Closer revisits the most vital decade of moviemaking in America.
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10) ‘Sudden Fear’
In this 1952 film noir thriller, Joan Crawford plays a successful playwright seduced by a murderous Jack Palance. “It’s a masterpiece of suspense,” says Foster Hirsch, author of Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties. “And it’s beautifully shot and acted.”
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9) ‘High Noon’
“It’s a classic,” says Hirsch. In the 1952 western, Gary Cooper plays a small-town sheriff who must choose between facing a gang of killers alone or turning tail and leaving town. “It’s very tightly structured — the story takes place in 85 minutes.”
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8) ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’
“The [alien] invasion is a metaphor for the contemporary fear about Communists infiltrating and taking over the country,” says Hirsch of the 1956 thriller. “It’s horror mixed with science fiction and was a big hit in its day,” he says. “It’s a great film.”
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7) ‘Singin’ in the Rain’
Starring Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly, this beloved 1952 film is “the epitome of the made-in-Hollywood original movie musical,” Hirsch tells Closer. “It has a terrific story, and the songs are beautifully performed. It’s clever and has such joy and affirmation of life.”
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6) ‘Imitation of Life’
“It’s what they used to call a four-handkerchief weepy,” says Hirsch of this 1959 drama starring Lana Turner. “It’s about a white mother and daughter and a Black mother and daughter, but in the film it’s the situation of the Black mother and daughter that involves us so powerfully.”
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5) ‘Ben-Hur’
“I challenge people to watch Ben-Hur and then see Gladiator II,” says Hirsch. The Oscar-winning 1959 epic starring Charlton Heston offers “human drama and the sense of transcendence and religious conversion…not just action.”
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4) ‘Sunset Boulevard’
Nominated for 11 Oscars, 1950’s Sunset Boulevard stars Gloria Swanson as a washed-up silent-film star who has delusions of a triumphant return to the screen. Says Hirsch: “It’s a portrait of how Hollywood mistreats its past and those who [once] had been famous.”
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3) ‘All About Eve’
Bette Davis is “extraordinary” as an aging Broadway star whose greatest fan (Anne Baxter) turns out to be a ruthless manipulator set on advancing her own career in this 1950 movie. “Bette’s perfect for the part,” says Hirsch. “Her timing, her delivery, her sense of irony.”
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2) ‘Rear Window’
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, this 1954 thriller stars Jimmy Stewart as a laid-up photographer who believes he’s witnessed a murder. “It’s probably Stewart’s best performance and his most challenging,” says Hirsch. “And Grace Kelly was just spectacular.”
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1) ‘On the Waterfront’
“It’s the best acted film I’ve ever seen,” says Hirsch of the 1954 crime drama starring Marlon Brando as a longshoreman who fights corruption at work. “The film is all about his inner drama.”
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