settima

1950s

Caged (John Cromwell, 1950)

Jun

20

prison chow

Caged (1950)

The girls eating their grub. It'd be Marie Allen's (Eleanor Parker) first of many. DP: Carl E. Guthrie.

“What I'd give for a sink full of dirty dish.”

– Millie

Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959)

Jun

7

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Catherine (Elizabeth Taylor) and a man in white, seen from the back, eating alfresco near a beach. DP: Jack Hildyard.

“My son – Sebastian – and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer.”

– Mrs Vi Venable

Black Widow (Nunnally Johnson, 1954)

Jun

6

Black Widow (1954)

Carlotta 'Lottie' Mari (Ginger Rogers) reaching out to Nancy 'Nanny' Ordway's (Peggy Ann Garner). DP: Charles G. Clarke.

– Were you drunk when you did these? – A little. – They're very good.

Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

May

16

doubles

Strangers on a Train (1951)

Guy Haines (Farley Granger) and Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker), two strangers on a train. DP: Robert Burks.

“I still think it would be wonderful to have a man love you so much he'd kill for you.”

Compulsion (Richard Fleischer, 1959)

May

16

Compulsion (1959)

Straus (Bradford Dillman) with Steiner (Dean Stockwell) behind the wheel. They're beaming. DP: William C. Mellor.

“Murder's nothing. It's just a simple experience. Murder and rape? Do you know what beauty there is in evil?”

Stromboli (Terra di Dio) [Stromboli] (Roberto Rossellini, 1950)

May

8

birthdays

Stromboli (Terra di Dio) (1950)

Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman on set on Sardinia. In the background the house Bergman's character moves into with her husband. DP: Otello Martelli.

May 8 is both director Rossellini and Bergman's character Karen's #birthday.

“What mystery, what beauty.”

– Karen

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)

May

7

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

Susan Spencer (Joan Fontaine) lighting Tom Garrett's (Dana Andrews) cigarette. DP: William E. Snyder.

“It's a weird, crazy idea, but that's the reason it intrigues me.”

– Tom Garrett

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut [A Man Escaped] (Robert Bresson, 1956)

May

2

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956)

A hand with dirty nails writing on a scrap of paper with a pencil stump. It starts “Mai 2 Ma chère maman, Je suis à la pris[…]“. DP: Léonce-Henri Burel.

“With nothing to do, no news and in terrible solitude, we were 100 unfortunates awaiting our fate. I had no illusions about my own. If I could only escape, run away…”

– Fontaine

Domenica d'agosto [Sunday in August] (Luciano Emmer, 1950)

Apr

29

spaghetti di mamma

Domenica d'agosto (1950)

Marcella (Anna Baldini) enjoying mamma's spaghetti on the beach of Ostia. DPs: Leonida Barboni, Ubaldo Marelli & Domenico Scala.

Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957)

April 20

20

oysters

Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) pulling Sidney Falco's (Tony Curtis) tie over cocktails and oysters. DP: James Wong Howe.

“I'd hate to take a bite outta you. You're a cookie full of arsenic.”

– J.J. Hunsecker