The 1960s List: Discussion and Suggestions

[domino harvey]

You Can Succeed, Too (Eizo Sugawa 1964)
Hollywood-style musical comedy about tour guides preparing for the 64 Olympic games. The film lacks the rigorous neatness of a Hollywood musical, and several of the performances, especially the lead Frankie Sakai, are too broad for my tastes. The film also inexplicably sticks the only performer with a great voice into a secondary role as Sakai’s mooning waitress paramour. However, the film surprised me halfway through by putting seemingly everything it had into its centerpiece number about America, and the result is a rambling, never-ending collection of all of the film’s ideas in one bite. Even with the obvious influences both good (“America” from West Side Story) and bad (the kids vs adults number from Bye Bye Birdie), it still manages to impress by how it continually redefines the cinematic space and expounds the somewhat unconventionally melodic song into new iterations as it goes on. I can’t recommend the film, but I can definitely recommend this epic musical number at least!

…and sure enough, someone has uploaded the musical number (with subs!) here

[mizo]

The promise of more domino harvey write-ups in the new year has given me more hope for 2022 than literally anything else. Interesting and entertaining thoughts as always!

[domino harvey]

[mizo]

Well, maybe I should have said "anything else in media," though that's still hyperbolically high praise! But it's true that I've really enjoyed your thumbnail roundup posts over the years, and no one I know gives recommendations that better align with my own taste. (And no one else I know has described a sightless character as being played by "Mrs. Johnson's blind boy Van," which is a line I still think about)

[swo17]

I forgot how many of my viewings used to come from dom recs, so hopefully he'll be keeping me busy again soon!

[domino harvey]

You’re both very kind!

[Rayon Vert]

Victim (Dearden 1961). Surprisingly courageous filmmaking for this time. The film’s sympathies are clear and the plot just by itself educates you about the effect the law against homosexual acts is having in terms of persons becoming targets of criminal activity just because of their nature (speaking of which, how awful were such criminal acts). But it succeeds because it’s executed tightly and very well acted. Bogarde’s character is a bit of a Hitchcockian victim who becomes his own detective. The film sort of ends a bit too quickly, I wished it had gone on for longer.


A High Wind in Jamaica (Mackendrick 1965). This has a lot of similarities to Sammy Going South, as knives alluded to. Kids unanchored from their parents, whose innocence confronts adult realities, in this case pirates! Anthony Quinn here plays something very much like Robinson in the previous film, a rogue who turns out to have a heart of gold. This is a lighter film of course, with moments of comedy, not exclusively centered on the children’s perspectives, and more of a family film, but one that never gets silly or facile. Once again apparently the producers tried to lighten the film once out of Mackendrick’s hands, but an enjoyable realism in the tone subsists. Nice direction of the young girl actress. I was a bit hesitant in the beginning but was eventually won over by it. (And that’s two films in a row – Victim not Sammy – featuring Dennis Price from Kind Hearts and Coronets.)


Yearning (Naruse 1964). I’d heard or read that late Naruse isn’t so hot. I didn’t feel this here, quite to the contrary. Another tale where the background story showcases the impact of changing times and mores and the division of generations, especially with the arrivals of supermarkets threatening small stores. The war’s effects are still felt, with Hideko Takamine once again the heroine, playing a widow of 18 years having devoted herself to the family of her dead husband. The potentially scandalous development that eventually envelops the film is the romantic feelings that her young brother-in-law has for her. Those momentous long train sequences are exquisitely done, with Takamine’s powerful performance wringing every ounce of anguish out of the torridly romantic melodrama that crescendos. The changing landscapes that accompany this voyage further drive home the sense of this narrative, and the movie, going into uncharted territory.


The Moment of Truth (Rosi 1965). Poor bulls, and poor horses! Nevertheless, what a vibrant film, the pure, skeletal nature of the narrative adding to its power. This drips with atmosphere, even before getting to the bullfights. Just amazing how Rosi and De Santis were able to achieve this tremendous photography and footage, and make the whole thing succeed using a real matador in the lead (and other non-professional actors), improvising the film as they shot, and doing it in a country governed by a dictatorship no less. A very different kind of film, but to my mind this is up there with Rosi’s previous two masterpieces. Such an abundance of riches in 60s Italian cinema.

