In 1953,
Lucy Ricardo gave birth to Little Ricky;
Dwight Eisenhower became the 34th President of the United States;
Christine Jorgensen had successful sex reassignment surgery;
James Watson and Francis Crick announced the discovery of the structure of DNA;
The Academy Awards were broadcast on television for the first time;
Jonas Salk announced the polio vaccine;
Aldous Huxley first experimented with mescaline and published The Doors of Perception;
Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mount Everest;
Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of England;
The FCC approved color televisions in the US;
George Tenet, Pamela Sue Martin, Pat Benatar, Jeffrey Epstein, Paul Allen, Jim Jarmusch, Lucinda Williams, Duane Chapman, Mary Steenburgen, Ciaran Hinds, Jeb Bush, Massimo Troisi, William Petersen, Michael Bolton, Rocky Steamboat, Carl Hiaasen, Ron Jeremy, Isabelle Huppert, Chaka Khan, Lincoln Chafee, Elaine Chao, Rick Moranis, Kim Gordon, Tony Blair, David Gest, Mike Oldfield, Pierce Brosnan, Alfred Molina, Kay Hagan, Danny Elfman, Colm Meaney, David Berkowitz, Kathleen Kennedy, John Edwards, Tim Allen, Xi Jinping, Benazir Bhutto, Cyndi Lauper, Leon Spinks, Mindy Sterling, Tim Gunn, Yahoo Serious, Ken Burns, Geddy Lee, Patti Scialfa, Butch Patrick, Hulk Hogan, Kathie Lee Gifford, Amy Irving, Nan Goldin, Karen Bass, Tony Shalhoub, Tito Jackson, Larry Miller, Keith Green, Peter Firth, Robert Picardo, Dennis Miller, Kate Capshaw, Alan Moore, Kevin Nealon, Steve Bannon, Curtis Armstrong, Pamela Hayden, Tom Hulce, Kim Basinger, Sam Kinison, John Malkovich, Ben Bernanke, and Bill Pullman were born;
While Hank Williams, Guccio Gucci, Herman Mankiewicz, Sergei Prokofiev, Joseph Stalin, Jim Thorpe, Jean Epstein, Django Reinhardt, Dooley Wilson, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Lewis Stone, Edwin Hubble, Dylan Thomas, and Eugene O’Neill died.
The following is a list of my ten favorite films released in 1953:
10) Peter Pan
I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Peter Pan. It tapped into something in my childhood and I maintain a strong affinity for it. Captain Hook is one of the best villains in the Disney canon, and Tinkerbell is one of the most iconic characters. The boy who never grew up is a perfect story for Disney to tell.
9) Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century
The 1950s were a halycon period for Warner Bros. Animation. This is no exception. Marvin Martian is a brilliant creation, Chuck Jones style is foundational to my sense of humor, and this has the added bonus of being a science fiction parody.
8) Duck Amuck
In one of the quintessential Looney Tunes shorts, Daffy is tormented by an unseen animator. Amidst the chaos and frenetic pace, Chuck Jones is inventing and reinventing the rules as he goes, and I love it.
Following three Army soldiers stationed in Hawaii just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, this film is a snapshot of American attitudes pre and post WWII.
Sergeant Warden (Burt Lancaster) has an affair with his boss’s wife, Karen Holmes (Deborah Kerr). Private Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) is pressured into boxing for his regiment, while his best friend, Private Maggio (Frank Sinatra) incurs the wrath of Staff Sergeant Fatso Judson (Ernest Borgnine).
Eventually Holmes’ husband is forced to resign and sent back to the mainlaind because of his obsession wth boxing. Maggio dies after a beating from Judson and Prewitt kills Judson in retaliation then hides in the home of his prostitute love interest, Lorene (Donna Reed).
During the climatic attack on Pearl Harbor, Prewitt is killed by military police, and Warden behaves heroically.
The cast is stacked. Frank Sinatra won an Oscar and legitimized his decision to move into acting. Donna Reed also won an Oscar for her turn as the ultimate “hooker with a heart of gold,” then settled into a successful TV career and never ventured into film again. It’s hard to believe Lancaster and Clift were denied Oscars, but it’s possible their work siphoned voters from each other. Kerr was similarly snake bit, running into the undeniable buzzsaw of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.
