MY LIFE IN 1954
EC's Scoring More in '54
Sports, Music and Movies... that's pretty much my life's story.
To a kid of 14, the top movies of 1954 were just too adult for yours truly... but there were some good ones that I enjoyed... "White Christmas", "The Caine Mutiny", "Rear Window", "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "Magnificent Obsession", "Sabrina" and "Three Coins in the Fountain".
The Academy Awards went to the artsy folks... "On the Waterfront" won the best picture... EC gave it a "thumbs down"... Marlon Brando won best actor... EC wasn't impressed with "method actor" Brando... he overplayed it... Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg was too stiff of a performance... but the movie was pretty good... much better than Brando's movie... I would have given Audrey Hepburn the best actress award over Grace Kelly... "The Country Girl" with Bing Crosby and William Holden, two of my favorites of all-time, was just a boringly sad movie... none of the best supporting actors or actresses impressed me... however, on second thought, Lee J. Cobb should have won it... he was very good in "On the Waterfront".
"White Christmas" made the most money and rightly so... it was a very entertaining movie with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen... EC thoroughly enjoyed it... really good entertainment.
"Rear Window", a thriller with Jimmy Stewart, was intense... Raymond Burr was really scary as the villain... great Hitchcock movie... Stewart also starred in "The Glenn Miller Story" and had two of the top 10 movies of the year.
John Wayne and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were the most popular movie stars.
Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were the top western stars.
EC also saw many other movies, among them was "The Creature from the Black Lagoon"... yeah, it was bad, but quite successful... the creature really looked dinky... EC enjoyed "Phantom of the Rue Morgue", "Robinson Crusoe", "Demetrius and the Gladiators", "King Richard and the Crusaders" and Paul Newman in his first movie, "The Silver Chalice", a knightly tale.
Also saw Tony Curtis ("The Black Shield of Falworth") and Robert Wagner ("Prince Valiant") as knights in shining armor... EC didn't realize how bad they acted at the time, but did years later.
I guess I outgrew the old westerns... can you believe EC stop going to the Saturday Matinees?... all good things come to an end sooner or later... but, hey, that's just life... that's what happens.
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