Category Archives: 1966

The Pornographers (1966) (Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyumon)
Directed by Shohei Imamura
Written by Shohei Imamura and Koji Numata from a novel by Akiyuki Nosaka
1966/Japan
Imamura Productions/Nikkatsu
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box]on his friendships with prostitutes and bar hostesses] They weren’t educated and they were vulgar and lusty, but they were also strongly affectionate and they instinctively confronted all their own sufferings. I grew to admire them enormously. — Shohei Imamura [/box]

Another Imamura film that went over my head.

Mr. Ogata tries to keep his pornography business afloat while battling mobsters who want to claim a share of the profits.  On top of that he has a problematic domestic life to attend to with invalid wife, mistress, step-son and sexy step-daughter.

This film uses pornography more as a metaphor for modern consumerism than anything else.  Any examples are very discrete with minimal nudity.   I think this is the fourth Imamura movie I’ve seen.  It is probably the most accessible of those.  As usual, I got lost in the convoluted plot and self-consciously arty style about a quarter of the way through and never regained interest..

Clip

Georgy Girl
Directed by Silvio Nazzarizano
Written by Margaret Foster and Peter Nichols from a novel by Foster
1966/UK
Columbia Pictures Corporation/Everglades Productions
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Hey there, Georgy girl/ There’s another Georgy deep inside/ Bring out all the love you hide and, oh, what a change there’d be/The world would see/a new Georgy girl. Lyrics by Jim Dale; performed by The Seekers[/box]

Cinderella story is an OK product of the Swinging Sixties.

Georgy (Lynn Redgrave) is the gauche and over-large in every way daughter of the butler to an English aristocrat (James Mason).  Master wants Georgy to be his mistress. Georgy is living with spoiled sex-pot Meredith (Charlotte Rampling) who is a concert flautist.  Most nights are also shared with Meredith’s boyfriend Jos (Alan Bates), with whom Georgy is secretly in love.  Complications arise when Meredith falls pregnant.

Lynn Redgrave is so charming in this movie it seems the part was created for her.  So I was surprised to see the trivia that it was originally casted with her sister Vanessa.  The entire cast is strong and carries the picture, which is otherwise a fairly predictable example of its genre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDedx_LMoFw

The Trouble with Angels
Directed by Ida Lupino
Written by Blanche Hanalis from a novel by Jane Trahey
1966/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/William Frye Productions/Eaves Movie Ranch
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Mary Clancy: I’ve got the most scathingly brilliant idea![/box]

About as cute as any convent comedy has the right to be.

Mary Clancy (Haley Mills) and Rachel Devery (June Harding) become fast friends immediately upon arrival at St. Francis Academy for Girls.  The imaginative Mary keeps them in trouble with Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) for the next several years.

I saw this on original release.  It remains a fairly entertaining family comedy.

The Wild Angels
Directed by Roger Corman
Written by Peter Bogdanovich and Charles B. Griffith
1966/USA
American International Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Heavenly Blues: We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! … And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that’s what we are gonna do. We are gonna have a good time… We are gonna have a party.[/box]

Totally over-the-top biker movie starring some of the future’s best actors.

The Wild Angels motorcycle gang is clearly based on the Hells Angels, whose members participated as extras.  The gang is under the leadership of Heavenly Blue (Peter Fonda) and “Mama” Mike (Nancy Sinatra).  Heavenly Blue, Mike, best friend “Loser” (Bruce Dern), and Loser’s girlfriend Gaysh (Diane Ladd) head off to the Coachella Valley to retrieve Loser’s bike from some Mexicans who stole it.  Lots of brawling, partying, drug use, and general anti-establishment behavior ensue.  With Michael J. Pollard as a gang member.

I had to see this as most of it is set close to where I live.  The movie is really quite fun from the horrible acting to the surf music sound track.  Bruce Dern chews the scenery with great relish.  Hard to believe that he would become a staple in Hollywood.  Go for it if the genre appeals.

Fun trivia:  Dern and then-wife Diane Ladd conceived daughter actress Laura Dern during the making of this picture.

Le dieuxieme souffle (“Second Wind”)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
Written by Jean-Pierre Melville and José Giovanni from a novel by Giovanni
1966/France
Les Productions Montaigne
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] It so happens that the gangster story is a very suitable vehicle for the particular form of modern tragedy called film noir, which was born from American detective novels. It’s a flexible genre. You can put whatever you want into it, good or bad. And it’s a fairly easy vehicle to use to tell stories that matter to you about individual freedom, friendship, or rather human relationships, because they’re not always friendly. Or betrayal, one of the driving forces in American crime novels. — Jean-Pierre Melville[/box]

A brutal, detailed, and realistic late French noir.  Worth watching, despite its length.

