Psycho (1960)

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109 min – TV14 – view video trailer

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

IMDB 8.7 / Amazon 4.7 / MRQE 90% /

Oscars: nominated for 4, won 0

Ranked #8 Greatest Movies Through 1960, in 32 of 41 best movies lists, a Zagat Top Movie

A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer’s client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother. IMDB 8.7 rating from over 206,556 users

More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters–then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Amazon 4.7 stars from over 545 users

MRQE 90% rating from more than 77 reviews

Notes: Hitchcock’s cameo appearance is early in the movie. Look for him wearing a big cowboy hat outside Marion’s office.

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Vertigo (1958)

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128 min – PG – view video trailer

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak

Genres: Mystery, Romance, Thriller

IMDB 8.5 / Amazon 4.6 / MRQE 89

Oscars: Nominated for 2, won 0

Ranked #6 Greatest Movies Through 1960, in 31 of 41 best movies lists, a Zagat Top Movie

A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her. IMDB rating 8.5 from over 126,284 users

Although it wasn’t a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. Amazon 4.6 stars from over 386 users

MRQE 89% rating from over 108 reviews

Notes: Hitchcock’s cameo appearance is about 10 minutes into the movie when he walks past the shipyard in a gray suit.

Madison Public Library

Rear window (1954)

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112 min – PG – view video trailer

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly

Genres: Mystery, Romance, Thriller

IMDB 8.7 / Amazon 4.7 / MRQE 97 /

Oscars: nominated for 4, won 0 (Best Director, Writing, Sound, Cinematography)

Ranked #7 Greatest Movies Through 1960, in 24 of 41 best movies lists, a Zagat Top Movie

A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.  IMDB 8.7 rating from over 168,196 users

None of Hitchcock’s films has ever given a clearer view of his genius for suspense than Rear Window. Events in the movie ultimately lead to one of the most memorable and gripping endings in all of film history. Amazon 4.7 stars from over 372 users

MRQE 97% from over 108 reviews

Madison Public Library

The African Queen (1951)

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105 min – view video trailer

Director: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

IMDB 8.0 / Amazon 4.4 / MRQE 87% / Decent Films A-

Genres: Adventure, Thriller

Oscars: nominated for 4, won 1 (Best Actor)

Ranked #31 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship. IMDB 8.0 ranking from over 41,252 users

John Huston made better, more powerful films, but none so universally beloved, on first appearance and over the decades since. In this adaptation of the C.S. Forester novel, Humphrey Bogart (who would win the best-actor Oscar) and Katharine Hepburn costar as an unlikely pair thrown together in German East Africa during the First World War. Amazon 4.4 stars from over 262 users

Crocodiles, tsetse flies, mechanical difficulties, African rains and burning sun, sickness, an erratic helmer — all these and more plagued the shooting of The African Queen. Other than the absence of hostile German troops in Africa circa 1950, the harrowing journey of the eponymous tramp steamer was mirrored by the legendary hardships faced by the production filming on location in the Congo. Decent Films A-

MRQE 87% from over 55 reviews

Madison Public Library

The Third Man (1949)

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104 min – view video trailer

Director: Carol Reed
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli

Genres: Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller

IMDB 8.5 / Amazon 4.6 / MRQE 91% / ReelViews 4 stars

Oscars: nominated for 3, won 1 (Best Cinamatography)

Ranked #17 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie, included in 19 of 37 lists of Greatest Movies

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, black-market opportunist Harry Lime. IMDB rating 8.5 from over 66,630 users

Zagat summary snippet: Hailed as all around perfect with a memorable final fade, this masterful postwar noir simmers with shadowy intrigue as an alienated Cotten encounters romance and betrayal while searching bombed out Vienna for a mysterious black marketeer (Welles).

In this all-time classic thriller with stunning cinematography, twisting plot and unforgettable zither score, Martins searches for Lime through the seedy underworld of postwar Vienna and gets caught up in a web of love, deception, racketeering, and murder. Amazon 4.6 stars from over 338 users

From a visual standpoint, The Third Man consistently impresses. The black-and-white cinematography is crisp and clean. Orson Welles is credited as once saying that every performance is better in black-and-white, and, viewing something like The Third Man, it’s not hard to understand why. The atmosphere is deeper and the images are more striking. ReelViews highest 4 star rating

MRQE gave it 91% rating with links to more than 114 reviews

Madison Public Library

Out of the Past (1947)

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97 min – view video trailer

IMDB 8.1 / Amazon 4.5 / Rotten Tomatoes 96%

Director: Jacques Tourneur
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas

Genres: Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

IMDB 8.1 / Amazon 4.5 / Rotten Tomatoes 96%

Oscars: none

Ranked #121 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses and duplicitous dames. IMDB rating: 8.1 from over 13,636 users

