6 from the '60s: National Classic Movie Day

The 1960s may have been the grooviest decade, but my selections for Classic Film & TV Café's "6 from the '60s," in honor of National Classic Movie Day, are decidedly not groovy movies, although a couple of them are very cool and one of them is simply weird. This may say more about me than I'd like to admit, so we'll dispense with any attempt at psychoanalysis and go straight to the picks.

Since I primarily write about television, it's worth noting that of these six films, I've only seen one of them in a theater, and that was after I'd already seen it twice on TV. I do own all six, though, and I don't buy movies lightly; I have to be pretty sure I'm going to watch them more than once before I make the investment. In fact, I think the 1960s were a terrific decade for movies, and I probably could have come up with a dozen different combinations of two dozen different films. However, this list is the first one I wrote down, as soon as Rick announced it, and I've found it's usually best to stick with first instincts. I don't pretend that I'm listing them in any kind of order other than the chronological order in which they came out; any one of the six could be my favorite depending on my mood, the time of day, the weather outside, and a hundred other factors. But enough—let's get to the list!

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Director: John Frankenheimer Stars: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh
I was introduced to The Manchurian Candidate on NBC’s Saturday Night at the Movies back in 1974. It was an impressionable time for me; I was in high school, beginning to cultivate my interest in politics as a career, and I was making my way through the canon of political thrillers: Seven Days in May, The Best Man, and Fail-Safe. Now, it was never my intent to attain the White House through Communist infiltration, any more than it was through a military coup or high-level blackmail (or at least the first two), but this was drama played out at the highest level, and I was hooked. The Manchurian Candidate is often considered, at least partly, a satire, but that’s not the way I saw it then, nor is it how I see it today. It’s true that there are elements that could be thought of that way (especially in Richard Condon’s novel of the same name), but the story itself is far too dark (underscored by David Amram’s score and the stark black-and-white cinematography) and the performances too intense for that, especially Angela Lansbury, who’s about as far away from Jessica Fletcher as she would be if she was playing Linda Lovelace; she’s so icy, your blood will run colder than hers. Sinatra is wonderful, proving himself again to be one of the few singers who can transition to an acting role with no trace of singing in it. Laurence Harvey, as the brainwashed assassin, and Janet Leigh, whose meeting with Sinatra may not be as coincidental as it seems, round out an extraordinary cast. John Frankenheimer’s direction is visually stunning, most memorably in an early scene involving Khigh Dhiegh as a ChiCom operative displaying brainwashed American soldiers to a group of fellow communist officials, a scene that transitions seamlessly between scientific presentation and garden party, but there’s also a man who gets shot through a milk carton, a costume party involving the queen of diamonds, and a chase scene through Madison Square Garden during a presidential nominating convention. As the story unfolds, Frankenheimer ramps up the tension, culminating in a shocking conclusion delivering a massive payoff. I don’t think the country was ready for a movie like The Manchurian Candidate in 1962, a cynical psycho-thriller contained in a Cold War wrapper, but the mark of its greatness is that even today, when we’ve become accustomed to corruption, manipulation, and conspiracy, The Manchurian Candidate retains the power to shock and disturb.

This Sporting Life (1963)
Director: Lindsay Anderson Stars: Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, or at least indulge me while I repeat myself. Back in my college days, whenever I was doing research in the library I'd spend the last half hour or so in the periodicals section, looking at old issues of TV Guide. My favorite issues, besides those for Christmas and New Year's, were the ones that contained the close-ups for the annual Academy Awards telecasts. I'd look at the lists of best picture nominees, and the pictures of the nominated actors and actresses (this was before the days of TCM or AMC, when classic movies on TV weren't as common), and I'd make lists of the movies that I was unfamiliar with and looked interesting, and then watch for them to pop up in TV Guide. I saw a lot of movies that way, including several that almost made this list—Tom Jones, Séance on a Wet Afternoon, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner—but none of them made the impression on me of This Sporting Life. I didn't know what to expect, maybe something set in the lush English countryside: I hadn't yet heard of the Angry Young Man school or the Kitchen Sink Drama. It didn't take long to find out, though—I was blindsided from the start, with Roberto Gerhard's tense, atonal score and Lindsay Anderson's use of quick-cut flashbacks setting the stage for a gritty, grimy story (based on the novel by David Storey, who also wrote the screenplay) set in working-class England of the early 1960s and rendered appropriately in black-and-white. Richard Harris plays Frank Machin, a coal miner who finds focus for his brutish lifestyle as a professional rugby player. As he wins acclaim for his performance on the pitch, he tries to become more than "just a great ape on a football field" through a romance with his landlady, the widowed Mrs. Hammond (Roberts). Be forewarned, though: this isn't the classic American "feel good" sports movie, but a dark, often ugly look at people trapped in prisons, whether from class, circumstances, or through their own making.  This Sporting Life was Lindsay Anderson's feature film directorial debut; it made many 10-best lists for the year, and both Harris and Roberts (who was at the time married to Rex Harrison) were nominated for Oscars for their powerful performances. This Sporting Life changed the way I looked at movies and the kinds of stories they could tell. It is a masterpiece of desolation.

