The Spy Who Loved the 60's

Among all the "happenings" that occurred in the 60's was the emergence of popular culture. But only one thing set the decade into a blaze and it was summed up in three words: "Bond. James Bond". It would be impossible to summarize all the Bond movies of that decade so I'll pick the three that were the best: Dr. No (the first), Goldfinger, and Thunderball. The movies were the basis of novels that Ian Fleming wrote and producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli bought them for film adaptations. To find the actor to play 007 the producers choose an unknown actor and former bodybuilder from Scotland named Sean Connery.



Directed by Terrence Young, Dr. No begins in Jamaica where Bond (Connery) has arrived because he's trying to find a secret service agent that disappeared named Dr. Strangeways (?).



Prior to this he was trying to find the mysterious scientist only known as Dr. No (Joseph Wiseman).



As Bond travels to Kingston, where Dr. No is supposed to be, he runs into seashell collector Honey Ryder (played by Switzerland-born Urusla Andress) and she agrees to work with him. The movie became a hit that fall mainly because of the appearance of Andress wearing a white bikini



(it caused a fashion explosion as "the little white bikini" was popularized in this film just like what "the little black dress" did for Breakfast at Tiffany's). Here courtesy of YouTube is the scene in which Andress comes out of the ocean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByITBPNu7cU name

After when From Russia With Love was released the next year and became a hit as well, producers Saltzman and Broccoli raised the stakes for the next Bond film: They changed directors and hired Guy Hamilton instead of Terrence Young; and it was the third Bond movie that became quite possibly the watershed entertainment moment of the decade: Goldfinger.

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While vacationing in Miami Bond receives the mission of finding Auric Goldfinger(Gert Forbe)-who is in the midst of making a gold deal with Fort Knox.

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With the help of Jill Masterson (Shirley Easton) he takes the case.

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Then it takes an ugly turn when Goldfinger's assassin Oddjob (Harold Sakata) moves in and knocks him out with a champagne bottle.

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When Bond wakes up, Jill is found dead: Naked and painted in gold.

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She was killed by Goldfinger and in the process, she suffocated through the gold. Things get more murky for Bond as he chases Goldfinger across Europe after playing golf with him in England. Along the way Bond bumps into Tilly Masterson (Tania Mallet), who just happens to be the sister to the slain Jill. She wants revenge for what happened to her sister. But her redemption is short-lived when Oddjob strangles her to death. Then Bond, while waking up on a plane heading to the U.S., encounters Pussy Galore (!)

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(Honor Blackman-who had just quit her role of Cathy Gale on the British TV show "The Avengers") and he doesn't believe her real name ("I must be dreaming!").

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Before long he is tied to Goldfinger's table

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but is let go when Bond tells him about his plan of taking over the world economy-dubbed "Grand Slam". In the end, Bond prevails as Goldfinger is killed (from YouTube here is the scene for you to enjoy).


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And in Thunderball, in which Terrence Young returned as director, Bond is at a health club (of all places)

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when he hears that Count Lippe (Guy Doleman-he would play agent Ross in the Harry Palmer films that producer Saltzman did) is hiding something and it turns out that he's working for SPECTRE-the agency that wants to kill Bond. Meanwhile Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi-who would later play the villain Ralph Vallmont in Danger: Diabolik as well as small parts in the war films Von Ryan's Express and King of Hearts) arrives at SPECTRE's base in France.

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He has decided that he will put up $230 million so that NATO can let go of their nuclear weapons and also steal one of their planes. Back in England Bond is convinced that he must get Domino Derval (Claudine Auger) who is the daughter of a dead general.

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Unaware by the fact that she is Largo's mistress. Arriving in the Bahamas Bond finds Domino and it leads to the three characters converging at a casino.

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At the same time Bond meets Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi)

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on the beach but doesn't know that she's a SPECTRE agent out to kill him. Then 007 gets a tip from a CIA agent that Largo's convoy has kidnapped agent Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick; her character would later die). It then leads up to a showdown underwater and a shootout at a dance club in which Largo dies and Bond ends up on top again.

