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British Cinema The late 1960s saw an outpouring of self-consciously idiosyncratic productions, most of which have sunk without trace. The mainstream produced more lasting work, often on an epic scale. Cold War themes were infused with a new, bleak realism; and there was the occasional reminder that the much-vaunted prosperity of the 1960s was a by no means universal experience.
Doctor Zhivago / David Lean 1965. Colour. UK. 200 mins. DVD. Director David Lean and cinematographer Freddie Young pursue their love affair with epic landscapes in this adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s epic novel of war, revolution and romantic ambivalence. Spanish and Finnish locations stand in for the Russian steppes and forests and frequently upstage the actors. There are moments of tedium as Omar Sharif waxes overly sensitive as the doctor and poet Zhivago, but interest is recaptured by Rod Steiger as the pragmatic and lecherous Komarovsky, by Julie Christie as Zhivago’s muse and by Tom Courtenay in his reincarnation as the Trotsky-like Strelnikoff. Ralph Richardson, Gerldine Chaplin and Rita Tushingham give good support and Alec Guinness carries the story forward as narrator and Zhivago’s revolutionary half-brother. Double DVD with good extra features.
Doctor Zhivago / Boris Pasternak
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The Ipcress File / Sidney J Furie 1965. Colour. UK. 103 mins. DVD. The Ipcress File created a new sub-genre for the espionage movie, with a short sighted working class anti-hero fighting the system as well as the forces of subversion. Michael Caine is the reluctant counterintelligence agent Harry Palmer, faced with disappearing scientists and an enigmatic tape labelled IPCRESS. Nigel Green and Guy Doleman are Caine’s long-suffering superiors (guess which is the bad guy). Innovative camera work, a haunting score by John Barry and sound characterisation by Caine. The perfect antidote to Bond. From Len Deighton’s novel.
The Ipcress File / Len Deighton
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The Knack, And How To Get It / Richard Lester 1965. BW. UK. 85 mins. DVD. Self-consciously arty romp through the sexual revolution. Michael Crawford as the landlord who is missing out, Ray Brooks the tenant with the knack and a constant supply of dolly birds and Rita Tushingham the naïve provincial who becomes entangled with the pair. A fast-paced and fast-talking 1960s oddity, whose flamboyance disguises the rather sterile content.
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Blow Up / Michelangelo Antonioni 1966. Colour. UK/Italy. 106 mins. DVD. It is a little depressing that many of the British cult films of the late 1960s now seem vapid and dated. Blow Up, however, still retains some interest. The film was Antonioni’s successful excursion into the commercial arena, albeit retaining many of the trappings of art cinema. Filled with Swinging London stereotypes, the convoluted plot concerns a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) who takes a casual snap that involves him with a murder. Surrealism meets ephemeral hip. With Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles, Peter Bowles and an early appearance by Jane Birkin in the nude wrestling scene.
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Fahrenheit 451 / Francois Truffaut 1966. Colour. UK. 109 mins. DVD. Imagine a society in which books are banned and the fire services are charged with tracking down and incinerating hidden volumes (the title is the temperature at which paper ignites). Oscar Werner is a fireman whose curiosity takes him into the forbidden territory of literature and the realisation that he his part of a totally manipulated population. He escapes to a fringe society that has set out to preserve the written word. Julie Christie doubles up as both Werner’s TV-addicted wife and a book-loving schoolteacher and kindred spirit. Cinematography by future director Nicholas Roeg. The original novel was by Kurt Vonnegut.
Fahrenheit 451 / Kurt Vonnegut
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A Man for All Seasons / Fred Zinnermann 1966. Colour. UK. 116 mins. DVD. Robert Bolt wrote the original stage play and scripted the story of the rise and fall of Sir Thomas More (Paul Scofield), the Catholic statesman who came into conflict with Henry VIII (Robert Shaw) after the break with Rome. Convincing performances from all concerned. The supporting cast includes Susannah York as More’s daughter, Wendy Hiller as his wife, Nigel Davenport as Norfolk, Leo McKern as Thomas Cromwell and Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey. Look out for John Hurt as a wheedling Richard Rich and Colin Blakely as the servant Matthew. A memorable historical drama that ignores the more fanatical side of the main protagonist. Six Oscars and six BFA awards.
