Category Archives: 1968

Witchfinder General (AKA “The Conqueror Worm”)
Directed by Michael Reeves
Written by Tom Baker and Michael Reeves from a novel by Louis M. Heywood
1968/UK
IMDb link
First viewing/YouTube
Included in They Shoot Zombies Don’t They?

[box] Matthew Hopkins: Men sometimes have strange motives for the things they do.[/box]

A handsome horror film worthy of one of Vincent Price’s best performances.

Price plays the historical Matthew Hopkins, who was responsible for two-thirds of the witch burnings in Cromwellian England.  He travels the country with his vile torturer henchman (Robert Russell) looking for “witches” to burn, money to be made, and sexual favors to be coerced.  Meanwhile a young soldier (Ian Ogilvy) in the English Civil War falls in love with the niece of one of the “witches”.  After Hopkins kills the uncle and terrorizes the niece, the soldier vows vengeance.

I thought this was solid with top-notch production values.  Vincent Price delivers his favorite horror performance despite constant disputes with the young director who didn’t want him in the first place.  What a fool!  Movies such as these need the slightly over-the-top edge Price was a pro at.

Funny Girl
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Isobel Lennart based on her musical play
1968/US
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental

[box] Fanny Brice: [singing] Life’s candy and the sun’s a ball of butter.[/box]

What an absolutely unique voice and talent Barbra Streisand had!  To top it off, William Wyler proves once again that he could direct in any genre.

The story is very, very loosely based on the life of comedienne Fanny Brice.  In this version, Brice (Streisand) struggles to achieve her show-business dreams in spite of her unconventional looks.  She has sufficient chutzpa and talent to succeed and reach the pinnacle of success as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies.

Simultaneously, Brice begins an off-again on-again relationship with wealthy, handsome gambler Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif).  After several years, they marry and have a child.  But when Nick runs into a prolonged losing streak, we move into A Star is Born territory. With Kay Medford as Fanny’s mother and Walter Pidgeon as Florenz Ziegfeld.

The soundtrack album was on constant rotation a couple years later, when I shared an apartment with two Streisand-obsessed roommates.   She explodes on screen and became one of the only actresses ever to win an Oscar for her film debut.  I love the music too.  Recommended to musical lovers.

Barbra Streisand won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a tie with Katharine Hepburn for A Lion in Winter.  The film was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Supporting Actress (Medford); Best Cinematography; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; Best Music, Original Song (“Funny Girl”) and Best Music, Score of a Musical Picture.

Restoration Trailer

“Don’t Rain on My Parade”

The Party
Directed by Blake Edwards
Written by Blake Edwards and Tom and Frank Waldman
1968/US
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Hrundi V. Bakshi: Do you speak Hindustani?

Michelle Monet: No.

Hrundi V. Bakshi: Well, you are not missing anything. [/box]

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe.

Hrundi V. Bakshi (Peter Sellers) was brought in all the way from India to play a smallish role in a Hollywood extravaganza.  Being a bumbling idiot, Hrundi messes up every aspect of the production ending with the indispensable setting for the climax.  The director speaks with a studio boss who agrees to see that he never works again.  Unfortunately, the boss absent-mindedly writes down his name on a piece of paper that contains his guest list to a very high-toned Hollywood party.  Hrundi arrives complete with invitation and proceeds to create havoc and destruction wherever he goes.

 In the  boss’s  modern monstrosity of a home everything is operated remotely at the push of a button.  And, man does Hrundi enjoy pushing buttons just to see what will happen. Incredibly, along the way, he attracts the affection of an as-yet uncorrupted starlet (Claudine Longet).

Peter Sellers plays his role to the hilt – including with brown-face and a spot on comic accent.  I thought the role went far enough to be border-line offensive.  On the other hand, I laughed out loud several times at Sellers’ exquisitely timed physical comedy.  The show-biz satire is good as well.

The Swimmer
Directed by Frank Perry
Written by Eleanor Perry from a short story by John Cheever
1968/US
IMDb lnk
First viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] Ned Merrill: Pool by pool, they form a river all the way to our house.[/box]

Burt Lancaster’s “Swimmer” takes a poke at Mid-Century prosperity and despair.

After a long absence Neddy Merrill (Lancaster) shows up in his swim trunks at a neighbor’s pool.  The neighbors are currently enjoying the hair of the dog that bit them after a hard night’s drinking at a party.  They invite Neddy to join them in today’s plan.  But Ned takes it in his mind that he could swim home to his house on the hill by swimming certain pools in order.  His children’s nubile baby sitter joins him for part of the journey.

Ned seems to be a hearty, healthy, executive-type and at ease in the circles through which he swims.  His past eventually catches up with him as the story grows progressively darker.  With Joan Rivers and Kim Hunter among the ladies he meets.

Lancaster’s 52-year-old physique is amazing.  His acting is a tour-de-force.  I found the plot kind of strained by the twist ending but until then this had my attention all the way.  Recommended to fans of Mid-Century Modern or Mad Men.

Trailer – watch for Joan Rivers!

