#116 – The Night of the Hunter, 1955, Charles Laughton
In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
Tag: 1955
#118: Floating Clouds
#118 – Floating Clouds, (浮雲), 1955, Mikio Naruse
A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn’t and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.
#144: Lola Montès
#144 – Lola Montès, 1955, Max Ophüls
Lola Montes, previously a great adventurer, is reduced to being the attraction of a circus after having been the lover of various important men.
#296: The Ladykillers
#296 – The Ladykillers, 1955, Alexander Mackendrick
A gang of five diverse oddball criminal types rent a two-room apartment in an old house on a London cul-de-sac from an octogenarian widow with three pet parrots. The group’s mastermind, Professor Marcus, tells her a cover story that they are members of an amateur string quintet and would like to use the rooms to hone their musical skills. In reality, they’re plotting to rob an armored bank van and plan to use Mrs. Wilberforce’s naiveté and her Victorian sensibilities to their advantage.
#454: Rififi
#454 – Rififi, (Du rififi chez les hommes), 1955, Jules Dassin
Out of prison after a five-year stretch, jewel thief Tony turns down a quick job his friend Jo offers him, until he discovers that his old girlfriend Mado has become the lover of local gangster Pierre Grutter during Tony’s absence. Expanding a minor smash-and-grab into a full-scale jewel heist, Tony and his crew appear to get away clean, but their actions after the job is completed threaten the lives of everyone involved.
#600: Diabolique
#600 – Diabolique, (Les Diaboliques), 1955, Henri-Georges Clouzot
The cruel and abusive headmaster of a boarding school, Michel Delassalle, is murdered by an unlikely duo – his meek wife and the mistress he brazenly flaunts. The women become increasingly unhinged by a series of odd occurrences after Delassalle’s corpse mysteriously disappears.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#698: Rebel Without a Cause
#698 – Rebel Without a Cause, 1955, Nicholas Ray
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid’s real troubles begin.
#705: She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum
#705 – She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum, (野菊の如き君なりき), 1955, Keisuke Kinoshita
Now an old man, Masao returns to his childhood home and begins to recall his upbringing in this abandoned sector of Japan.
#729: Bad Day at Black Rock
#729 – Bad Day at Black Rock, 1955, John Sturges
One-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy steps off a train at the sleepy little town of Black Rock. Once there, he begins to unravel a web of lies, secrecy, and murder.
#748: Kiss Me Deadly
#748 – Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, Robert Aldrich
One evening, Hammer gives a ride to Christina, an attractive hitchhiker on a lonely country road, who has escaped from the nearby lunatic asylum. Thugs waylay them and force his car to crash. When Hammer returns to semi-consciousness, he hears Christina being tortured until she dies. Hammer, both for vengeance and in hopes that “something big” is behind it all, decides to pursue the case.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 