1957: MY FAVOURITE MOVIES OF 50 YEARS PAST. Well, it's now 2007 and I thought I'd jump in my wayback machine and view my 10 favourite movies from 50 years ago. These are not necessarily the best movies made that year; only those closest to my heart-cavity. These films are 50 years old this year and these are the films I revisit again and again. Here they are; in order of preference from the best to the rest:


#1. Desk Set - This is it: My fave film of 1957. Hepburn & Tracy romantic comedy which, when I want to get the FEEL of the fifties, transports me right back there. The women working at a TV station's research dept. are worried they're being replaced by a supercomputer. Wow, even 50 years ago computers were pissing people off! Time to go to Seattle!












#2. 12 Angry Men -- Brilliant movie which manages to be rivetting while confined to one room! This is the movie which will make it IMPOSSIBLE for me to ever serve on a jury because, no matter what the evidence, I can never KNOW that someone is guilty. Fonda never budges and is proved right, Lee J. Cobb is frightening and Ed Begley is unnerving.







#3. Quatermass 2 aka Enemy From Space -- This was Hammer Horror before color. This B&W classic (the best of all the Quatermass films in my opinion) stars Brian Donlevy as the token Yank in an all British cast. Truly frightening paranoid tale of invaders from outer space taking over a remote town. Creepy!









#4. Night of the Demon aka Curse of the Demon -- the classic Jacques Tourneur film adapted from the M.R. James short story "Casting the Runes" features Dana Andrews as the unbeliever in supernatural occurrences being terrorized by the very Aleister Crowley like Satanic mage Niall MacGinnis



















#5. The Prince and the Showgirl -- This is the movie where Marilyn Monroe displays her acting chops by completely blowing Sir Laurence Olivier off the screen. A sort of "My Fair Lady" style film in which a common showgirl bedevils and bedazzles a foreign prince. Hilarious in places, touching at times, an underrated film.


















#6. Kumonosu Jo aka Throne of Blood -- Akira Kurosawa's Kabuki theater-style take on Shakespeare's Macbeth. Visually stunning (gee, what were the odds) film starring the sublime Toshiro Mifune.











#7. The Incredible Shrinking Man -- Grant Williams stars in this actually brilliant film adaptation of Richard Matheson's story of a man enveloped in a radioactive cloud who finds himself shrinking and shrinking. And there's nothing he can do to stop it. The scenes in which he first realizes he's growing smaller are genuinely unsettling and the inspiring ending says a lot about self-worth.

#8. Invasion of the Saucer Men -- This bit of cinematic cotton candy is a hoot. Yes, there's Frank Gorshin as a 30-something teenager mugging at the camera. But more importantly, there are those little cabbage-headed aliens who have needles for fingers with which they inject pure alcohol into poor unsuspecting humans. Yes, it's a comedy. So sit back and enjoy the ride. Especially when the earth is saved from this little alien invasion by a cow and some car headlights. #9. The Curse of Frankenstein -- Here comes the Hammer Horror factory we know and love. This is the first color Hammer gothic and the film that catapulted Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee to international stardom. It's the film that MADE a studio. #10. I Was A Teenage Werewolf -- Teenaged Michael Landon is manipulated by evil adult Whit Bissell who channels the youth's hormone-fueled juvenile delinquency into lycanthropy. Why? Who cares! The ultimate teenage horror flick.