[Michael Kerpan]

Rayon Vert --

While Naruse's last film (Scattered Clouds) is quite moving, its two predecessors (The Stranger Within a Woman, and Hit and Run) are "problematic (not worthless -- but not all that successful -- really not HIS sort of films at all). And a few are decent but not outstanding, there are some very impressive ones (and others that are fascinating if imperfect) as well. Yearning is one of the best of the late films (in terms of story and also purely visually). The train sequences and the onsen town ones are both fantastic.

I have seen all of Naruse's films (except the fragmentary wartime films locked away) and I would say very few are not worth seeing -- but perhaps I am biased.

[swo17]

As a reminder, you've all got until the 30th to send me lists, and you can start sending them to me if they're ready as soon as now

[senseabove]

The Happy Ending (Brooks, 1969) — Disillusionment with convention isn't exactly a rare subject in the late 60s, but I don't recall another film that balances the loneliness of conviction, the levity of disrespect, and the fear of the unknown as well as this one. It's also a few years ahead of the curve in focusing on the plight of women beyond a certain age (in a certain light—namely that of a list just finished—you could say it's a Hollywoodified precursor to Fear of Fear), yet it's neither too narrow nor too broad, steadily building the particularities of its main character while also aware that everyone struggles in different ways with the disillusionment of middle age. It's anchored by a superb performance from Jean Simmons, with great supporting turns from Nannette Fabray as her Ritter-esque accomplice, Theresa Wright as her concerned, confused mother, and Shirley Jones as her foil, a miraculous oasis in her desert of loneliness—as well as an unexpected bit part played by Bobby Darin, the aging matinee idol in the role of an aging gigolo looking for his last golden ticket.

Simmons plays a housewife who, having fallen in starry-eyed love while visions of cinematic marriages dance in her head, discovers why those love stories often end just before or at the altar—telegraphed by a wryly ill-timed title card to cap her bemused reverie. The film opens with a précis of her and her husband's college romance and wedding, and then proceeds to the main thread of her irrational, impulsive decision to avoid this year's anniversary party at all costs. Woven throughout it are flashbacks to a quietly disastrous anniversary party the year prior, a separate catastrophic incident, and Simmons' gradual slide into pill-addled alcoholism. It's not quite the misery fest that makes it sound like, though, however miserable Simmons may be. It's always a little wry about it; early on, shortly after we learn of Simmons' alcoholism, she retreats to her room, locks the door, pulls out a bottle of vodka and a magazine, and opens it to a page advertising a tropical getaway: "have a lost weekend," the ad pleads. Among my favorite of such moments is a poignant, heart-breaking, nevertheless hilarious impromptu striptease provoked by an entirely reasonable, angry outburst from her husband; if you've given up so profoundly, at least you can laugh, however briefly, at the expectation that you haven't. In that wryness, Brooks' script knows both the smallness and the magnitude of Simmons' struggle: at one point we watch as she resigns herself to denying each reason as a friend moves down the laundry list of ways husbands can be terrible enough to leave, and at another, as she struggles to escape an ambush by her husband's business client—whose misery we've already seen amply, publicly demonstrated—haranguing them that their apparent marital bliss is impolitic in this modern age: "32% of married couples get divorced and 68% are miserable!" It's downbeat black comedy is a nimble way to show up how everything can be wrong even when it is isn't, everything can be funny in spite of its severity, as when it plays up honor among thieves while undercutting our distrust: when she goes AWOL the day of their party, Simmons' husband calls her mid-day alcoholic haunt, whose bartender casually dismisses him, claiming not to have seen her in months even as she walks in the door and orders "the usual"; then after she buys the broke dipso trying not to shake at the other end of the bar a sympathy shot, we learn that her "usual" is not quite what we'd expect.

