All Mine to Give (1957)

Heartwarming/heartbreaking story about a young Scottish couple coming to America and encountering immediate hardship as their hosts perished in a house fire shortly before their arrival. But they put their shoulders to it and soon have a home filled with children. Tragedy eventually strikes with the loss of Dad and then, a short time later, Mom.

This is based on the true story “The Day They Gave the Babies Away” and it’s remarkable. I don’t think it can become a Christmas tradition for me, but I also doubt I’ll ever forget it.

B

A Hatful of Rain (1957)

Junkie ex-soldier is hiding his habit from his pregnant wife, even as his supplier's posse (one of whom wears Buddy Holly glasses and only communicates in whistles -- uh wtf) menaces him for what he owes.  His live-in older brother has fallen hard for the junkie’s wife and their father is in town to make everything just that much harder.

There’s a lot of arguing and angst and tons of overacting and I wound up hating everyone in this obviously-belongs-on-a-stage-but-I’d-probably-hate-it-there-too production.

D

Nightfall (1957)

Tight little noir about a good guy on the run from thugs and the law. He gets help from a girl, wins us over with his aw-shucks gentleness, and generally makes watching this a nice way to pass the time.

How come I'd never heard of it before?

B+

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Packed full of clever quotes, but pithy one-liners can't really "fix" this desperate and ugly movie.

So unrelenting in its jaded meanness that I could only manage it in 15-minute snack-size increments. Ingesting it all in one sitting would've probably killed a little of my soul.

C

The Bachelor Party (1957)

In a nutshell: office workers are off to celebrate an upcoming wedding. One's an older, sick, family man, one's an ambivalent young married, one's a dedicated young man with a blossoming family, one's a party boy, and then there's the scared virgin groom about to marry a war widow. Their attempts at a fun evening just get sadder as the night wears on. None of them have any fun and neither did I. At least they all learned some life lessons.

Although we spend the bulk of the night following the guys, the best part of the movie is back in the apartment of the ambivalent young married. His young, newly pregnant, wife is entertaining his sister, a resigned middle-aged housewife with some of the saddest, but honest-feeling, advice for her young sister-in-law.

One of those patience-testing exercises where we're stuck watching a bunch of not-very-likable characters act like the tedious jerks they are until they finally slap "The End" up on the screen.

C-

I Vitelloni (1957)

I could rhapsodize about Fellini's mastery of the common folk -- going on and on about how the "regular" becomes extraordinary when he trains his powerful lens on it. Or, I could admit that this movie did nothing for me. Hmmm....which to choose...?

The story centers on a group of friends in their 20s who are just kinda going with the flow. They live with their parents, don't bother with jobs (and no one really seems to expect them to), and generally laze around. Go-nowhere lives translated into a go-nowhere film for me. I didn't like the guys and they're pretty much all that's on offer here.

C

Sayonara (1957)

Slooooowwwwww-moving interracial love story. Brandon is a major in the Air Force transferred to Japan during the Korean War. He apparently has no military duties as he's either hanging out at his friends' house (a fellow serviceman and his Japanese bride) or courting the star of a women's acting group disallowed from having relationships with men.

This is a hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-hammer message movie. It would've been better to make it an interesting and well-made movie. A remarkable number of scenes feel like practice runs...as though the actors have forgotten their lines but have been instructed to stick with the scene regardless. And what's with Brando's accent? It sounds like drunken good ol' boy.

There is a sweet romance in this film. Too bad it's the secondary "best friends" story and isn't given the screen-time it deserves.

C-

20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)

Oh… the ACTING. Ugh…the dialogue! Secret expedition returns from Venus with a live specimen that grows rapidly and begins terrorizing Italy. See -- they've got to capture it alive because if they don't figure out how it works, humans will never be able to breathe the atmosphere on Venus. No one ever asks the obvious "why do humans need to breathe on Venus" question, though. Too bad 'cause it could've saved a lot of time. Just a monster movie padded with ridiculous science talk and a wholly unbelievable romance. Skip it.

D+

3:10 to Yuma (1957)

Good psychocological western about a family man desperate for cash agreeing to guard the leader of a hoodlum gang until he can be put on the title train. Nice subplot about the family man's desire to make his wife and boys proud exaggerating his sense of duty beyond expectations...but rightly.

B+

A Farewell to Arms (1957)

An overlong bore. Jennifer Jones is so plain and flat that there is no way I could buy her being able to entice a playboy to settle down on sight.

D-

Silk Stockings (1957)

Tragically boring. Charisse and Astaire just go through the motions of way-too-old guy casually pursuing uptight Russian. Watch Ninotchka (of which this is a remake) instead.

D+

Raintree County (1957)

Covers adultery, the shame of mixed races, the Civil War, madness, and some mythological search for a tree in the middle of a swamp. Not worth the more than three hours -- though I doubt I would've like it even if it came in at 80 minutes.

D

Peyton Place (1957)

I had heard so much about this film for so long and was aware of its multiple acting nominations - so my hopes were high when I pushed it in the VCR. What a letdown. It's apparent that everyone involved thought they were making an important film - and maybe they were at the time. But it's impossibly dated now and has value only as a Hollywood time capsule. It astounds me, after seeing the cast at work, how they pulled off all of the Oscar nods! Diane Varsi and Lana Turner as mother and daughter duel for most boring performance in a motion picture; they both look uncomfortable in their own bodies. The film comes up a couple of notches, though, just for the work of Hope Lange (Selena) and Russ Tamblyn (Norman).

C