Does The Invisible Movie Critic Lack All Aesthetic Sense? A Double-Anonymous Reader Thinks so

[Re: “50 Movie Masterpieces.”]

By Nicholas Stix

Seeing as so many powers of all political persuasions have been intent on disappearing me, going back to the early 1990s (cancel culture is hardly new to this century), I’ve decided to call myself “The Invisible Movie Critic.”

On December 9, I posted my list of the 50 greatest movie masterpieces. Readers have challenged my list. At least one such reader thinks 50=100. Well, there’s too much to deal with all at one time, so I am breaking up my responses, even to the first reader.

By Anonymous
friday, december 9, 2022 at 11:27:00 a.m. est

Where is Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, along with The Thirty-Nine Steps? Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol? John Ford’s Stagecoach? Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon? Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear and Diabolique? Carné and Prévert’s Children of Paradise? The Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals The Gay Divorce, Top Hat, or Swing Time? John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon? Cy Endfield’s Zulu? Philippe de Broca’s That Man From Rio? de Mille’s 1956 The Ten Commandments? Wyler’s Ben-Hur? Asquith’s The Winslow Boy, The Browning Version, and The Importance of Being Earnest? Serge Bourguignon’s Sundays and Cybèle? Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky? The 1960 Russian A Summer to Remember a/k/a Seryozha? David Lean’s Great Expectations? A Christmas Carol (1951) with Alastair Sim? The Green Man (1956)? Kind Hearts and Coronets? The Lavender Hill Mob? The League of Gentlemen (1960)? Your Past is Showing a/k/a The Naked Truth? Any of Disney’s classics—Snow White, Cinderella, Peter Pan?

And that’s just off the top of my head. You really ought to get around more, NS.

By Anonymous
friday, december 9, 2022 at 12:09:00 p.m. est Oops! Sorry about including The Maltese Falcon in my list. I couldn’t edit it out after posting.

N.S.: Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) and The Thirty-Nine Steps (1935)?

They’re both masterpieces, to be sure, and I might have included them, had I done my list in 1940, but during the 1940s Hitch so elevated the standard for thrillers that they no longer cut it.

Lady, however, is of historical interest. Released in 1938, it had reportedly sat on the shelf for two years. And yet, it revolves around a “secret non-aggression pact.” If that’s the pact I’m familiar with, it was the worst-kept secret in modern diplomacy.

(John Frankenheimer criticized Hitchcock for “only” making thrillers, instead of political movies, like Frankenheimer did. Frankenheimer may have made some masterpieces—The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964)—but he couldn’t carry Hitchcock’s jockstrap.)

Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol (1948)?

I saw Idol about 50 years ago, and recall it being a masterpiece, but must see it again, to see if it’s a Top 100 picture. Reed made it during his masterpiece run, between Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949).

John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939)?

Wonderful picture, a classic, to be sure, but no masterpiece, let alone a Top 100 picture. At that point, 31-year-old John Wayne couldn’t carry a masterpiece, in contrast to 30-year-old Jimmy Stewart, who carried the masterpiece Western, Destry Rides Again, the same year.

It was no accident that Stagecoach was an ensemble production that was anchored by Claire Trevor and Thomas Mitchell. The old man spent years plotting out John Wayne’s career, knew he would need help, and that Ford would have to mind his manners, if he weren’t to sabotage the young man’s career.

Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon (1956)?

I’m pretty sure I saw it on CBS’ Children’s Film Festival 50-odd years ago, on the weekend, but it’s a short, and thus ineligible.

THE CBS CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL (1967)




The Red Balloon (1956)