Still More 60s Movies 4

Worth Seeing

1. Nothing But a Man (1964)

An eloquent statement on the personal cost racism exacts in the deep South.  Star Ivan Dixon says a lot without necessarily saying a lot, and the supporting cast consists of many famous names who weren't so famous at the time.

This was Yaphet Kotto's first movie.  He doesn't have a big role, but even as a younger man he had those laser eyes that would prove so memorable in films such as Across 110th Street, Live and Let Die and Ridley Scott's Alien.

This was also Motown's first movie soundtrack, and if you look closer you'll notice Gloria Foster, who'd go on to appear as "Oracle" in the Matrix trilogy.

2. The Rain People (1969)

Francis Ford Coppola's portrait of a woman desperate to escape the confines of domestic life.  Shirley Knight is excellent in the lead role, and James Caan adds a lot of pathos as a disabled man she picks up in the midst of her journey.

In this movie, as in Never On Sunday (below) we see a new approach to telling a story on film.  The Rain People wasn't a huge financial success, but I imagine it went a long way toward both cementing Coppola's reputation and setting the stage for many of the younger directors that followed in Coppola's wake.

3. Never On Sunday (1960)

Very racy for the time period.  Not only does this film center around an unrepentant prostitute, but this character and her various male companions are shown in various states of undress.

Melina Mercouri stars as a woman who happily exchanges sexual favors with men of her choosing, while the director and Mercouri's husband, Jules Dassin, co-stars as an American trying and failing to teach her the error of her ways.  Playing out in the background is an estrangement between Western ideals of Greece and what that country actually is (or was).  Never On Sunday is a compelling tale of how idealization falls flat in the face of reality, and after its release Mercouri would be awarded Best Actress at Cannes.

She'd go on to become Greece's Minister for Culture in 1981.

4. In the French Style (1963)

An American woman falls in and out of love with Paris.  Jean Seberg carries the lead role like nobody's business, and script is pitch perfect.  It's a captivating look at both gender stereotypes and "modern" relationships.

Around the time of this film's release Seberg was appearing in many of the French New Wave movies.  Her earliest years in Hollywood were something of a disappointment, but by the time she returned from France her star was on the rise.

5. The Nanny (1965)

Screen legend Betty Davis stars as a nanny who's more than she appears to be.  The dynamic between her character and the family's young son is riveting to watch, and the film's conclusion stayed with me.  It moves slowly but it's worth the effort.

6. Pretty Poison (1968)

Anthony Perkins plays a delusional man just released from a psychiatric facility, with Tuesday Weld as a high school student with ulterior motives.  This movie reminded me why I love the original Psycho so much, and also of how Perkins, when given the right role, could elevate an indifferently directed movie.

Eh... You Could Watch It, I Guess

7. Me, Natalie (1969)

Al Pacino's first movie!  He was around 29 when they filmed this.

Me, Natalie is a coming of age story centered around a young woman insecure about her looks.  It's melodramatic in a Judy Blume kind of way, and also somewhat predictable, but I enjoyed it.

8. Modesty Blaise (1966)

The UK government hires the enigmatic criminal (?) Modesty Blaise to retrieve a shipment of diamonds (?).  That's what I got out of it anyway.  It's an extremely arty movie, featuring a lot of globular lighting and people lounging around minibars in robes.  If you liked Danger: Diabolik you might like this one too, but be warned that it's far less coherent than that later Italian film.

This movie was developed from a comic strip popular at the time, and in Modesty Blaise the director was attempting to lampoon the spy craze which resulted in films like this one, Danger: Diabolik and Dr. No.

9. Gidget Goes to Rome (1963)

The precocious, boy-crazy Gidget journeys from sunny Malibu to worldly Rome.  This was the third and final Gidget movie, featuring Cindy Carol as Gidget.  The various characters' ideas about love and marriage will seem extremely dated in 2025, but I found their relative "innocence" very refreshing.

10. "She" (1965)

Speaking of Dr. No, this one features a former Bond girl, a lost Egyptian city and a couple faces you might recognize from any number of Hammer horror films.

It has some redeeming features but it's grindingly slow.  It was a big hit at the time, and led to a 1968 sequel, The Vengeance of She, but in my opinion "She" isn't worth the effort.

11. The Split (1968)

Parts of this movie don't make much sense.  Why hire Donald Sutherland's character just to shoot out some tires with a sniper rifle?  Why test Ernest Borgnine's fighting skill?  Why take the money out in an ambulance?  Why sit there for the duration of the game when they could have taken all the money once the game was over?  Why would Gene Hackman's character have any reason to trust or cooperate with Jim Brown's character?  Why?  Why?  Why?

The Split is frustrating that way.  It starts out well enough, and Quincy Jones' score is great, but the heist is a nonevent and the way in which the criminals turn on one another afterward is completely mystifying.  Jim Brown is good in the lead role, but he deserved a better movie.

How Bored Are You?

