120 years of sf cinema, part four: 1955-64

2015 marks the 120th anniversary of sf cinema. This is the fourth part of a year-by-year list of films I’d recommend (not always for the same reasons).

Part one (1895-1914), part two (1915-1934), part three (1935-54)

1955
journey-to-the-beginning-of-time
Cesta do Praveku/Journey to the Beginning of Time (Karel Zeman)
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)
The Quatermass Xperiment (Val Guest)
Revenge of the Creature (Jack Arnold)
This Island Earth (Joseph Newman)

1956
Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel)
Not of this Earth (Roger Corman)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (Edward D. Wood, Jr)
X the Unknown (Leslie Norman)

1957cushing-in-close-up
The Abominable Snowman (Val Guest)
Chikyu Boeignu/The Mysterians (Ishirô Honda)
The Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (Jack Arnold)
Quatermass II (Val Guest)

1958
I Married a Monster from Outer Space (Gene Fowler, Jr)
The Revenge of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher)
Vynalez Zkazy/The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (Karel Zeman)

1959
The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Ranald MacDougall)
Les yeux sans visage/Eyes without a Face (Georges Franju)worldfleshdevil7

1960
Der Schweigende Stern/The Silent Star (Kurt Maetzig)
Die Tausend Augen des Dr Mabuse/The Thousand Eyes of Mr Mabuse (Fritz Lang)
Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla)

1961220px-Amphibian_Man
L’Anée dernière à Marienbad/Last Year in Marienbad (Alain Resnais)
Chelovek Amfibia/The Amphibian Man (Guennadi Kazansky and Vladimir Chebotarev)
The Damned (Joseph Losey)
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (Val Guest)
Mosura/Mothra (Ishirô Honda)

1962
Gritos en la Noche/The Awful Dr Orloff (Jess Franco)
Planeta Bur/Cosmonauts on Venus (Pavel Klushantsev)
The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)

1963
Children of the Damned (Anton M. Leader)
Ikarie XB-1 (Jindrich Polak)
La Jetée (Chris Marker)
King Kong Tai Gojira/King Kong versus Godzilla (Ishirô Honda)
Lord of the Flies (Peter Brook)
Matango/Attack of the Mushroom People (Ishirô Honda)
The Mind Benders (Basil Dearden)
X-The Man with X-Ray Eyes (Roger Corman)

matango_1963_01

1964
Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick)
Fail Safe (Sidney Lumet)
Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer)

part five (1965-74)

120 years of sf cinema, part three: 1935-1954

2015 marks the 120th anniversary of sf cinema. This is the third part of a year-by-year list of films I’d recommend (not always for the same reasons), and there are a few years where there is little to recommend for any reason.

Part one (1895-1914), part two (1915-1934) – both of which have lots of links to actual films rather than just occasional pictures…

1935Bride-of-Frankenstein1
Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)
Kosmitchesky Reis/The Space Ship (Vasili Zhuravlev)
Mad Love (Karl Freund)

1936
The Devil Doll (Tod Browning)
Flash Gordon (Frederick Stephani)
The Invisible Ray (Lambert Hillyer)
The Man Who Changed His Mind (Robert Stevenson)
Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies)

Flash-Gordon-1936-great-old-show-to-watch-on-a-saturday-night1937
Q Planes (Tim Whelan, Arthur Woods)

1938
The Big Broadcast of 1938 (Mitchell Leisen)

1939
The Man They Could Not Hang (Nick Grinde)
Return of Dr X (Vincent Sherman)

1940
Before I Hang (Nick Grinde)
Black Friday (Arthur Lubin)
Dr Cyclops (Ernest B. Schoedsack)
The Man with Nine Lives (Nick Grinde)
Son of Frankenstein (Rowland Lee)

1941
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Victor Fleming)

1943
The Mad Ghoul (James P. Hogan)

1944
Time Flies (Walter Forde)
The Man in Half Moon Street (Ralph M. Murphy)

1949The_Perfect_Woman_FilmPoster
The Perfect Woman (Bernard Knowles)
Siren of Atlantis (Greg Tallas)

1950
Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)

1951
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise)
Five (Arch Oboler)
The Man from Planet X (Edgar G. Ulmer)Gort
The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick)
The Thing (from another World) (Christian Nyby)

1952
Monkey Business (Howard Hawks)

1953
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (Eugene Lourié)
Four-Sided Triangle (Terence Fisher)
Invaders from Mars (William Cameron Menzies)
It Came from Outer Space (Jack Arnold)

1954creature-from-the-black-lagoon
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold)
Gojira (Ishirô Honda)
Them! (Gordon Douglas)

Part four (1955-64)

Gojira