#1952 movies

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

November: Oscar Winners

Moulin Rouge / Zsa Zsa Gabor as Jane Avril

Year: 1952

Designer: Marcel Vertès

So, this is the other Moulin Rouge! This one is a Toulouse-Lautrec biopic starring Jose Ferrer, and I confess that I didn't even know it existed until I started looking up the academy awards. It's quite the visual feast! I particularly liked this recreation of a dress worn by Jane Avril in one of Toulouse-Lautrec's most famous depictions of her. The poster doesn't show a lot of details of the dress, due largely to the pose and the angle; so the designer, Marcel Vertès, did a good job of interpreting it.

Her bonnet is particularly interesting. The high crown would have been very old-fashioned for the 1890s, and the sort of wooly texture of it is very unusual (which is to say, probably a Hollywood invention). The orange and black feathers, as well as the black tie under the chin, are very true to the original art.

#moulin rouge #oscar winners #zsa zsa gabor #one dress a day challenge #one dress a week challenge #movie costumes #period film #1952 movies #1952 films #old hollywood #classic hollywood #classic movies #jane avril #moulin rouge 1952 #Marcel Vertès #1890s style #1890s fashion #victorian era #victorian fashion #victorian style #19th century costumes

[candispice]

1952 Coe Chevrolet Ramp Truck

#1952 movies #coe #cheverolet #truck

[80srozetta]

Zsa Zsa Gabor in Moulin Rouge, 1952 🌷

ig: 80srozetta

#zsa zsa gabor #moulin rouge #1952 movies #50s #pink

[project1939]

100+ Films of 1952

Film number 120: Love is Better Than Ever  

Release date: Feb 23rd, 1952 

Studio: MGM 

Genre: romantic comedy 

Director: Stanley Donen 

Producer: William H. Wright 

Actors: Larry Parks, Elizabeth Taylor 

Plot Summary: Stacy runs a successful dance school but is a novice when it comes to romance. While in New York City for a dance convention, she meets Jud, a smooth-talking entertainment agent and confirmed bachelor. He’s happy to wine and dine her but wants nothing more. Stacy vows to do whatever it takes to get him to propose, even if it requires tricking him. 

My Rating (out of five stars): **¼

Yikes, this was pretty bad. A romantic comedy will never work if the male lead is an asshole for 95% of the film! Then factor in that he’s a plain looking 38-year-old being wooed by a drop dead gorgeous 19-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, and... I spent the whole film shouting WTF?! and Why???!!!  

The Good: 

Elizabeth Taylor. She looked stunning, of course, even if she was a bit young to be playing a full-grown adult. She also acted quite well, doing the most she could with an inferior script.  

Donen’s direction wasn’t bad. He used the camera in some nice fluid ways, and the film certainly looked good visually. That wasn’t the problem. 

Gene Kelly had a “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo, but it was fun. When he is told Stacy is a dance teacher who owns a school, Kelly says he used to teach dance in Pittsburg. That was totally true in real life- he had his own school before he even made it on Broadway in the 1940s.

An unruly little girl named Joni! She was an awkwardly funny kid in Stacy’s dance class, and she cracked me up. 

It was amusing to see another Hollywood film from 1952 taking a sly dig at television. As Stacy and Jud watch a ball game, it is constantly interrupted by picture quality issues or commercials. “See folks, movies are so much better! Don’t stay home and watch TV and cut into our profits!” 

The Bad: 

Jud the character. He was a womanizing prick who strung a very innocent young woman along. He was curt and demeaning to almost everyone around him. I kept scrawling “I HATE HIM” in my notes! 

Larry Parks. He was too old and too blah to play opposite Taylor, and he literally had almost no sex appeal. His acting was fine, but he was all wrong for the part. 

Taylor and Parks had no noticeable chemistry, making things even worse. 

The plot was thin and often uninteresting. Even though it was only 80 minutes long, it really dragged for me. 

I just never actually cared what happened; there was never anything that hooked me or pulled me in.

The title! It’s so bad and generic, it feels like it was just a title lying in an unused pile somewhere and grabbed at random. 

The blacklist rears its disgusting head again! Larry Parks was one of the first actors thrown before HUAC and forced to testify, having a history of ties to the Communist party in America. He testified under much duress, was blacklisted anyway, and this film was shelved for a year because of it. 

