This month, we focus on the films of 1960, including Alfred Hitchcock's final Best Director nomination, the film for which he is probably best known - Psycho.
We'll come to that later this week, and even more detail next week. For today, we focus on the beginning of the year, the beginning of a new decade. It's been fifteen years since the end of World War II. We are in the thick of the Cold War: this is the decade of the Space Race, of the Bay of Pigs and the Missiles of October, of the Vietnam War, though all that comes later. This is also the decade of great social change all over the world, and you see that reflected even just among these eleven films. The grip the studios had on the culture will loosen this decade, as you can see in the below: more independent films, more films willing to take on sex and violence, more films challenging censors and societal norms, and coming out champions!
Here we begin:
Legend of the White Serpent
release: ???
dir: Shirô Toyoda
pr: Tomoyuki Tanaka
scr: Toshio Yasumi
cin: Mitsuo Miura
AKA Madame White Snake. Chinese-Japanese co-production adapts a folk tale of a man who falls in love with a woman who turns out to be a witch who transforms into a snake. It’s a human story, at the end of the day, full of magic, trickery, family squabbles, religious rivalry, worries over money, and, yes, real love. Made in 1956, IMDb only lists a 1965 date for its US release, yet the production information for this film matches the title that qualified for this year’s Academy Awards (as you can imagine, there are many versions of this tale, including a Korean one made in 1960 that didn’t make it to the US, as far as I know). Gorgeous production values, lush color cinematography.
Ikiru
release: March 25, 1956
dir: Akira Kurosawa
pr: Sôjirô Motoki
scr: Akira Kurosawa / Shinobu Hashimoto / Hideo Oguni
cin: Asakazu Nakai
A local bureaucrat changes his life when he is given a terminal cancer diagnosis. The only US release information I can find for this (keeping in mind I only checked iMDb and literally nothing else) refers to March 1956, so we must assume that it played Los Angeles at some point in 1960, otherwise it would not have been eligible here. Later remade as the 2022 British drama Living starring Bill Nighy, which manages to tell the exact same story almost beat-for-beat in about 70% the runtime. I can;t think of what was sacrificed, except that maybe it doesn't take as much time for Mr. Watanabe to get drunk at the clubs. Lot of stiff upper lip, suffer-in-silence secret-keeping. Lot of omniscent narration, though Takashi Shimura's lead performance tells us everything we need to know through his demeanor and Eeyore expressions. I will sound the very picture of a philistine if I confess I thought it was too long and that (like its remake) the structure of the final 10-15 minutes leaves me at a remove that compromises the desired effect. But it's a moving final shot.
Lola Montès
release: February 22, 1959
dir: Max Ophüls
pr: Albert Caraco / André Haguet / Anton Schelkopf
scr: Max Ophüls, dialogue by Jacques Natanson, adaptation by Max Ophüls and Annette Wadamant, from the novel The Extraordinary Life of Lola Montès by Jacques Laurent (writing as Cécil Saint Laurent)
cin: Christian Matras
But I love the movie about the circus whore! Not unexpected, perhaps, I love carny tales, and the use of CinemaScope and Technicolor makes for, what other word can I use?, stunning imagery. AKA The Sins of Lola Montès, this is the tale of Lola Montès, a dancer and courtesan whose rich history of peccadilloes (including a tryst with Liszt and handling the würst of Ludwig I) is dramatized through a circus act. Decision thrust upon Ophüls by the producers - the color photography, the grand craftsmanship, the international cast - he makes accessories to his drama of a superficial beauty made gaudier by the demeaning act of recreating her "sins" as entertainment, night after night. Ends on a note that I found shocking in its dehumanization, but also, sadly, apt and timeless - we love to gawk, we demand the right to judge and spit at someone before demanding they kiss us.
Bewildered Youth
release: March 25, 1959
dir: Veit Harlan
pr: Gero Wecker
scr: Felix Lützkendorf, idea by Hans Habe (as Robert Pilchowski)
cin: Kurt Grigoleit
AKA The Third Sex and Different from You and Me, a German film about a teen who befriends a gay boy and, his parents fear, is in danger of being turned into a homosexual. Seemingly a well-intentioned if dated handling of homosexuality, positing that some are born as this aberration while others are groomed into it, but as long as we keep not talking about it, the groomers and exploiters and abusers will win out every time; yet it also supposes an injustice in not allowing "proper" parents the options of procuring an older woman to "fix" their impressionable son. You can sense the behind-the-scenes tension as gay advocate Hans Giese served as advisor and initial pitchman, while the credited writer and director were less friendly proteges of Goebbels. At times sensitive, at other times just bizarre in its reasoning.