Point Blank (1967)
Director: John Boorman Stars: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn
There seems to be an anecdote behind each one of these movies, and this is no exception.  A writer at another site was relating his initial view of the scene in which Lee Marvin is seen striding purposely down a long corridor. The view switches back and forth between Marvin's character and an attractive blonde getting out of bed, going about her business, getting her hair done, and so forth. Marvin's expression never changes, nor does his determination. The viewer looked at the cast and imagined he'd be seeing a touching reunion between Marvin and Angie Dickinson (he originally assumed Dickinson was that woman; it was actually Sharon Acker); about a minute into the clip, he found out he was wrong. Boy, was he wrong. The explosiveness of that scene, following a buildup of tension, is Point Blank in a nutshell.   Marvin, in what I consider his greatest role, plays Walker, a criminal mastermind and a very dangerous man. During a heist, Walker is shot and left for dead by his best friend, Reese (John Vernon), who takes all the loot and absconds with Walker's wife (Acker). But, surprise! Walker isn't dead, just angry—very angry and looking to do whatever it takes to get his money back. But therein lies the rub; Walker doesn't want power or wealth or a position in "The Organization," he only wants what's coming to him, his share of the heist. They never do understand that, to their ultimate misfortune; throughout, Walker leaves a trail of death and violence in his wake, although he's actually responsible for very little of it. He doesn't outright kill anyone, they just keep dying after their encounters with him. Well, there is a heavy who tries to get tough with Walker and gets the crap beaten out of him instead, but for the most part it's a case of the bad guys eliminating themselves.   Marvin, who got the clout to do a movie like this through having won an Oscar for Cat Ballou, should have won a second for this, but he had to remain content with making a cult classic that's grown in critical esteem through the years. He was fortunate to work with John Boorman, who shared his vision for the movie, and to whom Marvin deferred his contractual control over script and cast. Thanks to the combination of actor and director, Point Blank transcends the boundaries of pulp crime drama to become one of the great movies of the decade.

The Producers (1967)
Director: Mel Brooks Stars: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder
Many years ago, I was working for a thoroughly disreputable company, serving on a committee intended to raise employee morale. It was a foolish choice on their part, asking a confirmed cynic like me to do something like this; it just showed what a poor judge of talent they were, as I eventually found out. At any rate, one of the ideas was to hold occasional movie days, and I suggested The Producers. Once they found out the plot, the committee voted it down, fearing that a movie that played Hitler for laughs might offend someone. As I said, they didn't deserve me. There has to be a comedy on this list, right? Well, The Producers ranks as one of the best pieces of outrageous humor ever, benefiting not only from Mel Brooks's sense of the absurd, but also from Brooks's absence in the cast. He wasn't needed, not with a cast that includes Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder already there. Underneath that unscrupulous, larcenous veneer of Mostel's larger-than-life Max Bialystock lies a true sense of humanity; he wants to be rich, sure, but he never really looks to hurt anyone. He's teamed up with Wilder's timid accountant Leo Bloom, who unwittingly suggests a scheme to bilk investors by overselling shares in an production so intentionally bad that it'll close after one night. Leo's not a crook at heart, but under Max's spell, he finds himself alive (and unafraid) for the first time in his life.  Throw in Kenneth Mars as the insane playwright of "Springtime for Hitler," and Dick Shawn as a hippie Hitler, and you have everything you need for a truly demented movie. In a good way, of course; Brooks won an Oscar for his brilliant screenplay, and Wilder was nominated for Supporting Actor for the hysterical Leo. If The Manchurian Candidate was "unthinkable" back in 1962, The Producers might be just as unthinkable today. We're so quick to offend, and I don't know that the Broadway version could even have been made had not the movie already existed. The joke was never that Hitler was funny, or that making fun of him was offensive. No, the audience that made "Springtime for Hitler" a hit (unfortunately, for Max and Leo) understood that comedy levels the playing field, that satirizing Hitler makes him human enough for us to understand that he could happen again someday, if we're not careful.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Director: Stanley Kubrick Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, Douglas Rein (voice only) I've never been to one of those parties where someone hypnotizes people as a kind of parlor trick, and before anyone knows it they're braying like donkeys, barking like dogs, or clucking like chickens, after which everyone chuckles at their embarrassment. It's obvious I don't know the right kind of people, or else these things would happen to me all the time. But the closest I've ever come to being hypnotized was while watching 2001 for the first time, when I was sucked into the Star Gate along with Dave Bowman—and I wasn't under the influence of any substance at the time, other than my television set. I've 2001 many times since, including twice in the theater, and it's never quite hit me the same way it did that first time. There are other aspects that, upon repeated viewing, have made a deep impression on me, from the guarded nature of Dr. Floyd (William Sylvester) to the taciturn performances of Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood as the ill-fated astronauts, the impassive voice of HAL (Douglas Rein), and most of all the overwhelming loneliness of space. The music leaves me spellbound, the vastness of the universe, especially in the theater, is awesome, and I even love the parodies of it; every time I see the end of Laserblast, a truly execrable movie, on MST3K, it makes me want to see 2001 again. It's an epic, every bit as much as Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia.  But for all that, and even though I appreciate that Star Gate scene more every time, I've never been as memorized—hypnotized, if you will—than that initial viewing on TV back in 1977.  I don't think I ever want to understand this movie, in the way that one might understand Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon.  In the end, 2001 is not just an odyssey, it's a mystery, one of those ethereal substances that never quite settle into a solid object.  When you understand too much about anything, you lose some of the mystery, and it was the mystery that first captured my attention all those years ago - and continues to do so today.

