Underrated 50s
by hollywoodpsychic | created - 10 May 2014 | updated - 27 Jun 2018 | PublicAn evolving list of 50s films that I feel all deserve more love. Some of these movies make the list for having low average user ratings. Others are here for having very few user ratings. All of these are movies I like. (Though some are certainly better than others!) Here, then, is my list of the best unappreciated, misunderstood and/or unknown 50s films that I particularly enjoyed, films that surely deserve higher ratings and/or a bigger audience.
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1. The Fireball (1950)
Approved | 84 min | Drama, Sport
An orphanage runaway becomes a roller-skating champion but gets sick with polio.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Pat O'Brien, Beverly Tyler, James Brown
Votes: 373
2. Highway 301 (1950)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Led by a psychopathic killer, a vicious gang of armed robbers terrorizes Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, robbing banks and payrolls and murdering anyone who might identify them.
Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: William P. Lane Jr., John S. Battle, W. Kerr Scott, Steve Cochran
Votes: 1,117
3. The Kid from Texas (1950)
Approved | 78 min | Western
In New Mexico, Billy the Kid is involved in the Lincoln County War, kills many rivals and eventually becomes a wanted fugitive.
Director: Kurt Neumann | Stars: Audie Murphy, Gale Storm, Albert Dekker, Shepperd Strudwick
Votes: 801
4. The Nevadan (1950)
Approved | 81 min | Western
A mysterious stranger crosses paths with an outlaw bank robber and a greedy rancher.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: Randolph Scott, Dorothy Malone, Forrest Tucker, Frank Faylen
Votes: 1,226
5. Five (1951)
Approved | 93 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
The world is destroyed in a nuclear holocaust. Only five Americans survive, including a pregnant woman, a neo-Nazi, a black man and a bank clerk.
Director: Arch Oboler | Stars: William Phipps, Susan Douglas Rubes, James Anderson, Charles Lampkin
Votes: 1,569
6. Under the Gun (1951)
Approved | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After a cunning, unscrupulous mobster is sentenced to a Florida prison farm, he launches a deadly escape plan.
Director: Ted Tetzlaff | Stars: Richard Conte, Audrey Totter, John McIntire, Sam Jaffe
Votes: 200
7. The Duel at Silver Creek (1952)
Approved | 77 min | Western
Marshal Tyrone and the Silver Kid form an uneasy alliance against a gang of claim jumpers.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Audie Murphy, Faith Domergue, Stephen McNally, Susan Cabot
Votes: 1,900
8. Kid Monk Baroni (1952)
Passed | 79 min | Action, Drama, Sport
"Kid" Monk Baroni, the leader of a street gang, becomes a professional boxer to escape his life in Little Italy, New York.
Director: Harold D. Schuster | Stars: Richard Rober, Bruce Cabot, Allene Roberts, Mona Knox
Votes: 186
9. Park Row (1952)
Approved | 83 min | Drama, Thriller
The Globe is a small, but visionary newspaper started by Phineas Mitchell, an editor recently fired by The Star. The two newspapers become enemies, and the Star's ruthless heiress Charity Hackett decides to eliminate the competition.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Bela Kovacs, Herbert Heyes, Tina Pine, George O'Hanlon
Votes: 2,017
10. Something to Live For (1952)
Approved | 89 min | Drama
An actress becomes an alcoholic after being jilted. She is aided by an Alcoholics Anonymous member with whom she has an affair; however, he is married.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Ray Milland, Teresa Wright, Richard Derr
Votes: 434
11. The Steel Trap (1952)
Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles bank assistant-manager devises a plan to steal money from the bank's vault and to flee to Brazil with his unsuspecting wife.
Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Jonathan Hale, Walter Sande
Votes: 1,201
12. A Blueprint for Murder (1953)
Approved | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Whitney Cameron suspects his sister-in-law has poisoned his brother and niece, but without proof how does he prevent the murder of his nephew?
Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Gary Merrill, Catherine McLeod
Votes: 1,835
13. House of Blackmail (1953)
72 min | Drama, Mystery
A blackmailer is murdered, and the police find that there is a long list of suspects who wanted to see him dead.
