The 1961 Mini-List

[Rayon Vert]

Something Wild (Garfein). Yeah, that ending. But the film had already started to lose some of its power for me before that. Great first half, a foreshadowing of 1965's Repulsion in some ways: the traumatized young woman alone in the alienating city, with some expressionist strokes here as well, except here we are privy to the birth of the trauma. Beyond the rape, though – the execution of which really succeeds in evoking the absolute brutality of the experience - it quickly feels like the entire city (mother included) is trauma-inducing, with the rapist just one of its end products, and I liked the mysterious way Copland’s score at the beginning, blended with those near-abstract images during the credits, seems to incongruously extol the city’s greatness (while at the same time still expressing its chaos). I think we progressively lose that mystery once the film turns into

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The Collector

– the shocking development giving way to a narrative and a style that becomes a bit more conventional and less interesting. Unfortunately the ending brings the film down further – I wouldn’t mind that improbable dénouement itself if it had been executed with a greater sense of ambiguity and abstraction the way the film started. In a similar way, the film was initially quite accurate in depicting PTSD reactions to the rape, but the way those appear to have magically dissolved at the end fairly undoes that realism.

[therewillbeblus]

knives and I had a discussion in the film’s dedicated thread about the ending being interpreted favorably. It’s perverse, but I still think it’s the film most resembling what Verhoeven broadly pulled off with Elle regarding women empowering themselves to wield agency within the confines of a prison

[the preacher]

To be added:
Los hermanos Del Hierro
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054969/
The Guns of Navarone
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054953/
Sarangbang sonnimgwa eomeoni
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311750/
Swiadectwo urodzenia
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055492/
Il brigante
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054702/
Vanina Vanini
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055585/

To be considered (not sure if they will make my final ballot):
Pocketful of Miracles
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055312/
El rufián
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054254/
Ursus
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055577/
and
Obaltan (all time Korean classic)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053577/
and
Maciste contro il vampiro (or L'ultimo dei Vikinghi also directed by Gentilomo)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055115/ (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054423/)

[swo17]

Added, thanks

[domino harvey]

the Comancheros (Michael Curtiz)
Texas Ranger John Wayne runs afoul of white gun runners trading with the Comanches while (repeatedly) attempting to escort accused murderer Stuart Whitman to justice in Michael Curtiz’ final film. I was not optimistic about this western, especially after the painful North to Alaska, but this was a pleasant surprise, and as the first film I watched for this project, I hope it bodes well for future positive discoveries. The film has a real lightweight charm, punctuated by a couple fun cameos from Lee Marvin as a scalped gun runner and Edgar Buchanan as a creative judge. But what I appreciated most of all was that the film had wonderfully intuitive pacing, giving it a refreshing sense of breathing room amidst all the assorted calamities. And Wayne is very strong here as the laidback expert– as I near completion of the assorted b-sides in his film career, it’s been so long since I’ve seen him in a good movie/role that this was a welcome reminder that he is an icon for a reason. Recommended.

I Liza kai i alli / Lisa and the Other Woman (Dinos Dimopoulos)
Lisa, a young woman living on the streets selling combs and sleeping surreptitiously in closed shops finds herself doubling for her wealthy doppelganger Mitsi in this immensely enjoyable and 100% good-natured Greek screwball comedy. I have never seen star Aliki Vougiouklaki before, but watching her in this is a revelation: how is there a star this effervescent, this appealing and incessantly watchable, that I’ve never even heard of (and based on a board search, she’s never come up for anyone else here either)? This film is so catered to highlighting apparently nothing but Vougiouklaki’s strengths that it even casts her in dual roles, just so there’s as little screentime as possible without her front and center! Looking at her credits, it doesn’t appear she ever worked outside of Greece, and indeed there seemed to be a good deal of Lisa’s malapropisms that didn’t survive English translation, but her delivery and energy and boundless forward momentum is just incredible. As for the film apart from her presence, it’s your typical screwball idiot plot, but with some effective social commentary (when Lisa gets access to money, she doesn’t spend any of it on herself, but treats the help) that renders De Sica’s awful class conscious comedies even more unnecessary. A warm hug of a film. Highly recommended. [P]

