Years & Movies: 1952

 The list of the best films of world cinema of 1952 is headed by the movie "Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games)" directed by René Clément.

The fate of this film is a real way per aspera ad astra.

In the late forties young French writer François Boyer  has written the scenario and has offered it to some French film studios. They have rejected this scenario. Then François on the basis of the scenario has written a novel which has been published in 1947 under the name Secret games. In the early fifties the producer of a young French movie company Silver Films Robert Dorfmann has conceived to shoot a film, consisting of three short stories one of which would be Secret games. For an embodiment of this plan the director René Clément has been involved. He, in turn, has involved script writers  Jean Aurenche  and  Pierre Bost  who have made return operation on transformation of the Boyer’s novel into the scenario. By spring of 1951 shooting of this novel have been carried out, but the further work on the conceived film has stopped because of financial difficulties of the company. A year later, a movie company management, without having found necessary financing  for shootings of other two parts of a film, but also wishing to keep already finished shooting material, has decided to make on its basis a feature film. But children grow quickly. Also change quickly. For example,  the featured actress - Brigitte Fossey - who at the moment of shootings was 5 years old, for a year blurts out milk teeth. And the protagonist - Georges Poujouly – has cut his hair for other film. And landscapes in which shootings were conducted, have changed for one and a half year. More shortly, René Clément and his team  had  to use all skill that all these changes remained not noticed by the cinema-goers.

In the spring of 1952, the shooting of the film was completed, and an attempt was made to include it in the program of the Cannes Film Festival, which was supposed to begin on April 23 and the program of which was completely completed. After long and scandalous bickering, it was decided to organize for this film a special, not even non-competitive screening, which took place on the last day of the festival - May 9. As a result of the screening, the film was awarded the so-called "Independent Award", not stipulated by any regulations.

With the screening of the film in Cannes, its distribution in France began. Almost 5 million French moviegoers watched it over the year, 12% of the country's population. But by many French film critics, the film was received with hostility. Some accused the film of an unfair, distorted and even abusive depiction of French peasants. Others, representatives of clerical structures, accused the film of almost sacrilege. Even such an outstanding figure in French cinema as François Truffaut two years later ranked this film among openly anti-clerical. However, Truffaut at that moment was only 22 years old. Highly likely he couldn't understood much yet.

In August 1952, the film was presented at the Venice Film Festival. And again, not without scandal. Initially, the organizers of the film festival refused to include the film in the competition program, on the grounds that he allegedly already participated in the Cannes Film Festival. It is likely that these attempts at refusal were inspired by potential competitors, one of which was, for example, the film "Europe'51" by Roberto Rossellini. In the end, justice prevailed, and the film won the Golden Lion.

A year later, in 1953, the film received an honorary Oscar, and a year later, in 1954 - the British BAFTA and the Danish Bodil.

With regard to viewer ratings, 68% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave the film ratings of 8 or higher. Based on the above indicators, according to the version of FilmGourmand, the rating of the film was 10,153 and it took 36th Rank in the Golden Thousand.

In addition to Forbidden Games, the top ten films of 1952 according to FilmGourmand include the following films:
- Umberto D., by Vittorio De Sica, Italy. Movie's Rating - 8,455; 344th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Limelight, by Charles Chaplin, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,285; 422th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Ikiru  生きる (To Live), by Akira Kurosawa, Japan. Movie's Rating - 8,270; 433rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- High Noon, by Fred Zinnemann, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,257; 444th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Singin' in the Rain, by Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, USA. Movie's Rating - 8,252; 450th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Saikaku ichidai onna  西鶴一代女 (The Life of Oharu), by Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan. Movie's Rating - 8,011; 706th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- Ревизор (The Inspector-General), by Vladimir Petrov, USSR. Movie's Rating - 7,963; 774th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
- The Bad and the Beautiful, by Vincente Minnelli, USA.        
- Ochazuke no aji  お茶漬けの味 (Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice), by Yasujirô Ozu, Japan.

Well, and as usual - 10 most "cinegenic"*, in our opinion, events of 1952:

- The accession of Elizabeth II to the British throne. In the UK, due to the death of King George VI at the age of 56, his daughter Elizabeth II ascended to the throne.
- The mutiny in Cuba. In Cuba, General Fulgencio Batista came to power in a coup d'état. The new Cuban government immediately broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR.
- The assassination attempt on Adenauer. In Munich, Germany, an unsuccessful attempt was made on the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. One policeman was killed. The investigation revealed that the mastermind of the assassination attempt was Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister of Israel.
- The Catalina case. The Soviet Air Force shot down two Swedish unarmed aircraft over the international waters of the Baltic Sea. Until the collapse of the USSR, the Soviet leadership denied any involvement in the death of Swedish aircraft and their crews. At the same time, when in the early 2000s the remains of the aircraft were raised from the bottom of the sea at the request of the descendants of the crew members, it turned out that on board the aircraft of the formally neutral Sweden there was equipment produced in the UK that allowed reconnaissance in the interests of NATO.
- USSR Olympic debut. The VI Winter Olympic Games in Oslo (Norway) and the XV Summer Olympic Games in Helsinki (Finland) were held. At the Olympics in Helsinki, the Soviet national team took part for the first time and with great success.
- The Death Of Evita. In Argentina, at the age of 33, the wife of the president, Eva Peron, died of cancer. A 30-day mourning period was declared, a decision was made to create a monument, include her book in the compulsory school curriculum, and rename the province of La Plata to Eva Peron.
- Shooting of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In the USSR, 13 members of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, artists and activists of culture, were shot away.
- The tragedy of Severo-Kurilsk. In the USSR, the tsunami destroyed the city of Severo-Kurilsk. 2336 people died.
- The premiere of the hydrogen bomb. The US has tested the first hydrogen bomb on Eniwetok Atoll
- Expulsion of Chaplin from the United States. For his active participation in anti-Nazi propaganda during the Second World War, FBI Director John Edgar Hoover forbade Charles Chaplin to return to the United States from London, where the great director presented his film "Limelight".


Besides Krystyna Janda and Robert Zemekis were born.
    

* -With "cinematic" in the present context, we mean events that either have already found their reflection in world cinema, or deserve to become the basis of the plot of a future film.