1960s

Quote:
A professional hitman, turned against the world that made him and sensationalizes what he does, kills in the hope to one day take back pieces of his past. It’s a world void of connections, trust or meaning, embroiled by fleeting encounters with fugitive women, who along with the other usual croutons sprinkling similar films of the time – diversions and subversion, greed and hijinks, the nameless political element, egalitarian dreams coming up against walls of economy – make a Wakamatsu salad where every ingredient has its untold price that everyone will be made to pay.Read More »

Synopsis
Exciting Eddie Constantine outing finds Eddie playing a special agent searching for missing NATO weapons. When he encounters a scientist who has invented a ring that emits a paralysis spray, the hard-boiled spy saves the day with some very Bondian heroics…Read More »

Description: A major new talent in international avant-garde cinema, Zwartjes creates hermetic, obsessive, and “decadent” universes, in which desperate, dissociated males and females, though inextricably bound to each other, never “connect”. Here an impassive, Keaton- like figure engages in a sexual, ominous food orgy with voluptuous, half-nude women whom he paws impotently. A mysterious, powerful tension informs the action. Despite non-communication and mutual defilement of the grossest kind, a profoundly humanist statement emerges; compassion for these victims, “partners” in loneliness. Expressionist style, make-up and lighting as well as complex montage heighten the effect of the tragic tableaux, in which tortured non-heroes operate impotently in hostile space, facing us blindly, nakedly, with all defenses down; compelling us, perhaps, to confront ourselves in like manner.Read More »

Time to stretch… Swap from fiction to documentary. Enjoy the master of suspense!

REVIEW ALLMOVIE
A rare glimpse into the mind of the notorious cagey master filmmaker, this documentary was shot on the set of Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie. With remarkable candor Hitchcock discusses his career and his passion for movies. — Jonathan CrowRead More »

This prison camp drama by director and co-scripter Armand Gatti, his first film, reflects the early ’60s resurgence of interest in the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis in World War II. (In another year, the Adolph Eichmann trial would be the first ever seen live on American television.) Gatti focuses on two men in a German concentration camp who have been cruelly penned inside an enclosure. One of the men, Karl (Herbert Wochinz), is a strong, bitter anti-Nazi German — a target of the Gestapo. The SS wants information on a rumored organization of resistance fighters inside the prison and they know he has it. The other man, David (Jean Negroni) is a Jew. If one of the men dies within a certain time then the other will be released. He will not be killed. Otherwise, both will be executed. The resistance fighters in the prison try to help the two as best they can, while the pair inside the enclosure slowly come to know each other as though they were brothers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

The Bobo is a 1967 film starring Peter Sellers and co-starring his then-wife Britt Ekland. Based on a play, Sellers is featured as the would-be Spanish singing matador, Juan Bautista.

A theater manager offers to give him a big break if he seduces the beautiful Olympia (Ekland) and spends an hour in her apartment with the lights off. The plot centers around Juan’s attempts to woo the woman and famously includes Sellers covered in blue dye as the “Blue Matador.”Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Mark Deming
In this caper comedy, Duffy (James Coburn) is a shaggy bohemian living in Tangiers who is approached for a less-than-legal business proposition by two half-brothers, carefree Stephane Calvert (James Fox) and stuffy businessman Antony Calvert (John Alderton). Though Stephane and Antony had different mothers, they share the same father, and they both hate him; Charles Calvert (James Mason) is a mean-spirited multi-millionaire who shows his sons little affection and isn’t very interested in cutting them in for the family fortune. Charles plans to transport several million dollars in banknotes by ship from Tangiers to Marseilles, and the brothers want Duffy to help them liberate the money from the ship. While the Calvert Brothers are persuasive, Stephane’s beautiful girlfriend Segolene (Suzannah York) is even more so, and Duffy finds that he not only wants to steal the cash from Charles, but the girl away from Stephane. Duffy was scripted by Donald Cammell, who gained a cult reputation for his first directorial effort, the Mick Jagger vehicle Performance.Read More »

Plot synopsis:
The spectacular hordes of Cossack horsemen flying across the steppes to do battle with first one enemy and then another are the highlights of this otherwise thinly scripted costume drama set in the 16th century in the Ukraine. After the Cossack leader Taras Bulba (Yul Brynner) makes a pact with the Poles to join forces against the Turks and drive them from the European steppes, victory brings betrayal as the Poles then turn on their ally and force the Cossacks into the hills. From there, Taras Bulba decides that one of his sons, Andrei (Tony Curtis), will be sent to Polish schools to better learn the nature of their enemy. While away from home and hearth, the adult Andrei falls in love with a Polish noblewoman, Natalia (Christine Kaufmann, who would become the second Mrs. Curtis). As time progresses, the tensions between father and son, loyalty and love, ethnic identity and assimilation steadily increase until they end in tragedy. Taras Bulba was nominated for a 1963 Academy Award for “Best Music”, scored by Franz Waxman (By Eleanor Mannika, from Allmovie).Read More »

The Ugly American (1963)
An intelligent, articulate scholar, Harrison MacWhite, survives a hostile Senate confirmation hearing at the hands of conservatives to become ambassador to Sarkan, a southeast Asian country where civil war threatens a tense peace. Despite his knowledge, once he’s there, MacWhite sees only a dichotomy between the U.S. and Communism. He can’t accept that anti-American sentiment might be a longing for self-determination and nationalism. So, he breaks from his friend Deong, a local opposition leader, ignores a foreman’s advice about slowing the building of a road, and tries to muscle ahead. What price must the country and his friends pay for him to get some sense? Read More »