Picnic. William Inge’s play about a husky athlete (William Holden) who bounces around a small town like a loose ball while the ladies (Rosalind Russell, Kim Novak) fumble excitedly for possession (TIME, Feb. 27).
The Night My Number Came Up. Thirteen people are caught in a dream that starts to come true: a low-voltage shocker from Britain, with crackling good performances by Michael Redgrave, George Rose (TIME, Jan. 2).
The Man with the Golden Arm. Nelson Algren’s tale of a hot dealer who deals himself a cold card: heroin. A painful, powerful story of human bondage, in which Frank Sinatra is unforgettable (TIME, Dec. 26).
The Rose Tattoo. Anna Magnani, in her first Hollywood film, gets the year’s loudest laughs as she demonstrates why Italian ham is a delicacy (TIME, Dec. 19;.
Umberto D. A man walks the plank of old age, and the Italian realist cinema dies with a gentle curse: Vittorio De Sica’s most careful film (TIME, Dec. 12).
Diabolique. A wonderful little horror comic in French, with a moral: you can lead a corpse to water, but you can’t make it sink (TIME, Dec. 5).
Guys and Dolls. Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, Vivian Elaine in Samuel Goldwyn’s $5,000,000 version of the Broadway musical. It’s a beaut, but Sam made the prints too long (TIME, Nov. 14).
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