Bullitt (1968)
Director: Peter Yates Stars: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon
The car chase. That's the first thing you think about, isn't it, when you think of Bullitt. That, and the King of Cool. Steve McQueen. It's impossible to envision anyone else in the role of Lt. Frank Bullitt; McQueen is so cool, as Zaphod Beeblebrox would say, you could keep a side of beef next to him for a week; so cool, even his improbable last name makes sense. So cool, you don't even notice Jacqueline Bisset. Much.  Bullitt has a strong supporting cast: Robert Vaughn is as smarmy as he's ever been as an insufferably smug, politically ambitious senator (is there any other kind?); Don Gordon is very good in a rare good-guy role as Bullitt's partner; and Simon Oakland appropriately exasperated as Bullitt's boss.  But it always comes back to McQueen, and that scene—the greatest car chase in the history of movies, and that includes The French Connection and every Fast & Furious movie ever made. No matter how many times you see it, and I've seen it a few times, it takes your breath away. That's due mostly to Peter Yates's use of driver's POV shots, and film editing that rightly won an Oscar. In the end, though, it comes back to McQueen. A lesser actor would have been overwhelmed by it, diminishing the character's stature, but not him. And you believe McQueen's behind the wheel, as, indeed, he often is. It wouldn't be nearly as effective if Bullitt was played by, for example, Wally Cox. (Nor would it have been quite the same if it had taken place in Lincoln, Nebraska. There's a lot to be said for on-location shooting in San Francisco.)  Steve McQueen proved he could act with his Oscar nomination for The Sand Pebbles, but for my money this is quintessential McQueen and quintessential action. It's one of those movies that, whenever I run across it while I'm surfing, I watch it to the end, even though I own it. It's defined by the car chase in the same way that Ben-Hur is defined by the chariot race, but make no mistake: this movie belongs to the King of Cool. We just live in his shadow.

This is part of the "6 from the '60s" Blogathon in celebration of National Classic Movie Day (May 16th). Click here for a list of participating blogs—and then watch a classic movie! TV  

Around the dial

I quite enjoy these Twilight Zone comic books that Jordan is sharing at The Twilight Zone Vortex, and this week's story from 1972, with the description "An actor goes before the camera—with murder as a co-star!" is no exception. I love the pulp feel of it!

It's good to hear from Carol at Bob Crane: Life & Legacy that all is well with the gang there, and we can expect another installment of the podcast in the near future. Keep up the good work and take care of yourselves!

It's always fun when characters crossover into the realm belonging to other character,s—for example, when George Reeves (as Superman) appears on I Love Lucy—and that's David's focus at Comfort TV this week. You'll enjoy looking at his favorite character team-ups.

Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder's scathing look at "the dark side" of human nature, is the topic at Classic Film & TV Café. It contains a powerful performance by Kirk Douglas and a cold-blooded one by Jan Sterling; Rick says it's "not among the director's best," but still a good one.

