1950s – Film Objective

Sunset Boulevard

A movie about the problems with movies. Thankfully, it has none of its own.

In Hawks’ film, death threats roll off Wayne’s boy scout smile like rain off an imperious old duck; characters are named Feathers, Stumpy, Colorado and Dude. Rio Bravo doesn’t have the best upbringing, but nothing can stop it from being the best “hangout” in all the movies.

The African Queen

Movies of this kind had a habit of staging an adventure but keeping emotions safe and detached, with characters that went through the bother of dressing in jungle wear but without the bother of acting beyond their British parlors. But here Huston aims at unprecedented realism in confecting a gritty jungle for his two stars to get entangled in, particularly in the unsightly pairing of the two leads themselves, who at first seem no more compatible than they really would be.

Gojira (1954)

Gojira is all performance. Yes, the monster film’s propensity for overacting is here to some extent, but its images still reflect the power that must be innate in the language we cannot hear, which cannot be ignored any more than Serizawa can ignore the child’s prayer over the radio, calling him to fight destruction with destruction.