The MoFo Top 100 of the Fifties: The Countdown

I like it. I like it a lawt.

Granted I haven't seen it since I was, like, 16.

Excellent movie that I had at #4

List:
#1 F'git about it
#2 On the Waterfront (15)
#3 Bridge Over the River Kwai (7)
#4 Seven Samurai (6)
#5 Dammit, really? Not gonna show? What a gyp
#6 Harvey (31)
#7 Stalag 17 (48)
#8 Well, crap
#9 Definitely
#10 Some Like it Hot (11)
#11 Definitely
#12 Night of the Hunter (25)
#13 Streetcar Named Desire (19)
#14 Peter Pan (59)
#15 Alice in Wonderland (27)
#16 another that shoulda, but ain't gonna
#17 I kinda figured, but, hey, whaddya gona do
#18 Witness for the Prosecution (24)
#19 Another that would have popped up right away or not at all
#20 Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda
#21 In A Lonely Place (33)
#22 Didn't expect it would show up any ole way
#23 An old favorite that got left in the dirt - boo hoo
#24 The Killing (52)
#25 STILL CONTINUE to have fingers crossed for 1 pointer category
Watched: 48/95

Seven Samurai is a beautiful epic containing character development, strategy, comedy, thrilling, muscular action and poetic visuals. I put it at #20, but that was probably too low.

My List
1. Alice in Wonderland (#27)
2. The Quiet Man (#51)
3. Paths of Glory (#8)
4. Room at the Top (#73)
6. Some Like It Hot (#11)
8. The Caine Mutiny (#80)
10. The Bridge on the River Kwai (#7)
14. People Will Talk (#88)
15. Singin’ in the Rain (#10)
17. A Streetcar Named Desire (#19)
18. The Trouble with Harry (Did Not Place)
19. Night and Fog (#54)
20. Seven Samurai (#6)
21. Oklahoma! (#97)
22. The King and I (Did Not Place)
23. Guys and Dolls (Did Not Place)
24. The Big Country (#66)

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This is the last movie in the list i haven't seen.

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I had expected Seven Samurai would be in the Top 3 at least. Well, I guess my title hopes now go to my #5 film...
Also, I had not expected Sunset Boulevard would reach the Top 5.

My list so far, with predictions:
1. Rashomon (#9)
2. Tokyo Story (#21)
3. Seven Samurai (#6)
4. The Man Who Knew Too Much (#47)
5. Top 3
6. Floating Weeds (#78)
7. Paths of Glory (#8)
8. Didn't make it
9. Tokyo Twilight (#91)
10. Didn't make it
11. Didn't make it
12. The Killing (#52)
13. Didn't make it
14. Throne of Blood (#38)
15. Ikiru (#16)
16. Forbidden Planet (#55)
17. Top 5
18. The Day the Earth Stood Still (#36)
19. The Seventh Seal (#13)
20. Top 3
21. Rebel Without a Cause (#39)
22. Top 5
23. Didn't make it
24. Didn't make it
25. Probably a one-pointer

Holy crap I expected this to be higher. Seven Samurai was my number 1 and one of my top 10 favorite films of all time. I am very happy I got this high. I got one more coming.

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I had Seven Samurai at my #11.

Great epic with an expertly paced story that doesn't bore me for it 3 hours and 30 minutes or however long it is.

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So far: 20/25

1. Rashomon (1950)
2. Pather Panchali (1955)
4. Seven Samurai (1954)
5. Wild Strawberries (1957)
6. Tokyo Story (1953)
7. Jalsaghar [The Music Room] (1958)
8. The Seventh Seal (1957)
9. The Wages of Fear (1953)
10. On the Waterfront (1954)
11. Ugestu (1953)
12. High Noon (1952)
13. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
14. Ben-Hur (1959)
15. The Ten Commandments (1956)
16. Paths of Glory (1957)
17. Les diaboliques (1955)
18. The 400 Blows (1959)
20. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
24. Roman Holiday (1953)
25. Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Seen: 33/95

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My list: 18
Seen: 49/95

1. Seven Samurai (1954)
2. Ben-Hur (1959)
3. Rashomon (1950)
4. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
5. Rififi (1955)
6. Still to come
7. Tokyo Story (1953)
8. The Ten Commandments (1956)
9. No show
10. The Killing (1956)
11. Sansho the Baliff (1954)
12. Ikiru (1952)
13. Throne of Blood (1957)
14. Hidden Fortress (1958)
15. Sleeping Beauty (1959)
16. No show
17. No show
18. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
19. Dial M for Murder (1954)
20. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
21. Some Like it Hot (1959)
22. No show
23. No show
24. No show
25. Touch of Evil (1958)

Seven Samurai was my #11, truly an epic film in every meaning of the word and even though that destroys my prediction which was going oh so well I will admit it is probably more deserving than Attack Of The Giant Leeches of the number six spot in this list.

My prediction:
10. Singin’ In The Rain
9. Rashomon
8. Paths Of Glory
7. The Bridge On The River Kwai
6. Attack Of The Giant Leeches
5. Immaterial now (The Fast And The Gorilla)
4. Immaterial now (Bela Lugosi Meets A Furious Nurse)
3. Immaterial now (Carry On Robot)
2. Immaterial now (Brooklyn Thunderbolt)
1. Immaterial now (The Titfield Monster)

Nah, #20 is a good place for Seven Samurai. It's the place of choice for cool, devilishly handsome MoFos to rank the film.

I had it at #20 also.

