Mademoiselle Directed by Tony Richardson Written by Marguerite Duras; story by Jean Genet 1966/UK/France Procinex/Woodfall Film Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up. Joseph Wambaugh [/box]
Despite Jeanne Moreau’s great performance, this was ultimately just a downer as far as I was concerned.
“Mademoiselle”( Moreau) is the highly respectable and very evil school teacher in a French village. Practically from the first frame it is clear that she delights in death and destruction and is responsible for a series of fires, a flood and water poisoning afflicting the local farmers. But the townspeople are sure a hunky Italian itinerate logger (Ettore Manni) is responsible. Mademoiselle becomes infatuated with the handsome young womanizer.
This film takes a very dim view of humanity and not in a blackly comic way. It was not for me.
Zontar: The Thing from Venus Directed by Larry Buchanan Written by Hilman Taylor and Larry Buchanan 1966USA Azalea Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Keith Ritchie: The world is full of facts.[/box]
This grade Z TV movie is an absolute hoot from its absurdly expository dialogue to its ridiculous creature.
Rocket scientist Keith Ritchie has invented a way of communicating with Venus via laser beams. Venusian Zontar has Ritchie convinced that he is on his way to save Earthlings from themselves and initiate a new age of world peace. Zontar plans to establish control by sending drones to take over the bodies and minds of community leaders. Too late, Keith begins to doubt the benevolence of his monster buddy’s plans. John Agar appears as an elder scientist.
American International Pictures commissioned schlockmeister Larry Buchanan to remake Roger Corman’s It Conquered the World (1956) to fill out a TV package deal and this little gem was the result The tiny budget is evident in every shot. The actors labor with dialogue that might have come from a Popular Science magazine or is so silly you can only laugh. And laugh you will if you approach this very lame movie in the right frame of mind. No riff track necessary.
The Sand Pebbles Directed by Robert Wise Written by Robert Anderson from a novel by Richard McKenna 1966/USA Argyle Productions/Solar Productions/Robert Wise Productions/Twentieth Century Fox
First viewing/Amazon Instant
Despite all its accolades, this grouchy viewer found The Sand Pebbles to be a 3-hour snooze-fest punctuated by episodes of cruelty and racial violence. Not my cup of tea at all.
The year is 1926 and the setting is a tributary of the Yangtse River in China. Revolution is in the air. The Great Powers are still attempting gunboat diplomacy. Jake Holman (Steve McQueen) is an engineer in the U.S. Navy whose whole life is engines. He is looking forward to serving on an older gunboat where he can be his own boss. He finds out too late that crazy Captain Collins (Richard Crenna) has hired Chinese coolies to perform all the manual labor on board. All the Americans on board are supposed to be available for the ship’s military mission should it ever have one. The coolie in charge of the engine room tries to sabotage Jake.
Eventually, that coolie is killed and Jake is forced to train another Chinese to take his place. Po-han (Mako) and Jake eventually become friends. Po-han pays dearly for this. Jake has a tentative romance with a schoolteacher (Candice Bergen) who works in a missionary compound up river. In the meantime, shipmate Frenchy (Richard Attenborough) falls in love with a Chinese virgin who his being held for sale to the highest bidders. The local population becomes more and more hostile to the American presence. I’ll stop there.
Within the first 15-minutes of this film it was clear that Wise was as interested in making a travelogue as in making an action movie. So we get a lot of beautiful scenery that does not advance the action. On top of that, Steve McQueen is forced to act a lot with his face. This is not his forte. We spend many minutes watching him explore the engine while contemplating something or other. The action picks up whenever the Chinese enter the picture. Unfotunately, they are usually being subjected to cruel treatment. I’m not big on watching that kind of thing either. So it wasn’t for me. Jerry Goldsmith’s score is a thing of beauty, however.
The Sand Pebbles was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of: Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Supporting Actor (Mako); Best Cinematography, Color; Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Original Score.
Walk, Don’t Run Directed by Charles Walters Written by Sol Saks based on a story by Robert Russell and Frank Ross 1966/US Sol C. Siegel Productions
First viewing/YouTube
[box] Christine Easton: After 7:45, you can have the bathroom all day if you’d like.
