Films of the 50's: Three Horrors, a Dance with Death, and if it's Not Love then It's the Bomb that Will Keep Us Together

Les Diaboliques (1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot)

Henri-Georges Clouzot, who had already impressed (though not without controversy) with Le Corbeau and The Wages of Fear, returned with a movie whose script was stolen right out from under the nose of Alfred Hitchcock, both literally and figuratively. Les Diaboliques is one of those films, like many of Hitchcock’s, that is hard to pigeonhole into either horror or thriller, but is an arguable hybrid of both. That being said, Les Diaboliques houses one of the scariest scenes in modern cinema.

I don’t really want to get into the plot, as this is one of those ‘spoiler alert’ types of film. What I can say is that the film involves a couple and a teacher who works for them. The couple includes Michel, who is the headmaster of a boarding school, and his wife, Christina, who owns the school. Nicole, played by the exquisite Simone Signoret, is the teacher, trying to help the abused Christina get out from under the heavy thumb of her abusive husband.

What transpires from there is pure Hitchcockian suspense. People are murdered, bodies disappear, people are suspected and living in fear, and some insist they see ghosts. The truth is slightly unbelievable, but neatly wrapped up, making it yet another fantastic film from Clouzot. The Wages of Fear might be my favorite, but Les Diaboliques is not far behind.



The Blob (1958, Irvin Yeaworth)

I once saw The Blob as a kid on a local television station as a Saturday movie of the week. Now, I’ve never been a big viewer of horror films, probably after deciding to watch films such as The Exorcist or The Shining after midnight, alone in the house. Yeah, I was S-M-R-T. But, back then I didn’t get what the big deal was about The Blob. Being overtaken by a giant rolling slab of watermelon Jell-O was not, in my mind, a bad way to go. In fact, it might be just ahead of freezing to death. Upon reviewing the film, however, I found it much more entertaining than I did when I was in grade school.

The story has been told a million times, yet never quite this simply and elegantly. An alien form falls to earth, becoming a hostile entity that threatens the population. The biggest difference is in the movie’s central figure, played here enthrallingly by a young Steve McQueen. McQueen’s performance manages to make up for a host of horror movie clichés, stereotypical horror character mistakes (i.e. “Don’t go in there alone,” “Don’t turn your back to the unknown thing,” etc.), and fairly simplistic dialogue of a squeaky-clean teen movie variety. The Blob is a movie that practically defined America’s image of the drive-in movie. What makes it even more memorable is the incredibly goofy theme song, written by Burt Bacharach, called “Beware of the Blob.” For its limited budget, the movie is well made, am impressive use of restraint of imagery and off camera horrors.



House on Haunted Hill (1959, William Castle)

William Castle was the P.T. Barnum of cinema. For Castle, whose budgets were always constrained, it was more about marketing and gimmicks than putting together the best quality film. Some of the gimmicks included joy buzzers in seats for a heightened scare, breaks in the film to let ‘chickens’ leave before the scary parts, only to be ridiculed by 'planted' theater patrons, and skeletons dropping into the audience from the ceiling. The latter was one of the stunts used for the release of House on Haunted Hill. The story seems to have some holes, or at least needed some tightening. There’s an owner of the house, and a host, yet not the same person. The owner is played by Elisha Cook, Jr., giving a performance that unbelievably goes farther over the top than that of the host, played by Vincent Price.

Despite Castle’s notoriety for b-movie quality, House has some definite scares and startling imagery. Then again, it also has some incredibly cheesy effects, but Castle manages to slip out of some of the criticism by providing some interesting explanations. More than anything, the film is a great party movie, as is evidenced by the fact that the former MST3K crew, now working as RiffTrax, have provided a humorous voiceover. The premise is simple, and is not any newer than the premise for the Blob. A group of people is invited by a creepy host to spend the night in a haunted house (in this case the famous Ennis House in Los Angeles, used as the location for Angel’s ‘castle’ in Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and if they can last the night, they win some cash. There are a few twists and turns along the way, which make it worth continuing, but overall you have to come in expecting the worst to make it surpass those expectations.