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I expected Seven Samurai to be Kurosawa's top film on the countdown, but I also figured it would top 3 for sure. Even though I did not have it on my own list. I had two other Kurosawa films, but while I like Seven Samurai plenty, I don't love it to the degree I do other Kurosawa films, including Throne of Blood. So that means there's three Hitchcock film in the top 5. Did Kubrick ever do that?! Of the five films remaining, four are on my list.

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That reminds me, I still haven't seen Rashomon or Ikiru.

Has anyone seen The Lower Depths? I haven't, but it looks interesting. I'm curious to hear thoughts from people who've seen it, but wary of spoilers.

If I had made a list for this:

The Cranes Are Flying
Seven Samurai
The 400 Blows
Tokyo Story
Sansho the Bailiff
The Seventh Seal
Forbidden Planet
The Hidden Fortress
Ordet
La Strada
Hiroshima Mon Amour
Paths of Glory
A Christmas Carol

Though, I don't have 25. I need to watch more 50's movies.

Heh, maybe we could do a B-Movie Countdown at some point...

WAT

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

Seven Samurai was twelfth on my list, and the fourth Kurosawa film in my top twenty-five (with Rashômon, Ikiru, and Throne of Blood). That gives Kurosawa five in our top hundred (the four I voted for plus Hidden Fortress). Yes, Hitchcock has an unprecedented seven and three of the top five, but five total is still damn good, and Kurosawa should have at least one more on the eventual '40s list, if not two (Stray Dog and maybe Drunken Angel or The Quiet Duel), bringing his MoFo Decades List total to nine currently, with another one or two to come.

Billy Wilder will have an impressive six on the '50s list, counting the upcoming Sunset Boulevard in the top five (also Stalag 17, Witness for the Prosecution, The Seven Year Itch, Ace in the Hole, and Some Like it Hot), and seven total when added to The Apartment from the '60s List. Plus Wilder will have an absolute lock for the '40s List in Double Indemnity and maybe another (The Lost Weekend should have a decent shot).

Hitch will have nine by the time we get to number one here, these seven plus Psycho and The Birds from the '60s (none from the '70s), but he will have another five to eight when we get to the '40s and at least two from the '30s, if not more! Hitch will definitely be the most named filmmaker, when all is said and done. And Kubrick will have the highest percentage of his films on the lists. Kubrick's career started with three short docs, then the ultra cheap Fear & Desire which he roundly disowned and Killer's Kiss, which was another micro-budget where he was learning his craft on the job and couldn't even afford to shoot sound live on set, overdubbed the entire thing. If you discount those first two features, all eleven of the major films he made afterward are on our MoFo lists, including Paths of Glory and The Killing this round, and two of them took the top spots (2001 and The Shining). But even counting those first two features, that means 85% of Kubrick's movies made our countdowns. No other filmmaker with at least a dozen features is going to come close to that percentage. Hitch may get upwards of twenty movies named, but he made so many.

ANYway, my '50s list not counting the two that didn't make it and the four that are still coming in the top five...

1. Rashômon (#9)
3. In A Lonely Place (#33)
4. Paths of Glory (#8)
5. Singin’ in the Rain (#10)
6. The Seventh Seal (#13)
7. The Bridge on the River Kwai (#7)
8. The 400 Blows (#17)
9. Ace in the Hole (#44)
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (#36)
12. Seven Samurai (#6)
13. The Killing (#52)
14. Harvey (#31)
15. Ikiru (#16)
18. Pickup on South Street (#72)
20. Throne of Blood (#37)
21. Alice in Wonderland (#27)
23. Touch of Evil (#20)
24. La Strada (#41)
25. The Big Country (#66)

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Oh, and my updated guess at the order of the top five...

1. Vertigo
2. Rear Window
3. Sunset Blvd.
4. 12 Angry Men
5. North by Northwest

Me too.

Six is the highest a foreign language film has placed in one of our decades lists, thus far. Bergman's Persona was eleventh on the '60s List, Tarkovsky's Stalker was twentieth on the '70s List, Kurosawa's RAN was seventeenth on the '80s List, and Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke was twenty-second on the '90s List. The Millennium List, which will be re-done in four years or so, also had a foreign language film in the sixth overall spot, with Fernando Meirelles' City of God, and like the '50s List was also the only other decades list to have two foreign language films in the top ten since Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie was tenth.

We shall see if any foreign language title gets higher than sixth on the '40s or '30s lists? De Sica's Bicycle Thieves should have a good shot at the top ten anyway next time, while Fritz Lang's M as well as Renoir's Rules of the Game and/or Grand Illusion may be in the mix near the tippy-top of the thirties list?

But I don't foresee this collective ever picking a foreign films as number one. Too many native English speakers are naturally predispositioned against them, even if they consider themselves some manner of film buff.

Nope. Partially because Kubrick wasn't very prolific, so the most films he even had eligible in a decade were the four in the 1960s, all of which made it with 2001 being #1 and Strangelove at #4 (Spartacus #47 and Lolita #56). For the '70s List Kubrick had Clockwork Orange (#7) and Barry Lyndon (#16), the '80s were The Shining (#1) and Full Metal Jacket (#10) as his only two releases, and his last film Eyes Wide Shut was #15 on the '90s List. So a pair of films in the top ten twice, which ain't bad.

Francis Ford Coppola had three in the top ten for the '70s List, including The Godfather as #1 (Apocalypse Now #9, The Godfather Part II #10), but he was the only other filmmaker with three top tens. David Fincher had two in the top five for the '90s List, with Fight Club #3 and SE7EN #4. Hitch having three of the top five here is unprecedented. And we don't know the order yet. Maybe he even has a lock on the top three?