Mr Denning Drives North (1953)

This weirdly-titled 1953 film, based on a book about a father who accidentally kills his daughter's beau and disposes of the body only to find out later the body has disappeared and the death gone undiscovered, is billed as a mystery thriller but ends up feeling more like a convoluted melodrama as gradually more and more members of the man's family get involved.

★★☆☆☆

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Tokyo Story (東京物語) (Tōkyō Monogatari) (1953)

An unhurried masterpiece showcasing the minutiae of Japanese family life, Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story tells of an ageing couple's holiday to Tokyo to visit their children who they find to have grown as busy and self-interested as the burgeoning post-War city around them, and the movie is all the more devastating on account of the cheerful, uncomplaining endurance (1) of the disappointed couple.

★★★★★

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Reference:

(1) McDonald, Mark (2012-03-25). "In Japan, Lonely Deaths in Society's Margins" The New York Times.  Viewed 4 August 2015.

House of Wax (1953)

This 1953 horror mystery starring Vincent Price, a remake of the 1933 The Mystery of the Wax Museum, is preoccupied with getting all it can out of its state-of-the-art 3D technology and so features drawn out scenes like one of a high-kick cabaret dance and another featuring a street performer doing odd things with three ping pong bats and balls, which show-off the 3D tech but add nothing to the horror and mystery involving body snatching, murder, and a hideous figure stalking through the shadows of NYC, and so this reviewer prefers the 1933 original!

★★★☆☆

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