“There’s only two things in this world that a ‘real man’ needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke.” ‘Johnny Guitar’, directed by Nicholas Ray in 1954, is an American western starring Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge. Crawford plays Vienna, the owner of a small casino that is on the verge of…

“Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.” ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen in 1952, is an American musical starring Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds. Kelly plays Don Lockwood, a…

“Is there any movie that’s more perfectly French, more perfectly Parisian, and more perfectly 1950s than Louis Malle’s debut ‘Lift to the Scaffold’? Melville’s ‘Bob Le Flambeur’, perhaps, or Cocteau’s ‘Orphée’, but there is also in Malle’s movie a strong indication of the new directions French cinema would soon take.” ‘Lift to the Scaffold’, directed…

“Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?” ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, directed by Howard Hawks in 1953, is an American adaptation of the comedy musical from 1949. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell play a…

“Locks are like pretty ladies. You need to practise to know them.” ‘Bob le flambeur’, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville in 1956, is a French crime drama starring Roger Duchesne as Bob, an aging ex-con and professional gambler, down on his luck, who plans one final heist. Bob lives in Montmartre and spends his nights attending…

“They say all Neapolitans are indolent. But you tell me, can you call a castaway indolent? In a way, we’re all castaways. We have to fight so hard just to stay afloat.” ‘Journey to Italy’, directed by Roberto Rossellini in 1954, is an Italian drama starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders. Bergman and Sanders play…

In 1955, Guy Debord coined the term ‘psychogeography’, a way of seeing urban spaces as cultural playgrounds that, through wandering, can collapse time and space together, connecting the rich histories of locations with the contemporary experience of exploring them. Paris was an ur-text for this new way of seeing space and time, the history, mythology…

My experience of the films of Akira Kurosawa before I started this journey through international cinema was limited. I’d seen ‘Rashomon’, bits of ‘Seven Samurai’ and, because of the film’s connection with ‘Star Wars’, the beginning of ‘The Hidden Fortress’. As with Andrei Tarkovsy, it took a few films to adjust my expectations to what…

“You must have patience, even while people die. Only thus can the whole evil be destroyed. You must let it grow.” I’m a happy member of the ‘Folk Horror Revival’ Facebook group. I bought the ‘Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies’ book and I’ve contributed a poem to the up-coming ‘Corpse Roads’ anthology, but I have…

“One cannot behold the face of the gorgon and live!” ‘Forbidden Planet’, directed by Fred M. Wilcox in 1956, is an American science fiction movie. The plot is a riff on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’: a crew of spacemen lead by Commander John Adams, played by Leslie Nielsen, are on a rescue mission to a remote…

“When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way! From you first cigarette your last dying days.” ‘West Side Story’, directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins in 1957, is an adaptation of a Broadway musical loosely based on ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Two gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, vie for control of the…

“Un condamné à mort s’est échappé” ‘A Man Escaped’, directed by Robert Bresson in 1956, is a prison escape drama set during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War. Fontaine, a member of the French resistance played by François Leterrier, is arrested and, after attempting to escape from the car taking him…

“Play a song for me, please. Come on.” ‘Black Orpheus’, directed by Marcel Camus in 1959, is a retelling of the Greek myth set during the Rio de Janeiro favela. Orfeu, played by Breno Mello, falls in love with a visitor to the city, Eurydice, played by Marpessa Dawn. She is threatened by both Orfeu’s…

“I hope they’ll kill every one of them before they are born.” ‘Los Olvidados’, directed by Luis Buñuel in 1950, is a Mexican drama that draws on the neorealist cinema of Europe but augments it with Buñuel’s characteristic surreal touches. It focuses on a gang of poor children in Mexico City. The leader of the…

“She’s fair game, Joe. It’s always open season on princesses.” ‘Roman Holiday’, directed by William Wyler in 1953, is a romantic comedy set in Rome and starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Hepburn plays a European princess (clearly based on Great Britain’s Elizabeth) who feels the stress of being constantly in a schedule and under…

