1968

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Once Upon a Time in the West
Rosemary’s Baby
The Producers
Night of the Living Dead
if….
The Lion in Winter
Planet of the Apes
The Great Silence
Bullitt
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
The Odd Couple
Where Eagles Dare
Pretty Poison
The Swimmer
Will Penny
Faces
The Party
Hang ‘Em High
Hour of the Wolf
Rachel, Rachel
The Bride Wore Black
The Devil Rides Out
Who’s That Knocking at My Door
Dark of the Sun
Greetings
Oliver!
The Thomas Crown Affair
Flickorna
The Detective
Paper Lion
Finian’s Rainbow
Firecreek
Funny Girl
Anzio
Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
The Subject Was Roses
Coogan’s Bluff
The Split
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Inspector Clouseau
Ice Station Zebra
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
Romeo and Juliet
5 Card Stud
The Boston Strangler
Barbarella
Sweet November
The Stalking Moon
Hellfighters
Destroy All Monsters
Lady in Cement
Krakatoa, East of Java
Skidoo

Note: These lists are always slowly growing, so this represents all the films so far from 1968 that I have reviewed on the site, in order of best to worst based solely on score (ties are ordered alphabetically).

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Directed by Sergio Leone. Starring Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Gabriele Ferzetti, Paolo Stoppa, Marco Zuanelli, Frank Wolff, Keenan Wynn. [PG-13]

Cardinale’s beautiful New Orleans prostitute arrives in the small frontier town of Flagstone to join her new rancher husband, but he’s been murdered by a railroad baron’s henchman (Fonda), who framed a notorious outlaw (Robards) for the crime. At the same time, an enigmatic, harmonica-playing drifter (Bronson) shows up with a private score of his own to settle—“He not only plays, he can shoot, too.” Operatic spaghetti Western, Leone’s follow-up to his trend-setting “Dollars Trilogy” with Clint Eastwood, is expansive and leisurely-paced, and rightly considered by many to be one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Cardinale maintains a quiet sense of dignity while trapped as a pawn in the schemes of cutthroat men, Robards can be rascally one moment and dead serious the next, Bronson is cast perfectly to type as a stoic and imposing cipher, while Fonda is cast way against type as a magnificently cold-hearted gunman, one of the silver screen’s all-time great villains. Bolstered by Ennio Morricone’s savory musical themes. Jack Elam, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock play the three gunfighters in the opening sequence. Leone shared story credit with two other legendary filmmakers: Bernardo Bertolucci and Dario Argento.

95/100

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Directed by Roman Polanski. Starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavettes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Angela Dorian, Elisha Cook Jr., Charles Grodin, Hope Summers, Patsy Kelly. [R]

Brooding, subtly creepy occult horror film, Polanski’s first in the U.S., based off the Ira Levin bestseller. Farrow is superb as the fragile wife of a struggling actor (Cassavettes) who becomes pregnant shortly after moving into a NYC apartment, her neighbors a bizarre cult of Satanists who become very interested in her life (and the life growing inside her belly). Playing on the suspicious vulnerabilities of pregnancy and teasing uncomfortable laughs out of unlikely places (Oscar winner Gordon can be a hoot), Polanski’s expert control is reduced to mirage sometimes as the uneasy mood almost discombobulates the clammy urban nightmare aspects—can we take any of it seriously? Turns out we can, though the ghoulish revelations are less truly horrifying than tongue-in-cheek (that bassinet belongs in the funny pages, possibly under the heading “The Addams Family”), but it skirts the edges of spellbinding almost the whole way. Second entry in Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy” (preceded by Repulsion, followed by The Tenant). Listen for Tony Curtis’ voice on a telephone call.

