My son snickers that I only watch films made before 1950. Not
true. But close. I do prefer films made in the ‘30’s and 40’s, the “Golden Age”
of the studios, especially the screwball and noir genres that were perfected
then and never surpassed.
But I do feel compelled to prove that I do pay attention to
movies made after that era. For instance, the year 1964 stands out in my mind
for the output of movies that surpassed the previous year or the next one or
the one after that. It wasn’t until 1967-’68 that the industry began to turn to
a new generation of filmmakers and led to the extraordinary outburst of
creativity of the early 70’s.
In the late 40’s the studio system was hit with anti-trust
rulings that crippled their business security. Television arrived soon after.
By the 50’s, the industry was losing its audience, its stars were aging, and it
was producing fewer and worse movies. A younger audience turned to foreign
films for “neo-realism,” meaning sex and gritty themes. Godard and Truffaut of
the French New Wave, Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, and others invaded art houses
and then mainstream consciousness.
By 1964, the studios had crumbled. Some had turned to producing
television series: westerns, police procedurals and the like. TV had panicked
the film business. Desperate executives tried to find product that people
couldn’t see on the small screen in their homes. Gimmicks like 3-D, Cinerama,
cinemascope, surround sound, and others were fads that proved to be ephemeral.
Epics with casts of thousands worked for a while, until all the Bible stories
had been mined out.
European imports provided the nearly explicit sex that TV
couldn’t touch and new styles of storytelling: by bold editing, non-linear plotting
and other eye-opening innovations made the Hollywood product look old-fashioned
to a new generation of film goers.
In 1964, Godard’s “Band à part” (“Band of Outsiders”) and
Richard Lester’s first Beatle movie, “A Hard Day’s Night” freshened the crime
and musical genres, respectively. De Sica’s “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”
enlivened the sex comedy genre.
Hollywood responded with some of the best and some of the worst
movies made in the decade. First, the worst:
Elvis Presley by that year had become an embarrassment. The King
of Rock in the ‘50’s had become a boring star of boring movies that featured
boring pop songs. Of course, “Kissin’ Cousins” and “Viva Las Vegas” still made
scads of money because his audience was loyal (and would be when his movie
career ended soon thereafter and he retreated to the stages of Vegas). His fan
base was in the solid conservative South, among those who once had tried to ban
his music as evil. No one I knew went to see any of his movies.
We didn’t go to see the newest beach movies either. “Bikini
Beach,” “Ride The Wild Surf” and “Pajama Party” were teen exploitation movies,
featuring busty girls doing the twist, jiggling and fielding mildly suggestive
dialogue.
The costly epics that slipped out that year included “The
Carpetbaggers” and “The Fall of The Roman Empire.” The latter proved that the
era of excessive sword and sandal spectacles was nearly over.
Doris Day, Rock Hudson and Tony Randall made another sex comedy,
“Send Me No Flowers.” Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall
struggled through “Sex And The Single Girl,” a tortured adaptation of Helen
Gurley Brown’s advice book that shockingly suggested that women forego
virginity and marriage in favor of independence and career.
John Ford tried to modify his legacy with “Cheyenne Autumn” an
epic western that urged sympathy for native Americans, a People that Ford’s
life’s work had done much to demean. Though Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Glen
Ford were still grinding out westerns, the genre received a much-needed booster
shot by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone’s “spaghetti westerns.”
In 1964, a TV western star named Clint Eastwood got his feature
film break to star in “A Fistful of Dollars,” loosely based on Kurosawa’s
“Yojimbo.” Influences going back and forth among Europe, Asia and The U.S. also
led to “The Outrage,” starring Paul Newman, an adaptation of Kurosawa’s
“Roshomon.” (Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” (1950) had spawned “The Magnificent
Seven” (1960). Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood” (1957) had been based on
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”)
The globalization of cinema was in full flower by 1964. One
example was “Becket.” The story about English King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and
his appointed Archbishop, Thomas Becket (Richard Burton) was based on a play by
French playwright Jean Anouilh, a screenplay by American Edward Anhalt,
directed by Brit Peter Glenville, produced by American Hal Wallis and
distributed by Paramount.
Another was the brilliant caper film, “Topkapi.” Directed by
American expat Jules Dassin (who had been blacklisted and exiled to Europe),
based on Eric Ambler’s novel, and starring Melina Mercouri, Maximillian Schell,
Peter Ustinov, with music by Manos Hadjidakis, who had previously scored the
hit, “Never on Sunday” (1960).
Greek music had another hit this year. Mikis Theodorakis scored
“Zorba The Greek” with a catchy theme that fit in well with the current folk
pop music phase. It gave Anthony Quinn and Lila Kedrova Oscar winning roles.
