October 1, 2004

So… this weekend… birthday... 40… oy…

The movie industry has been through four major transitions since my birth. The studio system died in the late sixties… Jaws and Star Wars launched the Tentpole era in the mid-70s… the International Invasion happened in the late 80s and early 90s and now, we are in the Integrated Conglomerate era.

Likewise, the style of films has changed dramatically. The mid-sixties were still studio heavy, though guys like Kubrick were breaking through. The Golden Age of the late 60s and early 70s were loaded with angst-driven visions. The Spielberg/Lucas era came and dominated for a long time. We went though that period of Sydney Pollack star driving during which only one Best Picture Oscar winner in seven years (Terms of Endearment) was set in the United States. The Indie Era soon started up in earnest… until the indies were conglomerized. And now, we are in The Blurry Bacchanal, where every major has an indie, the cost of marketing has overwhelmed the notion of challenging audiences and The Great McGinty ends up passing on a $200 million movie because he won't fly.

Oy.

I decide to look back (not in anger) at my birth in terms of movies. On the actual date of my birth, Oct 3, only two films were released. One was a John Ford film that I've never seem, Cheyenne Autumn. The other is Warm Nights and Hot Pleasures, directed by the pervy schlockmeister Joe Sarno. His most famous title is probably Deep Throat, Part II, which was released as an R-rated film, hoping to suck in those movie lovers who didn't own raincoats. More oy.

Of decent films, My Fair Lady, Seven Days In May, Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove were all released that October, Fail-Safe the weekend after my Monday birthday. Interestingly, just a day earlier, Strangelove was getting its Japanese release.

1964 launched some of my favorite guilty pleasures. I remember going to see Santa Claus Conquers The Martians at an outdoor mall in Towson, Md., though it must have been a re-release a few years later. Oh that Pia Zadora!

The rat pack starred in Robin & The Seven Hoods, complete with a casino that turned into a soup kitchen in two minutes, Bing Crosby singing "Never Be A Do Badder," Sinatra singing "Chicago," and Victor Buono as The Sheriff.

Elvis and Ann-Margret were in Viva Las Vegas, Don Knotts was an animated singing fish in The Incredible Mr. Limpet, and Peter Sellers was Jacques Clouseau for the first time in A Shot in The Dark.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao - Tony Randall in a George Pal film with lots of make-up. So dumb, but so fun!

The Julie Andrews Collection - Both Mary Poppins and The Americanization of Emily came out in 1964. One is about a woman who cleans up and the other is about a girl who finally gets dirty. The differences can be pretty well indicated by the two leading men - Dick Van Dyke and Jim Garner. One film is a giggle and the other, a weepy kinda comedy.

Christmas in 1964 featured one of the best Bond films ever, Goldfinger. But it also featured one of the great camp classics of all time, as Robert Aldrich brought Bette Davis back a step from ultra-camp of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (just one step) with Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. And one of my favorite 60s sex romps, with Natalie Wood as Helen Gurley Brown and Tony Curtis not as David Brown in Sex & The Single Girl.

1964 also offered one of the worst Hitchcock films, Marnie.

But I want to focus on the best as I head into my birthday weekend. I'm sure there is some film, probably from another country, that I just plain missed knowing was released in 1964. But from what I know, here is my list:

SPECIAL MENTION - Bande a Part - This Godard film was revolutionary in its time and deserves special mention. It is not, however, one of my personal favorites. I appreciate all that it did. But as with Von Trier, appreciation and love do not always mix.

THE 1964 TOP TEN

10. A Hard Day's Night - Richard Lester does his bit to change the language of film, bringing a commercial eye to the fast and loose style of the French auteurists. But best of all, this one is a hell of a lot of fun and it defines the moment in history almost as well as the #1 film on this list.

9. Bedtime Story - Not many people think of this film much anymore. But it was the basis for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which might be more familiar. Brando, looking beautiful and doing comedy… David Niven, still the perfectly suave comic… and Shirley Jones, still sexy. It's an imperfect movie, but it's lots of fun.