the Young Savages (John Frankenheimer)
Burt Lancaster’s assistant DA becomes conflicted when prosecuting three white JDs accused of killing a blind Puerto Rican in this handsomely made disaster. While I appreciate the attempts made at fleshing out the attendant characters, the film is overstuffed with Actor’s Studio mugging bullshit from nearly every supporting player (only Telly Savalas escapes unscathed) as the Important script hammers home complexities that are not, perhaps, as intricate as this film thinks. I was doing everything in my power to give this film any rope at all but Lancaster dunks either end of the line in kerosene and drops a book of matches in the finale, in which, after all we’ve seen, Lancaster

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unbelievably throws his case, because it’s Society’s Fault. I have no words for the scene in which Lancaster needlessly, and I mean needlessly, humiliates one of the witnesses by entering into evidence that she is a teenage prostitute. Like, David E Kelley wouldn’t even try this shit.

Self-serious dramas that competed with “Adult Entertainment” teleplays for who could stuff the most misery into one narrative were the worst thing that ever happened to Hollywood in this era, and this is no exception.

[swo17]

Some strong experimental offerings this year. Here's a quick rundown:

Fuego en Castilla (José Val del Omar)
Acariño galaico (de barro) (José Val del Omar)

RIYL: trippy, distorted views of religious sculptures, manipulated through various camera tricks to appear as though they may be coming to life and sternly judging you. If you only have time for one, make it Fuego (and to be clear, I mean if you only have time for one film during this entire project)

Dog Star Man (Stan Brakhage)

I trust this needs no introduction from me, other than to clarify that yes, this is where I placed the combination of all five parts, consistent with how I've assigned other multi-part films to the year of first release

Cosmic Ray (Bruce Conner)
RIYL: female nudity obscured by lots of cool editing, Ray Charles

Death + Transfiguration (Jim Davis)
RIYL: male nudity obscured by multi-colored webs of light

Une histoire d'eau (Jean-Luc Godard & François Truffaut)
Godard playfully edits footage shot by Truffaut, as he should have done for every subsequent Truffaut film

Mood Mondrian (Marie Menken)
RIYL: Mondrian art, spinning around until nothing makes sense anymore

Allures (Jordan Belson)

RIYL: lots of dots swirling around and stuff, 2001's Stargate sequence

Les Dents du singe (René Laloux)

RIYL: the art made by disturbed people in every horror movie

Blazes (Robert Breer)
Black Ice but with watercolors

Brutalität in Stein (Alexander Kluge & Peter Schamoni)
RIYL: the parts of Night and Fog where it's just buildings

Ersatz (Dušan Vukotić)

RIYL: Worker and Parasite

Bonus question: Can you tell without looking it up which one of these won an Oscar?

[knives]

Ersatz, right? I know Vukotič was popular with the academy for a short while.

[yoshimori]

Godard playfully edits footage shot by Truffaut, as he should have done for every subsequent Truffaut film.

If only that were the world I live in!

[therewillbeblus]

For the many Masumura fans on this board, I really enjoyed A Wife Confesses, and I think the ending is ripe for discussion here- which indirectly hits on a topic I've been especially vocal about regarding the hypnotically ingrained effects of our climate on the reduction of one's worth into tangible boxes. My thoughts:

I haven't felt compelled to write about many of the Masumuras I've seen lately, but A Wife Confesses is a terrific courtroom mystery, which has as much interest in the honest melodrama of the lives being detailed (in the present and flashbacks), as it does in any kind of thrills or moral-twisting exposure. This is one of my least favorite subgenres, but when done right it's truly captivating- and the reason why there are so many courtroom television series becomes clear- as we become the jury not for the case's outcome, but as a party studying and becoming aware of the urgency in the specific humanity's complex psychosocial experiences under our microscope.

