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.
The Green Slime Directed by Kinji Fukasaku Written by Bill Finger, Tom Rowe and Charles Sinclair; story by Ivan Reiner 1968/Japan/Italy/US IMDb link
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Commander Jack Rankin: Wait a minute — are you telling me that this thing “reproduced” itself inside the decontamination chamber? And, as we stepped up the current, it just… it just GREW?[/box]
Bad movie made worse by its love triangle subplot.
Astronauts must destroy an giant asteroid heading on a collision course with Earth. In so doing they pick up a small amount of green slime that grows up to be Japanese children in ludicrous rubber suits.
The best thing about this really bad movie is its hilarious US theme song. You have been warned.
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.
Photographs and videos found in this blog, unless indicated, are not owned by me and are here only for the purpose of education and discussion. Media found here are not intended for any commercial purpose. Copyright infringement is not intended.
Written material belongs to me and is copyrighted by flickersintime.com
(Baisers voles)