#1952 #1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #elizabeth taylor

[videorentalshop]

#my cousin rachel #daphne du maurier #1952 movies #richard burton

[adamwatchesmovies]

Ikiru (1952)

Few works of art have the power to single-handedly change those who see them. Most only contribute to a lesson learned over time. Ikiru is the kind of reality-shattering story that should be mandatory viewing, particularly if you work in an office or are in a position to say “yes” or “no” to proposals. It’s a masterpiece that hasn’t aged a day since its release in 1952.

Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) has worked in the same monotonous office position for nearly thirty years when he learns he has stomach cancer and less than twelve months to live. Suddenly confronted with his mortality, he attempts to make up for the time he wasted.

Ikiru does what you expect it to and then goes deeper. After learning they have less than a year left, most people would probably find (or try to find) comfort in family and friends - or more likely indulge in fleeting pleasures like food, drink, drugs, or sex. Ikiru isn’t about checking items off your bucket list. Watanabe was not a fan of drinking or fleshy pleasures until he received the bad news. Why would that suddenly change? He meets a novelist (Yūnosuke Itō). They briefly paint the town red and then they part ways. Watanabe then connects with a young woman from his office who hates her job (Miki Odagiri). You think the movie will be about her showing him how to live (that’s what Ikiriu means) but you’re wrong again. Watanabe tries to find happiness in them but discovers his expiry date makes it impossible. It’s a dire thought but it’s probably true that when you only have 365 days left, it doesn’t feel like enough for anything. He could try to reconnect with his son (Nobuo Nakamura) but the time for that has passed. If he did, it would only be because he’s found out he’s dying. The same for falling in love or trying to do the things he never had time for.

That all makes Ikiru sound very depressing. In some ways, it is… but the film is also unusually uplifting. It’s a call to arms, an invitation to wake up and live. Even if living means going back to what you were doing before but doing it with passion. Sitting at a desk and stamping papers all day could easily be a soul-crushing experience but isn’t it also an opportunity? If you got rid of the bad habits that form at the office, the kind that make you pass responsibilities to someone else who’ll care about them as little as you do; if you started caring about your job, took chances and aimed to make a difference, you could do a lot of good. You could leave feeling fulfilled and make the world a better place. A cynical person might say that no individual can make that much of a difference but isn’t that attitude a way to validate giving up?

Akira Kurosawa has crafted a wonderful film with many powerful messages. Among them the indictment of bureaucracy and the inefficiencies that so often accompany it, the decay of family, what it really means to live, the impact an individual can have if they are determined enough and what sort of legacy we should be proud to leave behind. It’s the kind of story that shakes you out of a stupor you didn’t even know you were walking through. Then, it ends on a note so powerful it's unforgettable. There isn’t anyone who shouldn’t see Ikiru. (Original Japanese with English Subtitles, on DVD, August 2, 2021)

#Ikiru #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #Akira Kurosawa #Takashi Shimura #Miki Odagiri #1952 movies #1952 films

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The King and the Mockingbird (1980)

#the king and the mockingbird gif #le roi et l'oiseau #paul grimault #jacques prévert #french animation #french movies #giant robot #80s movies #50s movies #1952 #1980 #gif #chronoscaph gif

[gameraboy2]

Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock (1952)

#my gif #marilyn monroe #cheesecake #don't bother to knock #1952 #1950s #vintage #film #movie

[weirdlookindog]

Mirjami Kuosmanen in The White Reindeer (Valkoinen peura, 1952)

#valkoinen peura #the white reindeer #mirjami kuosmanen #1950s horror #1950s movies #1952 #erik blomberg #fantasy #horror

[captofthelaney]

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)

#usercaptofthelaney #film #35mm film #singin in the rain #50s #1952 #gene kelly #dance #musical #filmedit #filmgifs #fyeahmovies #movie gifs #my gifs #my edits #music #singing in the rain #dailyflicks #classic movies #moviegifs

[kiwd]

ungived

#moodboard #mb #alt #alternative #vintage y2k retro messy archive photography #visual #lq #icons #art #carrd #stuff #purple #gif movie #singing in the rain #1952 #old hollywood #sabotage

[cressida-jayoungr]

One Dress a Day Challenge

Anything Goes December

The Belle of New York / Vera-Ellen as Angela Bonfils

Actually, it's a little tricky to say whether Vera-Ellen is supposed to be Angela Bonfils in this scene or not, as it's a sort of fantasy sequence based on Currier and Ives prints. Maybe it's Angela's self-insert past fantasy? (Also, props to Vera-Ellen and Fred Astaire for doing their own skating.)