It's another of Jodie's odds and ends at Garroway at Large; this time, his bemused musings on what America might have been like if Sir Martin Frobisher and come a little farther south instead of discovering Hudson Bay. Would the continent be named after him and not Americus Vespucci? The kind of speculation I love to engage in myself.

I never watched The King of Queens, so I know Jerry Stiller best from his work with wife Anne Meara (and for being the father of the obnoxious Ben Stiller, YMMV, but that's for another day), but Terence at A Shroud of Thought has a very good retrospective of a long and successful career.

Little Richard died this week as well, and at The Hits Just Keep on Comin', JB shares his own memories of the singer, along with a roundup of comments and thoughts from around the internet.

You won't want to miss tomorrow here at the blog: it's a rare double-header, with the weekly TV Guide review joined by my contribution to the National Classic Movie Day Blogathon! TV  

Around the dial

It occurs to me that, what with everything that's going on in the world right now, it's probably time for us to take a moment and see how everyone's doing. Here at TV HQ, I'm among the fortunate able to work from home, and while it's not perfect, it does mean business as usual, so I don't want to hear anything about "What are you doing with your extra time," because I don't have any, Well, maybe an extra half hour in the evenings because I don't have to take the bus home, but not enough to go on some movie binge or anything like that. I just sit and watch our retirement savings come and go in the market, and figure I'll have to work another couple of years. But we're fine, only taking trips out to get groceries and occasionally support our local restaurants by getting something for dinner. And how are all of you? Whether you're a regular reader or you're just stopping by with all that extra time you now have, take a moment to leave a message in the combox and let us know how you're doing. Seriously.

At bare•bones e-zine, Jack wraps up the Sterling Silliphant segment of The Hitchcock Project with the 1959 episode "Graduating Class," starring Wendy Hiller. No details since this is another episode I haven't seen yet, but you'll want to be sure to check it out.

May 16 is National Classic Movie Day, and to celebrate the occasion, Rick has announced a "6 from the 60s" Blogathon at Classic Film & TV Café. I'll be there and so will many of your favorite classic bloggers; these are always a lot of fun, for both participants and readers, and I know you'll have a good time, so be sure and stop by.

At Cult TV Blog, John's supposed to be working from home; he'll explain it all for you, as well as telling you about the Avengers story "Man-Eater of Surrey Green," not to be confused (one supposes) with Soylent Green. It's cracking good fun, as long as you don't hold it too much to account.

The Twilight Zone Vortex continues the comprehensive review of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone Magazine, and this week we're up to November, 1982, with some interesting short stories, an interview with John Carpenter, the classic teleplay "A Quality of Mercy," and more good stuff, courtesy of Jordan.

Speaking of blogathons, A Shroud of Thoughts is hosting the sixth annual "Favourite TV Show Episode" Blogathon. I'm not sure I could think of my favorite episode from any of my favorite shows; there are so many of them. It's always fun to see what others have to say, though, so you'll want to take some time there.

And fitting into that, at The Horn Section, Hal's entry in the blogathon is "It Takes a Smart Man," from the final season of the NBC Western The High Chaparral. It's an exciting, thought-provoking episode, the kind that makes you want to watch it even if you haven't kept up with the show.

Realweegiemidget (how many times does the average person get a chance to type that?) is part of the blogathon as well, with a look at "Reluctant Traveling Companion" from the second season of The Fall Guy. Hey, Richard Burton guest stars as himself, so I don't see how anyone could miss it!

At Medium, Herbie J. Pilato has an excellent article that finally explains in a cogent manner one of the biggest problems I have with modern television (and movies): "Everything is too dark, in lighting and tone. All the characters are unhappy, sad, miserable sacks." Bad sound editing and sound mixing. Dark characters, dark stories. Preach it, brother. There's also an article on the home page about "The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People," but I'm staying far, far away from that. Even more than six feet, metaphorically. TV  

Getting lost in the mystery of 2001: A Space Odyssey

It was a Sunday night, February 13, 1977. It was also a school night, which meant I was already in a funk, as you would be too if you went to school in the World’s Worst Town ™. Maybe the surrealism of my own life, having spent the first 12 years of my life in the big city before winding up in a Hicksville town of less than a thousand, made me more susceptible, I don’t know. What I do know is that this was the night that Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey made its television premiere, and since the only two television stations we had access to were Channel 7 and Channel 10, it was either watch 2001 or Masterpiece Theatre, and I wasn't ready yet for British costume drama.

It may be hard to appreciate now, when movies seem to be on TV or in stores before you even knew they were in theaters, but back then it sometimes took years before a movie made it from the movie theater to your television screen.*  Even at that, however, it was noteworthy that nearly ten years had passed since 2001 had opened, which made that Sunday night's premiere on NBC a real event.