Sir William Rutland: I wouldn’t know what to do in the bathroom all day![/box]
Cary Grant’s final film is a remake of 1943’s The More the Merrier with Grant in the Charles Coburn part. The earlier film is classic, this one is fairly fun.
Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar) works at the British Embassy in Tokyo. She considered it her patriotic duty to offer up her apartment to share during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. She had intended to attract a female roommate but industrialist Sir William Rutland (Grant), who has arrived two days before his hotel reservation, muscles himself in. Shortly thereafter, Rutland meets and takes a liking to young American architect and Olympic compeititor Steve Davis (Jim Hutton) and agrees to share wis room with him. When he finds out Christine is engaged to an awful diplomat, he starts matchmaking.
There was a time in the mid-60’s when the Code was gone and mainstream filmmakers took the opportunity to get slightly racy with their content. Oftentimes as here, the result is double entendres that just feel icky somehow. An example is the long conversation between Grant and Hutton about whether Eggar “has … ” or not. The movie is also filled with unfunny jabs at the Soviets. But. still, there’s Grant as suave as ever and he has some funny physical business to do. As a bonus, we get to hear him hum the theme songs from Charade and An Affair to Remember!
Unused theme song – love this! – feels like summer
The Hawks and the Sparrows (Uccellacci e uccellini) Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini Written by Pier Paolo Palolini and Dante Ferretti 1966/Italy Arco Film
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] [on atheism] If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief. (1966) – Pier Paolo Pasolini[/box]
Pasolini shows his whimsical side in this biting satire of class struggle and religious conflict.
Innocenti Toto (Toto) and Innocenti Ninetto (Ninetto Davoli) are two bums wandering around the backroads of Italy as their hunger pangs increase. They meet up with a Marxist crow who passes the time by telling them a fable.
In medieval times, two monks (also portrayed by Toto and Davoli) are sent by God on missions to convert the hawks and the sparrows. Will success make friends of the two enemies?
Toto is a classic clown and this is an amusing film. Love the ending! Ennio Morricone’s fun score sounds a lot like surfing music and works amazingly well.
Black Girl (La noire de …) Directed by Ousmane Sembene Written by Ousmane Sembene 1966/Senegal/France Filmi Domirev/Les Actualites Francaises
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] The development of Africa will not happen without the effective participation of women. Our forefathers’ image of women must be buried once for all. — Ousmane Sembene[/box]
Mbssine Therese Diiop plays Diouana a young Senegalise woman who seeks work as a servant in the French Quarter of Senegal. She succeeds in securing a place as nanny to a household with three kids. The lady of the house asks Diouana to accompany them all back to France where they have an apartment on the Riviera. She coaxes Diouana to come by describing all the shops and other wonders of France.
But Diouana is shocked to find the children are off somewhere and she is expected to be a combined maid-cook-and-laundress. As she apparently has no time off, her position becomes a prison. And Diouana simply was not made for that kind of life.
This is reportedly the first feature film made by a Sub-Saharan African director. Sembene really rose to the occasion. He has a great eye and a gift for the telling detail.
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I’m going away for a few days to visit family. Will be back February 4.
El Dorado Directed by Howard Hawks Written by Lee Brackett from a novel by Harry Brown 1966/US Paramount Pictures/Laurel Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Sheriff J. P. Harrah: What the hell are you doin’ here?
Cole: I’m lookin’ at a tin star with a… drunk pinned on it.[/box]
This is basically Rio Bravo (1959) with a bit of a role reversal. I prefer the earlier film but you really can’t miss with John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.
Sheriff J.P. Harrah (Mitchum) has been on a two-month bender since a romance ended badly. His old friend Cole Thornton (Wayne) is working as a gun for hire. Thornton comes to town at the request of Bart Jacobs (Ed Asner) who is trying to steal water from a family of farmers. He thinks better of it after talking to Harrah.
For the rest of the film, Harrah and Thornton team up to fight Jacobs and the other guns he eventually hires. But first Thornton must sober the sheriff up. He also flirts mildly with the town saloon owner. James Caan in the Ricky Nelson part, Arthur Hunnicutt in the Walter Brennan part and Charlene Holt in the Angie Dickinson part.
