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Sunset Blvd. (1950)
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| oe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenplay writer, escapes the finance men who are trying to reclaim his car by driving into the garage of an old mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Assumed to be someone else, he is led by Max the butler to the mansion's owner, silent film star Norma Desmond. Wishing to make a comeback, she hires him to rewrite her "Salome" script, then falls in love with him. Joe moves into the mansion as a kept man. Secretly, Joe is collaborating with a pretty young screenplay editor, Betty Schaefer, on another idea. Though she is engaged to his best friend, Artie Green, an assistant director, Betty falls in love with Joe. When Betty finds out about Norma, she asks him to leave Norma for her, but Joe can't unsettle her life, too. He decides, instead, to leave Hollywood. As he is leaving, a crazed Norma tries to stop him.
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All About Eve (1950)
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| The ambitious Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) gets close to the great and temperamental stage artist Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and her friends Karen Richards (Celeste Holm) and her husband, the play-writer Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe); her boyfriend and director Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill); and the producer Max Fabian (Gregory Ratoff). Everybody, except the cynical critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), believe that Eve is only a naive, humble and simple obsessed fan of Margo and they try to help her. However, Eve is indeed a cynical and manipulative snake that uses the lives of Margo and her friends to reach her objectives in the theater business.
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Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951)
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| The Day the Earth Stood Still is a 1951 science fiction film that tells the story of a humanoid alien who comes to Earth to warn its leaders not to take their conflicts into space, or they will face lethal consequences.
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African Queen, The (1951)
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| The boozing, smoking, cussing captain of a tramp steamer, Charlie Allnut, saves prim and proper Rose Sayer after her brother is killed by German soldiers at the beginning of World War I in Africa. Many quarrels later, the two set sail on the Ulonga-Bora in order to sabotage a German ship. Based on the 1935 novel by C.S. Forester, the wonderful combination of Hepburn and Bogie (who won an Oscar) makes this a thoroughly enjoyable blend of comedy and adventure. Later came the book (and Clint Eastwood film) White Hunter, Black Heart, which chronicled Peter Viertel's experiences observing Huston throughout the making of the picture.
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Alice In Wonderland (1951)
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| On a golden afternoon, young Alice follows a White Rabbit, who disappears down a nearby rabbit hole. Quickly following him, she tumbles into the burrow - and enters the merry, topsy-turvy world of Wonderland! Memorable songs and whimsical escapades highlight Alice's journey, which culminates in a madcap encounter with the Queen of Hearts - and her army of playing cards!
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An American in Paris (1951)
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| Jerry Mulligan, a struggling American painter in Paris, is "discovered" by an influential heiress with an interest in more than Jerry's art. Jerry in turn falls for Lise, a young French girl already engaged to a cabaret singer. Jerry jokes, sings and dances with his best friend, an acerbic would-be concert pianist, while romantic complications abound.
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Singin' in the Rain (1952)
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| This is not only a great song-and-dance movie starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds; it's also an affectionately funny insider spoof about the film industry's uneasy transition from silent pictures to "talkies." Kelly plays debonair star Don Lockwood, whose leading lady Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) has a screechy voice hilariously ill-suited to the new technology (and her glamorous screen image). Among the musical highlights: O'Connor's knockout "Make 'Em Laugh"; the big "Broadway Melody" production number; and, best of all, that charming little title ditty in which Kelly makes movie magic on a drenched set with nothing but a few puddles, a lamppost, and an umbrella.
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Greatest Show on Earth, The (1952)
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| The Greatest Show on Earth is a heaping helping of flapdoodle served up by one of Hollywood's canniest entertainers: producer-director Cecil B. DeMille. This overripe melodrama purports to be life inside the Ringling Brothers Circus; maybe it's not, but the circus ought to be like this. The actors wrestling with the purple dialogue are: early-career Charlton Heston, as the tough-as-nails circus manager; Cornel Wilde and Betty Hutton as trapeze artistes; and Gloria Grahame (who won an Oscar), dangling from elephants. Best of all, James Stewart plays a clown who--for mysterious reasons--never removes his makeup. (Stewart took the supporting role simply because he'd always wanted to play a clown.) This is a fried-baloney sandwich of a movie: it ain't sophisticated, and probably isn't good for you, but once you start you can't stop.
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From Here to Eternity (1953)
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| This is a film about illicit sex, military machismo and tragic loss of love, friendship and ultimately life. The filmmakers did, however, have to make some compromises when adapting James Jones's novel: Alma becomes a "hostess" rather than a prostitute and the very downbeat ending, where Captain Holmes is essentially rewarded for his brutality by the military, was replaced with the morally acceptable punishment of his actions by a more self-aware army. Although Private Robert E Lee Pruitt's story provides the meat of the film, there are other subplots woven into the narrative, including a couple of doomed love affairs, which explore themes of adultery and social acceptance. Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) begins a torrid affair with the commander's wife Karen (Deborah Kerr) leading to one of the most famous moments in movie history--the "clinch in the surf". From then on everything is challenged. Love, honour and eventually whether you should conform or stand up for what you believe in. At the end the couples are left wondering about the future of their relationship, but fate decides for them as the Japanese launch their attack on Pearl Harbor, leaving us with one of the most dramatic and moving endings of any war film.
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On the Waterfront (1954)
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| Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.
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