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Morgan — A Suitable Case For Treatment / Karel Reisz 1966. BW. UK. 93 mins. DVD Karel Reisz abandons the almost documentary social reality of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960 qv) and finds the requisite amount of self-indulgence for the mid 1960s. A deranged artist (David Warner) swings through a series of jungle fantasies and alienates his wife (Vanessa Redgrave) After she is granted a divorce his attempts to recover her affection become more and more grotesque, leading to an enigmatic finale. Perhaps over-clever in its use of editing techniques and seeming a little dated now that these techniques have become commonplace. Based on a TV play by David Mercer, who wrote the screenplay.
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The Spy Who Came in From the Cold / Martin Ritt 1966. BW. UK. 112 mins. VHS. John Le Carre made the bleak seedy world of cold war espionage his own with this, his third novel. Richard Burton is at the height of his powers as the world-weary spy who goes undercover as an alcoholic defector, part of an involved plot to penetrate the East German intelligence services. Claire Bloom gives a supporting performance as a naïve suburban communist who is drawn into the intrigue.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold / John Le Carre
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Far From the Madding Crowd / John Schlesinger 1967. Colour. UK. 155 mins. DVD. John Schlesinger directed Frederick Raphael’s precise and glossy adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel. The four-way love story, set in 19th century Wessex, provides a vehicle for actors at the zenith of their popularity. Julie Christie is the wilful landowner Bathsheba Everdene who toys with the affections of William Boldwood (Peter Finch) and Gabriel Oak (Alan Bates) but falls for, and is exploited by, the glamorous and amoral Sergeant Troy (Terence Stamp). The cast make the best of Hardy’s rather wooden characters and Nicholas Roeg’s brilliant photography more than compensates for any faults.
Far From the Madding Crowd / Thomas Hardy
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Charge of the Light Brigade / Tony Richardson 1967. Colour. UK. 133 mins. DVD (Dutch Import). A worthy attempt at historical reconstruction that focuses on the eccentricities, rivalries and amateurish incompetence of the aristocratic Crimean War commanders responsible for the unintended heroism of a cavalry brigade that was ordered into the wrong valley. David Hemmings has a central role as Captain Louis Nolan, whose actions during the engagement have been the subject of speculation by historians. With Trevor Howard as Lord Cardigan, John Gielgud as Lord Raglan and Harry Andrews as Lord Lucan, the impressive cast also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Jill Bennett, Peter Bowles and Helen Cherry. For eye-witness journalism on the war, see Despatches from the Crimea by William Russell. For a wider view of military cock-ups see On The Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman Dixon. Both titles are available from the British Empire page of our Bookshop.
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The Lion in Winter / Anthony Harvey 1968. Colour. UK. 134 mins. DVD. The tempestuous autumn years of Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) are encapsulated in a screenplay by James Goldman based on his own play. The king summons a gathering of his dysfunctional family to discuss the succession to the throne. The reunion erupts into a maelstrom of manoeuvring, recrimination and wonderful invective. O’Toole and Hepburn are perfectly matched in the insult stakes, with Anthony Hopkins and Nigel Terry delivering sycophantic performances as the princes Richard (Coeur de Lion) and John. The dialogue is dagger-sharp and keeps the plot in constant motion.
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Entertaining Mr Sloane / Douglas Hickox 1969. Colour. UK. 90 mins. DVD. Based on the stage play by Joe Orton, who gained notoriety for a series of darker than dark stage comedies and his idiosyncratic and ultimately tragic private life. The blonde and beautiful Mr. Sloane (Peter McEnery) is seduced by Kath (Beryl Reid) and employed as a chauffeur by her brother Ed, a closet homosexual played by Harry Andrews. Sloane’s unsavoury past returns to haunt him and places him under the thumb of the weird couple. Sexual ambivalence is shot through with morbid camp humour, with Reid and Andrews giving shining performances at the head of a superb, if miniscule, cast.