John Wayne apparently lobbied hard to play the drunken sheriff. Now that would have made an interesting movie! As it is, we get the kind of solid, traditional Western that could have been made years earlier.
Lord Love a Duck Directed by George Axelrod Written by Larry H. Johnson and George Axelrod from a novel by Al Hine 1966/USA George Axelrod Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Alan: Dear sweet simple minded Barbara Ann. Barbara Ann whose deepest and most heartfelt yearnings express with a kind of touching lyricism the total vulgarity of our time.[/box]
Axelrod’s “act of total aggression” has something to offend everybody. Some will find it funnier than others. I am one of the others.
Alan Musgrave (Roddy McDowell) and Barbara Ann Greene (Tuesday Weld) are high school seniors. (McDowell must have been held back at least 10 years). Musgrave has nicknamed himself “Mollymauk” after an extinct duck and has hypnotic powers. He discovers all of Barbara Ann’s yearnings for popularity, marriage, and stardom and sets out to fulfill these.
Anyone who gets in Mollymauk’s way ends up dead somehow or other. The master manipulator revels in the messes he creates. With Ruth Gordon and Lola Albright as interfering mothers.
Some will find this funny and others will find it cringe-worthy. The most cringe-worthy part in my opinion is where Barbara Ann seduces her own father into buying her enough cashmere sweaters to qualify for a sorority she wants to join. The movie kind of lost me after that. On the other hand the cast and acting can’t be faulted. I think Tuesday Weld is underrated and even when she is acting crazy you believe every minute.
Gammera the Invincible Directed by Sandy Howard and Yoriaki Yuasa Written by Richard Kraft and Niisan Takahashi 1966/US/Japan Harris Associates/National Telefilm Associates
First viewing/Amazon Prime
[box] Tagline: The super-monster even the H-bomb cannot destroy…[/box]
Americanization makes what looks like a lame original even lamer.
A giant fire-breathing turtle is awoken from his Arctic hibernation and begins moving toward Tokyo. Along the way, a young turtle-loving boy forms a special bond with him. Japan eventually brings in both the Soviets and the Americans for a military solution. With Albert Dekker as the U.S. Secretary of Defense and Brian Donlevy as a General.
This is a re-edited version of Daikaiju Gamera. The American inserts feature some really bad acting. Lousy miniature work plus annoying little kid so it’s not much of a good time. Love the rock-and-roll theme song!
King of Hearts (Le roi de coeur) Directed by Philippe de Broca Written by Daniel Boulanger and Maurice Bessy 1966/France/Italy Fildebroc/Les Productions Artistes Associes/Compagnia Cinematografica Montoro
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Why is the King of Hearts the only one that hasn’t a moustache? — James Branch Cabell [/box]
It’s hard for me to imagine a film more Gallic or charming than this one. Love it, love it, love it.
The setting is a small French town during WWI. Charles Plumpick (Alan Bates) is an ornithological specialist in the British Army (keeps the carrier pigeons). He is mistaken for a demolitiions expert and ordered to go to town to disarm a bomb – location unknown – that is set to destroy the entire place. The population evacuates. Charles is scared witless and escapes some German soldiers by fleeing into the insane asylum, whose doors were left open by departing employees. He is immediately welcomed as the “King of Hearts” and adopted wholeheartedly by the inmates.
Everybody goes out on the town and puts on clothing that suits his insane persona. So we get a general (Pierre Brasseur), a Duke (Jean-Claude Brialy) and a madam. The madam’s brothel includes a sweet virgin called Coquelicot (Genevieve Bujold). The madam quickly sets up a tryst for the King with her. At the same time, the animals have escaped from a circus adding to the atmosphere.
Charles tries his best to complete his mission but keeps getting distracted by his lovable new friends.
This was one of the first foreign movies I saw in the movie theater, probably in the early 70’s. I’ve loved it since that day throughout the years. It never gets old. My husband thought the anti-war message was heavy handed in places but we both enjoyed the comedy. Warmly recommended.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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