August 1960 saw the continuing liberation of African colonies into their own nations - that was the theme of 1960, which was deemed the Year of Africa, but August saw the largest number: between August 1 and August 17, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Niger, Ivory Coast, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (the great 2024 documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat gets into this), and Gabon all became liberated from France, and Dahomey from France and Portugal, joining seven other African nations that had decolonized earlier that year. Seventeen nations in all established independent governments by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, at American cinemas...:
Sons and Lovers
release: August 2
wins: Best Cinematography - Black-and-White
nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Trevor Howard), Best Supporting Actress (Mary Ure), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Black-and-White (Thomas N. Morahan / Lionel Couch)
dir: Jack Cardiff
pr: Jerry Wald
scr: Gavin Lambert and T.E.B. Clarke, from the novel by D.H. Lawrence
cin: Freddie Francis
D.H. Lawrence adaptation revolves around a little shithead with aspirations beyond his mining town who finds his ambitions simultaneously backed and threatened by his mother. We’ll get more into it when we discuss the Oscars.
The Time Machine
release: August 3
wins: Best Special Effects (Gene Warren / Tim Baar)
dir/pr: George Pal
scr: David Duncan, from the novel by H.G. Wells
cin: Paul C. Vogel
The classic story of a Victorian man who builds a time machine and explores the distant future. The novel was published in 1895, allowing the filmmakers 65 years of hindsight to play around in: our time traveler not only sees fashion and friends transform rapidly as he watches from his vehicle, but is able to actually illustrate with episodes from two World Wars man’s inevitable destruction of himself. And then we get to the future populated by Eloi and Morlocks and I’m still not sure if I get how it works nor am I entirely convinced by Yvette Mimieux, but Rod Taylor is captivating enough, curious and alienated and with a faraway sadness that enables him to play convincingly the scientist-adventurer who must now adapt to life without the people he knew. His friendship with Alan Young’s Filby is the emotional core of the movie.
Ocean’s 11
release: August 4
dir/pr: Lewis Milestone
scr: Harry Brown & Charles Lederer, from a story by George Clayton Johnson & Jack Golden Russell
cin: William H. Daniels
Danny Ocean gathers the members of his platoon together for an ambitious heist against all of Las Vegas. Part-advertisement for the city and its Rat Pack cool, part-musical (sometimes, there’s like three numbers), mostly a hangout movie climaxing with the big New Year’s Eve heist. Ends on a note that’s an ironic chuckle, a gut punch, a hands-in-the-air sigh. Sammy Davis, Jr., who sings “Ee-Oh-Eleven”, and Cesar Romero, as a gangster who gets wind of the plot, are best in show.
The Last Woman on Earth
release: August 5
dir/pr: Roger Corman
scr: Robert Towne
cin: Jacques R. Marquette
Tensions rise when a thin-ice couple and their lawyer find themselves, somehow, the last survivors on Earth. Slow burn meditation on what to value and how to value it, I think. Bummer movie. You can feel the hopeless heat of an endless summer day burning off the screen. One of the three leads, Edward Wain, is a pseudonym for screenwriter Robert Towne, who was cast so he could do rewrites while shooting.
The Little Shop of Horrors
release: August 5
dir/pr: Roger Corman
scr: Charles B. Griffith
cin: Archie R. Dalzell
Loser florist shop employee Seymour Krellborn tends to a mysterious talking plant that can only grow by consuming blood. One of Corman’s most iconic films, and it would have been even without the musical, so far out and yet lovingly realized is its ensemble of eccentrics, from Seymour’s hypochondriac mother to Dick Miller as a flower-eating customer to Jack Nicholson as a masochist who loves the dentist. A great companion piece to Bucket of Blood: both center on drips who are hailed as geniuses while secretly carrying on gruesome work to retain their new status, though while the former is about pretentious artists glazing each other to feel exceptional, this one is about desperately poor people clawing for every penny they can grab to survive, holding on to the few things that make them feel human.
It Started in Naples
release: August 7
nominations: Best Art Direction-Set Decoration - Color (Hal Pereira / Roland Anderson / Sam Comer / Arrigo Breschi)
dir: Melville Shavelson
pr: Jack Rose
scr: Melville Shavelson & Jack Rose and Suso Cecchi D'Amico, story by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies
cin: Robert Surtees
Clark Gable comes to Naples to claim his estranged brother’s son and falls in love with cabaret performer Sophia Loren. Yeah, yeah, OK, it’s nice, sure. Loren gets a nice musical number or two (at one point dressed like a baby doll? very odd), Gable, I think, is a flawless actor.
All the Young Men
release: August 26
dir/pr/scr: Hall Bartlett
cin: Daniel L. Fapp
During the Korean War, a Black sergeant is charged with leading a platoon of white men; they take shelter in a mountainside farmhouse. Sidney Poitier is the sergeant, Alan Ladd is the next lead with whom he has tension, and Mort Sahl is great as one of the platoon, the most natural-seeming performer of the lot. Some aspects - the snowy mountain setting, the discovery of the farmhouse - are reminiscent of Ski Troop Attack. A moody, tense drama...up until the rah-rah finale.
Circus of Horrors
release: August 31
dir: Sidney Hayers
pr: Sasmuel . Arkoff / Leslie Parkyn / Julian Wintle
scr: George Baxt
cin: Douglas Slocombe
A disgraced surgeon leaves England and takes on a new identity as the owner of a circus, whose performers are all former patients...who can never leave! A title like this one's better deliver, and it sure the hell does! Knife-throwing acts that go wrong! Trapeze acts that go wrong! Animal acts that go - well, you get it, there are a lot of ways to die at the circus on accident, even more when a murderous surgeon-owner is targeting you. Sometimes I enjoy a movie that has nothing more to offer than hot people and horrible violence. It's why I like the Terrifier movies, it's why I like this one.
Tomorrow, Alfred Hitchcock's greatest hit.
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