A Bucket of Blood
release: October 21, 1959
dir/pr: Roger Corman
scr: Charles B. Griffith
cin: Jacques R. Marquette
We'll be seeing a lot of Roger Corman this year; this 1959 release qualified for 1960. It's a horror-satire in which Dick Miller plays an annoying busboy at a hip bistro-cum-art gallery where West LA's resident intellectuals and artistes gather to impress each other with their poetry and snubbing of commercialism (so long as they get paid for such poems, appearances, and snubs). The busboy wants to be an artist, too, and discovers he can really make a statement by covering dead bodies in clay. Really clever, often genuinely grotesque. There's something beautiful about a maker of shoestring-budget B-movies doing a film about how insular local art communities are, people murdering to feel like the big fish in a very small pond, and it would feel more cynical were it not for the genuine feeling of community Corman exudes. Like, yeah, these are the people whose approval you will kill and be killed for, and it is a shallow group of hypocrites, it is a smokeshow for drug dealing and addiction and pretension - but dammit, it's your den of iniquity!
Carry On Sergeant
release: October 27, 1959
dir: Gerald Thomas
pr: Peter Rogers
scr: Norman Hudis, additional material by John Antrobus, from the novel The Bull Boys by R.F. Delderfield
cin: Peter Hennessy
Beginning in 1949, British men between 18 and 30 years of age were required to serve 18 months in the armed forces; this film is a comedy about the oddball personalities thrown together by national service. The first of the Carry On film series, which often spoofed British institutions and cinema, and which ran on both screen and stage through 1992. It's a collection of quips and gags held together by the general theme of The Army In Peacetime, and that's enough. I'd never seen one of these before, but with these jokes and that cast - Kenneth Williams as a plummy-voiced intellectual is my favorite - I'm not surprised at its success as a series.
The Snow Queen
release: November 20, 1959
dir: Lev Atamanov
pr: Lev Atamanov, English version produced by Robert Faber
scr: Georgiy Grebner / Lev Atamanov / Nikolay Erdman, English version by Bob Fisher / Alan Lipscott, from the story by Hans Christian Andersen
cin: Michael Druyan
Soviet animated adaptation of the fairy tale about a winter witch who kidnaps a boy. The US version features a prologue starring Art Linkletter, who sets things up so that a dreamland gnome named Ol' Dreamy can then tell the story. I dozed off a couple of times, but not necessarily because it's bad, it's just a very soothing watch. There are some really spectacular animated effects here: flames, shining ice and snow, magic whirlwinds.
Finally, the new year begins. It is officially 1960 - an election year! How exciting...
Gangster Story
release: January
dir: Walter Matthau
pr: Jonathan Daniels
scr: Paul Purcell, story by Richard Grey and V.J. Rheims
cin: Max Glenn
A gangster hiding out in a small town runs afoul of big-shot mobsters and the law while romancing a librarian. Walter Matthau directs and stars in this very cheapo thriller, which, even at 68 minutes, feels stretched beyond its interests.
Ice Palace
release: January 2
dir: Vincent Sherman
pr: Henry Blanke / Harry Kleiner
scr: Harry Kleiner, from the novel by Edna Ferber
cin: Joseph F. Biroc
An Edna Ferber adaptation, this one focusing on Alaska, climaxing with its statehood. Well, if you know Ferber, you probably already know there are two friends-turned-rivals, a woman that comes between them, a romance between someone’s kid and an indigenous American they grew up alongside, and a look at American industry that is both awed and aghast by its ability to transform people and places. Richard Burton is the man whose hard-scrabble origins make him desperate for more, more, more, even when he’s the richest man in the state; Robert Ryan is the business partner who becomes a political enemy; Carolyn Jones is the woman who comes between them - she’s also the best performer in the film. Loved this, even though it feels rushed in its attempt to pack in so many decades, so much action. And Burton’s not got a hold of this role, quite.
The Immoral Mr. Teas
release: January 22
dir/cin: Russ Meyer
pr: Peter A. DeCenzie / Russ Meyer
scr: Russ Meyer, narration by Edward J. Lasko
Skin flicks were becoming more permissible in this period, thanks to the influx of frank European fare and the trend of naturist camp “documentaries.” Here, the game was changed by Russ Meyer, building a quaint narrative of a lonely salesman fantasizing about the busty women in his life, now suddenly cursed (blessed?) with X-ray vision! Simple, crude, strangely innocent despite all the bare breasts and butts on display - even when it was challenged in court as obscene, a judge ruled that it wasn’t, just tasteless. Yeah, that’s about right. Interesting now as a curio and a historical marker, being the first soft-core blockbuster, opening doors for other film flesh merchants. As a picture? Some wit, some genuinely interesting observations about the changing relationship between the sexes, but it is a little...slow.
Our Man in Havana
release: January 27
dir/pr: Carol Reed
scr: Graham Greene, from his novel
cin: Oswald Morris
Cold War satire sees humble vacuum salesman Alec Guinness recruited by British Intelligence for undercover work in Havana; he strings them along and cashes the checks, but realizes too late just how deadly serious the spy game is. A true time capsule, as it was filmed on location in the time after Batista’s fall but before Cuba got into bed with the Soviets. Very stylish direction from Carol Reed (of The Third Man, natch), who visually guides us from comedy to thriller. Highlights include the greatest game of chess I’ve seen in a film (and may recreate?), a convention with many twists, and Maureen O'Hara. The biggest surprise was Ernie Kovacs as a villainous Cuban general, menacing and amusing, especially in that aforementioned chess scene.
Tomorrow, the first bunch of Oscar nominees...
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