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The reveal is played far straighter than what Masumura seems to be brooding on below the surface- that intention isn't even conscious for us when we're influenced by so many cultural ideas that cloud the authenticity of our desires. Ayako Wakao appears to admit to her cognizant agency within the moment in question, but the impression from her surreal behavior and line delivery is that she doesn't even possess the tools to permit herself to analyze her actions as anything other than sentient objectives when equated to responsibility. It's a profound tragedy of sociologically-stunted self-actualization, and when she looks in the mirror (after that long stumbling daze) and says, "I do have a murderer's face," this is a direct expression by Masumura of her culturally-enforced depersonalization, where confusion added to an imposed narrative equals truth for a woman desperate for a sign that she's fitting one pathology. When rejected by her lover, the mirror affirms the fatal story assigned to her identity, when objectively it's only a piece of the layered psychological puzzle that deserves context for judgment. As she searches for a prognosis to latch onto, Masumura empathizes with the murderer, defines her as more than that, and so do we.

I'll be curious how others react to the ending, once they see it.

[TMDaines]

Il brigante (Renato Castellani) has never been released, nor is on the backchannels. There's a very ropey copy on Youtube though. Anyone seen it?

[the preacher]

Il brigante (Renato Castellani) has never been released, nor is on the backchannels. There's a very ropey copy on Youtube though. Anyone seen it?

I watched the theatrical version, a TVRip 1,13GB and srt in Spanish. The uncut version is not available online, I think.

https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/p ... -brigante/

[knives]

What year are we considering the animated Uproar in Heaven? Letterboxd has it for 1961, but IMDb has 1963.

[swo17]

The film's Wikipedia page describes how it was released in two parts, with the first one screening in 1961, the second screening in 1964, and both screening together for the first time in 1965. If we take those dates as given, then a case could be made for either 1961 (by my precedent of assigning multi-part films to the year the first part was released) or 1965 (sort of an It's Such a Beautiful Day situation, where the subsequent screening of all parts together feels like the debut of the entire film as a single entity). Since you brought it up, do you have a preference?

[DarkImbecile]

Victim (Dearden 1961). Surprisingly courageous filmmaking for this time. The film’s sympathies are clear and the plot just by itself educates you about the effect the law against homosexual acts is having in terms of persons becoming targets of criminal activity just because of their nature (speaking of which, how awful were such criminal acts). But it succeeds because it’s executed tightly and very well acted. Bogarde’s character is a bit of a Hitchcockian victim who becomes his own detective. The film sort of ends a bit too quickly, I wished it had gone on for longer.

I similarly was very pleasantly surprised by how compelling and watchable this was, and how capable it was of articulating a clear ethical position without resorting to didacticism.

It’s not just that the film is on the right side of its moral and socio-political concerns, but that it places itself there without resorting to simplistically Manichaean archetypes; only a handful of characters are vicious bigots (and most of those are compromising their beliefs for their own benefit in one way or another) and there are no saintly crusaders. The humane regard the film offers for the varying reactions the targets have to being blackmailed — and those of the others around them whose livelihoods, friendships, and marriages are potential collateral damage — is really impressive.

Unless I’m forgetting one, this is the first Basil Dearden film I’ve seen, and while his workmanlike direction doesn’t get in the way of anything, I suspect most of what makes this a noteworthy film is Janet Green and John McCormick’s script. The one exception would be

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Dearden’s deft staging of the climactic reveal of the blackmailers’ identity, which slyly floats and then undercuts multiple candidates before the ultimate reveal.

Recommended, and probably making my list.

[swo17]

Unless I’m forgetting one, this is the first Basil Dearden film I’ve seen

Definitely check out The Assassination Bureau from 1969, though it has more of an Ealing comedy vibe

[DarkImbecile]

Will do! Also interested in Sapphire, which was also written by Janet Green and seems to share some thematic elements with Victim. Anyone seen that one?

[swo17]

Yeah, it's also in the Eclipse set. Yes, there are shared thematic elements, though it's not quite as potent or memorable as Victim is

[knives]

I actually quite prefer it and thought Victim as the weak one of a great set.

