SHADOWS (1959), PICKPOCKET (1959, FRANCE)

1959 (Part II)

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1959.

Fred Kaplans' book, 1959: The Year That Changed Everything, states that this was the pivotal year that began much of what we now call modern times in the Western world. Important points for the year include:

· Mailer-Ginsburg-Kerouac-Burroughs and the banned Lady Chatterly's Lover
leading to things of a more permissible nature seeing print.
· Sputnik-leading to the space race.
· Herman Kahn's lectures on nuclear war being a lead in to the arms race.
· The introuduction of the solid intergrated circuit.
· Miles Davis, modern jazz & the civil rights movement.
· Castro's Cuban revolution.
· Cold War heating up with Kruschev's visit to the United States.
· SETI searching for life in outher space.
· Modern Art and the opening of the Guggenheim museum.
· Popular music and Motown.
· The final application for the birth control pill.
· The emergence of John F. Kennedy and the new Frontier.

A different kind of American film Shadows

Kaplan's chapter, The Off-Hollywood Movie, discusses the 1959 John Cassavetes film, Shadows. Cassavetes railed against Hollywood movies, where he said that commercial considerations were subtle, but dominate. He was more interested in the neo-realist filmmakers of Italy, who shot many of their films in the streets of Rome. Cassavetes decided to shoot a neo-realist film of his own in the streets of New York City. The result was Shadows, a story of a young black woman who passes for white, though a plot synopsis doesn't really do the movie justice, as it is largely free form and at least partly improvised. You know a 1959 movie that has a line that scoffs at the beat generation is pretty hip (or thinks it's pretty hip). Shadows, as well as other later films by Cassavetes, weren't big money makers, but did influence a generation of moviemakers such as Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanavich and Robert Altman.

I'm just glad that commercial considerations in today's American cinema have now become secondary to artistic considerations. (Hey, stop laughing!)

Not giving away emotional clues in Pickpocket

 In addition to Shadows,  this era also brought us Truffaut's The 400 Blows and Godard's Breathless. The British new wave of cinema was fast approaching as well. There was also Robert Bresson's film, Pickpocket, a revered film by a filmmaker whose films at first glance may elicit the reaction of "What was that all about?" Not in that the story is complex, but that the story is told so simply and with none of the tradition movie tropes (His films are edited oddly, scored oddly and the non-professional actors give very little in the way of overt emotions.) Pickpocket has traces of film noir, suspense, crime and drama, but it really doesn't fit into any of these categories. I've seen it more than once and it isn't my favorite Bresson (That would be Balthazar), but there is something about it and will probably revisit it yet again.

I watched the Ben-Hurish epics, the frothy Pillow Talky comedies and the art films above. But can looking at 1959 films be complete without a little of the campy? I think I'll head to the drive-in tomorrow.

THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS (1976), KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE (1976)

1976

Bigfoot (played by Unknown!) in
The Mysterious Monsters

There was an actual trend of theatrical movies in the 70's that were documentaries (with dramatizations thrown in) based on controversial conspiracies such as The Search for Noah's Ark, In Search of Historic Jesus, Beyond and Back, The Lincoln Conspiracy and Mysteries from Beyond Earth. This documentary trend began when the cheaply made search for space alien documentary Chariots of the Gods? became a smash hit in 1970. These movies could be made with a small budget and many of them made a tidy profit...at least for most of the 70's. 

My favorite of all these films was The Mysterious Monsters, which spent most of its running time tracing evidence about the existence of Bigfoot, and featuring some stunning revelations about the Loch Ness Monster as well. The movie begins with earnest narrator Peter Graves stating that this could be the most startling movie you'll ever see! Watching it again, I thought it would be pretty cheesy. And it is, especially in the Bigfoot recreations. But I also see how people can believe some pretty strange things when it is presented in what seems like a reasonable way. This film features a lot of scientists dusting for Bigfoot prints and doing extensive investigations, witnesses that certainly seem credible and some of those film recreations seem pretty plausible. It's based on eye witness testimony, right? That proves that Bigfoot exists, right? It even tries to explain away the skeptical questions that dare think this Bigfoot thing is a load of malarkey...which it probably is for the most part. I was glad to see this movie for the first time in forty years and I admit it presents it's pretty silly premise about as well as you can. 

The original add that made me interrupt my
holiday season to go see this epic film forty years ago!

