Dr. No (1962)

Very funny, what with all the getups that Ursula Andress wears, the villain's lair, and Sean Connery's one liners. Despite it's efforts, I was not moved to flinch or quiver.

Agent 007 heads to Jamaica to investigate the death of another MI6 agent only to uncover a plot to destroy a space program. Lots of beach scenes.

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Divorzio all'italiana (1961)

Since the Roman Catholic Church forbids divorce, the only way to get out of a marriage is the either the unfaithfulness or death of one's spouse. When Ferdinando falls in love with his nubile cousin, he devises a ploy to get out of his marriage.

The film is quite clever in its portrayal of the very inept Ferdinando and we are completely flabbergasted that his cousin falls for him and at the grossly inept Italian justice system. But we laugh a lot thanks to ingenious acting.

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À Bout de Souffle (1960)

From another time - generational angst that defined the 1960s. Chock full of anti-establishment, lust, and recklessness. A cop killing Frenchman pines over a blond American girl trying to get her to escape with him. She half-heartedly gives in to his advances only to half-heartedly flee. There is a back and forth that shows they both really don't know what they want.

The movie is a classic and it's worth watching just to see what Paris looked like a half century ago. The plot and acting is dramatic enough to keep you engaged, but the tale has been told many times since by copycats, so it isn't that new anymore.

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Tirez sur le pianiste (1960)

Shoot the Piano Player is a black and white French classic about the resurrection of a piano player facing his demons. And it really plays out like a pre-cursor to post-modern thrillers with all of their twists.

The protagonist has to reveal his former identity as a famous piano player as he seeks to save his corrupt family from gangsters and as he tries to embrace new love.

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Becket (1964)

Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole team up in a retelling of the turbulent relationship between King Henry II (a Norman) of England and Thomas Becket (an Anglosaxon), Archbishop of Canterbury.

When King Henry encounters conflict between church and state, he establishes Thomas Becket as his puppet Archbishop. After taking on the role, Becket becomes wholly devoted to the Church and even experiences a spiritual transformation. Becket becomes antagonized by Henry as Henry wants to tax the church and prosecute priests for civil crimes when they are committed. In the end, Henry has Becket murdered in a grisly attack inside the cathedral at Canterbury.

After reading up on the historical account, the film seems to overdramatize the closeness of the relationship between the two icons in order to create a more compelling story. The film is done in British dramatic manner of which O'Toole and Burton became icons. It's a worthy film.

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Lolita (1962)

Stanley Kubrick offers us a tale of lust and obsession with this classic.

Lolita, a manipulative teenage girl, has her way with a manipulative professor who is a tenant in her home. Circumstances allow the two to leave the town and masquerade as father and daughter until Lolita drops him. 

Since the film is 37 years old, interactions are very proper and formal which when juxtaposed with the subject matter can be a little difficult to interpret. Appearances are indeed more deceiving than they might be today.

The pacing of the film is slow - it is 2.5 hours long - but it has an effect of generating tremendous amounts of tension between the professor and Lolita. Peter Sellers plays a very strange man and does that quite well, though it seems a little out of place - though he's probably there to show how awful the professor is even though he appears normal.

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Il Posto (1961)

This black and white masterpiece comes to us from postwar Italy. The population had a responsibility to rebuild the country and bring it into the modern era. That meant menial labour, and lots of it.

The Job trails the beginning of Domenico's career. He's about 16 and can't continue his schooling because his family can't afford it. He passes a rigorous screening process at a huge company and gets an entry position as a porter. He falls head over heals for another pretty young applicant who gets hired as a secretary. This side narrative emphasizes the innocence that is on the line before the job begins.

The story really turns. At first he seems really downcast as he knows he can't continue his education (this job will help his younger brother continue). Then he's excited about getting the job as the competition stiffens. Then we see what the job really is: sitting at a desk writing accounts all day. Life is over.

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Nóz w wodzie (1962)

Knife in the Water is one of Roman Polanski's early films before making his way Chinatown fame in the US. He takes his three characters onto a boat locking them into a unique paradigm of power and ego.

A couple pick up a hitchhiker on their way to their little sailboat and invite him to come along on an overnight excursion. On the boat, the captain asserts his power a little too much and the guest overdoes it trying to impress the mistress. Tension builds to climax - see title.