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The movie is noted for being the first to be shot in the Panavision widescreen format (which became the mainstay in the 60's and thereafter) and also the classic moment in which Connery uses a jetpack to fly away from the SPECTRE henchmen.

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There were two reasons why the series became a success: One was the opening credits that were created by Maurice Binder (known for doing them for Stanley Donen) and the other was the music. The series turned composer John Barry from an unknown to one of the best in the movie business (more about him later) while the songs broke new ground. There are chills you can get when you hear Shirley Bassey singing the title song to Goldfinger (let alone the first few seconds of music that Barry creates) and listening to Tom Jones doing the tile song to Thunderball (and later with Nancy Sinatra for You Only Live Twice) is somewhat okay. In all, the Bond films was one of the many aspects of the legacy of film in the 60's.

Again, from YouTube here's the opening credits to Thunderball; which features Maurice Binder's credits and Tom Jones singing the title song (with music from John Barry) followed by Sean Connery fighting a man (who just happens to be Bond stuntman Bob Simmons!):


(Quick note: The decade ended with George Lazerby playing Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service

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after when the producers couldn't find Sean Connery; and even though Connery had been committed to play 007 again for this movie, he was in Russia filming the movie The Red Tent!)

Sci-Fi Movies of the 60's: The Lost World

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The 1960's was a turning point for sci-fi movies. For one, the genre slowly began to break away from the mold they had created in the 50's of stories that were being used against Communism and American conservatism under Eisenhower. The decade began promising with the adaptation of Arthur Doyle's "The Lost World".

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Directed by Irwin Allen, the story begins with explorer George Challenger (Claude Rains); who has returned from the Amazon and has announced that he has discovered ancient creatures are roaming the area again. He then picks four people for his return back but when they arrive trouble looms as one of the animals attack them leading to them spliting up and hoping to survive. The movie is noted for the breakthrough role of Jill St. John.

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The Los Angeles born redhead was only 19 when she made her first leading lady role as Jennifer Holmes (not to mention she had just started college at UCLA!).

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While Michael Rennie, David Hedison, and Fernando Lamas co-star. Many people have said that it was not as good as the 1925 silent version.

Actor of the 60's

This blog of the movies in the 60's isn't about the movies themself. During this time I'll try to focus in on the people that made it the greatest and most unique decade in movie history. The decade was filled with great actors but I think one stood out from all the rest: Paul Newman. Barely. Because of the comparisons to Steve McQueen; but Newman was the only male actor to appear in at least one movie in the 60's. The 50's belonged to Marlon Brando and Cary Grant, the 70's belonged to Jack Nicholson, but the 60's was "Newman's Own" (ha ha!). When he emerged in the mid-50's they thought he was a new Marlon Brando but Newman grew his own legend.

The decade began innocently enough with From the Terrace. It featured him again with real-life wife Joanne Woodward (his second wife).

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When asked by one reporter of why his marriage was a success, Newman joked by saying, "There is something about the way she cooks!" After staring in the epic Exodus directed by Otto Preminger, Newman hit gold in 1961 when he played Eddie Felson in The Hustler.

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After co-staring with Woodward again that same year in Paris Blues (along with Sidney Poitier) Newman recreated his Broadway role in the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth in 1962. But was in the next year that Newman's stardom reached uncharted territory when he played the title role in the movie Hud .

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After co-staring with Woodward yet again in the comedy A New Kind of Love that same year,

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Newman went into a bit of a slump in the mid-60's as a string of films (The Prize, The Outrage, What a Way to Go!, Lady L) were so-so but in 1966 Newman bounced back by playing the title character of Lew Harper-the Los Angeles detective in Harper.

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This was by far the best movie he did in the 60's. Because it showed who he was in his prime. After when the Alfred Hitchcock-directed Torn Curtin with Julie Andrews flopped at the box office that same year, Newman came back in 1967 better than ever as he stared in TWO title films: The Western Hombre in which he played a man raised by Indians in the Old West

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and of course-Cool Hand Luke

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in which he played Lucas Jackson-a drunken former soldier who gets thrown into a chain gang in the 1950's South.

