Monthly Archives: February 2018

Beyond the Fringe
Directed by Duncan Wood
Written by Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore
1964/UK
British Broadcasting Corporation
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Alan Bennett: Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.[/box]

Still funny after all these years.

This made-for-TV movie captures the final performance of the seminal satirical review on London’s West End.  It’s Alan Bennett, Peter Cooke, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore in one inspired sketch after another, interspersed with Moore on the piano.

Although not a film per se, I couldn’t resist reviewing this show which I’d heard about for years.  I liked it even more than I expected.  Laughed out loud several times.  This is a not to be missed treasure for any Monty Python fan.

Clip – still very relevant!

Lilith
Directed by Robert Rossen
Written by Robert Rossen from a novel by J.R. Salamancca
1964/USA
Centaur/Columbia Pictures Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Stephen Evshevsky: How wonderful I feel when I’m happy. Do you think that insanity could be so simple a thing as unhappiness?[/box]

Here is a well-acted love triangle set in an insane asylum.

Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty) is a troubled returning veteran.  He longs to “help people” and applies for a job in a private sanitarium which houses the schizophrenic relatives of the  wealthy.  He impresses director Dr. Bea Price (Kim Hunter) and she hires him on the spot.  He proves to be an able worker and soon makes friends with intellectual Stephen Evshevsky (Peter Fonda) and the beautiful and seductive Lilith (Jean Seberg).  Stephen has quite a crush on Lilith.

Poor Vincent tries to resist but cannot ignore Lilith’s charms.  They start a clandestine affair   that tests his own sanity and could prove tragic.

This was the final film of writer/director Robert Rossen (The Hustler).  It features the big screen debuts of Jessica Walters as Vincent’s pre-war sweetheart and Gene Hackman as her crass husband.

Lilith’s character seems to have been written for Seberg and she is absolutely luminous in the part.  All the other acting is very good with that of Peter Fonda standing out to me.  I enjoyed the film and would recommend it if the plot appeals.

Clip – Lilith can’t help herself even with small boys

A Married Woman (Une femme mariée: Suite de fragments d’un film tourné en 1964)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard
Written by Jean-Luc Godard
1964/France
Anouchka Films/Orsay Films
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] There is no point in having sharp images when you’ve fuzzy ideas. – Jean-Luc Godard[/box]

Between inane philosophizing and inane dialogue, this is another annoying film from the irritating Jean-Luc Godard.

Charlotte (Macha Merrill) can’t make up her mind between her lover Robert and her husband Pierre.  We get plenty of scenes of their endless conversations during lovemaking.  She does a lot of lying – or is she really in love with both of them?

To annoy me even more, Godard inserts a bunch of dinner table philosophizing and references to other films and film makers.

There is no denying that Godard was an innovator.  I just don’t like his innovations.  His other film of 1964 is Band of Outsiders.  I remember liking that one so I will give Jean-Luc another chance.

Zatoichi’s Flashing Sword (Zatoichi abare tako)
Directed by Kazuo Ikehiro
Written by Shozaburo Asai and Minoru Inuzuka; story by Kan Shimozawa
1964/Japan
Daiei Studios
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] Zatoichi: [after trapping Yakuza Boss Yasugoro into a corner] They say when you stutter like that, you’re ready to be killed.[/box]

Still eating these Zatoichi movies up!

Blind Ichi is wounded by gunfire.  A gentle girl and her good guy yakuza boss father nurse him to health.  Ichi must protect them against a rival gang that wants to steal their ferry business.  This he does with gusto.

I’ve been thinking about similarities between these and the Bond franchise.  Charismatic hero – check; babe magnet – check; invincible – check.  Of course in every other way they couldn’t be more different.  My favorite part may be that despite all the violence there is never really any doubt that good will prevail over evil.  This one has one of the most thoroughly evil yakuza bosses yet.

Clip

The Third Secret
Directed by Charles Crichton
Written by Robert L. Joseph
1964/UK
Hubris Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Alex Stedman: It (complicated broadcasting equipment) saves people from having to think about what they’re really doing. They have to concentrate on how to do it.

Catherine Whitset: That’s therapy. It doesn’t really help.[/box]

This slightly ponderous and Freudian story has a pretty good mystery at its heart.

As the movie begins, psychoanalyst Leo Whitset is found dying of a bullet wound to the head.  He tells his housekeeper no one but himself is to blame.  After what they say has been an exhaustive investigation, police determine the death to have been a suicide.  This is devastating news to the doctor’s patients and colleagues because it goes against everything he stood for.

The doctor’s 14-year-old daughter Catherine (Pamela Franklin) approaches American journalist Alex Steadman (Stephen Boyd), a patient of her father, and wants him to investigate her theory that the death was a murder.  After initial reluctance, Steadman is on the case.  He and Catherine become fast friends in the process.  With Jack Hawkins, Richard Attenborough and Diane Cliento as former patients and a very young Judy Dench in a small role as a shop assistant.

This was OK, if a bit too contrived for my taste. I was pleasantly surprised that  Boyd’s prerformance was so good – he didn’t wow me in Ben Hur or Jumbo. Disclaimer:  The sound went progressively more out of synch on YouTube video I watched, making it hard for me to understand – and there is a lot of talking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-cop9ZChbE

Lemonade Joe (Limonadovy Joe aneb konska opera)
Directed by Oldrich Lipsky
Written by Oldrich Lipsky and Jiri Brdecka from Brdecka’s novel
1964/Czechoslovakia
Filmove studio Barrandov
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Lemonade Joe: [Lands on his feet after falling some 200 feet, right in front of the hostile band, taking them by surprise. Performs some thorough finger-spinning with his twin shooters, finally aiming them at the band] Understandably, hands up.[/box]

From behind the Iron Curtain comes a spoof of Westerns and capitalism.  Some of the jokes drag on too long but it’s basically good fun.