89/100

The Producers (1968)

Directed by Mel Brooks. Starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars, Dick Shawn, Christopher Hewett, Lee Meredith, Andréas Voutsinas, Estelle Winwood. [PG]

Mel Brooks’ side-splitting first feature is chock full of tastelessness, vulgarity, showbiz satire, counterculture subversion, and Jewish humor—crude and episodic, but surely one of the funniest films of the 60s. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder are sensational as, respectively, a greedy Broadway producer and a nebbish accountant who team up to swindle “little old lady land” backers (at 25,000%, no less) of a theatrical production guaranteed to flop hard: a “love letter to the Führer” called Springtime for Hitler. There are a few lulls in belabored dialogue, and the hippie material is dated, but the script is so quotable and the performances so zesty in their lunacy, hardly a minute passes without at least one or two big laughs. Wilder being in pain, wet and hysterical; Mostel tearing up his cardboard belt; Mars decked out in a leather coat and German helmet while waxing poetic about his beloved Adolf; the show-stopping musical number with swastika-shaped choreography; what’s not to love if you’re not easily offended? Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay. Look for William Hickey making a toast “to toast” and Jerry Seinfeld’s sitcom dad (Barney Martin) as the onstage Hermann Göring; you can also hear Mel Brooks’ voice dubbing the line, “Don’t be stupid, be a smarty: come and join the Nazi party!”

88/100

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Directed by George A. Romero. Starring Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, Kyra Schon, George Kosana, Charles Craig.

George A. Romero’s directorial debut is a blood-curdling low-budget chiller that changed the horror game in a significant way (and not just the zombie sub-genre). Bare-bones story of the deceased rising from their graves to feast on the flesh of the living while diverse, desperate survivors barricade themselves inside a farmhouse is an excuse to study the breakdown of social order amid life-and-death panic, and to deliver grainy jolts of terror and gore to keep you up all night. The low-grade black & white photography and amateurish performances only make the queasy anxiety feel more real—a you-are-there (and you-are-trapped) sensation which works better than almost all of the “found footage” genre pics to come many years later. The casting of a black man (Jones) in the lead heroic role, and the subsequent racial commentary to come out of it, was (apparently) a pure accident, but talk about a lucky break. Later “living dead” horror movies would add greater speed and ferocity to the zombie masses and even more copious blood and guts, but there’s no diminishing the shivery, unsettling impact of this late-60s midnight movie sensation. Romero also co-scripted (with John Russo), photographed and edited. Followed by several thematically-linked sequels, starting with Dawn of the Dead; remade in color in 1990 and in 3-D in 2006.

87/100

if…. (1968)

Directed by Lindsay Anderson. Starring Malcolm McDowell, Richard Warwick, David Wood, Rupert Webster, Peter Jeffrey, Robert Swann, Arthur Lowe, Ben Aris, Christine Noonan, Mona Washbourne. [R]

Acerbic, anarchic allegory set in the British school system, exposing the punishing hierarchies within and whipping revolutionary attitudes into the shape of surrealistic mockery. Ironic, disaffected Everyman Mick Travis (McDowell) and his mates are “kept in place” by the bullying student body prefects and strict administrators, but some boys can only be pushed so far. Youth in revolt has rarely been captured with this kind of clever swirl of blunt force and introspective poetry, exaggeration taken to logical extremes, realistic in its agitated emotional context while lapsing into “eff-you” fantasy. Indistinct and standoffish while initially unfolding, but the film slowly improves with each new vignette until you’re gasping for air either out of shocked offense or scabrous laughter—resemblances to Jean Vigo’s reappraised 1933 featurette, Zéro de Conduite, might be intentional. McDowell is excellent in his film acting debut, the seeds of the disturbing next evolution (Alex from A Clockwork Orange) being sown here. He’d also go on to reprise the Mick Travis role (with Lindsay Anderson directing) in two additional pictures, 1973’s O Lucky Man! and 1982’s Britannia Hospital, although there’s too little continuity of character for either to be considered a proper sequel.

86/100

The Lion in Winter (1968)

Directed by Anthony Harvey. Starring Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, Timothy Dalton, Nigel Terry, Jane Merrow, Nigel Stock, O. Z. Whitehead, Kenneth Ives.

King Henry II (O’Toole) assembles his sons and his imprisoned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Hepburn) on Christmas Eve 1183 to struggle over the choosing of his heir. James Goldman’s stage play translates well to the big screen (by his own pen), with only the occasional instance of stagy visuals or long-windedness in the dialogue; credit is due director Harvey, especially since he avoids a lot of those gauche errors despite being a novice with feature films. The patchy flaws hardly even go noticed, as the strong cast and the script’s brawler’s poetry bail each other out when one side flags with too much pomp, camp, or melodramatic fire. O’Toole seems born for the role (and not just because he previously played Henry in Becket), devouring the screen like no one’s business; Hepburn matches him with wiles, wit, and venom. Game supporting players (including Hopkins and Dalton, both making their film debuts) and atmosphere-rich production values enhance the gratifying theatricality. Hepburn “tied” for an Academy Award win with Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, the only time a victory was shared among onscreen performers (there was also a split for Best Actor once in 1932, but it wasn’t actually a tie). Goldman and John Barry’s score also won Oscars.

