Category Archives: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (Il vangelo secondo Matteo)
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1964/Italy/France
Arco Film/Lux Compagnie Cinematographique de France
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Christ: Many are called, but few are chosen.[/box]

Pasolini presents a beautiful and bleak vision of the life of a very human Christ.

Though Pasolini is given the writing credit all the spoken dialogue and narration comes directly from the Gospel According to Matthew.  Christ is portrayed as a peasant among the poorest of the poor.  His birth, preaching, miracles, crucifixion and resurrection are all starkly portrayed against the bleakest of landscapes.

The cast is made-up of non-actors.  Jesus is the only one that is really required to do any acting however.  The other characters speak volumes with their haunting faces.  Jesus is a fiery speaker in line with the atheist Pasolini’s contention that he was the world’s greatest revolutionary.  Yet all the supernatural parts of the story, from the virgin birth, through the miracles and resurrection are included as well.  The costuming of the pharisees, etc. took some getting used to for me.  The score is a mix of American Blues and classical music. Recommended.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White; Best Costume Design, Black-and-White; and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.

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The Masque of the Red Death
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell from a story by Edgar Allen Poe
1964/USA
Alta Vista Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Man in red: Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long long time.[/box]

This has long been my favorite of Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe films.

A horrific plague known as the red death is ravaging the medieval Italian countryside. Propero (Vincent Price), an evil Lord, offers sanctuary in his castle for those as yet uninfected.  Prospero also abducts an innocent young village girl Francesca (Jane Asher) along with her father and sweetheart for sadistic entertainment purposes.

The invited noble guests participate in a masked costume ball that is slated to end in some kind of Satanic ritual.  In the meantime, the Lady Juliana (Hazel Court) makes her own pact with Satan as Prospero attempts to corrupt Francesca.

By far the most graphic of Corman’s Poe films, this one is filled with palpable menace and evil.  Price makes a truly diabolic villain and the film is fantastically lighted by future director Nicholas Roeg.  A lot of care went into this one.  Recommended.

Gertrud
Directed by Carl Th. Dreyer
Written by Carl. Th. Dreyer from a play by Hjalmar Sodenberg
1964/Denmark
Palladium Film
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Gabriel Lidman: You taught me love is everything. We shouldn’t be alone. I have been alone much too much. We shouldn’t be just one of many. We need to be one of two.[/box]

Unbelievable how a story of love, passion, and heartbreak could be so emotionless.

In Gertrud’s world view, romantic love should be a person’s everything.  Naturally, she is disappointed with her lawyer husband’s love.  He is consumed with work and ambitious for a role in politics.  Prior to her marriage, she left her poet lover due to his dedication to work.

Now Gertrud is in love with a composer.  He’s going to break her heart as neither her husband nor her poet ever could.

I am a big fan of Dreyer’s work but this film leaves me completely cold.  The characters don’t even look at each other and keep a dead pan expression at all times.  It doesn’t help that I find Gertrud to be unlikeable in the extreme.  She deserves to be miserable.

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The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Les parapluies de Cherbourg)
Directed by Jacques Demy
Written by Jacques Demy
1964/France/West Germany
Park Film/Madeleine Films/Beta Film
First viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Madame Emery: Stop crying. Look at me. People only die of love in movies.

Demy gave us a spectacular Easter basket full of color and music.  I love this movie.

Seventeen-year-old Genevieve Emery (Catherine Deneuve) helps her widowed mother in the family umbrella shop.  She is madly in love with Guy, who is twenty.  He works in a garage and lives with his ailing godmother.  They are talking marriage when Guy’s draft notice arrives, sending him away for two years to Algeria.  Good-byes mean a night of passion and eternal vows of love.

Genevieve attracts another suitor – older, richer and more sophisticated – but her heart belongs to Guy.  When she discovers she is pregnant, can her vows overcome reality?

I had seen the first 10 minutes of this  before.  I can’t believe I didn’t stay to see the whole thing.  I may have been turned off by the sung dialogue.  This time, its beauty blew me away.  It has also got a wonderfully tender story and Michel Legrand’s fantastic score to accompany the eye candy.  Highly recommended.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen; Best Music, Original Song (“I Will Wait for You”); Best Music, Score – Substantially Original; and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.