If the ending is a little curtly unsatisfactory in the moment, neither an ironic counterpoint to the title nor a willful fantasy affirming it, I expect it's probably because we've been led to expect pyrotechnics and maudlin pity from these types of stories: horrifying benders, senseless agony, endlessly mystifying commitment to destroying one's life. Most of those things are present, gestured to, hinted at, however briefly, but the movie's focus isn't on alcoholism per se or its repercussions; it's interested in the person who is the alcoholic in spite of their state, and because of that, it's allowed a less than catastrophic ending. In that light, I appreciate how the ending is trying to neither shirk nor sugarcoat a subdued finish. There's no miracle cure or edifying lesson; just a quiet willfulness, for better or for worse.

[swo17]

Congratulations on being the first nontherewillbeblus entrant into our Spotlight section!

[senseabove]

Sorry, I'll use a word counter next time.

Some quick shots, from worst to best:

Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968) A bloated shell-game of a film that spends two hours mistaking obfuscation for intelligence, style for strength, and menace for mystique, and then an hour trying to make that rattling framework into... something. Oh, look, vengeance! Fritz Lang said "Great gowns, beautiful gow—I mean composition."

Two for the Road (Donen, 1968) The conceit is amusing enough, but good lord, these two are insufferable, together and apart, nothing about their behavior convinces me they really want to or ought to be together except they keep vocally insisting they do, and just about everyone they meet on their way is insufferable too. If only it ever seemed like they even liked each other... They do seem occasionally horny for each other, and a few times they seem resigned to not hating each other, but those 15 collectives minutes are scattered across the other 95 of resentment, frustration, angst, betrayal, and general ass-holery. Rare is the movie that makes me overjoyed to be single but boy is this ever one.

The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (Lang, 1960) Lang returns to the decidedly uncomplicated mode of his serial years, just pure conspiracy, thrills, and technology that might as well be magic, but with all the polish of his American years in effect. Assured and slick, if a little too, and overall just a very enjoyable caper. If you want to spin some mumbo about Mabuse as director or whatnot, go for it, but I think Lang's just having fun.

Accatone (Pasolini, 1961) Not the debut I was expecting from a director who gave us such heady, supralogical movies as Teorema and Medea later in the decade. Despite lifting its crowded setting of impoverished Roman street life full of hustlers, pimps, and thieves from neo-realism, it's less a movie of economic reality or social struggle than it is about the inner life of a handsome, unlovable rat who almost changes in spite of his own inertia, and doesn't understand it, and doesn't know how to fight it or fight for it.

I fidanzati (Olmi, 1963) An arresting little city symphony bookended by character studies: a young man leaves his elderly father in someone else's care and his fiancé behind when offered a career-starting job on the other end of the country for 18 months, and there, he's a little lost. Olmi has such a wonderful way of keeping the image lively, even if it's of an empty street, and of getting such easy, open performances from his actors—I watched this the same day as OUaTitW, and there's more character in a shot of the lead's profile full of irritation and heartbreak than in all 47 minutes of Charles Bronson mad-dogging the camera in the other. Just marvelous, and I'm even more excited to revisit Il Posto now.

[swo17]

Sorry, I'll use a word counter next time.

I was trying to pay you a compliment!

[senseabove]

I guess tonight it's my turn to get the hook.

[domino harvey]

I really loved the rather long short film included on one of those Olmi Criterions, more than the features even. If you have the discs, don’t overlook it!

[therewillbeblus]

I really loved the rather long short film included on one of those Olmi Criterions, more than the features even. If you have the discs, don’t overlook it!

I put in a plug for La cotta, which I believe is the film you're referring to, and can't possibly agree more. After revisiting it a few weeks ago, it's sitting just outside my top ten, and might even breach it.

[swo17]

I guess tonight it's my turn to get the hook.

Sorry, but Steven Spielberg's Hook is ineligible for our 1960s list

[domino harvey]

Fleur d'oseille (Georges Lautner 1967)
Mireille Darc and Lautner team up yet again for this weird, quasi-comic look at a widowed mother’s attempts to evade bumbling crooks after her dead husband’s stashed loot. The performances in this are pitched so broadly that they’re never engageable on any level, particularly the pathetic gay peanut-eating assassin and the interminable next door painter. The only saving grace is our old friend Dominque Zardi popping up in the finale as one of the many gunmen in the climactic shootout. I've been having better luck with the last couple Lautner films I've seen (Le Pacha and Galia in particular), but after fourteen films of varying quality, this one really resets my Lautner meter back to zero!

