So was this movie supposed to give me a drinking problem or something? As I watched Susan Hayward pretending to have a seizure that practically screamed “I liked to thank the Academy and also Lillian Roth for having such a crappy life” I was thinking about how much more entertaining this would all be if I was as wasted as the main character was throughout the film. Continue reading “I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955)”
Category: 1950s
Tobor the Great (1954)
My first clue should have been the title. I don’t mean the part about this dude being called Tobor and that it is “robot” spelled backwards. The goofy old fart scientist that invented Tobor tells a bunch of reporters that he named it like that on purpose. I mean the part about this robot being called Tobor the Great. That should have tipped me off that I was dealing with a children’s movie right away. Continue reading “Tobor the Great (1954)”
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
I’m sure all of you remember the very first Invisible Man sequel, The Invisible Man Returns. That movie featured a slightly prissy owner of a mine who is wrongly accused of murdering his brother. The accused has a doctor at the mine shoot him up with some invisible juice so that he can be free to roam around looking for the “real killers.” While he does this, he also has to hurry up and get it done before the drug makes him crazy. I rehash all this because Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man rehashes all this. Continue reading “Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)”
The Big Country (1958)
Gregory Peck is James McKay, which means that I had to suppress a snicker whenever someone started talking about Jim McKay buying that spread of land called the Big Muddy and getting himself involved in a range war, since I kept expecting Jim McKay to start talking about the “thrill of victory” after getting the Big Muddy and bemoaning “the agony of defeat” after the Major (don’t ask) and Burl Ives shoot each other during the big canyon showdown that brings the movie to its close. Continue reading “The Big Country (1958)”
Show Boat (1951)
Even Old Man River himself could be forgiven for wandering off into another room while one of the innumerable ballads that stops the film dead in its tracks gets crooned by one of the movie’s three main characters. Other than Old Man River’s theme song, the tunes featured here are a collection of dirge-like ditties about love that barley even rhyme, let alone ever approach being hummable. To their credit, the songs never manage to be catchy enough to get painfully stuck in your head, but that doesn’t really make the film go any faster. Continue reading “Show Boat (1951)”
D.O.A. (1950)
D.O.A. takes on its subject matter with a stark straightforwardness that literally shows the protagonist as a walking dead man. Frank Bigelow gets poisoned by some slow acting stuff that allows him to run around California for a week before croaking, all in an effort to find out who was behind his impending death. Is there a better metaphor for the futility of life than that? Continue reading “D.O.A. (1950)”
Monster on the Campus (1958)
This movie about a big, dead, smelly fish has the kind of pedigree that would make you think it was one of those big, dead, smelly fish movies from the 1950s that was really good. Jack Arnold (The Incredible Shrinking Man) directed from a script by Daniel Duncan who also scripted The Time Machine. And Joanna Moore is the female lead. She was Tatum O’Neal’s mother!
Instead of an interesting rampaging monster epic though, you have a movie hampered by its silly premise. Even worse, the monster hardly rampaged at all, making only a few off screen appearances until the very end when a guy in caveman make up starting running around the woods, chucking axes at park rangers and causing pretty gals to faint dead away. Continue reading “Monster on the Campus (1958)”