85/100

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Starring Charlton Heston, Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, Robert Gunner, Jeff Burton, Linda Harrison, James Daly, James Whitmore, Lou Wagner, Woodrow Parfrey. [G]

A trio of Earth astronauts in deep sleep crash land about 2,000 years after departure on a “planet where apes evolved from men.” Charlton Heston is de facto leader, Taylor, and he’s promptly rounded up and studied by the apes, who are shocked that he’s able to talk, but his captors are divided on whether this marks a breakthrough or a threat. First Apes picture holds up quite well, retaining a sense of alarming discovery and fascination within the culture and hierarchy of the ape society. Less interesting are the other human characters, such as Linda Harrison as Taylor’s mute would-be mate, and their nature is never satisfactorily explained. Franklin J. Schaffner adeptly blends the crowd-pleasing action and suspense elements, photographed with imaginative disorientation by Leon Shamroy, with trenchant insight and philosophical queries, resulting in accessible entertainment that also stimulates the mind. Because of outdated craftsmanship and attitudes, it can be a little cheesy at times, and the Oscar-winning ape makeup/costumes look better at a distance than up close, but there’s a reason so many scenes and quotable lines resonate among science fiction fans to this day—note how Heston’s over-the-top delivery of his final line stands in exquisite contrast to the stark, simple visual reveal of the film’s great twist ending. Kudos also to Jerry Goldsmith’s strident score. Based on the novel by Pierre Boulle, it launched a major media franchise, including several direct sequels, live-action and animated TV series, a remake, and a reboot film series.

85/100

The Great Silence (1968)

Directed by Sergio Corbucci. Starring Klaus Kinski, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Frank Wolff, Vonetta McGee, Luigi Pistilli, Mario Brega, Marisa Merlini, Spartaco Conversi, Carlo D’Angelo, Raf Baldassarre.

Outside of Sergio Leone, spaghetti Westerns don’t get much better (or bleaker) than this, widely considered Corbucci’s most indelible motion picture. Flavored with revisionist attitudes on Western mythos, authoritarianism, and pulp antiheroism, it’s a revenge story centered on a mute gunfighter (Trintignant) getting hired by a vindictive widow (McGee) who wants justice for her murdered husband, and as luck would have it—good or bad—the banker (Pistilli) who recruited the sadistic bounty killer (Kinski) responsible for the killing has a history with the mysterious avenger. Stark, snowy Dolemite Alps locations help this one stand out from the flamboyant pack, as does Kinski’s blackly comic unpredictability and an arresting turn from Frank Wolff as a reluctant, newly-assigned peace officer, who would be the story’s true hero in most other filmmakers’ hands. Symbolism and subversion are each handled less ham-fistedly than other on-the-cheap Euro-Westerns, and Ennio Morricone’s music is sublimely melancholy. As for the brutal, merciless ending, it’s one of the few in the genre to be properly called a stunner (steer clear of that alternate “happy ending” attached to some DVD copies). Considered in some circles to be the middle chapter of Corbucci’s so-called “Mud and Blood” trilogy, in between 1966’s Django and 1969’s The Specialists. Film acting debut for future-blaxploitation star McGee.

84/100

Bullitt (1968)

Directed by Peter Yates. Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Simon Oakland, Don Gordon, Norman Fell, Felice Orlandi, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Duvall. [PG]

Exciting action film with McQueen’s cool minimalism inhabiting detective Frank Bullitt, prowling the streets of San Francisco for a pair of hitmen that shot up a fellow officer and protected witness. Glimpses into the anti-hero’s personal life are cluttered decoration, and Bisset is even more vacant than usual delivering lines like, “You’re living in a sewer…day after day,” and, “What will happen to us…in time?”; the rest of the movie, however, shows great skill in gear-turning, releasing that tension every once in a while with a brutal wallop. The richest characterizations belong to the gritty glamour of the city itself and the Ford Mustang Fastback driven during the sensational car chase (still one of the all-time best, even today). Frank P. Keller won an Academy Award for his dynamite editing during that sequence; too bad he didn’t prune away that dull domesticity while he was at it. Lalo Schifrin contributed the jazzy but propulsive score. Produced by Philip D’Antoni.