Gustave (“Gu”) Minda (Lino Ventura) is a notorious French criminal.  He is the lone survivor of an audacious prison escape with two fellow inmates.  He heads for Paris where he meets up with lover Manouche and former criminal associates.  Shots soon ring out in her restaurant and what will be a high body count begins to mount.

Police inspector Commissaire Blot (Paul Meurisse) is on the case and has solved it from first glance.  But it seems he doesn’t mind too much if underworld rivals continue to rub each other out.  Gu goes into hiding in Marseilles and eventually is taken on as the fourth in the holdup of a platinum transport.  As usual, the anti-hero vows one last job and never to return to prison.  Plenty of double crosses on the way to the explosive finale.

Melville creates a striking sense of realism while telling his tale of “honor” among thieves and its betrayal.  The acting is fantastic.  Love Blot!  I think I might have liked it better had the screenwriters picked up the pace but recommend it nonetheless to fans of the genre or director.

The investigation begins

This Property Is Condemned
Directed by Sidney Pollock
Written by Francis Ford Coppola, Fred Coe, and Edith Summer suggested by a one-act play by Tennessee Williams
1966/USA
Paramount Pictures/Seven Arts Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Alva Starr: New Orleans is certainly not a place where a person needs to feel the pain of separation for long.[/box]

One of the last of the Tennessee-Williams Southern-fried psychodramas of this period.  Williams disowned the film.  Still watchable though.

The story is framed by a conversation between Willy Starr (Mary Badham) and a local  boy about what happened to her sister Alva.  Alva (Natalie Wood) is one of those dreamy poetic Tennessee Williams heroines in the tradition of Blanche DuBois.  Her domineering mother (Kate Reid) sees her beauty as a meal ticket for the whole family and tries to pimp her out to a middle-aged train conductor with an invalid wife.  Others interested in Alva Include Sidney (Robert  Blake) and even mom’s boyfriend J.J. Nichols (Charles Bronson).

But Alva falls hard and fast for Owen Ligate (Robert Redford) who has arrived in town to close down the railroad station on which all depend.  Owen eventually reciprocates.  But mama has other ideas.

The acting in this is swell as is James Wong Howe’s cinematography.  It just kind of feels like an erzatz version of what we have seen before several times.

Fantastic Voyage
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Harry Kleiner; adapted by David Duncan from a story by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby
1966/USA
Twentieth Century Fox
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Col. Donald Reid: A woman has no place on a mission of this size![/box]

This sci-fi classic is not as fantastic as I remember from my youth.  Still pretty cool for its time.

A defecting scientist develops a blood clot in the brain.  In the not so distant future, a submarine and its crew are miniaturized to sub-microbe size and injected into the carotid artery from which there is a direct route to the brain.  When there they will destroy the clot with a laser.  But there is the threat of treachery from within and the patient’s physiology throws a monkey wrench into the works.  Can the crew complete its mission within the 60 minutes before they start growing and are destroyed by the body’s immune system?  With Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Pleasance, and Arthur O’Connell.

This movie is all about its concept and its special effects.  Certainly it wasn’t going to win any awards for acting or dialogue.  Now the effects appear pretty cheesy but in the movie theater they were magic to my eyes.  Fleischer keep things moving along.  All in all, it’s a an entertaining romp.

Fantastic Voyage won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color and Best Effects, Special Visual Affects.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Cinematography, Color; Best Film Editing and Best Effects, Sound Effects.

Funeral in Berlin
Directed by Guy Hamilton
Written by Evan Jones from a novel by Len Deighton
1966/UK
Jovera Pictures AG/SA/Lowndes Productions Limited
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Harry Palmer: We get plenty of Russians. It’s a pity you’re not Chinese.[/box]

Some snappy dialogue and the gorgeous young Michael Caine make this a fairly entertaining mid-sixties spy movie.

Harry Palmer (Caine) is a thief turned British secret service agent.  He is assigned to help retiring East German official Col. Stok (Oskar Homolka) defect to the West across the Wall.  Palmer doubts the Colonel’s sincerity as he carries on with the task at hand.  Will he become caught up in a deadly game?  Of course he will.

This aims for kind of a middle ground between the Bond films and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and but lacks the excitement of the former and the tension of the latter.  It’s OK entertainment though and I could happily watch this era Caine in much worse films than this.  Such a treat to see Homolka still up to his old tricks!