The Red Desert (Il deserto rosso)
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
Written by Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
1964/Italy/France
Film Duemila/Federiz/Francoriz Production
First viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Giuliana: There’s something terrible about reality and i don’t know what it is. No one will tell me.[/box]

For his first color film, Antonioni turns Italy into a colorless industrial wasteland matching his heroine’s fragile state of mind.

The story is set largely in and on the margins of bleak, polluted factories.  Guliana’s (Monica Vitti) husband Ugo manages one of these.  Early on, he tells colleague Corrado Zeller (Richard Harris) that she had a traffic accident in which she suffered minor physical injuries but mental shock that necessitated hospitalization for a month.  She still has not fully recovered from her mental problems.  Ugo is not really aware of the extent of Guliana’s malaise.  Ugo and Guliano have a son, who is around five or six years old.

During the course of the story, we see Guliana try and fail to find some meaning in her life. Eventually, she has a brief affair with Corrado but that doesn’t help either.  Still Antonioni gives us a glimmer of hope in the final moments when Guliana is able both to look at her environment and walk away from its poison.

I feel like I missed a lot on this first viewing.  The film is so spectacular to look at and Vitti is so awesome, however, that I feel like I will give it another try at some point.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Written by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George from a novel by Peter George
1964/USA/UK
Columbia Pictures Corporation/Hawk Films
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Major T. J. “King” Kong: Well, I’ve been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones. You sure you got today’s codes?[/box]

My definition of a classic comedy:  when one can have all the lines memorized and it is still funny.

This black comedy takes place in the last several hours before the apocalypse.  General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has become obsessed with Commie contamination of his precious bodily fluids and decides to order the bomber wing he commands to drop its hydrogen bomb cargo over the Soviet Union.  He figures that the politicians will have no other choice that opt for an all-out attack before the Soviets can retaliate.  His executive officer RAF Group Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) frantically attempts to get the general to see reason and retract the order but ends up being held captive by the lunatic.

In the meantime, we are given views of the activities inside a single bomber piloted by Maj. ‘King’ Kong (Slim Pickens).  In the capital, Presiident Merkin Muffley (Sellers again) calls a meeting of his cabinet and Chiefs of Staff in the War Room to discuss the situation.  Hawk Gen. ‘Buck’ Turgidson (George C. Scott) counsels all-out war but the President decides to enlist the cooperation of the Soviets to shoot down the bombers.  Late in the game, German nuclear expert Dr. Strangelove (also Sellers) is called in for his advice.  With Keenan Wynn as Col. ‘Bat’ Guano.

The plot summary doesn’t sound too funny but this is all played for belly laughs.  Just the character names crack me up.  Every single actor was on the top of his game – none more so than Sellers who creates three distinct characters with a perfect grasp of the accent of each one.  He is wonderful.  I always get a big kick out of George C. Scott as well.  The black-and-white cinematography is stunning.  Highly recommmended.

Dr. Strangelove was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor (Sellers); Best Director; and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

My Fair Lady
Directed by George Cukor
Written by Alan Jay Lerner from a play by George Bernard Shaw
1964/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Eliza Doolittle: Come on, Dover! Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ arse![/box]

Beautiful music, great acting, gorgeous production values.  Who could ask for anything more?

Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is a cantankerous confirmed bachelor and phoneticist.  When he meets Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn), he boasts he could pass her off as a duchess in six months using his methods to change her speech.  Friend Col. Pickering (Wilfred Hyde-White) takes him up on his bet.  Higgins works Eliza mercilessly.

She proves to be an apt pupil.  But Higgins takes all the credit for her transformation. Higgins’ own mother (Gladys Cooper) takes Eliza’s side in the ensuing falling out.  With the marvelous Stanley Hollaway as Eliza’s boozy dustman father.

I can never resist a good Cinderella story.  While Audrey Hepburn seems more comfortable as a princess, than as a gutter snipe this remains one of the great ones.  I’ve loved this since its original release and I’m not going to change my mind at this late date.