L'horizon (Jacques Rouffio 1967)
A somewhat inexplicable film set in WWI but undoubtedly about Vietnam, with Jacques Perrin’s wounded soldier killing time until he’s sent back to the front against his will. What makes this movie so odd and frankly pointless is that the film is filled with characters who interrogate and pushback against Perrin’s conscription, yet Perrin’s protagonist is ambivalent and insists on following through even though he doesn’t care. If the film had doubled down on this and done something with it, it would have at least made for a more interesting pro-Vietnam film than the Green Berets, but I’m not sure the movie has the kind of clarity of vision to offer anything that interesting.

Une balle au cœur (Jean-Daniel Pollet 1966)
Pollet transitions from shorts to features in this disastrous and embarrassingly inept attempt at making a film about a guy “tricked” (but not really) out of his estate by a gangster. I like star Sami Frey in a lot of other films, but I learned from this one that he needs strong direction, which he was never going to find from Pollet, who clearly has no idea what he’s doing. Second billed France Gall shows up for like ten minutes in a highly unlikely role near the end. Her lack of screen stardom to match her musical prowess will be no mystery after watching, should you ignore my advice. The film was co-scripted by Pierre Kast, if you want to some idea of the level of blind leading the blind going on here. This is a revenge movie where the filmmakers are so in over the heads that they apparently either forgot to film or cut for budget one of the pivotal murders in the film, which is instead quickly relayed to us by Frey as matter of fact Wiseau-level exposition. [P]

[Rayon Vert]

The Incident (Peerce 1967). Wow, this knocked me out. Tremendously raw and forceful as a dark crime action thriller. But I was expecting cheaper thrills whereas there’s nuance and psychological depth here along with the shock. The various duos or trios who enter the subway wagon are well delineated, and it’s interesting how there’s hostility among many of them, so that what happens in the subway is kind of a near-karmic and cathartic while still traumatizing climax. And overall just terrific performances, and the whole thing so virtuosically, kinetically shot in such confined quarters.


A Taste of Honey (Richardson 1961). What a charming film. The social elements in the narrative are the “gritty realism” bits I was expecting but what I wasn’t was the lightness of tone, almost Chaplinesque at times, despite the downbeat nature of the material. That dissipates a little bit towards the end - which that point started to remind a bit of

SpoilerShow

the early 50s Bergman young-pregnant-couple films

- but not entirely. And it’s only at the end also that you start feeling a bit the theatrical source of the material. Exceptionally poetic use of the location shooting throughout, but even more powerful is the stunning performances of the three leads that makes this frequently magical.


All Night Long (Dearden 1962). Dearden himself had been portraying interracial relationships for a while already by this point, and again here, but they’re not made a point of interest, they’re just a natural part of this London musicians’ scene. I really liked this funky retelling of Othello, despite some moments of awkwardness here and there. The vitality of the musical performances – Mingus, Brubeck, pretty insane musical “cast” –, even if they're kind of just there into the film, parallels the intensity of the passions aroused in the drama thriller narrative. Pretty entertaining stuff that packs a punch. And how amazing is it that Patrick McGoohan learned to play the drums like that just for this film?


The Mind Benders (Dearden 1963). Quite a step down here though. Potentially fun thriller plot: an investigation reveals lab experiments on extended sensory deprivation are possibly resulting in subjects becoming easy victims of brainwashing, and to test the theory Dirk Bogarde undergoes the treatment himself and is made to believe he hates his beloved wife. Unfortunately the screenplay is a pretty dull slog, with little thrills and stillborn drama, and the film’s denouement is farcically asinine.

[Toland's Mitchell]

A pair of Frank Perry films are leaving The Criterion Channel at the end of the month.

David and Lisa (1962) offers a conventional drama set in a mental treatment home where the two teenaged title characters meet and struggle to express their feelings for each other due to their conditions. Naturally, they become the key to one another's overcoming of their mental problems, and to each others' hearts. It has a formulaic arc to it, with a predictable conclusion. But nevertheless, it provides some tender moments along the way, with decent (though at times exaggerated) performances, making it worth a look, but not remotely worth a spot on my list.

