my favorite movie of 1959:

(1) Some Like It Hot

(2) The 400 Blows

(3) Anatomy of a Murder

(4) Imitation of Life

favorite of 1959:

Some Like It Hot

(Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Joe E. Brown, George Raft. Directed by Billy Wilder.)

Some Like It Hot, which has been called “the greatest comedy of all time,” is so spectacularly joyous that it’s hard to believe it was directed and co-written by the same person who directed and co-wrote the grim, dark Double Indemnity (my favorite of 1944).

Here are “13 sizzling facts about Some Like It Hot.” The intro to that list sums up why it’s such a “weird, subversive picture”:

two hard-luck jazz musicians (Curtis and Lemmon) who witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre go into hiding as women in an all-female orchestra, and must navigate love and attraction — one lusts after the band’s sultry singer, played by Monroe, while the other is pursued by a wily old millionaire — all while dodging the mob. The film cuts against the cultural grain so sharply that it’s a miracle it got made at all. …

When I was a kid, Joe, I used to have a dream. I was locked up overnight in a pastry shop, and there was goodies all around! There was jelly rolls, and mocha eclairs, and sponge cake, and Boston creme pie, and cherry tarts —

Listen to me. No butter, no pastry. We’re on a diet.

“Nobody’s perfect,” but Some Like It Hot comes close.

Stream Some Like It Hot on Amazon Prime, Tubi (free with ads), the Roku Channel (also free with ads), or these sites.

2nd favorite of 1959:

The 400 Blows

(Jean-Pierre Léaud, Claire Maurier, Albert Rémy, Guy Decomble, Jeanne Moreau (cameo). Directed by François Truffaut.)

I was underwhelmed when I first saw The 400 Blows on an old DVD. I found it enjoyable enough as a slice-of-life movie about a troubled pre-teen kid, but I wasn’t sure why it’s considered one of the greatest movies of all time — ranked #50 in the most recent Sight and Sound poll.

When I recently watched the restored version on the Criterion Channel, I finally appreciated the genius I missed before. The black and white doesn’t just look beautiful but also adds to our understanding of the main character, Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud). We need to take in the sights of Paris along with him while he roams around the city so we can feel the contrast with the indoor scenes where he’s confined in one rectangle after another: the classroom, his home, a police station…

Director François Truffaut had a minimal budget to make this debut (one of the most striking directorial debuts ever), but his frugality turned out to be a gift: he used cheap hand-held cameras which freely followed Antoine wherever he went outdoors, in contrast with indoor scenes where the camera would stay still — a subtle cue that Antoine found his real freedom outside of institutions.

The movie starts with a seemingly childish moment that’s actually too serious for the adult in the room to understand. Young boys in the all-male classroom are mischievously passing around a pin-up photo, and when it’s passed to Antoine he spends a few extra seconds drawing some detail on the picture. That gets the attention of the authoritarian teacher, who puts him in a corner. This pattern repeats over and over: Antoine commits some small transgression that could be seen as understandable awkwardness from a boy in the process of discovering who he is, but all the adults see is that he’s breaking the rules. Instead of looking for the root of the problem, they respond with more and more restrictions to maintain order within their little indoor rectangles.

Truffaut had the child actor Léaud approach his role in a straightforwardly stoic manner — as Truffaut said, “not to depict adolescence from the usual viewpoint of sentimental nostalgia but ... to show it as the painful experience it is.”

Truffaut is the rare filmmaker who respects us enough to show us the truth without trying to be reassuring. He cowrote the movie based on his own childhood. Truffaut and the kid in the movie, Antoine, would both sneak into movie theaters as an escape from their regimented world.

Another parallel to Truffaut’s real life: Antoine runs away from home after getting in trouble for making up a disturbing excuse for his truancy: falsely saying his mom had died. Significantly, this is after Antoine discovers her having an affair and is quietly forced to choose between being honest with his dad or keeping the peace at home. Later we learn that Antoine’s “dad” is really his stepdad, and he never knew his biological father. In real life, Truffaut also ran away from home after getting in trouble for making up an excuse for his truancy, but he told a different lie: that his dad had been arrested by Germans (during World War II). As this Criterion essay points out: “The recent revelation that Truffaut’s biological father—whom he never knew—was a Jewish dentist renders this excuse especially poignant.”

In the video below, Dr. Josh Matthews suggests that we could think of The 400 Blows as a “wronged man” movie. I’d rather think of it as a “wrong system” movie: the system isn’t right for Antoine, and no one in the system will admit it. The accusations against him might be factually true, but the adults react to each offense in a vacuum instead of seeing the bigger picture. The movie shows one grown-up after another saying the problem is Antoine has been given too much freedom. While watching it, I wished I could step into the world of this movie and tell the adults: “Yes he isn’t perfect, but you’re not perfect either. The difference is that he’s vulnerable, while you’re protected from the consequences of your behavior, and you don’t see the irony: that’s the opposite of the harsh consequences you think he needs.”