The style mimics silent and early talkie B Westerns complete with tinting and plenty of melodrama.  The story takes place in Stetson City where the hardscrabble inhabitants drink at the Trigger Whiskey Saloon operated by Doug Badman.  Eventually the lovely Winifred Goodman and her father come to town to preach temperance.  Immediately, thereafter we are introduced to Lemonade Joe, hero and spokesman for KolaLoka lemonade.  The remainder of the story deals with Joe’s efforts to protect Winifred from the nefarious advances of Doug Badman’s brother Horace and to avoid the advances of saloon singer Tornado Lou himself.

This is one silly gag after another.  Most of these are funny though some outstay their welcome causing the short movie to drag somewhat.  There are songs throughout.  Interesting that Capitalism triumphs!

Cerny Petr (Black Sheep; Black Peter)
Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Milos Forman and Jaroslav Papousek
1964/Czechoslovakia
Filmove studio Barrandov
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] I know this sounds so little, and not serious enough, but I believe that I have to have fun. We all have to have fun – me, the actors, the cameraman, everybody should feel as if we are making a home movie, because that is the only way to open the film to a certain kind of lightness. If everybody involved feels the seriousness, the heavy weight of money being stamped on movies, it somehow influences the result in a way which is anesthizing to life. – Milos Forman[/box]

Milos Forman’s first film is an enjoyably wry coming of age comedy.

Petr is just starting out in the world with his first job after graduating high school.  He proves to be a hugely inept floorwalker at a grocery store.  In his off-hours, he struggles with dating and his hectoring father.

Forman’s talent is obvious right out the gate.  It helps that we seem to share a similar sense of humor.  This is a a slice-of-life character study with a negligible plot but the teenagers keep things constantly lively.  They should be instantly relatable to anyone who has had growing pains.

Children of the Damned
Directed by Anton Leader
Written by John Briley
1964/UK
Lawrence P. Bachmann Productions for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer British Studios
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Tagline: … even more eerie and unearthly than “Village of the Damned”![/box]

Less the horror show that the poster promises and more a nifty little sci-fi thriller.

Psychologist Tom Llewellyn and geneticist Dave Neville have been asked by the UN to conduct intelligence tests of English children.  One of them, Paul,  proves to have a vastly superior IQ.  Through its program the UN has identified six children in the world with not only similar but identical abilities.The children represent a mini-UN, coming from the UK, USSR, China, India, Nigeria and USA.  The foreign children are all housed in their Embassies and the British MI-5 is trying to get its hands on Paul.

Through their special powers the children manage to escape the clutches of their governments and house themselves in an abandoned church.  In the meantime, a scientist theorizes that the cell structure of the children might represent that which could be reached by homo sapiens after 1 million years of evolution.  All the governments are interested in making the children secret weapons.  What to do?

I liked this a lot, better than its IMDb rating would indicate.  When finally pinned down and asked why they are here the only answer is “for the same reason you are.”  There’s lots of intriguing ideas here.  This is less a sequel of The Village of the Damned than a whole new story..

The DVD contained an OK commentary by the screenwriter who makes it clear that his intention was a Cold War allegory.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (Mosura tai Gojira)
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Written by Shin’ichi Sekizawa
1964/Japan
Toho Company
First viewing/FilmStruck

[box] News Photographer Junko ‘Yoka’ Nakanishi: I’ve been trying to get a shot of the area, but the land is moving. Look, over there. [the earth moves, and out emerges a monster]

Mayor: Ah! Oh! Godzilla![/box]

Super-hero monster Mothra flies to the rescue in another in Toho’s Godzilla series.

A huge egg washes up on a shore near Tokyo and is immediately snapped up by a greedy promoter.  This turns out to be one of Mothra’s eggs and the two tiny high priestesses of Infant Island reappear to beg for its return.  Greed prevails until Godzilla reemerges nearby and Mothra is needed to stop the total annihilation of the city.
By this time the miniature work in these things had taken a turn for the worse and the film is far from a must see.  Nevertheless, the little priestesses are cute and it’s cool to see Godzilla attacked by twin larvae.

FilmStruck has the subtitled version, which is a plus.

Clip – dubbed  version

The Killers
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Gene L. Coon from a story by Ernest Hemingway
1964/USA
Revue Studios
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Charlie Strom: You see, the only man that’s not afraid to die is the man that’s dead already.[/box]

This remake is not bad but had me longing for the 1946 version.

Hit men Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager) arrive at a school for the blind to assassinate Johnny North (John Cassavetes), who is teaching there.  He puts up no resistance.  This intrigues Charlie and when he learns that there is also a missing $1 million involved the two investigate both the location of the money and the identity of the man who hired them.

The trail leads to flash backs of an elaborate series of double crosses involving crime boss Jack Browing (Ronald Reagan) and femme fatale Shiela Farr (Angie Dickinson).

I think the choice to eliminate the insurance adjuster angle in the 1946 film was pretty inspired.  Marvin’s intensity makes this version work.  On the other hand, Dickinson’s inherent perkiness had me longing for the infinitely more fatal Ava Gardner.  Reagan, in his final screen performance, makes a good villain by playing it straight.