“The Swinger” Dethrones “Jessica”
Ann-Margret’s The Swinger has staved off tough competition from the fast-rising Sergio Leone to take over the top spot in our All-Time Chart from Angie Dickinson in Jessica. It’s generally a mystery...
View ArticleInterlude (1966) ****
Kevin Billington’s debut benefitted from a brief fad for classical music soundtracks, Elvira Madigan kicking off the fashion the year before, 2001: A Space Odyssey, which opened at the same time as...
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Planet of the Apes (1968) *****
Still astonishing that the two movies that rocked sci-fi to its core came out the same year. Initially beloved mostly by dopeheads 2001: A Space Odyssey quickly achieved ultra-academic status. But...
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Behind the Scenes: “Planet of the Apes” (1968)
J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone, 1961) saw a much-needed boost to a drifting career vanish when he ducked out of this project – he had spent considerable time developing the project – in favor...
View ArticleFathom (1966) ***
If audiences rallied to the sight of Raquel Welch wearing nothing more than a fur bikini for the entirety of One Million Years B.C. (1966) and a skin-tight suit in Fantastic Voyage (1966) Twentieth...
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Oscar Wilde (1960) ****
You might be surprised to learn there were two Oscar Wildes. Not the famed writer and a doppelganger of course but two films on the same subject that were released in the same month. This is the...
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Behind the Scenes: The Roadshow Conundrum
Widescreen – Cinemascope, Vistavision et al – had brought audiences back to the cinema in the 1950s so the next decade, with box office cratering, Hollywood doubled down on an even bigger concept,...
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No Highway in the Sky / No Highway (1951) ****
Having just read the Nevil Shute novel on which this movie is based, I was keen to see how it transferred to the screen. It got off to a great start with the casting. James Stewart was several classes...
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From the Terrace (1960) ***
When your plot pivots on the hero diving into an icy pond to save the grandchild of a Wall St multi-millionaire – and reaping the career benefits – you are kind of in trouble. Not as much, though, as...
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Mister Buddwing/Buddwing (1966) ****
Perhaps it was something in the ether that this very under-rated Kafkaesque examination of fractured identity emerged the same year as John Frankenheimer’s equally maligned Seconds and the year after...
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