Killing of a Chinese Bookie-Any movie that has
Timothy Carey and Seymour Cassell as henchmen
has got to be worth seeing!

On the other end of the celluloid spectrum, I chose to watch the John Cassavetes film The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. The plot has a strip club owner played by Ben Gazzara forced to pay off his gambling debts by...knocking of a Chinese bookie. This film was barely released at the time, but has gained a bit of a following in the years since. I think it is a little more accessible plot-wise than some of the others in the Cassavetes catalog, but it still has his trademark style of long shots, long scenes, long dialogue...and not explaining everything that is going on in any kind of obvious way! Sometimes I have to think to myself after watching one of his films as to what I just saw was about...but I've come to the conclusion if you're puzzling about a film you watched the day after you saw it...that's a good thing.

While I’m thinking this over, I’ll reminisce about some of the other movie titles that came out in 1976 that did not make the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die cut.

1. The Bad News Bears, If you were thirteen when this movie came out, you pretty much had to go see this little league classic. Chico's Bail Bonds forever!

And now a word from our sponsor...The Bad News Bears

2. The Big Bus, I know I saw this. It seemed like it was about this giant bus and you could do all these things on this bus like bowling. And it was like The Love Boat, only a bus and…I"m afraid that's about all I can remember about this one.

3. Bound for Glory, I wouldn’t have pictured David Carradine as Woody Guthrie. Still don’t really.

4. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, Not the most memorable of Robert Altman’s movies, but you know, this one may warrant a second look.

5. Car Wash, I heard the song “Car Wash” more than enough times in the late 70’s to last me a lifetime! The movie itself does have an interesting list of 70's stand-up comedians: George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Franklin Ajaye and the legendary Professor Irwin Corey!

Franklin Ajaye sporting one of the best afros of he 70's in
Car Wash

6. The Enforcer, Callahan and Lacey?

7. Futureworld, It had been a long time since I had seen this one. I thought, “Yeah, the sequel to Westworld was actually pretty good from what I remember.” After viewing it a couple of years ago….eh, not so good.

8. The Gumball Rally, A strange multi-car race around the world. Like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with lesser known stars. I do remember Raul Julia was in it.

9. Lipstick, One of the Hemingway sisters gets raped and the other one guns down the rapist. I think that’s what happens.

10.  King Kong, This movie was really panned when it came out, but did jump start Jessica Lange's career as well as make fodder for a pretty good MAD magazine satire.

King Kong immortalized in the pages of
my 70's magazine of choice

11. Logan's Run, Yes, when I saw this movie I also thought thirty was old. Hah! There is no sanctuary!

12. Marathon Man, One of the top thrillers of the decade. Would be in my 1001 book, but additions and subtractions to particular editions is not up to me.

13. The Pink Panther Strikes Again, The best of the Pink Panther movies was The Return of the Pink Panther, though it’s easy to get them confused.

14. The Omen, I actually owned the book on this one. But little did I know at the time it was just a novelization! I feel had! I finally saw the movie for the first time last year. A pretty good horror flick.

15. Murder by Death, Main draw of this today would probably be to see Truman Capote act

Peter Falk, Truman Capote and David Niven make an
interesting trio in Murder by Death.

16. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, I admit when I think of this movie, the first thing that comes to mind is the infamous Playboy pictorial featuring Sarah Miles and Kris Kristofferson. If you can think past that, and I admit it’s hard for me to do, it’s a pretty good film.

17. Sebastiane, If you are looking for an art film with sex...you might want to look elsewhere if you are looking for sex with a heterosexual bent. That's all I'm saying...time to move on...

18. The Shootist, Fitting farewell for John Wayne.

19. Silent Movie, I thought Mel Brooks' Silent Movie would be the last new silent movie I'd ever see...but The Artist and Blancanieves proved me wrong (And I was happy to be wrong about this!).

20. Ode to Billy Joe. It was the third of June, another sleepy dusty, delta day...You'll have to excuse me but I can't think of this movie without thinking of the Bobby Gentry song on which it was based...and now Billy Joe McCallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bri--hidge."

Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor
in Max Baer's Ode to Billy Joe...yep the
song just started going through my head again.

21. That's Entertainment Part 2, Old MGM musical clips on the big screen may have worked in 1974, but by 1976, the time had passed.