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Kes / Ken Loach 1969. Colour. UK. 106 mins. DVD. Ken Loach’s second feature translated Barry Hines’s novel A Kestrel for a Knave to the big screen. David Bradley gives an outstanding performance as a bullied comic-book-addicted and shoplifting youngster who finds a baby kestrel. Through raising the bird and learning the art of falconry from a stolen book he unlocks a hidden reserve of creativity that brings him to the attention of his schoolteacher (Colin Welland). An unsentimental view of the industrial north and the constraints imposed on potential by poverty, low status and a brutal family environment.
A Kestrel for a Knave / Barry Hines
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The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Ronald Neame 1969. Colour. UK. 116 mins. VHS. A teacher in the Edinburgh of the early 1930s cultivates an elite group of pupils and offers the inspiration of art, music and the political philosophy of Benito Mussolini, all the while carrying on an illicit love affair. Maggie Smith’s provincial intellectual pretensions are undermined by headmistress Celia Johnson’s opposition to her methods and by the rebellion of one of the chosen few. Based on the novel by Muriel Spark. With Robert Stephens, Pamela Franklin, Diane Grayson and Gordon Jackson.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Murial Spark
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Women in Love / Ken Russell 1969. Colour. UK. 125 mins. DVD. Ken Russell had developed a distinctive style in a number of short films for TV’s Omnibus programme. This was translated effectively to the big screen in his adaptation of D H Lawrence’s novel. Glenda Jackson and Jenny Linden are the two sisters of the title who develop very different relationships, with Oliver Reed and Alan Bates respectively. There are some memorable sequences, including the cuts between lovers Linden and Bates and the drowned lovers in the lake; and the well known nude wrestling scene with Reed and Bates. The film made Jackson’s reputation and gained her a Best Actress Oscar. Eleanor Bron appears in a cameo role based on Lady Otteline Morell.
Women in Love / D H Lawrence
—————————————————————————————————————- American Cinema America lagged a little way behind Britain in recognising its particular social changes. The Graduate paid lip service to changing sexual politics. Easy Rider represented youthful rejection of the American Dream. The underside of metropolitan America was exposed in Midnight Cowboy. A number of powerful movies examined social issues. The Western moved into new territory and, by the end of the decade, the impact of Sergio Leone was becoming apparent. A darker strand appeared in the work of such directors as Sidney Pollack and Sidney Lumet.
The Cincinnati Kid / Norman Jewison 1965. Colour. USA. 102 mins. VHS. Steve McQueen comes head to head with Edward G Robinson, with strong echoes of The Hustler (1961 qv). Stud poker replaces pool as the arena in which the aspiring upcomer tangles with the acknowledged master. McQueen’s Kid retains his integrity in spite of chicanery by Rip Torn and Karl Malden. Joan Blondell is excellent in support as Lady Fingers, the blowsy blonde dealer. The epic card game is gripping.
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The Pawnbroker / Sidney Lumet 1965. BW. USA. 114 mins. VHS. The eponymous Holocaust survivor provides Rod Steiger with one of his most powerful roles in this grey and grainy psychological drama set in the blighted backstreets of New York. Steiger is riddled with guilt at the fact of his survival, a guilt that is increased by his affair with the wife of a fellow camp inmate and victim of the Final Solution. The pawnbroker’s vitriolic bitterness increases as his newly employed shop assistant and a well-meaning social worker attempt to penetrate his defensive shell. The film is especially memorable for Lumet’s use of flashback; the flickering cuts to the concentration camp are almost subliminal and deeply disturbing.
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Bonnie and Clyde / Arthur Penn 1967. Colour. USA. 107 mins. DVD. Landmark movie that poeticised the mythic gangsterism of the Great Depression through beautiful photography and beautiful leading actors. This poeticism is maintained even through the final violent death scene with its balletic choreography. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are supported by an excellent cast. Michael J Pollard is the hero-worshipping C W Moss and Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons play Buck and Blanche Barrow. Gene Wilder makes his first film appearance as a car owner whose vehicle is ‘borrowed’ by the larcenous couple. There are some fine elegiac moments among the romanticism.