The film's Wikipedia page describes how it was released in two parts, with the first one screening in 1961, the second screening in 1964, and both screening together for the first time in 1965. If we take those dates as given, then a case could be made for either 1961 (by my precedent of assigning multi-part films to the year the first part was released) or 1965 (sort of an It's Such a Beautiful Day situation, where the subsequent screening of all parts together feels like the debut of the entire film as a single entity). Since you brought it up, do you have a preference?

I don’t have a preference beyond choosing either the letterboxd or IMDb dates simply because they’re how I collect my lists.

[Rayon Vert]

Re: Dearden. Pool of London from '51 is some kind of small masterpiece. Loved The Captive Heart (1946) as well. All Night Long (from 1962, despite its imperfections), Frieda, Woman of Straw, The League of Gentlemen I all enjoyed a lot too.

[swo17]

I don’t have a preference beyond choosing either the letterboxd or IMDb dates simply because they’re how I collect my lists.

I'll call it 1961

[swo17]

Comancheros was pretty good. Nehemiah Persoff only comes in toward the end but I honestly thought he was the best part. RIP

[Rayon Vert]

The Hustler (Rossen). I’d previously seen the Scorsese sequel only, which didn’t motivate me much to reach out for this one before. The first act with Eddie measuring up against Fats makes for good entertainment, but comes off nicely just on that well-executed, atmospheric suspenseful sports drama level (with the type of predictable jazzy score that seems to be in every film of this era!). I expected this to go deeper than the Tom Cruise film and it definitely does following that sequence. This film isn’t afraid to travel to dark places, and ends up undercutting the machismo inherent in the genre, even though there’s still a bit of it left in the end. Piper Laurie is such an interesting performer, and the relationship between those two characters takes the film somewhere else entirely. Scott is also compelling as a real demon here. Not the type of film destined to become a favorite of mine, but definitely a list-maker.

[dustybooks]

It seems that I've seen very little from 1961 (I'm counting 21 features, and many of those I encountered as a child), and among those not many that I'd rate terribly highly, including some from favorite directors. For example I appreciate Yojimbo but unlike The Bad Sleep Well, it doesn't really play to the aspects of Kurosawa's work that I find most personally involving. Biggest existing enthusiasm is reserved for one very obvious choice (Last Year at Marienbad, which I would like to find time to revisit this month) plus Victim, which I'm happy to see being discussed so much, and Kazan's Splendor in the Grass, which knocked me sideways as one of the more affecting explorations of adolescence in Hollywood cinema when I first saw it about ten years back but is certainly due for a rewatch. (Let's hope it's a Warner DVD that still plays...)

I'll be interested to see if I'm actually able to come up with 10-25 movies I want to vote for, but regardless, I'm excited to use this project to explore some blind spots at a better pace, and there are several things on the Channel I'm eager to check out. I also may borrow West Side Story from work -- I hated it when I first saw it, then quite enjoyed it the second time without being fully enamored, and am curious if the evolution continues!

I did fairly recently see Petrie's A Raisin in the Sun for the first time and liked it, though filmed plays are a tough sell for me and even with the caliber of performances on this one I still find it a little strained. I also revisited Breakfast at Tiffany's, which I never really loved but remembered more vividly than I expected; it's wildly uneven but not completely unsuccessful, though it suffers a lot next to the source text which I like a great deal.

[swo17]

Two great films about children...

Whistle Down the Wind (Bryan Forbes)
A fascinating thought experiment wherein the susceptibility of children, a preponderance of religious proselytizing, and Alan Bates' earthy good looks and untimely blasphemy all conspire to confuse a group of children into thinking that the murderer hiding out in their barn is in fact Christ returned to Earth. The film walks a fine line between recognizing the inherent menace of the situation and discouraging judgment (consider for example a scene where Our Lord and Savior asks Hayley Mills' character to fetch him a pack of cigarettes). To the extent that some of the children gradually realize the truth, it parallels nicely with a general awakening to the workings of the world at large. But I think the film also asks us: In a time of need, should we treat a stranger--even a criminal--any less reverently than we would the son of God?

