’ everyman who wants the best for his family and plays both side of politics like a poker game with deadly consequences.
Tags: Based off Novel, Black Comedy, Comedy, Espionage, expressionist, Graham Greene, Murder, Noel Coward, Noir, Red Scare, Satire, South America, Spy