Mitchum, in absolute prime, sleepy-eyed form, relates a complicated flashback about getting hired by gangster Kirk Douglas to find femme fatale Jane Greer. The chain of film noir elements–love, money, lies–drags Mitchum into the lower depths. Director Jacques Tourneur gets the edgy negotiations between men and women as exactly right as he gets the inky shadows of the noir landscape. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 88 users

Out of the Past is so perfect a film noir that it is considered practically a textbook example of the genre. In his first starring role (it had previously been offered to John Garfield and Dick Powell), Robert Mitchum plays Jeff Bailey, the friendly but secretive proprietor of a mountain-village gas station. Rotten Tomatoes rating 96% reviewers, 90% audience

MRQE – over 59 reviews linked

Madison Public Library

Notorious (1946)

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101 min – view video trailer

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman

Genres: Drama, Romance, Triller

IMDB 8.2 / Amazon 4.4 / MRQE 87% / Tomatometer 94%

Oscars: Nominated for 2 Won 0

A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them? IMDB 8.2 from over 49,364 users

One of Alfred Hitchcock’s classics, this romantic thriller features a cast to kill for: Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains. Bergman plays the daughter of a disgraced father who is recruited by American agents to infiltrate a post-World War II spy ring in Brazil. Her control agent is Grant, who treats her with disdain while developing a deep romantic bond with her. Her assignment: to marry the suspected head of the ring (Rains) and get the goods on everyone involved. Danger, deceit, betrayal–and, yes, romance–all come together in a nearly perfect blend as the film builds to a terrific (and surprising) climax. Grant and Bergman rarely have been better. Amazon 4.4 stars from over 228 users

Though Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious was produced by David O. Selznick’s Vanguard Films, Selznick himself had little to do with the production, which undoubtedly pleased the highly independent Hitchcock. Ingrid Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, who goes to hell in a handbasket after her father, an accused WWII traitor, commits suicide. American secret agent Devlin (Cary Grant) is ordered to enlist the libidinous Alicia’s aid in trapping Alexander Sebastian (Claude Rains), the head of a Brazilian neo-Nazi group. Openly contemptuous of Alicia despite her loyalty to the American cause, Devlin calmly instructs her to woo and wed Sebastian, so that that good guys will have an “inside woman” to monitor the Nazi chieftain’s activities. It is only after Alicia and Sebastian are married that Devlin admits to himself that he’s fallen in love with her.  Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 94% Audience 90%

MRQE 87% from 47 reviews

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8HY1UDe7Q]

To Have and Have Not (1944)

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100 min – rated G – view video trailer

Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan

Genres: Adventure, Romance, Thriller

IMDB 8.0 / Amazon 4.5 / Decent Films B+

Oscars: none

Ranked #135 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie

Expatriate American Harry Morgan helps to transport a Free French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sexy lounge singer. IMDB rating: 8.0 from over 15,082 users

It strongly resembles Casablanca: French resistance fighters, a piano-playing bluesman (Hoagy Carmichael) and a Martinique bar much like Rick’s Cafe Americaine. But first and foremost, it showcases Bogart and Bacall, carrying on with a passion that smolders from the tips of their cigarettes clear through to their souls. Amazon 4.5 stars from over 117 users

To Have and Have Not, Howard Hawks’s more or less in-name-only adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “worst novel,” has more in common with Casablanca (including nearly half a dozen players) than with its ostensible source material. Its real claim to fame, though, is the first pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who appeared together in only three other films but remained ever after linked off the screen. Read full Decent Films review: rated B+, Well Made artistic-entertainment for Teens & Up

MRQE – over 27 review links

Madison Public Library

Double Indemnity (1944)

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107 min – view video trailer

Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Robinson

Genres: Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

IMDB 8.5 / Amazon 4.7 / MRQE 91% / Zagat 28

Oscars: nominated for 7, won 0 (Best Picture, Actress, Director, Cinematography, Music, Sound, Writing)

Ranked #29 Greatest Movies Through 1960, a Zagat Top Movie, included in 19 of 37 greatest movie lists

An insurance rep lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses an insurance investigator’s suspicions. IMDB 8.5 rating from over 52,595 users

Zagat summary snippet: The story of another dumb cluck done in by a woman, it features a fast-talking MacMurray, knockout Stanwyck (love the anklet) and fantastic Robinson, with plenty of plot twists. Best scene: shopping at the supermarket. Zagat Ratings: Overall 28 / Acting 27 / Story 28 / Production 25 / Total 108

As the would-be lovers plot the unsuspecting husband’s murder, they are pursued by a suspicious claims manager (Edward G. Robinson). It’s a race against time to get away with the perfect crime in this heart-racing Academy Award-nominated masterpiece. Amazon 4.7 stars from over 187 users

MRQE 91% rating with over 67 reviews linked

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