In October 1960, JFK floated the idea of a Peace Corps while Khruschev banged his shoe at the United Nations. And at the movies:
Let No Man Write My Epitaph
release: October
dir: Philip Leacock
pr: Boris D. Kaplan
scr: Robert Presnell Jr., from the novel by Willard Motley
cin: Burnett Guffey
A group of neighbors in the Chicago slums does their best to help Nellie Romano raise her son Nick right, encouraging his musical talents while struggling through their own vices. A sequel to 1949's Knock on Any Door, which I have not seen, but which established Nick's father as a criminal executed at the electric chair. This tarnishes the boy at an early age, but this ragtag group of adults tries their best, even as they continue to be prey to their own vices, especially booze and dope. I was moved, I recognized these people as some of my neighbors, my customers at work, my acquaintances at the bar, my seat partners on the metro. It's a movie that recognizes that addiction and substance abuse are not the full story, that some people can only go so far because of where they are and who they have around them. It's often heavyhanded, but...it worked for me. And I loved the central performances of Burl Ives as the alcoholic former judge who plays the father figure and Shelley Winters as the dope addict mother who really is trying her best to stay clean. An empathetic, thoughtful film, even if it gets a little wonky near the end.
Midnight Lace
release: October
nominations: Best Costume Design - Color (Irene)
dir: David Miller
pr: Ross Hunter / Martin Melcher
scr: Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, from the play Matilda Shouted Fire by Janet Green
cin: Russell Metty
Doris Day is targeted by a mysterious stalker threatening to kill her. The high-pitched voice delivering each threat is terrifying, an effective vocal choice on par with, oh, The New York Ripper's Donald Duck imitator. Fine ensemble - Day, yes, but also Rex Harrison, Roddy McDowall, John Williams, and Myrna Loy! You can figure out the central mystery during the opening credits, but it's still fun to see Day in this mode. She should have done more thrillers, God, imagine her in a William Castle! I love her. Irene costumes the hell out of her, too.
Never On Sunday
release: October 1
wins: Best Original Song ("Never On Sunday")
nominations: Best Director, Best Actress (Melina Mercouri), Best Original Screenplay, Best Costume Design - Black-and-White (Deni Vachiloti)
dir/pr/scr: Jules Dassin
cin: Jacques Natteau
An American bore who has a lot of opinions about how much greater the Ancient Greeks were compared to modern society goes to Greece and seeks to educate and reform everyone’s favorite prostitute. Jules Dassin writes, directs, and stars alongside his wife Melina Mercouri: she’s much more natural than he is, but then again, he is playing an uptight blowhard, so his stiffness works. Funny how cyclical these things are, westerners returning to Greek philosophy to “save” modern society. It’s a funny comedy of manners that often crosses into the sublime, like when the prostitutes go on strike and sing together in prison following a protest. Of the first-time watches for this year, this was the one that had me looking clips to rewatch later, it’s just such a fun movie to experience.
The Entertainer
release: October 3
nominations: Best Actor (Laurence Olivier)
dir: Tony Richardson
pr: Harry Saltzman
scr: John Osborne and Nigel Kneale, from the play by John Osborne
cin: Oswald Morris
This one’s less fun, unless you get a kick out of watching great actors at their best, in which case, yes, it’s a great time. Laurence Olivier is a music hall performer of the old school whose show is on the way out - tastes have well changed, and no one in the business (or in town) seems to like him very much, probably because he is such a feckless, grasping, self-absorbed, drunken user. His actions hurt him, his business, and his family, which includes Roger Livesey as his father, another vaudeville vet; Joan Plowright as his frustrated daughter; and the great Brenda de Banzie as his, I guess, wife, or at least long-term partner who’s put up with his bull for decades, and doesn’t seem to mind. A frustrating character, this entertainer, but a hell of a film.
The Hidden Fortress
release: October 6
dir: Akira Kurosawa
pr: Sanezumi Fujimoto / Akira Kurosawa
scr: Ryûzô Kikushima & Hideo Oguni & Shinobu Hashimoto & Akira Kurosawa
cin: Kazuo Yamazaki
Another samurai film from Kurosawa, this one distinguishes itself by centering on a pair of bickering peasants caught between two sides of a war, flip-flopping loyalties depending on who they think can pay them more money; they wind up helping escort a cargo of gold and a mysterious pair through enemy territory, unaware that they are the defeated princess and her general. Toshiro Mifune is the general, gets a wonderful scene where he fights with a spear against a respected rival; he also parades about in the shortest shorts you’ve ever seen. For the most part, though, it’s these two peasants attempting various schemes to get rich and stay alive, proving hopeless at the former and just barely capable of the latter. Once you hear George Lucas used this as the blueprint for Star Wars, every element locks into place, but there’s also a bit of this in Rosemvrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
Inherit the Wind
release: October 12
nominations: Best Actor (Spencer Tracy), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography - Black-and-White, Best Editing (Frederic Knudtson)
dir/pr: Stanley Kramer
scr: Nedrick Young (as Nedrick E. Douglas) and Harold Jacob Smith, from the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
cin: Ernest Laszlo
Riff on the Scopes Monkey Trial puts the theory of evolution and scientific study on trial, with atheist Spencer Tracy defending a schoolteacher whose curriculum has become controversial, and god-fearing Frederic March prosecuting. Gene Kelly neither sings nor dances in a supporting role as a journalist. Dug the movie in middle school, still love it. As a kid, nothing rocked my world like simply observing that the Bible’s measurement of days can’t be taken literally from our own understanding of time, since sun and moon were only distinguished on Day Four - a thought that does not dismiss the existence of a higher power, but merely questions human beings’ own understanding and interpretation, and how can we be so certain in Our Truth if we can’t acknowledge simple discrepancies? And once we do admit that it comes down to personal Faith, is it really fair, is it really right, to end all alternative discussions, merely because we, individually, feel threatened (or stupid)? Timeless questions, and not merely limited to evolution vs. creationism, but to how we function as a society with so many disparate beliefs, how we resolve conflicts of faith. Wonderful speechifying throughout.
