Early Summer (Yasujiro Ozu, 1951)

8/10
Another touching meditation on marriage and the single Japanese woman, it's interesting to see how often and from how many different angles Ozu tackles this issue. I was into this one less than Late Spring, but still enjoyed.

Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)

7/10
I haven't seen a whole lot of Hitchcock (just this, Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window, I think) but this was the first one that failed to really blow me away. Unfair considering its competition, perhaps. I thought the premise was very interesting (two men committing each other's murders) but the execution didn't really stir me. There were some absolutely classic scenes though - the murder of Guy's wife shown as a reflection in the lens of her fallen eyeglasses, the climatic showdown on a merry-go-round, etc, but I was a bit underwhelmed on the whole.

A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)

8.5/10
Finally got around to seeing this after doing lots of heavy reading about Brando and having only ever seen him in the Godfather...he was everything I expected in this movie, although I can only imagine how much greater its impact was when it was first released. Vivien Leigh's performance was great if a little hackneyed at times...