(1966)

2026

2025

The Reptile (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s If there is such a thing, qualifies as the thinking person’s Hammer horror picture. More atmospheric than usual, creepy rather than shocking, and with greater emphasis on psychology and loss than you’d expect to find in a Hammer film. No recognizable stars either...


26th December 2025
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Ambush Bay (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s I’m going out on a limb on this one. I don’t think anyone’s done anything but give it a cursory examination and mark it down as a standard programmer of the era. But I saw a lot that was considerably impactful. Generally speaking,...


9th December 2025
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Beau Geste (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Two brothers battle inhospitable terrain, warring tribes and a sadistic sergeant major in a  remake of the classic tale. The title translates as “noble and generous gesture” and is a pun on the name of hero Michael Geste (Guy Stockwell), an American hiding...


5th December 2025
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After the Fox (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s There’s a classic MacGuffin in here somewhere, but I can’t make out if it’s the heist serving the satire on movies or the satire on movies serving the heist. Whatever, this is about the funniest picture you’ll watch on the movie business (much...


23rd November 2025
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Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Highly entertaining woefully underrated heist picture with an impish James Coburn (Hard Contract, 1967), Swedish Camilla Sparv (Downhill Racer, 1969) in a sparkling debut and at the end an outrageous twist you won’t see coming in a million years. This is the antithesis...


31st October 2025
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Doctor in Clover (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Ding dong! All change. Out go the dithering twerps and in comes the seductive lothario. Dirk Bogarde after one last charge and no longer the country’s top attraction at the box office has departed for the more receptive arthouse climes of King and Country (1964), Darling (1965)...


13th October 2025
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Kaleidoscope (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Amazing the tension that emanates from the turn of a card. Or, more correctly, waiting for one. Only problem is we’re two-third through the movie before high-stakes poker begins – the pot nudging £250,00 (close on a cool £5 million now). Mostly, the...


10th October 2025
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The Rare Breed (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Classic themes of hope, resilience and redemption influence director Andrew V. McLaglen’s follow-up to Shenandoah (1965). Add in a battle against widespread misogyny, thieves falling out, a brilliant stampede and a forlorn hunt that has echoes in the decade-old The Searchers. But other more serious issues...


9th October 2025
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The Fighting Prince of Donegal (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s I’m amazed I sat through this without complaint as a kid. This was a rare outing for me, given I grew up in a town without a cinema and the only time I went was for a roadshow musical at Xmas or if...


30th August 2025
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Death Curse of Tartu (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Absolute hoot. I often think it’s a shame we can’t admit to enjoying a really good bad picture and here we have a gem in the So Bad It’s Good category. If you have a notion for the kind of movie where actors...


14th August 2025
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The Doomsday Flight (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Early entry to the hijack subgenre – this one pivoting on the bomb-on-a-plane. Could almost deem it a template for what to do and not do in this particular field. Airport (1970) was the most obvious beneficiary although Speed (1994) could be reckoned to be something of...


19th July 2025
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An Angel for Satan (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Scream Queen Barbara Steele (The Crimson Cult / Cult of the Crimson Altar, 1968) is the big attraction in this heady brew of witchcraft, ancient curse, hypnotism and plain ordinary seduction, with an ingenious double twist. And elegantly mounted, crisply photographed as if...


18th July 2025
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Harper / The Moving Target (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Inventive screenplay by William Goldman (Masquerade, 1965), the ideal combination of witty lines and others that strike to the heart, and Paul Newman’s most naturalistic performance, and a family at each other’s throats, create a genuine addition to the private eye genre. Punch-ups...


13th July 2025
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El Dorado (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s John Wayne incapacitated? Robert Mitchum a liability? The hell you say! You bring together two of the greatest male action figures only to turn the genre upside down and inside out. And I know it’s tradition for heroes to be unable to listen...


30th June 2025
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Girl on a Chain Gang (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Trash and intentionally so, but with some unexpected merit. In the first place it was the forerunner of films set in the Deep South such as In the Heat of the Night (1967) and Mississippi Burning (1988) and where the former deals primarily in racism the latter...


27th June 2025
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Born Free (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Unusual mix of the sentimental and the unsentimental, mixing soft-centered animal features like That Darn Cat (1966) where cute beasts cause mayhem with the kind of realism espoused by Sir David Attenborough (Planet Earth, 2006) where nature is red in tooth and claw, though skipping...


11th June 2025
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The Swinger (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s As chosen by my readers, this is the most popular movie on the Blog, so I thought I’d check back and see how it stood up. Having seen it before, of course, I knew what to expect. And despite the star’s acting abilities...


29th May 2025
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Invasion (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Style is just about the only weapon in the directorial armory to mitigate against lack of budget. Or you can rely on a narrative twist. But in sci fi you’re inevitably going to come a cropper in this era and on a low...


24th April 2025
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Alice in Wonderland (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Young bucks wanting to make a bigger splash are apt to rampage through sacred texts and treat unwary audiences to avant-garde notions. Thus, Jonathan Miller (Take a Girl Like You, 1970), in his debut, set aside all expectations and in fairness purists had...


23rd April 2025
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Danger Grows Wild (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Audiences were likely disgruntled to discover that out of a heavyweight cast boasting the likes of Omar Sharif (Doctor Zhivago, 1965), Yul Brynner (The Magnificent Seven, 1960), Rita Hayworth (Circus World/The Magnificent Showman, 1964), Senta Berger (Cast a Giant Shadow, 1966) and Stephen...


31st March 2025
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Texas Across the River (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Excellent comedy western mixing dry wit and occasional slapstick to joyous effect. The wedding between Spanish duke Don Aldrea (Alain Delon) and Louisiana belle Phoebe (Rosemary Forsyth) is interrupted by her previous suitor Yancy (Stuart Cottle) who is killed in the resulting melee....


26th March 2025
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The Silencers (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s An absolute delight. Have to confess though I had been pretty sniffy about even deigning to watch what I always had been led to believe was an ill-judged spoof of the Bond phenomenon especially with a middle-aged Dean Martin with scarcely a muscle...


24th February 2025
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Stagecoach (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s It’s probably sacrilege to admit that I quite enjoyed this. Also it’s been so long since I’ve seen the John Ford original that I could remember very little of the specifics and I haven’t seen the remake before so this was just like...


21st February 2025
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2024

Promise Her Anything (1966)

Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s You ever wonder what William Peter Blatty got up to before he scared the bejasus out of everyone with The Exorcist (1973)? He was a screenwriter, churning out somewhat formulaic comedies like this. There were two approaches to this subgenre. The potential lovers...


26th December 2024
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