The Swimmer (1968) on the other hand, goes thematically much deeper.

SpoilerShow

It begins with middle-aged happy-go-lucky Ned (wonderfully played by Burt Lancaster) visiting some neighbors/friends, enjoying small talk, and swimming in their pool. Then he decides to visit all of his neighbors on his way home and take a swim in each of their pools, so he can "swim home." However, Ned fails to make a real connection with anyone he encounters, who all seem somewhat dismissive of him. As his journey home unfolds, we learn he is hiding some painfully dark truths about his past that he's clearly denying. It seemed at the beginning, The Swimmer was going to be a fluffy 60s dramedy, but by the end it turned out to be a slow-burning critique of the American upper-middle class. Furthermore, we learn Ned's "swim across the county" was not some fun-filled sunny Saturday afternoon with friends and neighbors, but an illusive desperate act of escape from his harsh reality by means of reaching out to his neighbors in hope of reassurance only to mostly find deaf ears or cold disapproval. I liked this film much more than I expected. It might make my list but I don't know, the 60s are a tough decade to contend with.

[Red Screamer]

High School (Frederick Wiseman, 1968) For the past few years I've been a screener for documentary film festivals and I can’t overstate how hard it is to make a film like this. For a fly on the wall approach that avoids being a passive recording of events, the filmmakers have to have an incredible sensitivity to human behavior, social rhythms, and the telling details of everyday life that are hidden in plain sight. High School is a perfect example: every scene is shocking, funny, and poignant while feeling completely unsurprising. Wiseman's perspective feels more overtly critical here than in his other films I know but that’s not about decisions in his filmmaking as much as it is something that comes with the territory, since high school is a place where gross hierarchy and unfairness are pretty explicitly part of the deal. He also uses more close-ups than he would later as his signatures solidified, but this more impressionistic version of his style fits with the subject matter, and he and cinematographer Richard Leiterman have such a great feeling for which little details are worth focusing on, usually memorable faces and hand movements. The long-take “direct cinema” approach remains fairly objective, but these details tend to tilt the film ever so slightly toward the students’ perspective. In extreme close-up, the school’s adults are briefly reduced to hard, angular faces.

It’s easy to talk about the film as sociological time travel but the overall impression I get is that besides the obvious era markers and a few superficial changes in style (proper elocution was the main one I noticed) hardly anything in the film is dated. It feels closer to what my high school was like four decades later than anything more contemporary that I’ve seen. Part of the reason is that Wiseman’s form focuses on the structure of American high schools more than any particulars of the setting or group of people, and part of it is the unchanging human comedy of some of the situations—dress code violations, anyone? I don’t think the film shows this high school in an especially negative light. I was even surprised by the care and nuance showed by some of the teachers and administrators in their conversations with parents and students: “How did you feel about that comment your father made just then?” “I liked it.” “You liked it? Good.” What a powerful moment. The critical perspective of the film is not aimed at Northeast High School itself but at different facets of American culture with high school simply being the most transparent socialization machine, the place where a culture’s unspoken values and rules are rewarded and enforced literally. The horrifying comments made about the female students’ bodies, for example, are hardly unique to this high school or to a few of its teachers. The woman teaching fashion, for one, appears sincere in her attempt to bolster the girls’ self-esteem and self-expression, even if her calling out one girl over her weight will probably have the opposite effect. On the other hand, the structure of high school clearly gives exceptional outlets for some people’s ugly sides: the teacher who barks up and down the school about hall passes doesn’t really get an equivalent indulgence outside of school (or prison), thank God.

The richness of this film is such that jaw-dropping details quietly fly by one after the other, like the announcement that a student club is discussing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. after school or the student who goofs off in class without the teacher noticing and then instinctively glances at the camera, wondering if he got caught by the other authority figure in the room. And the gutting finale of a teacher proudly reading an anxious letter from one of the school's alumni who's serving in Vietnam has to be one of the best endings of the decade. I could go on and on but I'll stop so I can watch Law & Order (An Examination of Police Practices and Behavior, mind you).