22. To the Devil a Daughter, One of those horror movies you watch on HBO in the late 70's late at night. I remember a scene from it where a woman is about to have a baby and...never mind, I don't want to think about it.

23. Silver Streak, First and best Wilder/Pryor teaming. Of course, I didn’t see their last couple of films, but I still feel pretty safe in that assertion. Of note: director Arthur Hiller and star Gene Wilder both passed away in August, 2016.

24. The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings-Enjoyable comedic look at a barnstorming black baseball team from the 40's. The film stars Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams and most importantly James Earl Jones, because when he later says "People will come, Ray" in Field of Dreams, Bingo Long has long before established his baseball chops.

25. The Food of the Gods, Just as conspiracy theory documentaries were abundant during this time, there also seem to be more than a few of animals gone crazy schlock films released during this general time frame. Not all these films were released by American-International films, but they all had that "American-International feel" to them. The Food of the Gods featured giant rodents. But  we also had Night of the Lepus (killer rabbits), Kingdom of the Spiders (arachnids), Alligator (Alligators that grew up in the sewers), Tentacles (Octopi), Squirm (worms), Bug! (Fire bugs) and Empire of the Ants (Ants, of course). Sounds like the makings of a late night movie marathon to me!

Food of the Gods:Child evangelist turned actor Marjoe Gortner and giant rodents is
basically all the ingredients you need to begin your 70's animals gone wild
B-movie marathon!

Oh, and one more...
I remember watching Massacre at Central High on cable way back when, and through the magic of YouTube I was able to relive the excitement of this drive-in classic through one quick click! The plot involves a transfer high school student who has to decide if he wants to get in with the school bullies or defend those who are being bullied. He makes his choice and suddenly the bullies start to get knocked off in creative ways until there are none of them left. With no bullies left...the former nobody nerds of the school start taking over and exhibiting some of the same traits the bullies did...and we know this isn't going to bode well for them either. This was a very low budget film, a bit cheesy at times and does seem to have very few teachers or adults at the school until the final scene...but I still have affection for this one and am glad I watched it again.

Warning: Massacre at Central High  features a scene where a bully knocks a group of books off the library shelf which may be disturbing to any librarian. The film does feature some performers who later had careers of note: Andrew Stevens, Robert Carradine, Lani O'Grady and 70's cutie Kimberly Beck.

Kimberly Beck during a more contemplative scene from
Massacre at Central High

Goodbye, 1976...
I had a friend who had this poster on his wall...
Ah,memories...

THE ODD COUPLE (1968), FACES (1968)

1968

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon
in The Odd Couple

The Odd Couple-Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, the comedy about two divorced men sharing an apartment in New York City, debuted on Broadway in 1965 and has been a perennial stage production all over ever since. I grew up with the television version starring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman which will always remain a favorite of sitcom of mine.

But for many the definitive version is the original movie starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Matthau plays Oscar, the sloppy sportswriter and Lemmon plays Felix, the fussy neurotic These two actors worked so well together, that they went on to appear together in numerous successful films in subsequent years. However, I can't bring myself to watch their thirty year later Odd Couple II. 

But for all these positives, The Odd Couple is NOT in the 1001 movie book! But never mind that, see it anyway.

Gena Rowlands and John Marley playing another
odd couple in Faces

Faces-Faces...close-ups...laughing...joking...crying...yelling...drinking....more close-ups...wrinkles...and more close-ups. It's a hard movie to define, unless you want the simple definition of it being the story about the dissolution of a marriage. Cassavetes movies are like that. It doesn't have a plot that's easy to follow or characters who we can get to know or even know who they are very easily! And the overlapping dialogue makes it difficult to catch everything being said. It's kind of like life that way and Cassavetes certainly doesn't make it easy for the viewer. Undoubtedly a hard film to get into at times, but worth the effort.

I mentioned The Odd Couple didn't make have made the 1001 list,  and here are a few more films from 1968 that I’ve seen that didn’t quite make the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die cut.

1. The Swimmer
If I could add one movie to the 1001 book, it would probably be the existential swimming movie starring Burt Lancaster and based on the John Cheever novel. It's one of those movies that strikes you or doesn't. Clearly I'm in the "strikes me" camp.