81/100

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968)

Directed by Robert Ellis Miller. Starring Alan Arkin, Sonda Locke, Percy Rodriguez, Stacy Keach, Laurinda Barrett, Biff McGuire, Cicely Tyson, Chuck McCann, Johnny Popwell, Wayne Smith, Jackie Marlowe. [G]

Sensitive drama of a deaf and mute man (Arkin) renting a room from a struggling suburban family to be close to institutionalized and mentally-handicapped McCann, his only friend. His gentle, unassuming nature has a significant effect on several people, including the family’s teenage daughter (Locke) still coming of age, a drunk drifter (Keach) who just thought Arkin was a good listener, and a black doctor (Rodriguez) who believes in “sticking with his own.” The ingredients are there for a wrong-headed and tacky feel-good story where Arkin’s character is given a near-heroic arc in changing lives with simple values and humility, but the filmmakers take a more measured and observant approach. Features one of the few “peaceful” scores composed by Dave Grusin that doesn’t sound like something that would barely pass muster on a second-rate TV-movie. Adapted by Thomas C. Ryan from Carson McCullers’ same-named 1940 novel, which was set in the 30s; this one was moved to contemporary times, and it’s a reflection of the sad state of affairs that the narrative’s embittered racial disharmony still fit right in several decades later. Locke and Keach both make their film acting debuts.

79/100

The Odd Couple (1968)

Directed by Gene Saks. Starring Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner, John Fiedler, Larry Haines, Carole Shelley, Monica Evans. [G]

Film version of Neil Simon play where fussy, neurotic Felix Ungar (Lemmon) stays with his divorced pal, the sloppy, slobbish Oscar Madison (Matthau), and they discover quickly how incompatible they are as roommates. A television series with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman would, of course, follow in the early-70s, a transition that must have been a piece of cake since the movie already feels like a handful of episodes strung together (poker night at Oscar’s, the boys have a disastrous double date, etc.), with the three-camera sitcom setup matching the blocking of the stage show from which it originated. Not quite as good as its sterling reputation suggests—a few sequences are slack instead of economical, and belabor the joke/point—but it’s still a most enjoyable comedy, profiting from lots of inspired dialogue and candid humor, a willingness to let sadness creep in, and the chemistry between Matthau and Lemmon, which is as good here as it ever was (and they made a whopping nine movies together, ten if you count their minor roles in JFK). Followed nearly thirty years later by a sequel almost no one was clamoring for.

78/100

Where Eagles Dare (1968)

Directed by Brian G. Hutton. Starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Donald Houston, Peter Barkworth, William Squire, Patrick Wymark, Robert Beatty, Ferdy Mayne, Anton Diffring, Michael Hordern, Derren Nesbitt, Ingrid Pitt, Neil McCarthy, Brook Williams, Vincent Ball.

A unit of Allied commandos led by British officer Burton are tasked with a daring mission: infiltrate a mountaintop castle that’s accessible only by cable car in order to rescue a captured general (Beatty). Large-scale, high-powered World War II thriller is at once bare-bones basic and overly convoluted, with a plan that requires more firepower than finesse and a number of characters who aren’t who they seem to be (with at least one traitor in their midst). Action-filled second half is overextended but exciting often enough; the pile-up of double agent reveals and bluffs can be just as exhausting as the relentless bomb blasts and machine-guns. Assertive Burton and laconic Eastwood are both cast per their strengths, even though neither one is quite in their “comfort zone” (Burton unlikely as a hero in “popcorn escapism,” Eastwood unlikely as a second fiddle). Script by Alistair MacLean, who also wrote the similar wartime action novel that became The Guns of Navarone in 1961; bizarrely, in the novelization of the film, Eastwood’s American lieutenant never kills anyone, but in the movie, Eastwood kills more people than he does in any other film he ever starred in.

77/100

Pretty Poison (1968)

Directed by Noel Black. Starring Anthony Perkins, Tuesday Weld, John Randolph, Dick O’Neill, Beverly Garland, Joseph Bova.