The outdoor camera work is fabulous considering it is shot on a boat. The acting is also very personal and natural.

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La Carrière de Suzanne (1963)

Suzanne's Career is another of Rohmer's short moral films. 

This time it's a pharmacy student in Paris named Bertrand who carries on a friendship with this friend's fling, Suzanne. His male friend is not a kind one and rather manipulative. They take advantage of her financial generosity while at the same time being quite annoyed with her. All the characters' lives take a turn in the end, giving Bertrand a new perspective on Suzanne and her motives.

The film is plenty full of tension and is not predictable in any way.

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La Boulangère de Monceau (1963)

This is the first of 6 short films on morality set in France in the early 1960s by director Eric Rohmer. 

The Baker's Girl of Monceau is about a young law student is confronted with a moral dilemma. He is fascinated by a woman he crosses paths with in the street and makes contact with her where they determine to meet again in the future. She then disappears for 3 weeks and he is left wandering the streets looking for her on his lunch breaks. He ends up in a bakery where the attendant flirts with him.

What is most fascinating about this movie is chauvinist the protagonist is. The morality is really about how or how not to treat women. It is also really cool to see Paris as it was in the 60s.

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8½ (1963)

This is Federico Fellini's masterpiece about a director's personal struggle in making a personal film. Indeed, the film is a joy to watch with all of its animated characters and the escapades between exaggerated real life, memories, and fantasy.

Guido Anselmi is hounded by his producers when he become increasingly reluctant to cast characters and to shoot the film as it's written. At the same time, he is courted by prospective actresses as he tries to salvage his marriage and be true to the many, many women who have impacted his life.

The camera movements are particularly notable as are the superb performances. Shot in striking black and white, most of the women wear bright white outfits and the men are in black. Background conversations echo some of the prevalent themes in Italy in the 1960's too. The film is a slice of time.

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The Birds (1963)

Revenge of the Birds! With mostly subtle clues, Hitchcock reveals reasons for a massive assault on a coastal town by thousands of birds - could it be messing with their habitat and feeding sources or the centuries of caging them or the harvesting of their meat? We'll never know.

A rich hottie from San Francisco follows a flirting lawyer to a coastal town. While she's there, the seagulls, crows, swallows, etc. . . begin attacking people for no apparent reason. Some fatalities occur and a gas station blows up. It really is quite a natural disaster.

The mastery revealed in this film is all the background action that takes place as the foreground conversation takes place. This is especially apparent in the diner scene. We are fed some relevant information to get us on the right track and irrelevant information to throw us off. Though I wasn't terrified by the beaks and talons, I was fascinated by the undercurrent tensions and the character sketches.

Nearly everything in the film is left untied in the end. If there is anything that Hitchcock can do, it's get a rise out of his viewers. Certainly a classic.

Truth: We should never assume that nature can be tamed or fully understood. (and wear goggles)

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Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

Weighing in at 3 hours, you have to give yourself time to digest this movie. I'm at a disadvantage watching this film as so many of the questions it asks were already posed during my university history classes. The film does an excellent job at dramatizing these important issues though and they should continue to be brought up.

Eighty per cent of the film takes place inside a Nuremberg court room. Three American judges preside over the trial of four German judges charged with crimes against humanity for their roll in enforcing laws of the Third Reich. It is already more than three years since VE Day and the world isn't interested, in fact the world's eyes are not squarely focused on the brewing Cold War a few miles away.

We are offered several tragic personal stories of racism, sterilization, and political persecution along with documentary footage of the concentration camp at Dachau. Striking a magnificent contrast to this is the happy German people singing in a tavern and the upbeat defense lawyer who says that if these judges are to be convicted, then the entire world ought to be as well for their complicity with Hitler on various levels.

There is very little that I can critique the film of. One minor thing would be the inclusion of some mundane and repetitive scenes, without which may have shortened the film by 20 minutes, making it more palatable to a larger audience. It was also shot in black and white, though technicolor had existed for several years already (probably a budgetary constraint).

The acting in the film was superb and I would watch it again just simply to watch these classic actors take on such emotional roles. The camera almost never stands still. It rolls around the courtroom during long dramatic questioning and monologues.

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