The famous kissing scene between Kerr and Lancaster has been oft parodied and is rightfully a classic reference point.
6) The Big Heat
Dave Banion (Glenn Ford) is a good cop fighting against police corruption and organized crime. When one of his fellow officers is found dead, it’s ruled a suicide, but Banion’s unrelenting investigation exposes a corrupt web of associates, including the deceased’s widow (Gloria Grahame).
Ford is fantastic and Grahame matches him step for step while Lang’s direction is impeccable. This is deservedly in the noir pantheon, a bridge between the hard boiled stuff of Bogart and the more experimental noir to come.
Patty O’Neill (Maggie McNamara) spends a night fending off the lecherous advances of Donald Gresham (William Holden) and David Slater (David Niven).
I found Otto Preminger’s adaption of F. Hugh Hubert’s stage play to be a delightful, light hearted romp. It was controversial at the time of its release and United Artists released it without the approval of the production code, which ushered in the demise of the PCA.
I adore William Holden and anything he’s in has already piqued my interest. Maggie McNamara was oozing sex appeal, and while David Niven is not my favorite, he was good here (in a performance one part William Powell, one part Cary Grant).
4) Lili
While looking for an old friend of her father, naïve Lili (Leslie Caron) stumbles upon a carnival. She falls in love with the troop’s magician and gets a job interacting with the puppets in a side attraction, and her earnest interactions with these pretend characters proves a hit.
The puppeteer, Paul, was a dancer, but injured his legs in the war. He slowly sheds his bitterness and falls in love with her, but is only able to express his feelings though puppetry.
Lili, still in love with the magician, is devastated to learn he’s married to his assistant, and traumatized when he nonetheless attempts to seduce her.
Eventually, after a fanciful, magical scene with the puppets coming to life, Lili realizes she loves Paul after all.
MGM strikes again. Their mid twentieth century musicals are catnip for me. This one combines fantasy, whimsy and a delightful Leslie Caron in a near perfect concoction.
Fading movie star Tony (Fred Astaire) needs a hit project. HIs friends have written a musical comedy as his Broadway comeback and convince a famed director to helm the project. The director foolishly re-envisions the play as a serious retelling of the Faust legend and brings in a famed ballerina, Gaby (Cyd Charisse) to costar. When the work is panned in previews, Tony retools it to match the original vision and, along the way falls in love with Gaby.
It’s similar to the preeminent MGM musical of the era, SIngin’ in the Rain: a behind the scenes look at the ins and out of a production.
Astaire’s role mirrors his career. He was a huge star in the 1930s, but during the 1940s his career had started to decline. This was a return to his roots and proof he still had a great deal to offer.
The dancing is inventive and fun. The music is fast and infectious. This is MGM at the peak of its powers.
Desperate to escape a life of poverty, four immigrants in a small South American town agree to haul trucks of highly explosive nitroglycerin three hundred miles to put out a fire at an oil rig. The trip does not end well.
This movie is an exploration of the power of desperation, the limits of friendship, and the lure of money. The ending is a cautionary tale of hubris. The surviving members of the group, buoyed by their success in a dangerous mission, feel invincible, but learn too late no one is.
Henri-Georges Clouzot also directed Les Diaboliques (1955), a well-regarded psychological thriller, but this is his best film.
When retired couple Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama visit their son and daughter in Tokyo, their children are too busy to spend any time with them; the only person who pays them any attention is their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko, and after Tomi’s death, Noriko is the only concerned about what will happen to Shukichi.
While Yasujiro Ozu’s quiet films are often compared to his contemporary Akira Kurosawa’s more action oriented work, both filmmakers provide invaluable insight into the psyche of the Japanese following their defeat in the second World War.
This loose remake of Leo McCarey’s 1937 film Make Way for Tomorrow asks important questions about balancing the demands of family with other responsibilities. As people continue to live longer lives, and dealing with elderly parents becomes a rite of passage; this film is a poignant reminder of how difficult it is to grow old and how marginalized the elderly feel when their children brush them aside to focus on their own lives.