Director: Maurice Elvey | Stars: William Sylvester, Mary Germaine, Alexander Gauge, John Arnatt
Votes: 246
14. Personal Affair (1953)
Approved | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
In a 1950s British village, a teenager, who is in love with her Latin language teacher, disappears, prompting the police to investigate the teacher, amidst public rumors of rape and murder.
Director: Anthony Pelissier | Stars: Gene Tierney, Leo Genn, Pamela Brown, Walter Fitzgerald
Votes: 616
15. Destry (1954)
Approved | 95 min | Western
A dishonest mayor and powerful criminal dominate a small western town. But when the town's sheriff dies under mysterious circumstances, Tom Destry, son of a famed gunman, is called in to put an end to the corruption.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Audie Murphy, Mari Blanchard, Lyle Bettger, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 1,636
16. Naked Alibi (1954)
Approved | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A chief of police detectives fired for brutality, tries to get evidence on a man suspected of killing 3 of his officers.
Director: Jerry Hopper | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Gloria Grahame, Gene Barry, Marcia Henderson
Votes: 1,516
17. The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)
Passed | 75 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A dysfunctional family operating an isolated date farm in the California desert is threatened by the arrival of an extra-terrestrial.
Directors: David Kramarsky, Roger Corman, Lou Place | Stars: Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, Dona Cole, Dick Sargent
Votes: 1,758
18. Violent Saturday (1955)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Three hoodlums carefully case a small town while planning to rob the bank on the upcoming Saturday. On Saturday, things turn violent and deadly.
Director: Richard Fleischer | Stars: Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Virginia Leith
Votes: 2,872
19. The Black Sleep (1956)
Not Rated | 82 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
Sir Joel Cadman, a mad scientist, kidnaps his victims and cuts open their brains in an effort to discover a means to cure his wife's brain tumor.
Director: Reginald Le Borg | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine
Votes: 2,042
20. Tension at Table Rock (1956)
Passed | 93 min | Western
A reluctant gunslinger tires of having to defend himself at every cow town he visits, so he adopts an alias and continues his wandering. At an outpost run by a father and young son, he gets... See full summary »
Director: Charles Marquis Warren | Stars: Richard Egan, Dorothy Malone, Cameron Mitchell, Billy Chapin
Votes: 688
21. Blood of Dracula (1957)
Approved | 69 min | Horror
Under hypnosis, a young woman turns into a vampire.
Director: Herbert L. Strock | Stars: Sandra Harrison, Louise Lewis, Gail Ganley, Jerry Blaine
Votes: 1,534
22. La cravate (1957)
20 min | Short, Comedy
A short mime adaptation of a Thomas Mann story about a Parisian urchin who makes her living selling human heads.
Directors: Saul Gilbert, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Ruth Michelly | Stars: Denise Brossot, Rolande Polya, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Saul Gilbert
Votes: 1,998
23. The Mysterians (1957)
Approved | 85 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Shortly after a giant robot destroys a village, aliens from outer space arrive offering friendship. Will the people of Earth tie these two events together?
Director: Ishirô Honda | Stars: Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa, Momoko Kôchi, Akihiko Hirata
Votes: 1,900 | Gross: $0.98M
24. Sorority Girl (1957)
61 min | Drama
A poor-little-rich-girl feels alienated by her mother and enacts a string of torment on her fellow pupils at a girls' boarding school, increasingly aggravating them until she goes too far.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Susan Cabot, Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, June Kenney
Votes: 429
25. The Vampire (1957)
Approved | 75 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A kind, small-town doctor mistakenly ingests pills made from vampire bat blood and they turn him into a dangerous fanged creature.
Director: Paul Landres | Stars: John Beal, Coleen Gray, Kenneth Tobey, Lydia Reed
Votes: 1,306
26. Corridors of Blood (1958)
Not Rated | 86 min | Crime, Horror, Thriller
Dr. Thomas Bolton fights for the use of anesthetic in surgery and uses himself as a guinea pig, but soon finds himself addicted.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Boris Karloff, Betta St. John, Christopher Lee, Finlay Currie
Votes: 2,273
27. Giant from the Unknown (1958)
Approved | 78 min | Drama, Horror
A very large, degenerate, Spanish conqueror is freed from suspended animation by lightning and goes on a killing spree in a small town.