Stream The 400 Blows on the Criterion Channel (with bonus features including commentary and video of auditions for the movie), HBO Max, or these sites.

3rd favorite of 1959:

Anatomy of a Murder

(James Stewart, Lee Remick, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara. Directed by Otto Preminger.)

As a lawyer, I’ve had to learn that people aren’t just good or just bad. People are many things.

In this legal drama with a darkly comical edge, a Michigan lawyer named Paul Biegler (Jimmy Stewart) has just lost reelection as District Attorney. He seems happy to be semi-retired and spending his time relaxing, fishing, and playing piano, until he’s asked by Laura Manion (Lee Remick) to defend her husband, a young Army veteran, Frederick “Manny” Manion (Ben Gazzara), against a murder charge. Manny admits he killed Barney Quill, the owner of a local inn and tavern, after hearing that Barney raped Laura.

Anatomy of a Murder has been praised for realistically showing almost every phase of a criminal trial from start to finish. But beyond the legal process, there’s a fascinating human dimension to this ensemble movie. A smooth and savvy big-city prosecutor (George C. Scott, in an Oscar-nominated role) persistently tries to destroy the Manions’ reputations, insinuating that the wife is a tramp and the husband is a wife-beater. Jimmy Stewart (also Oscar-nominated) as Biegler responds with a folksy, small-town appeal … or at least he’ll try to keep that up without getting overemotional at the prosecution’s efforts to destroy the married couple.

Laura Manion (Lee Remick) on the witness stand, reacting to a question from the prosecutor (George C. Scott)

Anatomy of a Murder was ground-breaking in the ’50s, back when audiences weren’t used to hearing movie characters say words like “rape” and “climax” and “sperm” and “panties” (which a review at the time said “are bound to shock many of you”). The movie doesn’t always hold up well today; there are moments when I cringe at how casually issues of rape and domestic violence are treated. The first time I saw it, I found that off-putting and didn’t add it to this blog. When I rewatched it, I was able to see deeper into this movie and appreciate that it still has something to offer us even though it would never be made like that today. A Guardian review from 2005 commented:

is Laura an innocent victim, or a harlot? And who gave her those bruises? Is she the one really on trial here? This movie takes a brisk, mannishly worldly, and very much a pre-feminist attitude to this ambiguity. To modern audiences that may jar, and critics have complained about the movie’s two-dimensional approach to women. But to me Remick’s damaged, dysfunctional presence is the really subversive thing about the picture.

Anatomy of a Murder shows that a trial isn’t just about applying the law to a set of facts and coming up with the right answer, the way an AI machine might do; a trial can peel off the outer layers of people’s lives and expose their dark or mysterious sides to an awkward mix of people close to them and strangers. The most haunting image in this movie isn’t evidence or anything in the courtroom, but Laura Manion’s face after Biegler takes her away from a bar where she had been acting flirty, and gives her a set of new rules to limit her socializing and sex appeal while her husband’s trial is underway. At that point, the camera zooms in on her and we see the utter loneliness of this young woman who was acting carefree just a minute ago, now that she grasps what it means for everyone’s eyes to be on her. Whether or not the Manions get the verdict they want, they might never be the same again.

The Manions face each other in court (Ben Gazzara and Lee Remick)

I’m a fan of both Jimmy Stewart and jazz, so I especially enjoy the cameo by Duke Ellington, playing piano next to Stewart in a bar. A seemingly unnecessary moment, but it has significance. Ellington co-wrote and performed the movie’s soundtrack, which is all jazz — none of the majestic orchestral music you might expect in a movie like this. In that musical choice is an unspoken comment on the law itself — that it’s not as elegant or orderly as we might hope, but that the law, like jazz, is rough and unpredictable and deeply human.

Stream Anatomy of a Murder on Amazon Prime (it left but might come back at that link) or these sites.

4th favorite of 1959:

Imitation of Life

(Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, John Gavin. Directed by Douglas Sirk.)

It seems to be obligatory, when reviewing a movie directed by Douglas Sirk, to describe it as “glossy,” “melodramatic,” and reminiscent of a “soap opera.” But Ebert had this insight about another Sirk movie, which also applies to Imitation of Life:

To appreciate a film like “Written on the Wind” probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman’s masterpieces, because Bergman’s themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message. … [H]e wants you to notice the artifice, to see that he’s not using realism but an exaggerated Hollywood studio style.

In Imitation of Life, Sirk applies his colorful gloss to the surface of a dark and disturbing critique of America as a place where racism and sexism threaten to break down good people’s lives.

Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner were nominated for Best Supporting Actress Oscars for playing a mother and daughter. The daughter looks white and doesn’t want people to find out that her mother is black. This video shows the daughter when her white boyfriend realizes the truth (please use discretion in playing this video, as it includes a racial epithet):

Stream Imitation of Life on Amazon Prime (it left but might come back at that link) or these sites.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.