The Seventh Seal (1957, Ingmar Bergman)

I doubt there’s anything new or revealing I could say about Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. I suppose I could just wrap it up there, but that would be somewhat of a cheat. Bergman’s medieval play, with the backdrop of the Black Death, has spurred parody and homage for years. I suppose you know your film is iconic when the parodies are as varied as Woody Allen and Bill & Ted. Max von Sydow plays Antonius Block, a knight returning wearied from a battle of the Crusades. He finds his home country of Sweden crippled by the Black Death, and he is quickly approached by Death himself, leaving Block to both contemplate the meaning of life, and to try and outwit Death by challenging him to a game of chess. As might be expected from an art film as opposed to a Hollywood movie, Death is witty, patient, and a bit of a trickster.

Along his journey, Block and his squire meet several villagers and travelers, additional dramatis personae who seemingly influence Block’s views of the world, life and death. Again, I can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already. The Seventh Seal is considered one of the finest art films in history. Personally, I think the art tag is unnecessary. The film is a masterpiece, measured in existential philosophy, humor and pathos. In 1957, I don’t think many people could envision the man playing the deeply thoughtful role of Antonius Block playing Brewmeister Smith in Strange Brew, or Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon, but I suppose that merely proves the actor’s range.

The heart of the film lies in the characters of Jof and Mia, the actor and his wife, and their baby, representing the surviving future of mankind, in my incredibly obtuse interpretation. Jof’s vision and humorous antics remind me of one of his antecedents, Roberto Benigni, while the mere representation of the family’s character as a whole has a moving effect on the other characters, specifically Antonius. If there is any other image in The Seventh Seal that rivals the chess game with Death, it is the Dance with Death, the vision of silhouettes in a daisy chain on the top of a hill. For me, that scene is up there with Kane’s snow globe, Rick and Renault in the fog on the tarmac, and Jimmy Stewart looking down the ‘smash-zooming’ staircase.




Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, Alain Resnais)

For the last week, I’ve been studying modern wars and, specifically, the decision to use the atomic bomb. Aside from the assigned textbook, I’ve read John Hersey’s Hiroshima and portions of David McCullough’s Truman. So, it was kismet that Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour recently arrived from Netflix. The film, like most of Rensais’ work, other than Night and Fog, is difficult to summarize. At its core, it revolves around a love affair between a French woman and a Japanese man, both haunted by the events of World War II. What must be said, before getting too deep, is that Hiroshima Mon Amour is a film that equally belongs to two creative minds, one belonging to Resnais, and the other, writer Marguerite Duras.

Duras’ words contribute as much to the atmosphere as Resnais’ incredibly chosen images. The first twenty minutes set up the symbolism and metaphor throughout the rest of this memorable film, and I use memorable intentionally. Memory is a keystone for Resnais, probably never used as effectively as in his later film, The Last Year at Marienbad. The collective memories of the victims of war are encapsulated in these two unlikely lovers, an affair that brings together two distant spheres of post-war pain. The mini-documentary at the forefront, mixing horrific images of the effects of the A-bomb with Emmanuelle Riva’s ethereal dialogue, only sets the stage for future hallmark imagery that recalls the horror of Hiroshima. We see the shadow of two lovers on the walls of buildings, repeated touches of hair and skin, those things most easily lost by the fallout of the bomb, and we see mirroring of France and Japan in its rivers and the Paris garden cupola that resembles the Atomic Bomb Dome, one of the few standing buildings after the attack.

As I’ve studied, the question has come up as to Truman’s choice to use the bomb. Riva repeats in the intro, “You’re destroying me. You’re good for me.” Although she may be talking about her affair, it’s not a far stretch to attribute any of these lines to a number of different interpretations. Duras’ words are simple in form, yet lead to varied avenues of translation. 'His' story is told quickly, and is the story of many others caught up by the destruction of the bomb, but 'hers' is one of German occupation, nationalism, and forbidden love. In the end, it is a film that cannot be internalized easily. But, like all great films, it sets different parts of the brain and heart in motion. It’s no mistake that toward the end of the film, Resnais has his unnamed characters rendezvous in a club called the Casablanca. Nearly two decades later, Hiroshima Mon Amour is a more complex, jagged, and yet beautiful retelling of Casablanca, a classic story of impossible love affected by the memories of war.