Anyway, the ermine-trimmed coat and hat are very cute. Raising the skirt for purposes of skating makes the dress look more like the 1950s, which is also when the movie was made. Helen Rose was responsible for the women's costumes in this film.

#the belle of new york #anything goes december #vera-ellen #one dress a day challenge #one dress a week challenge #movie costumes #1952 movies #1952 films #musical costumes #period film #old hollywood #classic hollywood #red dresses #red dress #vera ellen #helen rose #victorian style #victorian era #19th century costumes

[maggiecheungs]

MARILYN MONROE as Lois Laurel in MONKEY BUSINESS (1952) dir. Howards Hawks

#marilyn monroe #monkey business #howard hawks #filmgifs #classicfilmsource #oldhollywoodedit #vintageblr #classicfilmblr #classicfilmedit #marilynmonroeedit #old hollywood #fymovies #dailyflicks #ladiesofcinema #monkey business 1952 #movie tag #ellisgifs

[project1939]

100+ Films of 1952

Film number 142: Springfield Rifle 

Release date: October 25nd, 1952 

Studio: Warner Brothers 

Genre: western 

Director: Andre de Toth 

Producer: Louis F. Edelman 

Actors: Gary Cooper, Phyllis Thaxter, David Brian 

Plot Summary: Major Lex Kearny of the Union Army is dishonorably discharged for cowardice, but is it actually a ruse? Now he is able to lead a counterespionage mission to stop a band of Southern horse thieves from taking precious resources away from the North. He may lose everything in the process, though, because the secrecy of the mission tears his family apart. 

My Rating (out of five stars): **½ 

Here we have another Hollywood western named after a gun! In reality, this film is more like a defective cap gun that cannot make the teensiest pop. Even Gary Cooper couldn’t save it from being anything more than a forgettable shrug. Coop may have starred in the masterpiece High Noon earlier in the year, but this is everything that film isn’t: overly obvious, lamely literal, bloated with exposition, and populated with bland characters. Then throw in a half-baked afterthought of some family drama, and you’re good to go! ...right to sleep!

The Good: 

It was nice to see a Classical Hollywood Civil War film where the Northerners were the good guys! 

Cooper’s wife in the film was not an ingénue; she actually looked age appropriate. Phyllis Thaxter may have only been in her early 30s here, but at least her character was made to look slightly middle-aged. 

There was some nice location footage with the Rockies in the background. 

We got a very early use of the Wilhelm scream! (If you’re not itk, it’s one of the most famous sound effects in Hollywood history. I’m sure you’d recognize the comical scream if you heard it.) 

The Bad: 

I love Gary Cooper, but was it just me, or was he not entirely convincing in this? Maybe he had too much bad dialogue, because it just sounded kind of stiff and fake. 

There was way too much set-up and exposition at the beginning! It took almost 25 minutes for the story to really take off, and even then, it stopped and stuttered a lot. 

The family side-plot was as thin as thread-paper, and it just felt like an annoying intrusion. To make things worse, Thaxter's character was fatally afflicted with what I call "Classical Hollywood Good Wife Syndrome." (That's a hollow female character who only exists to worry about her husband, whine at her husband, or nobly suffer for her husband.) 

None of the characters were really fleshed out and made human, including Cooper as Major Kearny. It was hard to really care about anyone or get invested in the story. 

Were there any horses harmed while filming this? Because I sure feared it at times. 

The non-diegetic music was so obvious it could have been spoken dialogue. We heard “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” so often I still can’t get it out of my head, and “Dixie” sometimes got the minor treatment when Southern baddies were in the scene. 

This may have been one of the most boring espionage films I’ve seen, and I usually enjoy them. 

Another weirdly misleading poster- “When they said he had disgraced his woman- that's when he reached for his rifle!” is just shameless sensationalism trying desperately to make you think you’re in store for some kind of sexy drama. But no. 

#1952 movies #100 films of 1952 #classical hollywood good wife syndrome

[adventurelandia]

Trick or Treat (1952)

#Trick or Treat #1952 #1950s #vintage #film #movie #poster #movie poster #poster art #halloween #donald duck #ghost #animation #cartoons

[frenchvintagedreams]

CYD CHARISSE in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Directed by Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen

#cyd charisse #singin' in the rain #gene kelly #stanley donen #classic hollywood #vintage hollywood #classicfilmblr #classicfilmedir #classicfilmsource #old hollywood #golden age of hollywood #classic movies #GIF #my gifs #cinema my post #cinema #queue #tagged #1950s #1952 #my post