Director: Richard E. Cunha | Stars: Ed Kemmer, Sally Fraser, Bob Steele, Morris Ankrum
Votes: 962
28. The Haunted Strangler (1958)
Approved | 78 min | Crime, Mystery, Horror
A researcher investigating a notorious serial killer who was hanged 20 years earlier seemingly becomes possessed by the long-dead strangler.
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Boris Karloff, Anthony Dawson, Derek Birch, Dorothy Gordon
Votes: 2,042
29. The Gun Runners (1958)
Approved | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The Cuban misadventures of a Florida smuggler, at the time of the Cuban Revolution.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Audie Murphy, Eddie Albert, Patricia Owens, Everett Sloane
Votes: 872
30. How to Make a Monster (1958)
Unrated | 73 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
When a master monster make-up artist is sacked by the new bosses of American International studios, he uses his creations to exact revenge.
Director: Herbert L. Strock | Stars: Robert H. Harris, Paul Brinegar, Gary Conway, Gary Clarke
Votes: 1,518
31. Masters of the Congo Jungle (1958)
Approved | 88 min | Documentary
Documentary showing the struggles of the inhabitants--both human and animal--of what was then called the Belgian Congo.
Directors: Henry Brandt, Heinz Sielmann | Stars: Jean Desailly, Georges Aminel, Kazuo Aoki, Bert Brauns
Votes: 65
32. City of Fear (1959)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A vicious killer escapes from San Quentin with a cannister of what he believes to be heroin but is actually a radioactive substance that threatens all Los Angeles.
Director: Irving Lerner | Stars: Vince Edwards, Lyle Talbot, John Archer, Steven Ritch
Votes: 1,632
33. The Crimson Kimono (1959)
Approved | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two detectives seek a stripper's killer in the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles, but a love triangle threatens their friendship.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta, Anna Lee
Votes: 3,114
34. Eyes in Outer Space (1959)
Approved | 25 min | Documentary, Animation, Short
Walt Disney, with the cooperation of the U.S. Department of Defense, uses music and animation to speculate on the use of space satellite technology (with a coordinated defense network) as a means to modify weather.
Director: Ward Kimball | Stars: Paul Frees, Jack Smith
Votes: 58
35. First Man Into Space (1959)
Not Rated | 77 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
The first pilot to leave Earth's atmosphere lands, then vanishes; but something with a craving for blood prowls the countryside...
Director: Robert Day | Stars: Marshall Thompson, Marla Landi, Bill Edwards, Robert Ayres
Votes: 1,746
36. The Giant Gila Monster (1959)
Not Rated | 74 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A giant lizard terrorizes a rural Texas community and a heroic teenager attempts to destroy the creature.
Director: Ray Kellogg | Stars: Don Sullivan, Fred Graham, Lisa Simone, Shug Fisher
Votes: 4,331
37. Girls Town (1959)
90 min | Crime, Drama, Music
Silver is a troubled teenage girl sent to a Catholic reform school, where she has trouble fitting in.
Director: Charles F. Haas | Stars: Mamie Van Doren, Mel Tormé, Ray Anthony, Margaret Hayes
Votes: 1,003
38. The Head (1959)
97 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
A scientist invents a serum that keeps a dog's head alive after its body dies.
Director: Victor Trivas | Stars: Horst Frank, Karin Kernke, Helmut Schmid, Paul Dahlke
Votes: 812
39. The Killer Shrews (1959)
Approved | 69 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
On an isolated island, a small group of people are terrorized by giant voracious shrews in the midst of a hurricane.
Director: Ray Kellogg | Stars: James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis, Gordon McLendon
Votes: 5,656 | Gross: $1.00M
40. The Wasp Woman (1959)
Not Rated | 63 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
The head of a major cosmetics company experiments on herself with a youth formula made from royal jelly extracted from wasps, but the formula's side effects have deadly consequences.
Director: Roger Corman | Stars: Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Barboura Morris, William Roerick
Votes: 5,476
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