Monthly Archives: August 2018

Thunderball
Directed by Terence Young
Written by Richard Malbaum, John Hopkins, and Jack Whittingham from an original story by Ian Fleming et al
1965/UK
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Domino: So… what sharp little eyes you’ve got.

James Bond: Wait ’til you get to my teeth.[/box]

The gadgetry is taken to new levels in the fifth of the Bond series.

SPECTRE steals two atomic bombs from a NATO plane and is holding them for 100 million pounds ransome.  James Bond (Sean Connery) follows the trail to the underwater lair of SPECTRE big wheel Emilio Largo in the Bahamas.

Bond fights sharks, an army of speargun wielding divers, and assorted assassins, all while bedding a covey of Bond girls, both bad and good.  The ending is never in doubt.

I thought this lacked some of the wit and pacing of the earlier films but thoroughly enjoyed it anyway.  Some of the coolest gadgetry to date is included along with product placements which only increase in later films.

Thunderball won the Academy Award for Best Special Effects, Visual Effects.

Sands of the Kalahari
Directed by Cy Endfield
Written by Cy Endfield from a novel by William Mulvihill
1965/USA/UK
Joseph M. Schenk Enterprises/Pendennis Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Leon C. Megginson[/box]

Plenty of action and violence in this story of passengers stranded in the desert after a plane crash.

A small prop plane crashes in the midst of the vast Kalahari desert in Southern Africa.  Passenger Brian O’Brian (Stuart Whitman) grabs the only rifle on board and immediately assumes cave man mode.  He lays claim to Grace Monckton (Susannah York) the only female survivor and starts slaying animals for food.

After some days, Brian begins to view his fellow passengers as competition for scarce recources and forces them one-by-one into almost certainly unsurvivable treks deeper into the desert.  The second half of the film is filled with man-animal and man-on-man violence and leads to a very satisfying ending.

If you like this sort of thing, this movie is quite OK.  The animal slaughter was a bit too much for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wuDY-1GzEI

The clip I could find was a giant spoiler

Loves of a Blonde (Lasky jedne plavovlasky)
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek, Ivan Passer and Vaclav Stasek
1965/Czechoslovakia
CBK/Filmove Studio Barrandov/Sebor
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [repeated lines] Milda: I don’t have a girl in Prague. I don’t have a girl in Prague. [/box]

Milos Forman delivers a Czech New Wave film with all the foolishness and pain of trying to find romance – this time from the girl’s point of view.

Andula works with many other young women in a State factory in the middle of nowhere. The female:male ratio is 16:1.  The factory manager asks that soldiers be stationed near the plant to lessen turnover rates.  Unfortunately, he gets middle-aged married reservists instead of the young recruits he was hoping for.  This leads to a very funny dance scene where the men agonize about asking the ladies to dance as the girls sit half hoping to be chosen and half dreading it.

Andula arguably lucks out by attracting the attention of Milda, the young piano player for the band.  This guy is full of slick moves and beds her that very night.  His life becomes more complicated when Andula takes his invitation to visit him in Prague seriously.  Milda’s parents are not amused to find Andula on their doorstep.

This is a droll, deadpan slice of life film that easily won me over.  All the characters are very human.  Recommended.

Loves of a Blonde was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Clip

Bunny Lake Is Missing
Directed by Otto Preminger
Written by John and Penelope Mortimer from a novel by Marryam Modell
1965/UK
Wheel Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Doll-maker: This doll had almost been loved to death. You know, love inflicts the most terrible injuries on my small patients.[/box]

Although it was very nice to look at, I could not suspend my disbelief long enough to enjoy this thriller.

Americans Ann Lake (Carol Lynley) and her brother Steven (Keir Dullea) have just arrived in London where he has work.  It is the first day at nursery school for her 4 1/2 year old illegitimate daughter Bunny, named after Ann’s imaginary childhood friend.  Ann leaves the girl at the school and goes to greet the movers.  When she returns, Bunny is missing. Furthermore, no one can actually remember seeing her.

Superintendent Newhouse (Laurence Olivier) of Scotland Yard takes up the search.  Ann and Steven do what they can to assist.  Investigators meet frustration at every turn.  Is Bunny Lake missing?  With Noel Coward as a weirdo neighbor.

