74. Beat the Devil (1953)

A stellar cast and crew gather to make a great independent Hollywood movie.

A non-consequential story involving uranium and land rights in central Africa is quickly forgotten and the plot itself ends up being a plot device.

What is great about this film is the cutting, witty script penned by Truman Capote and John Huston (who also directed.) Often tongue in cheek, you can see the cast are having a blast with it. This is a fun frolic and never takes itself too seriously.

73. The Evil Dead (1982)

Five friends take a trip to stay in an old log cabin in the middle of some woods. Then they go down into the basement. Will these kids never learn?!

Archetypal cabin in the woods horror. Hoaky acting of an already clunky script. Effects that I remember looked dated when this originally came out especially the Claymation ending. Some of the gore is well done, though it borrows heavily from Dario Argento.

It was made on a shoestring budget and looks it, however the tight camera angles and extreme close ups not only help to disguise a cheap set, but also add menace, especially when you have the likes of Bruce Campbell mugging for you.

I remember this actually being quite terrifying back in the 80s. Now it looks really dated and it's hard to read anything but comedy here, especially when you bring to mind the sequels.

I watched this again to see if the 2013 remake is justified and it clearly is. This is now a tired old film, but it does show an emerging talent in Raimi.

72. Madame de.../The Earrings of Madame de...(1953)

An opulent drama unfolds around a pair of diamond earrings. A strange premise, but the story told is one of heightened emotion, love and loss. The depth of tragedy here is a counter play to the lavish opulence of the setting.

Louise is a Countess who, unbeknownst to her husband, has incurred some debt and decides to sell some diamond earrings back to the jeweller her husband bought them off. Whilst at the opera, she lies and says that she has lost them that night. A theft is suspected and reported in the newspaper. In an effort to avoid scandal, the jeweller returns the earrings to the General and explains what has happened. The General buys back the earrings and instead of returning them to his wife and confronting her, he gives them to his mistress who is leaving to live in Constantinople. She gambles them away and they end up in a pawn brokers where they are bought by Baron Donati, an Italian diplomat. Back in Paris, Donati spies Louise at the train station where she is paying some duty on imported dresses. He falls for her and fate throws them together twice more, before he finally meets up with her at a ball and they begin a dim fated romance.

This is a masterpiece of cinematography. Magnificent tracking shots are choreographed rather than merely directed by Max Ophüls. One dance between Louise and Donati is cut with time elapse to tell the story of their brief romance with great effect. Simple notes in their conversation change. He asks about her husband; she remarks on her husband's health and eventually The General is forgotten altogether.
The earrings act as punctuation to the acts of the story and this is done with great effect as is the anonymity of The Countess.

It's not all doom and gloom though. This tragedy of errors does have some nice comic touches in some incidental characters. The valets at the opera; the jeweller's son; the guardsmen at the barracks. Just light little touches that bring a strong balance to the piece.

71. Blazing Saddles (1974)

Hedley (not Hedy) Lemar is a corrupt official who needs to run his railroad through a wild west town.
After hiring a band of miscreants to ransack the town killing the sheriff, the town asks for a new sheriff to be appointed. Lemar sends them Bart. An insubordinate black railroad worker. They are not very impressed.

This is a gag reel deluxe. It's full to the brim with one liners, sight gags, hilarious close to the knuckle jokes and contains the glorious put down, "Teutonic twat!"

It would be a five star film, but the ending lets it down. It appears Brooks was writing it as he went along and just couldn't figure out a conclusion, so borrowed from Monty Python.

The ensemble cast is great, but Gene Wilder is on particular good form in a role that requires him to be restrained. He reels it in and he is as funny as his usual madcap self.

Amusing songs, laugh riot, great pace and sparkling dialogue. It is a typically daft Mel Brooks piece, but the ending is just a little too zany.

70. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

There are many meta Hollywood films, but this is one of the finest.

It charts the rise and fall of producer Jonathon Shields as seen through the eyes of three former friends/colleagues who he has gathered together to see if they will help him make his comeback film. The film is split into three acts, each a telling of the story of why that person will never work with Shields again.
Barry Sullivan plays director Fred Amiel who started in the film making business with Jonathon and together they made B-movie pics for a studio. When Fred tires of the corny titles they are expected to direct he gets Jonathon to pitch his idea to the studio. Jonathon sells the story, but freezes Fred out of the deal.
Lana Turner plays Georgia Larrison, the drunken slut daughter of a famous dead producer. He takes her under his wing and turns her into a star, only to spurn her for a trampy extra on the night of her big premiere.
Dick Powell plays writer James Lee Bartlow, who Jonathon convinces to come to Hollywood to write screenplays for him. Dick is easily distracted when writing, especially by his beloved Southern belle wife, Rosemary. Shields takes Bartlow away on a fishing trip in order to get him to write free of distraction. He gets the Latin Lothario star Victor Ribera to keep her occupied so she wont bother them with constant calls. Tragedy strikes as Victor and Rosemary are killed in a plane crash with the press and James convinced they were having an affair only to find out the truth much later.

It is a brilliant warts and all telling of behind the scenes of old Hollywood. The way it is executed is very clever. The cast is superb. Kirk Douglas plays the charming cad so well that it's almost hard to loathe him...almost!
Vincente Minnelli's direction hones down the melodrama very well and it is a great example of storytelling. Ending on the repeated theme of eavesdropping on the telephone is an amusing cliff-hanger.

69. Hotaru No Haku/Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

One of the most poignant tales of war committed to celluloid. Instead of focussing on the soldiers, it tells the tale of brother and sister Seita and Setsuko who are left orphaned and homeless after an air raid burns their village to the ground. They go to stay at their aunt's house nearby and don't really get along. Seita takes off with his sister and they go and live independently in an abandoned bomb shelter. At first life seems idyllic, but having to provide and care for a child is not something Seita is able to do in times of rationing and hardship. Harsh reality soon sets in.

Opening with Seita's death in a city subway is quite alarming, but you are now told the tale of how he got here and know that you aren't in for an easy ride.

It is a harrowing story, but it does have the ethereal wonder of a child's viewpoint and has moments of joy in play. These happy moments and the beautiful bond the brother and sister have make the denouement all the more tragic.

A touching story, beautifully drawn. Not just a great anime, this is one of the great films about war.

The moments of sheer joy and intense sorrow are beautifully encapsulated.

68. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Spielberg's first foray into alien adventure and it does act as a precursor to ET.
Close Encounters is supposed to be an everyman's search for hope and meaning, but all I see is an allegory of bad parenting set against an alien subplot.

Roy Neary is an average Joe who is having visions after experiencing an alien encounter. His obsession with this vision takes over his life and drives his family away. He then finds solidarity with a woman, Jillian, whose son went missing during an encounter at her home.

A bad mother and a really crap father are supposed to be the heroes of this piece? My sympathy is not at full tilt here.

The finale is quite breath taking though and he remastered mothership effects stand up today. John Williams' iconic 5 tone greeting/language is a true masterstroke.
In the end though, you'd think that now his enigma is solved Roy be full of apologies and dying to get back to his wife and children and recount his adventure. Nah. He just hops onto the spaceship and fucks off with ET. Possibly one of the worst role models in cinematic history!

This is classic Spielberg and contains many of his go to traits. The worried mother; a one man quest; the unknown; untrustworthy authorities.
I just think this feels like a rough draft. An idea was formed and though it looks pretty good, the story needed shaking up and the protagonist needed to be sympathetic. Basically ET is this film's better sequel of sorts.

The mothership finale is truly spectacular.