The James Bond franchise begun with “Doctor No” now had two big
releases: “Goldfinger” and “From Russia With Love.” “A Shot In The Dark,” a
sequel to Peter Sellers’ hit, “The Pink Panther,” was also successful, but
Billy Wilder’s quirky sex comedy, “Kiss Me, Stupid,” flopped.
In the 1940’s, Preston Sturges, wrote and directed a string of
brilliant comedies (e.g, “Sullivan’s Travels,” and “The Lady Eve”). In the
early 50’s & early 60’s George Axelrod had a similar run. His play, “The
Seven Year Itch” was filmed by Billy Wilder in 1955. Axelrod wrote the
screenplay for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?” a
parody of advertising and celebrity culture. “Phfft!” (1954) is an under-appreciated
comedy that starred Judy Holliday and Jack Lemmon.
In 1964, Axelrod’s play, “Goodbye, Charlie,” was adapted as a
movie starring Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis. It was a screwball gender-bending
sex comedy that carried Wilder’s “Some Like It Hot” idea to another level. A
womanizing guy is killed by an outraged husband (Walter Matthau) and returns as
a woman, (Reynolds) who is aware of her/his previous life. The guy’s best pal
(Curtis) now has to reconcile his sexual attraction for his buddy, now in a
woman’s body.
World War II provided a background for two notable comedies. One
was Cary Grant’s penultimate movie, “Father Goose.” Grant played an aging
alcoholic who is dragged into heroism despite his grumpy cynicism about war.
An important war (ie. Anti-war) comedy released that year is
“The Americanization of Emily.” Paddy Chayefsky was another important writer of
the era, writing for live TV (“Marty”) and movies: “Marty” and in 1976,
“Network,” among his credits.
James Garner plays the epitome of an “anti-hero,” that is, he
brags about his cowardice, denounces nobility, and urges that those who praise
heroes and heroism are the cause of wars.
This movie became a cult favorite of the generation of war
haters from 1964 onward, as the Viet-Nam War protests escalated. Chayefsky’s
scathing dialogue in this film gave eloquent voice to the negative view of even
a supposed “good” war.
It was a good year for anti-war dramas as well. The country’s
mood was conducive to pessimism. JFK was dead; hopes were dashed. Barry
Goldwater’s brand of conservatism found support among extremists like the John
Birch Society. General Edwin Walker, an outspoken ultra-conservative extremist,
inspired fears of a right-wing conspiracy.
The novel, “Seven Days in May,” had extrapolated the Walker
fears into a thriller about a U.S. general attempting a coup d’etat to take
over the US government to prevent a “pinko” president (Frederick March) from
making peace with Russia. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas starred in the movie.
The Cold War and the ever-present threat of nuclear destruction
was treated in two now classic movies released that year. One treated the issue
with acerbic dark humor: Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove...” The other was a
much bleaker drama: Sidney Lumet’s “Fail-Safe,” also based on a 1962 novel.
Walter Matthau played “Professor Groeteschele,” who voices the idea that we
could win a nuclear war by surviving with more people alive than the enemy. The
character is apparently a Jew who decries the pacifism of holocaust victims.
(Kubrick’s twisted parallel is Sellers’ title character, a Nazi scientist who
urges survival of the “fuhrer,” i.e., the president.)
The holocaust was central to “The Pawnbroker.” For the first
time, Hollywood focused on a victim, played by Rod Steiger, who was haunted by
his memories.
“The Train” was another Burt Lancaster film. He produced and
starred as a French railway worker who fights to prevent the Germans from
taking French artworks. His acrobatic stunts are amazing, done without effects
or doubles.
Also released that year was “The Night of the Iguana,” John
Huston adapting Tennessee Williams’ play with Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and
Deborah Kerr. It is most notable for popularizing a sleepy little Mexican
resort called Puerto Vallarta.
The biggest successes that year were two musicals. First was “My
Fair Lady,” adapted from the play that had adapted Shaw’s “Pigmalion,” which
was, in turn, based on the Greek legend, Pigmalion and Galatea. The second was
“Mary Poppins,” Disney’s now-classic, based on the popular English children’s
books. The two films are tied in film trivia lore due to casting. Julie Andrews
had created the role of “Eliza” in the musical play, “My Fair Lady,” but was
passed over for the movie because of her lack of movie stardom. Audrey Hepburn
starred but, famously, Marni Nixon dubbed all the songs. The movie won the best
picture Oscar and seven more Oscars, but Andrews won the best actress Oscar for
“Mary Poppins.”
The movies of this year proved to be a last gasp for “old
Hollywood.” By the end of the decade, the culture had shifted; “the generation
gap” was fully evident; a revolution was going to make everything that came
before seem to be bland and old-fashioned. It would take another 50 years to
look back and appreciate that there were some “oldies” that stood the test of
time.