The B&W cinematography is stunning and, though Lynley is weak in the lead, the acting is very good in the main.  Yet I was not impressed.  The whole thing seemed forced and builds to an ending that will not withstand 30 seconds of scrutiny.  Maybe I have been spoiled by too much thirties viewing and need to ease my way into the 60’s?

Those Calloways
Directed by Norman Tokar
Written by Louis Pelletier from a book by Paul Annixter
1965/USA
Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Ed Parker: Well, Sir, you take a goose and you put it in a pan. And you take a hand, a big hand, full of bread stuffing, you know? And then you mix that stuffing thoroughly with about, eh, oh, I’d say a half a jug of hard cider. Then you put in a pinch of nutmeg, just a pinch. Then you baste the goose for about, er, oh… about three hours. You baste it with a pint and half of good Jamaica rum.

Dell Fraser: [skeptically] yeah, well…

Ed Parker: Then, you throw the goose away. And you drink the gravy![/box]

Just what you would expect from a Disney family film.  My enjoyment was marred slightly by my lack of sympathy for Canada Geese.

The Calloway family of backwoods New England – father Cam (Brian Keith); mother Lydia (Vera Miles) and grown son Bucky (Brandon DeWilde) – live a simple life and earn most of their income from fur trapping.  They, like the local Native Americans, regard wild geese as their totem animal and thrill at the site of them migrating over their property twice each year.  Cam is determined to build a sanctuary for them.  An evil real estate developer has other ideas – he wants to sell the area as a hunting resort.  Much drama – mainly domestic – ensues.  With Ed Wynn and Walter Brennan in supporting roles as townspeople.

Anyone who has ever lived in an American suburb inhabited by Canada Geese and their droppings knows that this bird can fend for itself quite nicely, thank you very much.  Which doesn’t mean I sympathize with hunters, just that they are not going extinct any time soon! So the quest fo the Calloways felt a bit empty to me, expecially since they have no problem whatsoever killing other wild things.  Anyway, this has Disney quality and heart to recommend it as a family film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaD824a-yOM

Clip

Sandra Dee was the last star remaining under contract to a studio – Universal. The fourth James Bond film Thunderball had the highest domestic box-office earning of the Bond films to date – $600 million when adjusted for inflation.  Goldfinger (1964) was a distant second with $531.7 million adjusted. 

Director John Lamb’s nudist film The Raw Ones was the first to openly show genitalia, now allowed after a court decision that ruled displays of private parts were not obscene.  This was an essential link between the “nudie-cutie” films of the late 50’s and the hard-core porn films of the 70’s.  Julie Christie’s Oscar-winning performance in John Schlesinger’s Darling was the first in which the winner had appeared in a nude scene.

The year’s roster of deaths includes:  Stan Laurel (74); David O. Selznik (63); Jeanette MacDonald (61); Margaret Dumont (82); Linda Darnell (41); Judy Holliday (43); Steve Cochran (48); Ray Collins (78); Dorothy Dandridge (42); Clara Bow (60); Zachary Scott (51); Henry Travers (91).  Joseph I. Breen, chief administrator of the Hays Code from 1934 to 1954 died at age 77 and began rolling in his grave.  May they all rest in peace.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lead a civil rights march in Alabama from Selma to Mobil.  It was twice halted by state troopers before the U.S. Army and National Guard allowed it to proceed.  In August, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote.  Race riots broke out in Watts, Los Angeles.

The United States launched Operation Rolling Thunder in Vietnam.  A major power blackout hit New York City along with large swathes of the American Northeast and Ontario.

Billboard #1 song of 1965 – “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs – was kept off the weekly charts by such hits as “Satisfaction”, “I Got You Babe”, and “Yesterday.”  The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  Frank D. Gilroy’s The Subject Was Roses won for Drama.  Time Magazine’s Man of the Year was President Lyndon B. Johnson.

British designer Mary Quant introduced the mini skirt.  Rhodesia declared unilateral independence from Great Britain and became Zimbabwe.  Australia entered the Vietnam War.  Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag.  An attempted coup by Communists in Indonesia led to unrest killing half a million people and a transition to the “New Order” of dictator Major General Suharto.

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I’m slowly building up enthusiasm for 1965.  The films I will select from can be found here.