Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
QFS No. 169 - Billy Wilder, one of the American greats, now can add another posthumous feather in his cap – three-time QFS selectee. There can be no greater honor. We previously selected The Lost Weekend (1947, QFS No. 84) and Ace in the Hole (1951, QFS 136), and this week’s selection Witness for the Prosecution has been on my to-see list for a while now.
Touch of Evil (1958)
QFS No. 160 - Let’s get this out of the way first – in Touch of Evil Charleton Heston plays a Mexican. (But… barely.) Do with that information what you will. Just about the only negative I have about this film. Everything else in Orson Welles’ masterpiece places it high on my list of personal favorites.
Imitation of Life (1959)
QFS No. 152 - Director Douglas Sirk’s name is synonymous with melodrama. As someone who studies film and works in entertainment, this is one of those givens you know about even if you don’t know his movies.
Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)
QFS No. 147 - Kaagaz Ke Phool – which translates to “Paper Flowers” – is known as one of the great films from the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
QFS No. 137 - For our four-year anniversary of QFS, we decided to select an epic by the great David Lean. Yes, it took us four years to get to a David Lean film, and for the most part it’s because I’ve seen most of the epic classic ones. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) remains one of my favorite films of all time and we could easily have selected it to commemorate our four years of watching and talking about movies. But instead, I picked what is my second favorite Lean film, The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Ace in the Hole (1951)
QFS No. 136 - I’ve managed to see a great deal of Wilder’s films but he made so many that there are a lot left for me to watch. He’s another one, like John Ford, with a very high batting percentage of great hits. I went with Ace in the Hole because, well, don’t we all want to bask in the glow of Kirk Douglas’ chin for nearly two hours?
The Seventh Seal (1957)
QFS No. 127 - Sweden’s legendary director Ingmar Bergman is one of those essential filmmakers whose work you’re required to familiarize yourself with if you go to film school and intend to be a director. And with good reason. His films are deeply empathetic and explore what it means to be human in a style that I would characterize as part of the Neorealist movement that swept through post-war Europe.
Forbidden Planet (1956)
QFS No. 119 - This is going to be an interesting one in that Forbidden Planet is (A) adapted from William Shakespeare and (B) we’ll be forced to take Leslie Nielsen seriously, he of Airplane! (1980) and the Naked Gun franchise fame.