Singin’ in the Rain Seven Brides For Seven Brothers The Pajama Game War of the Worlds Treasure of the Sierra Madre Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I will list what are considered Classics along with some more obscure movies that I like. Some have already been mentioned. From Here to Eternity The Ten Commandments Ben-Hur The Big Country Cowboy Blackboard Jungle Human Desire The Big Heat Mr Soft Touch Caged The African Queen Key Largo Sabrina Illegal The Red House Scarlett Street (not the usual Edward G Robinson) Mr Winkle Goes To War (not the usual Edward G Robinson) Crime Wave The Greatest Show on Earth
A great list, @Mango. I haven't seen Caged, or Crime Wave, but I'm pretty sure I've seen the rest. Clearly, like me, you're an Edward G. Robinson fan, as well as Glenn Ford. Gloria Graham? The film fatale of many a film noir of the 40's and 50's. Who can forget Human Desire.
Yes I like Glenn Ford, Edward G Robinson and Gloria Grahame always seemed to be cast in the right movies. John Wayne was also working in that same era, but it would across to me that you were getting John Wayne all the time rather than the character that he was supposed to be portraying. I don't know if it is just from my POV or that is how he came across to others as well. With other actors, I could usually buy into the idea that they were the character that they were portraying. Crime Wave is probably not as strong as Caged. Dub Taylor is one of my favorite character actors and he has a modest role. I don't think that Taylor ever had anything close to a leading role in a movie with probably his biggest part in Bonnie & Clyde. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was a movie in the 1930's with Paul Muni as the lead. The character's name was James Allen and the woman that he married had Marie as her first name. The main character in Caged is Marie Allen, so I have that as a nod to I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Both movies have the theme of wrong place at the wrong time for the leads and then the grinding prison life as the story. Caged doesn't have the outside scenes of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, but the core concepts are the same. Eleanor Parker is very believable in the beginning as the young woman that got a bad deal being sent to prison and she is also believable as the hardened woman at the movie's end.
Didn't see 12 Angry Men mentioned yet Arsenic and Old Lace The Thin Man The Searchers is by far my favorite of the pre-Leone Westerns Any Hitchcock film from that time period.
Sad, @Xerobull, these are great 50's movies...do you really not like even the good ones? 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Godzilla Rashomon Night of the Hunter Asphalt Jungle High Noon The Killing Moby Dick Giant Whole Bunch of Hitchcocks 12 Angry Men Paths of Glory 3:10 to Yuma Bridge on the River Kwai etc...
Incidentally, I have to confess that I've been reading Rashmon as Rashomon. I know it's a mispronunciation but can't help it once it got stuck in my head.
a few more to the list ... Kiss Me Deadly To Be or Not to Be The Best Years of Our Lives Ealing Comedies: Whisky Galore! Passport to Pimlico Kind Hearts and Coronets The Lavender Hill Mob The Ladykillers
I'm always down for a whole bunch of hitchcocks and moby dicks. Honestly, when I think 1940's-1950's movies, I think dull dramas. You've listed some very good ones. I recant my earlier heresy.