Burt Lancaster temporarily out of the water
in The Swimmer

2. The Green Berets
John Wayne's ill-fated attempt to make a positive Vietnam film during the year the war was most unpopular. Recognized as politically naive and a poor film to boot, but at least it did have that catchy theme song by Sgt. Barry Sadler!

3. Oliver!
Another Best Picture winner that didn't make the 1001 movie book but is certainly worthwhile for any fan of musicals. At least catch it on stage if you can.

4. Charly
Based on Flowers for Algernon, which is one of my favorite books. The structure of the Daniel Keyes's novel doesn't lend itself easily to a film treatment, but Cliff Robertson's Oscar-winning performance and the Ravi Shankar music is worth checking out.

5. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Dick Van Dyke's success in Mary Poppins led him to leave his classic television series to pursue a movie career, with very mixed results. I do think I liked the flying car when I saw this as a kid.

6. Head
The Monkees...The Pre-Fab Four star in a film that has gained a certain amount of cult status, but also pretty much killed their career. But never fear, The Monkees in one form or another have made many a comeback over the years and had the last laugh.

Mike, Peter, Davy and Mickey in Head
Yes, I grew up watching their TV series

7. Yellow Submarine
The real fab four (The Beatles, I mean) didn't have a lot to do with this creative animated film about the lad's journey through Pepperland fighting blue meanies. They did do some new songs for the film, including John's "Hey, Bulldog," and Paul's "All Together Now."

8. Monterey Pop
If Woodstock wasn't enough of a journey down musical memory lane for you, I think Monterey Pop might help you to quench your 60's groove thirst. This music festival included The Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix and many more.

9. The Lion in Winter
Even though it came from a stage play and was remade with Patrick Stewart, the version of The Lion in Winter with Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole probably remains the gold standard for this story. I say probably because it's been an awfully long time since I've seen it.

10. Psych-Out
I have a special place in my film buffs heart for all the hippie movies that came out in the late 60's. The Trip, Blow-Up, The Born Losers, Easy Rider, Alice's Restaurant and others. Psych-Out was about...about...I guess I don't remember, man.

I at least remember Jack Nicholson was in Psych-Out

11. Pretty Poison
All the years after first seeing this movie at the Silver Screen theater in Atlanta, this movie still sticks with me. Beautiful Tuesday Weld gets involved with nutty Anthony Perkins, but she turns out to be even crazier than he is! I guess if I ever saw it again, I run the risk of it not being as good as I remember. That's the chance you take when you revisit.

12. No Way to Treat a Lady
Pretty good police thriller from what I remember. I also remember Rod Steiger does a W. C. Fields impression which foreshadows his later role as Fields in W. C. Fields and Me.

13. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Adaptation of yet another of my favorite Southern novels and does show a strong feel for the period and setting. And Alan Arkin as the deaf-mute Mr. Singer is every bit as good as Robertson in Charly.

14. The Love Bug
I certainly loved Herbie, The Love Bug when this first came out. And I thought that Buddy Hackett was so funny! I was at an impressionable age, you know. I also liked the sequel, Herbie Rides Again, a few years later. But as I got older, Herbie and I parted ways. Herbie Goes Bananas?...This I cannot abide.

15. Wild in the Streets
You can probably add Wild in the Streets to the previous list of hippie movies. This was one of the first movies I checked out after I got my first VCR! A rock singer who gets the voting age lowered to 14 and leads to a teenage takeover of the government is pretty silly stuff for the most part, but does hit on some real issues here and there.

Don't trust anyone over 30
in Wild in the Streets

Goodbye, 1968!
Peace

SHADOWS (1959), HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959, FRANCE)

Tonight we're going to party like it's 1959.

Fred Kaplans' book, 1959: The Year That Changed Everything, states that this was the pivotal year that began much of what we now call modern times in the Western world. Important points for the year include:

· Mailer-Ginsburg-Kerouac-Burroughs and the banned Lady Chatterly's Lover
leading to things of a more permissible nature seeing print.
· Sputnik-leading to the space race.
· Herman Kahn's lectures on nuclear war being a lead in to the arms race.
· The introuduction of the solid intergrated circuit.
· Miles Davis, modern jazz & the civil rights movement.
· Castro's Cuban revolution.
· Cold War heating up with Kruschev's visit to the United States.
· SETI searching for life in outher space.
· Modern Art and the opening of the Guggenheim museum.
· Popular music and Motown.
· The final application for the birth control pill.
· The emergence of John F. Kennedy and the new Frontier.

