Cinema, TV, and Everything in Between
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s In a plot worthy of Hitchcock without that director’s sly malice, rich playboy Tony (Sean Connery) conspires with not-so-innocent nurse Maria (Gina Lollobrigida) to rid himself of heinous upper-class racist misogynistic bully Charles (Ralph Richardson), his uncle. Beyond a savage case of entitlement,...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The potential for leering – given the squads of bikinied beauties, cleavage abounding and partial nudity a prerequisite in the standard James Bond picture – could have gone into the stratosphere. So it’s to the producer’s credit that they opted to drop ogler-in-chief...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s As far as Hollywood was concerned brainwashing was ascribed to foreigners intent on disrupting democracy as with The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Such inherent hypocrisy will come as no surprise since scientists at McGill University in Canada had been carrying out C.I.A.-funded sensory deprivation experiments in...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s A pratfall still works wonders. An open door or window, anything that happens to be on the floor, or for that matter any object of any description – billiard cues, for example – within easy reach offers the opportunity for havoc – and...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The start is promising. Three decent laughs in the first three scenes, all jests at the expense of Hollywood. But when the movie settles down to a werewolf spoof, there’s a nary a chuckle to be found. It was rare in the 1960s...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Screen charisma can only get you so far. The pairing of William Holden and Audrey Hepburn must have seemed certain to create a box office tsunami given they had worked together before on the hit Sabrina (1954) and were coming off hits, the former in The...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s How this crispy-told beautifully-mounted character-driven western ever languished among the also-rans is beyond me. I suspect the specter of John Ford hung heavily over it in the eyes of critics at the time but it more correctly belongs to the cycle of Cecil...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Occasionally I get to wondering when one of these British crime B-pictures is exceptionally well-plotted, refreshing and above all logical, whether it might have benefitted from grander treatment Hollywood-style. You could easily see Cary Grant or Gregory Peck wriggling around in this one...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Half a century ago it would have blasphemy to do anything but mock this oh-so-obvious James Bond rip-off. That was the year, if you remember, when another bigger-budgeted spoof, Casino Royale, took an almighty chunk out of the box office of You Only Live Twice. ...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s As his popularity in the 1960s faded, Marlon Brando was often called upon to save, or greenlight, a picture unworthy of his talent. Except that director Hubert Cornfield failed to extract enough tension from a kidnap thriller with an inbuilt deadline and a...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Few stars were as willing to trade their glamorous screen persona for a decent role as Elizabeth Taylor, here eschewing the trademark hip swivel, low cut dresses and elegant costumes for a clumping walk, frumpy look and eating with her mouth full. After...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Director Gordon Parks made a big noise a couple of years later with Shaft (1971), Richard Roundtree shooting to fame as a slick and sexy private eye, memorable score by Quincy Jones. But The Learning Tree had possibly a bigger impact on the Hollywood consciousness, the first...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Tennessee Williams wrote better parts for women than he did for men. You can start with Vivien Leigh, Oscar-winner for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) – Marlon Brando only nominated – and Anna Magnani Oscar-winner for The Rose Tattoo (1955) with Maria Pavan nominated and star Burt...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s You wouldn’t have figured Audrey Hepburn – she of the model looks (Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961) and upmarket twang and belonging to the highest echelons of the movie business – for a Scream Queen. But there were precedents – Doris Day had at...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s I didn’t realise that the Prohibition gangsters who invented the drive-by shooting were perfectionists. Just to be make sure of completing the job, I found out here, they might send a dozen cars one after the other rolling past the chosen restaurant/cafe, machine...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Low budget sci-fi effort that had little chance in the box office stakes that year up against the big budget psychedelic 2001: A Space Odyssey and the visceral Planet of the Apes. Producer George Pal and director Byron Haskin, the key figures behind War of the Worlds (1953),...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s You know the score: plane crashes in inhospitable territory (in this case a desert), personalities clash as food/water is rationed, tempers run high and/or depression sets in as attempts to attract attention fail, someone goes for help, someone else has an ingenious idea...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Hammer Scream Queens rarely make an impact outside the genre, so it comes as something of a surprise to find Barbara Shelley effortlessly making the transition from The Gorgon (1964) to a slinky femme fatale spinning a deadly web around three men. While British femme...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s It always helps a prison picture if your character has been wrongfully convicted (The Shawshank Redemption, 1994) or is incarcerated through an unfortunately set of circumstances including self-destructive tendencies (Cool Hand Luke, 1967). Whatever the case, the malevolence of the wardens or the...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Minor gem. One of the espionage films of the era ignored by audiences because it lacked the verve of James Bond, no car chases or bedhopping hero to maintain interest when the narrative stretched credulity. Ignored by critics because it starred the vastly...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s In her first top-billed role Angie Dickinson (Jessica, 1962) delivers a strong performance as an American nurse/missionary in the Belgian Congo at the start of the Second World War. The usual Hollywood trope of “heathens” needing to be educated by imperialists – from The...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Must-see for collectors of cinematic curios. A treatise on entitlement, bullfighting, Picasso, the impact of celebrity on everyday lives and the hermaphroditic qualities of snails? Or an innovative piece of moviemaking through its use of a jigsaw split-screen, an audacious reimagining of the...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Limp ending to a fine series. Torpedoed by too many oddities. Leslie Philips returns in the top-billed role, but he’s not playing the suave Dr Gaston Grimsdyke of the previous iteration, but instead a more hapless version of Dr Paul Burke, the character...…
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)...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Surprisingly hardnosed for a British crime thriller. Surprisingly stylish and when the sting in the tail comes, it’s an emotional one, adding a deeper level to one of the main characters. In most crime picture – wherever they originate, Britain, Hollywood, France, Italy...…
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...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Given Ann-Margret receives top billing I had automatically assumed she was the Bus Riley in question. Although decidedly the female lead, her role is secondary to that of a sailor returning to his small town. The backstory is that Bus – no explanation...…
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