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Cool Hand Luke / Stuart Rosenberg 1967. Colour. USA. 126 mins. VHS. Paul Newman is a chain gang prisoner who pits himself against inflexible authority with brutal results. Comedy is gradually transformed into tragedy as Luke’s fellow inmates imbue him with heroic status and his petty rebellions escalate. George Kennedy helps raise Newman’s character to mythic standing. Strother Martin is the prison captain who has a problem with communication.
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The Fearless Vampire Killers (Dance of the Vampires) / Roman Polanski 1967. Colour. USA. 103 mins. DVD. Roman Polanski directs, and stars as a bumbling assistant to an equally bumbling professor (Jack Macgowran) in a vampire spoof that is sustained by its cinematography, one-liners and comedic use of the genre’s stock characters. The two protagonists arrive at a garlic–draped Transylvanian inn and embark on a mission to rescue the landlord’s daughter (Sharon Tate) after she falls victim to the local undead aristocracy. Alfie Bass stands out as the over-the-top Jewish innkeeper turned vampire, who is unfazed by a threatening crucifix: ‘Have you got the wrong vampire!’
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The Graduate / Mike Nichols 1967. Colour. USA. 101 mins. DVD. Hollywood caught up with the 1960s with a social comedy that was later viewed by the more conservative critics as marking the moral decline of the film industry! Dustin Hoffman enters the stellar firmament as the procrastinating track star under pressure to decide his future. Seduced by the cynical and predatory Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), he also falls in love with her daughter (Katharine Ross). There are some classic comic moments, especially those that feature Hoffman and Bancroft and those that show Hoffman’s introverted attempts to escape from the suburban mediocrity that surrounds him. With a timeless soundtrack by Simon and Garfunkle.
The Graduate / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 12 Tracks.
The Graduate / Charles Webb
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The Producers / Mel Brooks 1967. Colour. USA. 84 mins. DVD. Frequently hailed as the funniest movie ever made, this was Mel Brooks’s directorial debut and consolidated Gene Wilder’s status following his cameo role in Bonnie and Clyde (qv). Wilder is the meek accountant who hits on an infallible scam that will extricate Broadway producer Zero Mostel from his catastrophic financial situation. Mostel goes out for massively over-subscribed financial backing from a bevy of adoring old ladies while the pair search for a play that would be bound to fail on the first night and leave them with the ill-gotten proceeds. Their decision falls on ‘Springtime for Hitler’ a musical written by demented fanatic Kenneth Mars. But their well laid plans go awry when the production is a smash hit. Mostel is a larger-than-life Max Bialystock and zany support is provided by Mars as the nutty Nazi and Dick Shawn as the hippy who is given the lead role in the musical romp.
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The Swimmer / Frank Perry, Sydney Pollack 1968. Colour. USA. 91 mins. DVD. A strange and unsettling fable. Burt Lancaster is the lead character who decides to swim home via the swimming pools of friends, neighbours and ex-lovers. As he moves through suburban Connecticut his disintegrating life is gradually revealed by a series of confrontations. Lancaster is superb and affecting as a man in denial and on the brink of psychosis.
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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid / George Roy Hill 1969. Colour. USA. 106 mins. DVD. The Western seems able to reinvent itself continually. This offering has some nice comic touches and continuous witty dialogue by screenwriter William Goldman. Paul Newman provides the brains of the outlaw partnership and Robert Redford launched his career as the nice but slightly dim gunslinging Sundance. The pair are relentlessly pursued and eventually escape to start a new career in Bolivia. The opening ‘silent movie’ sequence starts the film on a high which is sustained to the famous final freeze frame as the two bandits come head to head with the Bolivian army. Newman and Redford more than compensate for an underwhelming performance by Katharine Ross as Etta Place.