*Oftentimes, movies would be re-released every few years, and in the days before DVDs and streaming video, studios and theater owners were understandably concerned about protecting the investment on a real blockbuster.  

For most of the movie I was like everyone else, equal parts impressed and confused.  The movie's reputation preceded it, of course, so it wasn't as if I were expecting an episode of Star Trek or any other run-of-the-mill sci fi flicks.  Still, that didn't prepare me for the movie's climactic scene, the trip through the Stargate - but then, I don't know that anything would have prepared me for it.


Not before nor since have I felt that I've actually been hypnotized, but if that isn't what happened as I watched that scene, it was damn close.*  It wasn't just that I couldn't take my eyes off the screen; it was almost as if I'd actually entered the screen, that somehow the picture on television had come alive and filled the entire living room.  I was enveloped by it, and the fact I couldn't really understand what the ending of the movie meant became almost irrelevant.  I may have been watching on a small black-and-white television, but neither that nor NBC's inexplicable decision to split the scene in two with a commercial could dilute the impact.  I was hooked, but good.

*The critic Andrew Sarris famously reversed his negative review of 2001 after seeing the movie again "under the influence of a smoked substance"; I can assure you that this was not what happened in my case.  It is possible, I'll grant, that I was starting to nod off with my eyes wide open - after all, it's not as if there was a lot of action in that movie.  However, I've done that many times while I was watching TV, and those times never seemed quite the same.  

Fast forward a few years; by then the movie had gravitated to local television.  I don't think I understood it any more than I had the first time, but I was able to notice more: the acting, low key to the point of surrealism, especially by Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood; the score, hand-picked by Kubrick - everyone remembers "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss in the opening and closing titles, but I was struck most by the music of Aram Khachaturian and György Ligeti*; the disquieting use of the silence of space; the extreme close-ups, the soundless dialogue, the white room, and of course the glowing red light of everyone's favorite computer, the HAL 9000.  Was HAL's voice the inspiration for Marvin the Paranoid Android in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?  There's something so gently sinister about him, so discomforting - I mean, not only does he have the best lines in the movie, he probably has more lines than anyone else.  I don't know for sure what HAL symbolizes, and I'm not sure I want to know, but whatever it is isn't good.  There was a Bud Light commercial a few years ago that was a spoof of Dave and HAL; I thought it was terrific.

*A word or two about the music.  Strauss' theme may be the most famous, and Ligeti's "Atmospheres," played during that Stargate scene, may be the most notorious (our cat hated it so much she used to run from the room whenever I played the soundtrack), but for my money the most affecting is Khachaturian's Adagio from his Guyan Ballet Suite, which is played in the scene where Dave Bowman watches the birthday video from his family.  Once you know the fate for which the astronauts are destined, it becomes profoundly moving.



Since those days, I've seen 2001 twice on the big screen, the way it was supposed to be seen, where the sheer scope of it is even more overwhelming.  I've got the DVD, and every once in a while I'll run across it on TCM, where I'll still pause and see how close I am to the Stargate scene.  In much the same way that Raymond Chandler's books transcended the mystery genre. 2001 transcended the science fiction movie.  Check that: it transcended film, period.   In a year when the Best Picture Oscar nominees included Oliver, Funny Girl and Romeo and Juliet, 2001 should have garnered a nod, but it was too far ahead of its time.  Kubrick's win for Special Effects and nominations for Director and Screenplay (with Arthur C. Clarke) would have to suffice.

Things have changed since then.  Pan American's no longer in business, nor is the Bell System, and Gravity testifies to how the Oscars have evolved with the times. Special effects, too, have changed dramatically since 1968, but would this have made 2001 any better?  I don't think so, because it was never really about the effects, nor was it really a genre movie.  It was about a lot more than that.  Do I, at the end of the day, really "get" 2001?  Probably not, though I do see something new every time I watch.  It changed me in many ways: not just the way in which I watch visual media, but in the visual aspect that's so much a part of the way I write, and in the soundtrack that can influence those words even when the reader doesn't hear it.

The fact is, I don't think I ever want to understand this movie, in the way that one might understand Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon.  In the end, 2001 is a mystery, one of those ethereal substances that never quite settle into a solid object.  When you understand too much about anything, you lose some of the mystery, and it was the mystery that first captured my attention all those years ago - and continues to do so today.

This post is part of the My Favorite Classic Movie Blogathon in celebration of National Classic Movie Day (May 16th). Click here to view the schedule listing all the great posts in this blogathon.  And then watch a classic movie!