Cinema, TV, and Everything in Between
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The quite superb concept that underpins the traditional unsettling of Rock Hudson is sabotaged by the inclusion of an unnecessary generation gap element and because one of the youngsters is singer Bobby Darin that throws a musical spanner into the works. The basic...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Every new Hayley Mills film was an exercise in transition. Would audiences allow the successful child star – the first for a generation – to grow up? Or would they turn against her as they had Shirley Temple? And would her paymasters Disney...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The Twist, the Macarena, Twerking, none of these routines can hold a candle to the Waltz, which has dominated the dance world for centuries. You think maybe Queen invented the idea of audience participating in a tune by dancing and clapping in “We...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The first piece of sleight-of-hand is the title, setting audiences up for the opener in a crime series featuring the eponymous French character. A terrific twist at the climax shows exactly why this would not be turned into a series, though one critic...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Blame the algorithm. Once I had to my great surprise found The Hunting Party (1971) on Amazon Prime the streamer decided that my next port of call should be another rape-filled western. There are only two things to recommend this – firstly, it makes The Hunting...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Prophetic plot is the best reason to watch this more considered feature from newcomers Commonwealth United. Another movie featuring a former star on the wane in Nancy Kwan. Again, one of those neo noir films which might have made a bigger splash with...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The special effects are in the five-star range while the movie into which they fit is really worth no more than three stars so I’ve compromised, hence the four-star rating. Actually, the story and characters are interesting enough, and there are some stunning...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s An absolute hoot – and I suspect deliberately so. Forget the spaghetti western tag, this is a black comedy – and wild at that. And while its most obvious antecedent is Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) it really belongs in a different...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s This overheated melodrama stands as a classic example of Hollywood’s offensive attitudes to women. Nobel prize-winning author William Faulkner could hardly blame the movies for sensationalizing his misogynistic source material since if anything the movie took a softer line. Told primarily in flashback...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s I enjoy a demanding supremely-acted fluently-directed movie with possibly a hint of Oscar reward as much as the next person. But last thing at night, I often prefer something that makes no demands at all except paying attention to a twisty narrative. And...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s A drunk falls into a swimming pool in the middle of the night and drowns. He has already crashed his car into the gate post of the villa. There’s no sign of foul play. No sign of the fact that his attempts to...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Come the apocalypse, you’d want someone like Capt Ramsay (Neil Fletcher) in your corner. He’s not the kind to be surprised by the sudden onset of a nuclear holocaust. He’s prime boy scout – always prepared. Not only has he got three months...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Fantasy enjoys considerable leeway if its fantastical elements make up for lack of character development and narrative scope. This Jules Verne rip-off – it appeared a few months before Five Weeks in a Balloon – hardly even qualifies as a travelog given the background is...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s This has been lost for decades – and with good reason. Even Katharine Hepburn fresh from an Oscar-winning turn in The Lion in Winter (1968) can’t save this and to be honest I’m struggling to see why anyone wanted to make it in the first...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s The dismissive verdict of Sam Peckinpah (he wrote the script) is the main reason this remains unfairly underrated. This came out the same year as that director’s over-rated Major Dundee and covers some of the same themes – the training of raw recruits and the...…
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...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Don’t get too hung up on the supposed rampant sexism in this third iteration the Matt Helm series. These women – bikini-clad or not – are weaponized to the hilt rather than our hero Matt Helm (Dean Martin) who has to make do...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Unless you go by the name of Dr Jekyll, you don’t want to become a guinea pig for your own scientific experiments. Niftily done, memorable opening and finale, minimum expenditure on special effects ensures the shock value is limited until it counts as...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s While once the main interest in this piece would have come from fans of Judy Garland, lapping up her penultimate movie appearance, the prevalence of mental illness these days especially among the young, in part due to Covid and the scourge of social...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Don’t be taken in by claims that, since it was directed by Mario Bava, it kicked off the giallo sub-genre. More of the tropes come from mainstream horror – windows banging shut, locked doors, disembodied voices, stalkers, gaslighting, mysterious phone calls, premonition, retrocognition....…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Back to those ingénues – or whatever-happened-to-Tippi Hedren. Christopher George’s villainous turn in El Dorado (1967) brought him as much immediate attention as James Caan and though he quickly achieved leading man status he never parlayed it beyond the likes of low-budget numbers...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Earnest students of the Senta Berger Syllabus may be somewhat disappointed, I’m afraid. This turns out to be an epic movie – in two parts – but even with a three-hour running time there’s hardly any space for the second-billed Ms Berger. Instead...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s You can’t aspire to being Emeritus Professor of Senta Berger Studies unless you are willing to track down this early effort. Your curiosity can now be sated without much effort since it’s currently playing on YouTube. You’ll notice a preponderance of brownface (Klaus...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s First film to deal with U.S. Army war crimes. Though here’s it’s tabbed as abuse of power but amounts to the same thing when it relates to the wanton killing of innocents. Not the first film to examine a commander totally unsuited to...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Sci fi film noir. Anything that involves cult director Edgar G. Ulmer (Hannibal, 1960) tends to put an unusual twist on a tale and here he takes the kind of mad scientist who would be perfectly at home in the MCU and turns...…
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...…
Here’s the latest from The Magnificent 60s Easy credit led to a boom in the standard of living but also created global recession after the sub-prime mortgage scandal. Back in the day you couldn’t borrow money except from a bank and they only lent to people with money. To get...…
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