“No Lars. It just so happens we be Texicans. Texican is nothing but a human man way out on a limb. This year and next, and maybe for a hundred more. But I don’t think it’ll be forever. Someday this country’s gonna be a fine, good place to be. Maybe it needs our bones in…

“The Land of Bengal. Where is the greenest land of all – where the tender grass your feet must fall? Where the grain sways on sunny afternoons and the blushing lotus blooms? It is our very own Bengal, the greenest land of all. Where do thrush and robin sing? Where do fork-tailed drongos swing and…

“Human beings share the same common problems. A film can only be understood if it depicts these properly.” ‘I Live in Fear’, written and directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1955, is a drama set in contemporary Japan. A factory owner, Nakajima played by Toshiro Mifune, is terrified of nuclear war and is pressuring his family…

“It’s a fox without eyes, and with a rotten hole for a mouth” ‘The Magician’, directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1958, is a thriller set in the nineteenth century. Max von Sydow plays a magician and mesmerist called Vogler who travels with his family. After a fateful encounter with an actor on the way they…

“In the final moments of the film, Kajal has rejected Apu. When Apu’s father-in-law is about to strike Kajal with a stick because he has refused to leave with Apu, Apu rescues Kajal instinctively. A hint of trust begins to develop. Apu starts to walk away as he has given up hope of earning Kajal’s…

“At the end of the second act, when Colombine goes, driven away by her masters, there is a tradition you seem not to know. The comedians bow to her.” ‘The Golden Coach’, directed by Jean Renoir in 1952, is an opulent costume drama set in Peru in the 18ths century. A troupe of performers arrive…

“So they were turning after all, those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.” ‘Sunset Boulevard’, directed by Billy Wilder in 1950, is an American comedy with film noir touches. It is the story of a Hollywood scriptwriter,…

It is now five months since I finished watching Mark Cousins’ ‘Story of Film’ and decided to increase my knowledge of and exposure to more interesting movies (I’m aware all this makes it sound like a prison sentence). I’ve watched, thought about and written about 133 movies watched which means around 30,000 words or a…

“This is my home now too. But just look at it. It’s like living in the jungle. Jackals prowling around as soon as night falls. No neighbours to sit and talk to. When you’re not here, I’m terribly uneasy. But you wouldn’t understand. You eat and sleep and go about your work, unconcerned whether you’re…

“Grass flourishes on the inspection ground around the blocks. An abandoned village, still heavy with peril. The crematoria are no longer used. The Nazi’s cunning is but child’s play today. Nine million dead haunt this countryside.” ‘Night and Fog’, directed by Alain Resnais in 1955, is a short documentary film about the Holocaust. Made only…

“I found that humans have little sympathy for things that don’t directly concern them. They’re ruthless. Unless those hearts can be changed, the world you dream of cannot come true. If you wish to live honestly with your conscience, keep close to the Buddha.” ‘Sanshō Dayū’, directed by Kenji Mizoguchi in 1954, is an historical…

“Whose neck shall I stand on to make me feel superior, and what will I have out of it? I don’t want anything lower than I am. I am low enough already. I want to rise and to push everything up with me as I go.” ‘Salt of the Earth’, directed by Herbert J. Biberman…

“If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me. So it was this evening.” ‘Wild Strawberries’, written and directed by Ingmar Bergman in 1957, feels like a film ahead of its time – for example: I struggled to place a date…

“Kyoko: Isn’t life disappointing? Noriko [smiles]: Yes, it is.” ‘Tokyo Story’, directed by Yasujirō Ozu in 1953, tells the simple story of an elderly couple who travel across Japan to visit their children only to find them too busy to entertain them. After a while they travel back but the grandmother is taken ill and…

“Back home everyone said I didn’t have any talent. They might be saying the same thing over here but it sounds better in French.” ‘An American in Paris’, directed by Vincente Minnelli in 1951, is my first foray into Hollywood musicals. It tells the story of three friends in Paris, two ex-pat Americans, Jerry and…