The Magnificent Seven
release: October 12
nominations: Best Score (Elmer Bernstein)
dir/pr: John Sturges
scr: William Roberts, from Seven Samurai by Shinobu Hashimoto / Akira Kurosawa / Hideo Oguni
cin: Charles Lang, Jr.
Western remake of Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai sees a border town terrorized by banditos seeking help from a ragtag group of gunslingers, headed by Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen. My first time seeing this version, but I’ve seen the Kurosawa and the Antoine Fuqua remake; still, I was gasping, hooting, weeping, so masterfully made you can’t help being drawn in like it’s a brand new tale. Charles Bronson gets the best scene as a fighter who befriends the children of the village, admonishing them for believing their peasant fathers to be cowards - what a scene, what a performance!
Picnic on the Grass
release: October 12
dir/scr: Jean Renoir
pr: Ginette Courtois-Doynel
cin: Georges Leclerc
A very practical celebrity scientist running to be the first President of Europe advocates for mandatory artificial insemination - less mess, more purposeful breeding...eugenics, you see. A farmer's daughter who wants kids but is disappointed with the men in her life sees value in his project and volunteers to be a test subject. There's a picnic, there's a goatherd with a magic flute summoning winds of change, and everything turns topsy-turvy in this lusty, lovely, magical comedy. Another film whose influence can be seen in American cinema decades later: this is just as much a part of A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy as was Shakespeare and Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. Beautiful cinematography, pastoral sunshine paradise.
Spartacus
release: October 19
wins: Best Supporting Actor (Peter Ustinov), Best Cinematography - Color, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Color (Alexander Golitzen / Eric Orbom / Russell A. Gausman / Julia Heron), Best Costume Designer - Color (Valles / Bill Thomas)
nominations: Best Score (Alex North), Best Editing (Robert Lawrence)
dir: Stanley Kubrick
pr: Edward Lewis
scr: Dalton Trumbo, from the novel by Howard Fast
cin: Russell Metty
A slave becomes a star gladiator and leads a revolution against the Roman Empire. If you've been reading me a while, you may know I have a soft spot for epics (it's why it's such a bummer when I don't like one). Hell, I even love Alexander the Great! Such a film as Spartacus is why: it may be three hours, but its wide array of complex characters, propulsive plotting, mortal action scenes, and great sense of spectacle - the wide screen! the costumes! the sets! the score! - make it fly by, I was getting to the end and hoping for another hour and a half. A lot of rah-rah about Man's God-given right to be his own Master, and a lot of bloodshed on either side over it. What an ensemble: Laurence Olivier as a plotting senator, Charles Laughton as his opponent, Peter Ustinov as a sniveling dealer in gladiators, Jean Simmons as Spartacus's wife, Woody Strode and Tony Curtis as fellow slave-gladiators...everyone's here, everyone's great. Everything's great.
Village of the Damned
release: October 25
dir: Wolf Rilla
pr: Ronald Kinnoch
scr: Stirling Silliphant & Wolf Rilla & Ronald Kinnoch, from The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
cin: Geoffrey Faithfull
Played and replayed often when I was in 5th grade, thanks to the library. It's under 80 minutes! Takes its time with the set up, everyone blacking out simultaneously in the village of Midwich, all the women becoming pregnant; still chilling, the rest of the film, where the overly-formal telekinetic children wreak havoc and serve lewks. Only thing about watching it now that takes me out is little Martin Stephens, who would be marvelous a year later in The Innocents, being overdubbed by a grown woman doing a "little boy" voice. It's very obvious and off-putting, and not necessarily in the way the filmmakers would desire. The way George Sanders says "Anthea" has lived in my head for decades.
The Alamo
release: October 26
wins: Best Sound (Gordon Sawyer / Fred Hynes)
nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Chill Wills), Best Score (Dimitri Tiomkin), Best Original Song ("The Green Leaves of Summer"), Best Cinematography - Color, Best Editing (Stuart Gilmore)
dir/pr: John Wayne
scr: James Edward Grant
cin: William H. Clothier
The story of the Texas Revolution, told on a suitably epic scale. We'll talk more when we get to The Oscars.
Tomorrow, the last releases of 1960.
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