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
Directed by Freddie Francis
Written by Anthony Hinds based on a character created by Bram Stoker
1968/UK
IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Instant
One of 1000 on They Shoot Zombies Don’t They?

[box] Dracula: Now my revenge is complete.[/box]

Christopher Lee was born to play Dracula and this has got to be one of his most iconic performances in the role.

The local Monsignor (Rupert Davies) believes he destroyed Dracula the previous year. However, the locals believe Dracula’s spirit lives on and they now refuse to go to church. So the Monsignor performs an exorcism on Dracula’s castle and accidentally brings him back to life.  Dracula spends the remainder of the movie plotting revenge on the priest through his beautiful niece.

Lee takes this part straight over the top and into legendary status.  The climax of the film is unforgettable.  One of the better Hammer horror entries in my opinion.

Kill! (Kiru)
Directed by Kihachi Okamoto
Written by Kihachi Okamoto and Akira Murao from a novel by Shugoro Yamamoto
1968/Japan
IMDb link
First viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Genta: [Repeated line] Samurai are no good. See what I mean?[/box]

Brilliantly choreographed action and Tatsuya Nakadai’s acting are the highlights of this somewhat confusing story.

Nakadai plays Genta, a former samurai who abandoned his position out of disillusionment with the life.  He meets up with a farmer who longs to become a samurai.  The two eventually team up to battle hordes of opponents set on them by a corrupt local official.

Both of Okamoto’s films from 1967, The Sword of Doom and Japan’s Longest Day, made my ten favorites list for that year, so I was eager to see this one.  It did not reach those heights in my estimation, mostly because I couldn’t quite follow the multi-character plot.  But, boy, that action!  The protagonists and villains fight with swords, bow and arrow, and guns.  That and Tatsuya Nakadai’s acting are enough to make this worth a watch.  Fabulous score by Masaru Sato.

Trailer – no subtitles but you don’t really need them

Stolen Kisses (Baisers voles)
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut, Claude de Givray, and Bernard Revon
1968/France
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Georges Tabard: Records are a joke. There’s only one way to learn: in bed with an English girl. It’s time you learned. I learned with an Australian girl while her husband was at work painting houses.

Fabienne Tabard: Like Hitler.

Georges Tabard: Don’t ever say Hitler was a housepainter. That’s slander. Hitler painted landscapes.[/box]

The third in Truffaut’s “Antoine Doinel” films is a charming, hilarious romp through a clueless young man’s romantic woes.

As the film begins we see Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) being dishonorably discharge from the army, just one of the many screw-ups in his life since we met him in The 400 Blows.  He  returns to his on-again-off-again girlfriend Christine (Claude Jade) and continues his very nervous and hesitant semi-courtship of her.  He gets a job as a hotel night clerk and is fired after he lets private detectives into the room of a fornicating couple. That leads to the job he is on for most of the film – as the world’s clumsient private eye.

He is assigned to to spy on the employees of a shoe store and falls in love/lust with the owner’s wife (Delphine Seyrig).  Needless to say, he has another job by the end.

This movie was even funnier the second-time around.  Antoine is such a lovable loser. Truffaut was very lucky to discover Jean-Pierre Leaud.  It’s impossible to imagine anyone else as the director’s alter-ego.  Warmly recommended.

Stolen Kisses was nominated for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar.

Oliver!
Directed by Carol Reed
Vernon Harris from the musical by Lionel Bart and the novel by Charles Dickens
1968/UK
IMDb link
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

[box] Oliver Twist: Please sir, I want some more.[/box]

Carol Reed finally gets his Best Director Oscar for this?  Not a fan.

This loosely follows the plot of the Dickens novel, omitting some of the darker bits.  In particular, Fagin is the villain of the novel whereas here he is a comic character playing a lovable rapscallion adored by his gang of small pickpockets.

Young Oliver (Mark Lester) was born out of wedlock in a workhouse.  Mom died in childbirth and he is put to work as soon as possible.  The workhouse starves its young charges by feeding them gruel, and not much of it.  When Oliver rebels, he is “sold” to an undertaker.  His rebellious streak reveals itself again and rather than being carted back to the workhouse he decides to walk all the way to London.

His first acquaintance in the big city is the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild), one of Fagin’s boys.  The Dodger is apparently always on the lookout for naive young boys with no family to protect them. Oliver fits this role nicely.  The Dodger takes Oliver to Fagin, an elderly fence of stolen property who teaches him to pickpocket.  Eventually he is caught but the victim, a nice old gentleman, takes pity on him.  This sets Fagin and the brutal Bill Sikes (Oliver Reed) off on a kidnapping plot.

Reed does his best to open up the stage play for cinema.  However, the realistic Victorian production values clash with the overblown choreography, many times performing by a cast of thousands.  It may have seemed better had it not been surrounded by so many good Code-busting movies in 1968.

Onna White won an Honorary Oscar for her “outstanding choreography achievement”. Oliver! won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Director; Best Art Direction – Set Decoration; Best Sound and Best Music, Scoring of a Musical Picture.  It was nominated in the categories of Best Actor (Moody); Best Supporting Actor (Wild); Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium; Best Cinematography; Best Costume Design; and Best Film Editing.