Forgotten Films Of The 50's

I don't know about some of these titles are really forgotten as TCM and other cable movie channels show them frequently each year.

"A Face in the Crowd"
"Sweet Smell of Success" (on which a Broadway
musical was recently based)

The other titles are forgotten or perhaps in some peoples eye, forgettable may be the correct term. I do enjoy "The Well" and "God's Little Acre" is a curiosity of the beginnings of the 60's and 70's so-called sexual awakening.

I know, but I'm going just to see them on the big screen as they were meant to be seen, and besides there isn't alot to do around here on a Wednesday night

Many Broderick Crawford films are unavailable. Before anyone points it out: Of course he was a poor talent; but, I did like some of his movies. I would like to see "sQUARE OF vIOLENCE" AND "tHE lAST pOSSE" AGAIN, FOR INSTANCE.

BTW. welcome to A2K and the film forum, theifoflight -- we do have some fun around here and get into some interesting debates. There are so many films that I always say thanks to TCM among other channels for showing them. "Sweet Smell of Success" and "A Face in the Crowd" fare pretty well on the home screen (well, I did just invest in an HDTV 46" which is more than adquate for our viewing area). I do believe the nostalgia of seeing these old films in a theater is definitely there. I do miss going to the art and foreign film theaters in Hollywood but I don't live close enough for the trek now. So I satisfy myself exploring IFC, Sundance and the other channels plus rent through NetFlix online.

I didn't think Broderick Crawford was a poor talent by any means. "All the King's Men" was his break from, admittedly, being in a lot of "B" movies and he was perfect opposite Judy Holiday in "Born Yesterday" and should have been nominated for the Oscar. His agent did get him his character tough guy roles but did little creatively to cast him out of character. Well, perhaps he did always play Broderick Crawford after all.

Square of Violence portrays a doctor in a German occupied town, working for the resistence. After he blows up a high ranking officer with a suitcase bomb, Crawford's character plays a cat and mouse game with the German Commander. At stake: The lives of three hundred citizens made to stand in formation in the town square against the revealed identities within the resistence.

That was an American/Yugoslavian film and really is obscure -- not even on VHS!

The other film I mentioned, The Last Posse, is also not available. It is of a genre characterized by D.O.A. - A spate of films in which the central character, with his dying breaths, tells us his story. At the conclusion, the character dies: The End. Crawford is the sherrif: "You won't shoot me; there are too many witnesses." BLAM! Mortally wounded, he nevertheless subdues the bad guys.

As LW has already said, I can't imagine anyone considering either Face in the Crowd or Sweet Smell of Success as 'forgotten.' Most of the others, I admit, I never heard of.

I lived in Concord, NH once upon a time -- in the early 60s. Then, for a number of years, I lived in southern NH, in Rindge. But I've been back in Boston for nearly 10 years now and doubt that I'll drive all the way to Concord just to go to the movies.

But let me add my welcome to LW's. You're in the right place, theifoflight.

The most obscure film I can name was made in the 60s. I saw it in Manhattan: James Joyce's FINNEGAN'S WAKE, the only English language film I have ever seen that required English subtitles (featuring words that did not correspond exactly to the words spoken by the actors). For me it was great fun. I can't speak for the rest of the audience.