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Castle Keep / Sydney Pollack 1969. Colour. USA. 103 mins. DVD. A haunting and ambiguous allegory in which a motley group of GIs fortify a medieval French chateau against an assault by the SS. The stronghold is occupied by a French aristocrat who is mainly concerned to save his art collection, and by his frustrated wife. A constrained performance by Burt Lancaster is supported by Peter Falk, Bruce Dern, Jean Pierre Aumont and Astrid Heeren. Thoughtful, perplexing and thought-provoking.
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Easy Rider / Dennis Hopper 1969. Colour. USA. 91 mins. DVD. On the road with sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll. A milestone in US independent filmmaking that set out to epitomise the 1960s counter-culture and the antagonism it generated in redneck America. Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda are a pair of hippy bikers heading for New Orleans across the open spaces of the South West. En route they gather up drunken attorney Jack Nicholson and introduce him to the joys of recreational pharmaceuticals. Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to be Wild’ heads up a soundtrack that was an unadulterated reflection of the contemporary music scene. Terry Southern shared the writers’ credits with Hopper and Fonda. The film helped define a generation.
Easy Rider / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 10 Tracks.
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In The Heat of The Night / Norman Jewison 1969. Colour. USA. 105 mins. DVD. An absorbing detective drama, made the more so by its exploration of a number of social themes. A black stranger (Sidney Poitier) passing through a Mississippi town is picked up under suspicion of the murder of a local industrialist. It transpires that he is a homicide detective from Philadelphia. The local sheriff (Rod Steiger) realises that Poitier’s specialist expertise could help extricate him from an investigation that was undermining his authority and Poitier’s superiors order him to lend assistance. As the murder hunt proceeds it is obstructed by the racism, at all levels of society, of the southern town; by the clash between the sophisticated north and the primitive south; and by the tensions caused when a professional meets the amateurism of an elected police hierarchy. Poitier and Steiger turn in unbeatable performances as the cultural opposites whose mutual animosity evolves into respect.
In The Heat of the Night / John Ball
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Midnight Cowboy / John Schlesinger 1969. Colour. USA. 108 mins. DVD. John Voigt is the Texan dishwasher who heads for the Big Apple, intent on making his fortune by renting out his favours to rich society women. Predictably, he descends into a seedy sexual underworld, falling under the malignant influence of a grubby tubercular hustler played by Dustin Hoffman. Against all odds, Voigt finally realises his original ambition as the two misfits develop a mutual and affectionate dependence. The pair head for Florida on the proceeds of Voigt’s prowess as Hoffman’s health deteriorates. The film manages to pass seamlessly from degradation to poignancy and gave Hoffman, as ‘Ratso’ Rizzo, the role that he was searching for to break him out of his Graduate mould. Voigt gives a convincing performance as the deluded stud.
Midnight Cowboy / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 11 Tracks.
Midnight Cowboy / James Leo Herlihy
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Paint Your Wagon / Joshua Logan 1969. Colour. USA. 153 mins. DVD. Apparently bizarre casting for this screen version of the Lerner and Loewe musical (the two male leads couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!) but somehow it seems to work. Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood are two prospectors during the Californian Gold Rush who set up a ménage with a shared wife (Jean Seberg). Creeping respectability eventually upsets the domestic arrangements; in the meanwhile the two partners and their cronies discover an alternative route to instant riches. The film was not overwhelmed with critical acclaim but there is something strangely hypnotic about the production and Lee Marvin reveals a brilliant and unexpected talent for comedy in some marvellous moments. His droning monotonal ‘I Was Born Under a Wandering Star’ was an unlikely hit.
Paint Your Wagon / Soundtrack Album Format: 1 Disc. 14 Tracks.
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Patton / Franklin Schaffner 1969. Colour. USA. 162 mins. DVD. George C Scott is triumphant as George S Patton, the US general whose success in battle was marred by his outspoken opinions and sometimes outrageous idiosyncrasies. After his defeat of the Afrika Korps he disobeys orders during the invasion of Italy, loses his command after slapping a traumatised soldier and is denied a part in the D-Day invasion. He regains his reputation in command of the 3rd Army, culminating in his rescue of an encircled US Division during the Battle of the Bulge. The opening sequence, a six minute speech in front of an enormous Stars and Stripes, sets the mood. Scott won (and refused) an Oscar and was supported by Karl Malden as Omar Bradley and Michael Bates as a prima donna-ish Montgomery.