The Song of the Grey Pigeon (Stanislav Barabáš)


Not sure if this counts as Czech New Wave since it's a) Slovakian and b) a bit earlier of a release than when the movement is typically described as starting, but I can't say it would feel out of place there. First, the score has that deliciously menacing quality that makes some of these films especially memorable. (I was going to say it would make Zdeněk Liška proud, but then I just looked it up, and of course it was him that did it!) Then visually and thematically--well, I'm hesitant to bring up the obvious reference Ivan's Childhood as a point of comparison since this isn't entirely trying to be the same intricately shot portrait of innocence lost through the eyes of a child in war, but there are still some breathtaking moments where it calls the Tarkovsky film to mind, which I'd say is pretty good for prefiguring it! Also, the ending sequence doubles as a great metaphor for post-COVID America

[DarkImbecile]

A handful of first-time watches:

Killers on Parade (Masahiro Shinoda) — If one were for some reason inclined to mix one part Kurosawa's The Bad Sleep Well, two parts John Wick, and three parts the Adam West Batman series, the end product might look something like this very odd comic hitman farce. The humor never gets as dark as during the target practice sequence played out during the opening song, which is a shame, but there are several other moments audaciously weird enough to bring a smile to my face. Someone more well-versed in Japanese cultural history might be able to articulate a nuanced take on the uneasy amalgamation of American and Japanese influences present here, but as it is I can't find enough substance to wholeheartedly recommend this or push swo to add it to the eligibility list. Still, it is splashed with color and cheerily engaging enough from moment to moment to make it a pretty painless watch.

The Children's Hour (William Wyler) — Amusingly, I watched this directly after Basil Dearden's Victim not knowing (or possibly having forgotten) that this was also about homosexual panic and repression. The immediate comparison doesn't do this film's treatment of the topic any favors, particularly the indulgence of what would become some extremely tired tropes; still, Hepburn is so good here that she elevates the final product more than it probably deserves, seemingly in opposition to the direction the rest of the cast was getting from Wyler. She makes even Shirley MacLaine seem like a lesser actor, to say nothing of Garner or the other adult performers.

Lola (Jacques Demy) — I've been meaning to catch up with this for a long time — yet another example of these yearly lists paying off, as I didn't prioritize it when picking and choosing for the whole decade — but for the first 10 or so minutes, I was thinking I hadn't been missing much. The film started off feeling very much like an embryonic effort that hints at the stylistic and thematic interests that become more apparent later, but with the awkward stumbling of a first feature. At some point that I can't quite put my finger on, though, I noticed myself settling into Demy's rhythms, and by the time the recursive nature of these characters and their actions becomes apparent and the showier moments like the slow-motion sequence come around, I was happily soaking in the film's world. Not among my favorite of Demy's, nor my favorite French film of the year, but a likely candidate for the back end of my top ten.

Through a Glass Darkly (Ingrid Bergman) — I had osmotically absorbed long ago that this was a middle-tier Bergman: a respectable downer dealing with religious belief and mental illness (so not exactly one to throw on casually on a Friday evening with friends), but not deserving of a place in the top tier or two of his work. I have had many seemingly more prominent gaps to fill in Bergman's filmography over the years, and he's never been a personal favorite of mine — even my favorite of his that I'd seen, Persona, is one I connect with primarily intellectually — so this was never a priority. And so of course... oops, it's my new favorite Bergman? Horrifying and entrancing in both its psychological and philosophical observations, built around a thrilling central performance by Andersson that seems almost dangerous in its intensity, and featuring some of the best compositions I've seen from Nykvist, this hit me hard on just about every level. Just describing the last fifteen minutes to my wife gave her chills and made me want to watch it again immediately. Almost a certainty to top my list for this year given what I have left to watch, and will necessitate reshuffling my top five for the decade list as well.