12. Goodbye Again (1961)

A young American pursues a much older woman around Paris.  It's alright as this kind of movie goes, but it felt too much like a play to me and Anthony Perkins was far from convincing.  He was coming off Psycho when this was filmed, and yes, he won at Cannes for his performance in Goodbye Again, but his acting in this movie was a little too cartoonish, and out of step with what the other actors were trying to do.

The ending is depressingly memorable though.  Ingrid Bergman, alone, staring into that mirror.  Yeah, that one's going to stay with me.

13. Creation of the Humanoids (1962)

After an atomic war eliminates 92% of mankind the survivors are left to rely on a race of robots for their continued existence.

It's super slow, crushingly talky and extremely low budget.  Kinda fun if you're in that kind of mood, but this one was never going to win any Academy Awards.

The book it was adapted from is probably very good.  Many of the discussions in this movie are reminiscent of present discussions regarding AI and automation.

14. The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Kinda convenient how her head just came off like that.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is exactly the sort of movie that freaks me out -- surgery, transplantation, and the ethical issues related to both -- but as it is it's very hokey and impossible to take seriously.  Johnny Got His Gun continues to give me nightmares, decades after having first seen it, but The Brain That Wouldn't Die is another kind of animal altogether.  It's Frankenstein on a lower budget, but I think you'll find that watching it can be enjoyable.

Oh, and for the record the transplantation of a human head onto another body is still beyond the reach of medical science, the biggest obstacles being keeping the brain alive during the procedure, fusing two different spinal cords, and transplant rejection.  It is technically possible to keep a human head biologically functional apart from its body, but so far we only have highly controversial experiments on animals as evidence to that effect.

15. Mr. Sardonicus (1961)

A peasant turned nobleman becomes a "ghoul" after a traumatic experience involving his father's death.  It's well acted and the dialogue is much better than what you'll find in The Brain That Wouldn't Die, but Mr. Sardonicus is somehow less memorable for all that.

I would recommend, however, skipping ahead to the last few minutes of this movie.  The "vote" conducted by Mr. Sardonicus' host is a fun idea.

The producer and director of this film, William Castle, was known as "The King of Gimmicks."  He was the driving force behind movies such as The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill and Bug.  I hereby refer you to his Wikipedia entry for details on all his weird and wonderful promotional stunts.

Don't Bother?

16. Smashing Time (1967)

NOT funny, in any way, shape or form.  There are two kinds of British humor (or is it "humour?"): the clever, ironic kind and the crude, somewhat repressed, somewhat sexual kind exemplified in Smashing Time.  Smashing Time is most definitely NOT Monty Python, but rather a film about people engaging in senseless food fights, spraying one another with liquid manure, and rape-like scenarios present for comedic effect.

For what it's worth Smashing Time details the exploits of two girls newly arrived in London, both looking for fun, excitement, fame and fortune.  In the course of their journey they find all four, but by the end of the film they've decided that life in swinging London isn't for them, and that it's time to return whence they came.  The glimpses of Carnaby Street fashions are interesting, but that's about it.

Those with keen eyes will notice the band Tomorrow in the opening credits.  Unfortunately none of Tomorrow's music actually ended up in the film, and the band would implode soon thereafter.  Steve Howe, the guitarist for Tomorrow, would go on to form Yes in 1968.

17. First Spaceship on Venus (a.k.a. "The Silent Star") (1960)

I'm only placing this above Mission: Stardust (below) because a) "Sumiko" is more attractive to me than whoever plays the blondish alien in Mission: Stardust, and b) it is, on average, weirder and less "logical" than the other film discussed below.

Oh, and it's also: c) an East German-Polish co-production, and d) an adaptation of a short story by Stanislaw Lem, one of my favorite science fiction writers.  In terms of science fiction cinema it's a pioneering film in many ways, which isn't to say that it's "good" in the way movies at the top of this entry are good.  Inventive?  Sure, but definitely not good.

18. Mission Stardust (1967)

Science fiction via the Italian film industry.  None of the plot elements bear thinking about, but most mystifying of all is why the crime lord character thinks he can capture the alien spaceship.

If you're ever wondering why the original Star Wars was so popular give this film a look.  It's everything George Lucas' movie was trying not to be.

19. The Wild Angels (1966)

Several years before Easy Rider, Peter Fonda starred in this Roger Corman picture about a neo Nazi biker gang.  It's NOT awesome, and Nancy Sinatra proves that no, not all singers are destined to become noted actresses, but it is historic in a sense.  Some credit it with restarting the biker genre in the 60s, especially in connection to the rising counterculture, but I have doubts about this claim.  There were plenty of other biker movies both before and after this one, and in my opinion saying that The Wild Angels is/was so influential is a stretch.

20. The Creeping Terror (1964)

A space monster resembling a pile of discarded rugs disrupts the daily schedules of several residents of a small town.  The weakest point of this movie isn't its low budget, but rather the narration, which all but suffocates the story it's trying to tell.

Wikipedia describes this movie as "a cult film."  I don't know what cult that is or why anyone would want to join it.

And speaking of cults, the infamous Spahn Ranch, hideout formerly used by the Manson Family, was where The Creeping Terror was filmed.

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Still More 60s Movies 3