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This was the movie that some say defied the generation gap that arose during the second half of the decade. In 1968, Newman stared in his third straight title movie: The Secret War of Harry Frigg. Newman plays Frigg-a soldier during World War II who becomes a con artist. Then he surprised everyone by directed his first movie with his wife-Rachel, Rachel . The two would co-star together again in 1969 and it was the racing film Winning

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(it also featured Newman's co-star from Harper Robert Wagner). Then Newman saved the best for last as he co-stared with Robert Redford in the smash hit Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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Although it was a Western the movie reached audiences with a end-of-the-60's mentality.

In all Newman was nominated for the Oscar three times and lost.

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When he reflected on what it takes to accept a character Newman said, "Every time I get a script it's a matter of trying to know what I could do with it. I see colors and imagery. It has to have a smell. It's like falling in love-you can't give a reason why." That's my 'reason why' the 60's on screen for leading men belonged to the kid from Cleveland.

Westerns of the 60's: The Magnificent Seven

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As I said earlier in a posting, the 1960's marked a turning point for the movie Western. When the decade began all the Old West stories were being put on television. But it was director John Struges that took a bold step into giving the genre new blood. The movie was The Magnificent Seven. Based on the Akira Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai the movie is set in a small Mexican town it which a parade of bandits (lead by Eli Wallach as Calvera)

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seize the town and steal anything they want. Desperate for help they hire seven gun fighters: Chris Adams (Yul Brynner), Vin (Steve McQueen in a breakthrough role), Harry (Brad Dexter), Bernardo (Charles Bronson), Britt (James Coburn), Lee (Robert Vaughn), and Chico (Horst Buchholz).

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With his men Chris tries to take the bandits out.

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The movie workes on two fronts: The acting (which includes great lines) and Elmer Bernstein's music score. Although the death scenes between some of the characters are cheesy and among the worst you'll see in any movie, it still hold up and as a result, The Magnificent Seven is a testament that the Western had just left the 1950's period with John Wayne and into the genre of that decade in which the Italian Western would become the rage in the 60's. In the end this movie would be followed by three sequels.

Here from YouTube is a montage of clips from the movie:

magnificentsevenclips

Comedy Goes Big

It's been said from many film historians that the 1960's was the weakest decade for comedies. But it was in that decade that featured some great movies in that genre. One kind of comedy that took place during this time was the supercomedy: A film that featured a cast full of stars. In this posting I'll focus on three: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming; and A Guide For the Married Man.

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It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World was the work of producer and director Stanley Kramer. After a string of acclaim work he took a stab with this comedy. The story innocently enough begins with a car crash off the highway. As the people head down to the site an old man (Jimmy Durante) tells them as he's about to die, that he buried $350,000 in cash 200 miles away in Santa Rosa Park ("under a big W"). Stunned the group (Jonathan Winters, Milton Berle, Sid Ceaser, Edie Adams, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett) decide to split the money once they find the loot.

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At the same time police caption Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) overhears what had happened and begins to track the group. The movie works with its cast. In addition to the people that I've mentioned, World also features Phil Silvers, Terry Thomas, Peter Falk, Dick Shawn, Don Knotts, Jack Benny, Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, and even The Three Stooges show up. The most funniest scene in that movie (it's also the second funniest 60's moment after the scene in The Knack...And How to Get It in which Michael Crawford's character plows his head into the wall) occurs when Edie Adams and Sid Ceaser are stuck in the hardware store basement and Ceaser's character electrocutes himself while trying to make an attempt of putting the lights back on.

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Then there is the ending in which the characters get thrown off the firetruck latter and into the buidings. Seriously, would that kill somebody in real life? Oh, and for your information, none of the characters got the money (or as what Ted Knight's character said to Michael O'Keefe's cahracter in Caddyshack, "You'll get nothing and you'll like it!"). The movie was originally released in a roadshow version that ran for 192 minutes. But over the years the film was cut down to 161 minutes and according to film restorer Robert Harris (who preserved Lawrence of Arabia and My Fair Lady) in a interview done in the "Los Angeles Times" he believes that it is likely that It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World may not be restored to its original length given the fact that the movie is not a true classic.

Here's a brief clip from the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee3CPfH20_I