8. Sex & The Single Girl - Rock Hudson and Doris Day were fun, but I'll take Natalie Wood and Tony Curtis any day. She was one of those girls who would never stop talking, but she was so sexy, you could listen all day. And he is still such an over-the-top personality that you're always waiting for him to wink at the camera. Here, the story is real, in a way, so there is a real joy in watching this duo trying to get to the sexual revolution while the Hollywood undertow keeps dragging them back.

7. Marriage Italian Style - Vittorio Di Sica's Loren/Mastroianni follow-up to Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow is just plain great. If you think that the Oscar game is screwy now, Sophia Loren was Oscar nominated for this movie at the 1965 Oscars, but the film wasn't nominated as Best Foreign Language Film until 1966. Sex, drama and comedy are all here… just the way the Italians do it best.

6. Beckett - Burton. O'Toole. Gielgud. So great acting is a given. The story is challenging and demanding… don't lose your way. But the passion and the struggle over bigger life issues, like honor and country… very powerful stuff.

5. Fail- Safe - The serious dark room drama about a nuclear nightmare. The issues are still completely relevant 40 years later… what do you do if you lose control of too much power? As we avoid thinking too hard about what's really going on around us? Do we have enough gossip rags to allow us to forget that people in the world want us dead simply for who we are… whether that be American, black, Jewish, gay, Protestant, Catholic, etc, etc, etc? Fail-Safe takes account of the biggest of issues in the most intimate human way.

4. I Am Cuba - One of the greatest documentaries ever made, you will never see anything on film any more beautiful or any more real. How things change.

3. Zulu - Introducing Michael Caine. That's almost enough to make the case for this film. But it also happens to be one of the best movies about warfare ever. And even though time has forced us all to rethink the idea of colonialism and the very real humanity of native Africans, Zulu somehow overcomes its confusing rooting angles. 100 Brits versus 4000 Zulus… how can they survive? Stanley Baker is tremendous here, but so is Jack Hawkins, Caine and so many in this classic flick. Yeah, the women may want to leave the room, but man oh man, if you haven't seen this one, you are missing a great time at the movies.

2. The Pawnbroker - One of Lumet's most little seen and forgotten films, Rod Steiger gave perhaps the best performance of his career in this black & white tale of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, now stuck behind the cage of a pawn shop, not quite alive… not quite dead. How does one go on? Are true victims in the world to be forgiven everything…nothing? A small powerhouse that explodes in your heart.

1. Dr. Strangelove - One of the greatest films ever made. If Kubrick was not the greatest filmmaker of all time, he was close. Like Chayefsky, who may have been the greatest writer about moments in history ever, Kubrick saw the nature of historic events, of men, of power and of the limitations of humanity, chewed them all up, digested them, and shat out the most amazing truths.

This time out, he had the hysterical Terry Southern by his side and he created one of the best comedies, the best satires, the best war movies and the best dramas ever… all in one near-perfect film. The range of this movie is simply astounding. The three "fronts" of the film are remarkable enough - the war room, the base and the plane - but within each of these fronts, there is depth and complexity of character so rich that any one of these fronts could be a movie unto itself. Yet, Kubrick juggles them all to perfection. King Kong, Bat Guano, Jack D. Ripper, Buck Turgidson… all answering - or not - to President Merkin Muffley (they couldn't just call this guy a "pussy" once… had to do it twice!).

There has never been a comedy that was quite as serious. Sturges might have done it, had he worked in the post-pill era. David O. Russell is desperately trying to get there. But the closest is probably Mel Brooks, whose broader humor was always at its best when it was about something, whether the subtext of Nazism in The Producers or racism in Blazing Saddles.

Kubrick, with Southern and Peter George, took on the cold war, military intelligence, the American republic, nuclear proliferation, male sexuality, jingoism, self-deception, kindness, honor, rage, fear, death, history, communism, etc. etc… so much of the human condition in such a short (93 minutes) time.

And I should look so good after 40 years…

E-ME: What are your favorite films from the year of your birth?