My Fair Lady won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Director; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Costume Design, Color; Best Sound; and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Supporting Actor (Holloway); Best Supporting Actress (Cooper); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; and Best Film Editing.

Goldfinger
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn
1964/UK
Eon Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?

Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die![/box]

The perfect entertainment.

James Bond’s  (Sean Connery) next target Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe)  is believed by the Bank of England to be stockpiling gold.  In Miami, Bond discovers that Goldfinger must win every game at all costs.  When he breaks up a rigged card game, Goldfinger/Bond girl Jill Masterson becomes a golden corpse.

Bond’s travels then take him to Geneva, where he first meets Pussy (!) Galore (Honor Blackman), Goldfinger’s cold professional pilot.  Bond narrowly escapes death multiple times while discovering that “Operation Grand Slam” is intended to contaminate the gold reserve at Fort Knox by means of a dirty atomic bomb.  The stakes get higher and higher as we get closer to the US gold depository.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  I keep saying that every Bond film is the one that solidifies the franchise but I now admit Goldfinger has got to be that one.  Everything from the puns to the product placements is firmly in place.  The gadgets are awesome and the situations are thrillingly over-the-top.  Recommended.

Goldfinger won the Academy Award for Best Effects, Sound Effects.  It should have received at least a nod for Best Music, Original Song.

Marnie
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Jay Presson Allen from the novel by Winston Graham
1964/USA
Universal Pictures/Geoffrey Stanley/Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Marnie Edgar: I don’t believe in luck.

Mark Rutland: What do you believe in?

Marnie Edgar: Nothing.[/box]

I’m not as fond of Hitchcock when he goes into psychoanalytic mode.  Despite this, Marnie is a stylish and enjoyable thriller.

We quickly learn that Marnie, using many different aliases, is a cunning habitual thief.  Her MO is to get bookkeeping positions with companies and use her time to figure out how to access the safe.  She has just made her getaway from one such crime as the movie begins. The business owner tells client Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) and Mark remembers having seen the woman before.  So when she coincidentally applies for a job as a payroll clerk at the Rutledge family company, Mark insists she be hired without any real references.  He is a student of instinctual animal behavior and sees the attractive Marnie as a case study.

After he catches Marnie in the act, he blackmails her into marrying him.  But it turns out Marnie cannot bear to be touched by men.  We have previously learned that Marnie has phobias of the color red and thunderstorms and suffers from recurrent nightmares.  Now Mark takes on the bigger task of turning amateur psychoanalyst to get to the bottom of Marnie’s disfunction.  With Diane Baker as Marnie’s rival and Louise Latham as Marnie’s mother.

Hitchcock’s psychoanalytics always seem painfully simplistic to me – Spellbound being another film I cannot really get behind.  But for various  reasons, I have a real fondness for Marnie.  Sean Connery’s sex appeal is not the least of its these.  I also like Edith Head’s fashions and many of the set pieces.  Recommended.

Marnie

A Hard Day’s Night
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by Alun Owen
1964/UK
Walter Shenson Films/Proscenium Films/Maljack Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] John: We know how to behave! We’ve had lessons.[/box]

Still a Beatlemaniac after all these years!

This is the filmmakers’ idea of a “typical” day in the life of the Beatles.  It begins with an escape from adoring fans and ends with a TV concert attended by the same screaming girls.

In between the boys cope with Paul’s “clean” grandfather, who lives for causing trouble; attend a cocktail party/press interview; and have fun on a train.  Ringo breaks away and proves himself to be a talented silent actor.

The group is so iconic by now that it is totally refreshing to be reminded just how talented and charming they really were. As familiar as it is, the music still bursts forth like a breath of fresh air.  Fortunately, the film does not require any of them to “act”. They are fantastic playing themselves.  The Criterion Blu-Ray contains a good commentary from people who were involved in the production.  Everything was done in quite a rush to get it out while the group was still hot.  Little did they know …  Highly recommended.

A Hard Day’s Night was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directedly for the Screen and Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment (George Martin).

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