Project: 1958

I'm not always a fan of lists but, boy, am I loving this. So many memories. This is right around the time my parents started letting my brothers and me go to the movies by ourselves (but together) so I saw some of them first-run. There are so many classics here but I'm ashamed to say that my attention went first to some of the lesser lights, a problem I seem to have a lot. The one which jumped out the most was United Artist's The Vikings. Tony Curtis being staked on the rocks with the tide coming in and crabs crawling around, Kirk Douglas with the missing eye...all memorable stuff for a young kid. Another one I didn't discover until years later in my cynical young adulthood is Universal's Live Fast, Die Young, a bad girl epic directed by Paul Henreid about a "teenage Jezebel" (to quote Edna Turnblad) on the run who hooks up with a gang of jewel thieves led by Troy Donahue. Such ridiculous fun. Another which jumped out was Paramount's The Space Children. I remember seeing it on the old AMC, at which time it was totally new to me, and I've never seen a program listing for it since. Swithin seems to have been the sci-fi kid, so maybe he knows what's happened to it. Rights issues or something?

One I came to appreciate only recently is John Huston's The Barbarian and the Geisha. I always figured John Wayne in that kind of role would be silly but as I've come to appreciate him more as an actor I gave it a look and was enchanted. I haven't got a clue about historical accuracy but it's beautifully done and Wayne's "modernness" as an actor didn't get in the way at all, in my opinion. His no-nonsense manner as the first U.S. Consul to Japan and his willingness to compromise and cooperate help to win over the initially skeptical Japanese as they see his love for their culture growing.