[Rayon Vert]

Scattered Clouds (Naruse 1967). The social analysis that was a lot of the meat in When a Woman Ascends the Stairs and Yearning is largely absent here, leaving all the space to a pure romantic melodrama heavy on the melo (a man who accidentally kills a woman’s husband in a car accident develops feelings for her). No problem, this completely works on that level, with, like Sirk, the artistry completely sublimating or transmuting the potential cheese. Yoko Tsukasa is incredibly sensitive in her performance. It’s also a very pretty film, with a light touch. I’ve got to say this and Yearning are probably in my top 3 favorite Naruses so far along with Floating Clouds.

While Naruse's last film (Scattered Clouds) is quite moving, its two predecessors (The Stranger Within a Woman, and Hit and Run) are "problematic (not worthless -- but not all that successful -- really not HIS sort of films at all). And a few are decent but not outstanding, there are some very impressive ones (and others that are fascinating if imperfect) as well. Yearning is one of the best of the late films (in terms of story and also purely visually).

I’ve watched these from the French Carlotta blu-ray set – the transfers aren’t ideal but so it would seem like they dipped among the director’s best.


Woman of Straw (Dearden 1964). Connery is the nephew of an extremely rich, wheelchair-bound, ill and absolutely despicable John Richardson (who, in one of the many ways he asserts his power, likes to racistly humiliate his black servants), and gets nurse Gina Lollobrigida into a scam to get the old man’s money. He’s got understandable motivations, and she’s actually a nice person who has trouble staying on board with the plan, for one thing because she has difficulty tolerating how nasty Richardson is with others. There’s a lightness of tone for much of this, and it’s likeable while a little middling. But the back end of this fairly long film suddenly goes into the mode of plot twists upending one after another, in a rather sinister way, and it turns out to be pretty good fun. Solid for a rainy Sunday afternoon watch.


The Naked Prey (Wilde 1965). I watched No Blade of Grass for the sci fi project and was less than impressed to say the least, so I wasn’t prepared for how strongly shot, edited, directed, this whole thing is, in addition to being so entertaining. Masterful really – a perfect adventure film. And the view of nature is pretty close to Herzog’s!


Don’t Make Waves (Mackendrick 1967). You know you’re in an odd sex comedy/beach movie when Claudia Cardinale is the female lead and she isn’t the sex interest. Tony Curtis isn’t that much more moral than he was in Sweet Smell of Success (come to think of it, this is a bit like a mash-up of that film and Some Like It Hot), but this such light fluff that he isn’t unlikeable. Oddly written script, unevenly funny but still enjoyable to a degree, with some screwball charm to it. I can kind of see why Andrew Sarris liked it.

[senseabove]

It's by no means great, but I love Don't Make Waves so much. Everybody just kinda gave up on it being a "good" movie and decided they're at least going to have fun with it, even if they hate it. The pouty way the big blonde muscle-bound himbo says "the West Coast Mr Big Boy contest" is one of those weird little isolated things I find so inexplicably, disproportionately funny that it will live in my head until I am senile.

[Michael Kerpan]

Rayon Vert -- I see the Carlotta Naruse set also has Sounds of the Mountain -- which was an early favorite (and still is).

[therewillbeblus]

The Incident (Peerce 1967). Wow, this knocked me out. Tremendously raw and forceful as a dark crime action thriller. But I was expecting cheaper thrills whereas there’s nuance and psychological depth here along with the shock. The various duos or trios who enter the subway wagon are well delineated, and it’s interesting how there’s hostility among many of them, so that what happens in the subway is kind of a near-karmic and cathartic while still traumatizing climax. And overall just terrific performances, and the whole thing so virtuosically, kinetically shot in such confined quarters.

If you're able to find it, Dutchman is my favorite subway thriller from the decade, though it's far less conventionally-assaultive than The Incident's clear hoodlums-taunting-passengers albeit with a similar cumulative effect. There's something so terrifying about the threat of unpredictable social violations, i.e. that anybody can enter our bubbles and relentlessly pummel us on physical and psychological levels until we break, and Dutchman's sexual component, that triggered me in ways I was unwilling let alone prepared to face, adds an extra layer of horror (this even made my horror list, though we can already agree to disagree on that genre-signifier in advance!) Anyways, PM me if you can't locate it anywhere, it's under an hour long and a lock for the upper-half of my list