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They Shoot Horses Don't They? / Sydney Pollack 1969. Colour. USA. 119 mins. DVD. Sydney Pollack adds to his dark and offbeat portfolio and Jane Fonda moves on from sex kitten to expose a serious talent in a bleak drama based on the dance marathons of the 1930s. A Chicago ballroom offers a temporary escape from the realities of the Depression and the participants go through a gruelling set of humiliating competitions in the hope of surviving the event and winning the cash prize. Gig Young is the sleazy MC and the competitors include Red Buttons, Bonnie Bedelia and Bruce Dern. Michael Sarrazin partners Fonda’s aggressive loner and Susannah York is a peroxide blonde who hopes to be discovered by the movies.
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The Wild Bunch / Sam Peckinpah 1969. Colour. USA. 138 mins. DVD. Screen violence hit a new high in the final scene of this movie, described by the director as a tale about what happens to ‘bad men in changing times’. An outlaw gang in the early 20th Century are ambushed during their attempt to pull off one last bank robbery. The pursuit by an ill-assorted mob of bounty hunters takes the band over the Mexican border and into a confrontation with the Mexican military. Paradoxes abound. William Holden’s ruthless bunch of killers hold on to their concepts of honour. Former gang-member Robert Ryan leads the chase and the cut-throat rabble he despises. The final retribution has no connection with the original crime. Brilliantly crafted and supported by a cast of stalwarts that includes Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates.
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Foreign Cinema Sergio Leone continues to influence his appropriated genre and heads towards Hollywood. Luchino Visconti subjects the rise of Nazism to disturbing scrutiny.
For A Few Dollars More / Sergio Leone
1965. Colour. It/Sp/Ger. 126 mins. DVD. The second of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western trilogy shows the director moving rapidly towards maturity with a mellowing of the main characters. Lee Van Cleef provides a sympathetic counterpoint to Eastwood’s cynicism as they join in an uncomfortable alliance to collect the reward for killing Gian Maria Volonte’s Indio. Landscape and Ennio Morricone’s score add to the atmosphere.
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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly / Sergio Leone 1966. Colour. It/Sp. 155 mins. DVD. The last film of the ground-breaking trilogy. Three drifters in search of a buried fortune become entangled in the American Civil War. Intricate plot construction sees the lead characters continually crossing each others’ paths; violence is matched by revulsion and compassion; and Eastwood’s mythic character finds a culminating humanity, perhaps signified from the outset by his acquisition of a name. With Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach. Leone’s best film before Once Upon a Time in the West (qv) prepares the ground for Peckinpah’s 1969 The Wild Bunch (qv) and much more.
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The Damned / Luchino Visconti 1969. Colour. Italy/West Germany. 148 mins. DVD. Dirk Bogarde plays against type at the head of an industrial empire during the rise of fascism in the Germany of the 1930s. Visconti’s complex plot swings from the machinations over the ownership of the enterprise to the increasing decadence of the owner’s son (Helmut Berger), and from the burning of the Reichstag to the elimination of the SA by the SS in the Night of the Long Knives. At times slow moving, dotted throughout with scenes of sordid sex and violence, there is a compelling inevitability to the relentless decline. The original release was entitled Gotterdammerung, reflecting the Wagnerian theme of the Twilight of the Gods.
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Once Upon A Time in the West / Sergio Leone 1969. Colour. It/USA. 158 mins. DVD. Leone creates one of the most memorable Westerns of all time with a cast of Hollywood luminaries. The cinematography is stunning, detailed and totally atmospheric, with every act choreographed against a sophisticated score. The director cast Henry Fonda as one of the killers for deliberate shock effect, and his partners in crime, Jack Elam and Woody Strode, deliver outstanding character studies. Charles Bronson is quietly effective as an enigmatic harmonica-playing stranger. With Jason Robards, Claudia Cardinale and Keenan Wynn among the supporting cast.
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