Kaplan's chapter, The Off-Hollywood Movie, discusses the 1959 John Cassavetes film, Shadows. Cassavetes railed against Hollywood movies, where he said that commercial considerations were subtle, but dominate. He was more interested in the neo-realist filmmakers of Italy, who shot many of their films in the streets of Rome. Cassavetes decided to shoot a neo-realist film of his own in the streets of New York City. The result was Shadows, a story of a young black woman who passes for white, though a plot synopsis doesn't really do the movie justice, as it is largely free form and at least partly improvised. You know a 1959 movie that has a line that scoffs at the beat generation is pretty hip (or thinks it's pretty hip). Shadows, as well as other later films by Cassavetes, weren't big money makers, but did influence a generation of moviemakers such as Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanavich and Robert Altman.
I'm just glad that commercial considerations in today's American cinema have now become secondary to artistic considerations. (Hey, stop laughing!)

Thinking further about 1959, there were some interesting films NOT in the 1001 one movie book from that year.

1) The Beat Generation- Not to be confused with Beatniks starring Peter Breck, but The Beat Generation does at least have Jayne Mansfield imitator Mamie Van Doren. Or was she a Marilyn Monroe imitator? Or am I getting these movies mixed up? Well, no matter.

2) The Killer Shrews-Speaking of movies done on Mystery Science Theater 3000, this is the island adventure featuring genetically enhanced Shrews that want to kill you (hence the title) and stars James Best, that redneck sheriff guy from Dukes of Hazzard. I guess he played the sheriff, I wasn't really a regular watcher of the Dukes.

3) Gidget-Yes, the premiere of the cute little beachnik featuring Sandra Dee and later spawned a Sally Field TV series and…who am I kidding? I’ve never actually sat through a Gidget movie, though I have used the phrase “Big Kahuna” on occasion.

4) Journey to the Center of the Earth-Sure it was based on a Jules Verne story and sure it later became the basis for Rick Wakeman's magnum opus...but really, future archaeologists will unearth an old VHS copy of this and ask only one question: So, why was this Pat Boone ever popular, again?

5) The Mouse That Roared-Of note because of multi-Peter Sellers roles and the fact that I appeared in the stage version of this in High School. (Though my performance as Professor Kokintz is NOT even mentioned in The Mouse That Roared’s Wikipedia article!)

6) Solomon and Sheba-One of those sword and sandals epics that featured Yul Brynner with hair, no less! and the Ubervoluptuous Gina Lollabridgida.

7) 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock-The only Lou Costello effort without Abbott. I remember watching this as a kid and fruitlessly WAITING for Bud Abbott to appear.

8) Compulsion-Really should be in the 1001 movie book. Based on the Meyer Levin novel (an interesting read) about the Leopold and Loeb murder case and features Orson Welles as the Clarence Darrow stand-in as well as a pre-Quantum Leap as Dean Stockwell as one of the murderers.

9) Pillow Talk-If you have to watch a Doris Day/Rock Hudson comedy, this is probably the one to see. (But you don't have to, it's really not required.)

10) Plan 9 From Outer Space-You can’t make a list of movies from this year without a reference to the most famous bad film of all time. Though hardly the worst film of all time! Not as long as Manos, The Hands of Fate and Monster A Go-Go are still around.

There’s also Hiroshima, Mon Amour which is a 1001 Movies entry and was directed by Last Year at Marienband Alain Resnais. I first saw this in a history of film class at Georgia State xx number of years ago, but don’t remember much about that viewing.
In seeing it again, I like it more that Last Year at Marienband, though it still might be one that I have to see a few times to appreciated fully. It starts out in semi-documentary form dealing with the aftermath of the 1945 atomic bomb that was dropped over Hiroshima. The film jumps to a modern day (1959 modern day of course) showing us a brief (very brief) affair between a French actress and a Japanese architect. (The plot summary says he was an architect, but I don't remember them calling him an architect. I must have been out of the room when they mentioned it.) She has past demons from the war hanging over her largely involving a past lover who was killed. He has the memories of the atomic bomb hanging over him. Features some interesting tracking shots (not overdone like in Last Year at Marienband), gives a good feel of the city and has two appealing leads. Worth a look, but may require a second (or third) viewing.