Out on parole, psychologically-disturbed arsonist Perkins becomes infatuated with local teen Weld, tricks her into believing that he’s a spook, and convinces her to join him on a series of covert “missions,” little realizing that she’s even more dangerous than he is! Unrefined but tidy psychological thriller is Perkins’ first true Hollywood film since Psycho; efforts to escape typecasting didn’t work out afterward. Its dark, offbeat irreverence may be tame by today’s standards, but still provides a ghastly comic kick. Viewer sympathies become twisted as the film progresses, which is ultimately its saving grace; had the roles been more traditional, it would just feel like an off-brand lovers-on-the-lam parody/ripoff. Director Black’s feature film debut. Scripted by Lorenzo Semple Jr., from Stephen Geller’s book, “She Let Him Continue.”

74/100

The Swimmer (1968)

Directed by Frank Perry. Starring Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, Janice Rule, Michael Kearney, Marge Champion, Tony Bickley, Kim Hunter, Charles Drake.

Fit, bronzed, middle-aged Lancaster rubs elbows with wealthy suburbanites on a sunny Connecticut summer day and decides to head home from a pool party by swimming a “river” of swimming pools all the way to his destination. A strange plot device, to be sure, offering up opportunities for the protagonist to have run-ins with various types along the way (mostly figures from his past, which is gradually revealed to be darker and more complex than one would expect), and the surreal journey is ripe with metaphors that alternate between the obvious and the obtuse. A few overwrought scenes hamper the experience, especially the finale with Marvin Hamlisch’s string arrangements laid on thick like chlorine and sun tan lotion, but Lancaster’s compelling performance makes up for it. Adapted from a John Cheever short story. Joan Rivers appears in her first film role.

73/100

Will Penny (1968)

Directed by Tom Gries. Starring Charlton Heston, Joan Hackett, Donald Pleasence, Ben Johnson, Bruce Dern, Jon Gries, Lee Majors, Anthony Zerbe, Gene Rutherford, Clifton James, Slim Pickens, Roy Jensen, G. D. Spradlin.

A not-quite-revisionist character study Western with Heston giving one of the better performances of his career as an aging cowpoke loner hired to ride the line of a sprawling cattle ranch, but ends up playing “family man” with a couple of squatters: feisty widow Hackett and her impressionable son (played by the director’s son, Jon Gries). The basic narrative is familiar, but the stock ingredients are seasoned with color and intelligence, and some of the actors find fresh gradients to work with. Elegiac pace and unusual structure ensures its status as a “grower,” rewarding for patient viewers. Lunatic religious zealot Pleasance and his “family” don’t exactly make for the wiliest or most menacing of antagonists, but at least they’ve wandered in from somewhere off the proverbial beaten trail. Director Gries also scripted, loosely based on an episode of TV’s “The Westerner.” Heston’s favorite film in which he starred.

73/100

Faces (1968)

Directed by John Cassavettes. Starring John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Fred Draper, Seymour Cassel, Val Avery, Dorothy Gulliver, Darlene Conley, Joanne Moore. [R]

Intensely-charged personal drama from Cassavettes studying a deteriorating marriage and the way men and women relate to and interact with one another. Shot in cinéma vérité-style, heavy on disorienting closeups in and out of focus (there sure are a lot of “faces”…), the aesthetics can be as crudely orchestrated as the “natural” flow of raw conversation with little semblance of a writer’s touch—how much of the dialogue was improvisational remains contested. Exhausting at length and sometimes too long-winded or “realistically messy” for its own good, but there are also a lot of fascinating scenes and provocative moments that should shake even the least alert and attentive viewer awake: aggressive talk leading to a decision for divorce between spouses Marley and Carlin, Cassel’s reactions to an older woman’s worldview and his response to what he discovers the morning after spending the night with her, etc. The potent performances from most of the cast are given the breathing room a tighter, more satisfying motion picture would have stymied, so for me, it’s a tough one on which to negotiate my opinions. I do, however, think it’s a very safe bet it was good that Cassavettes cut the film down by almost an hour after a debut screening in Canada. A young Steven Spielberg served as an uncredited (and, presumably, unpaid) production assistant for a couple of weeks during the shoot.

72/100

The Party (1968)

Directed by Blake Edwards. Starring Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Marge Champion, Steve Franken, Gavin MacLeod, Denny Miller, Danielle De Metz, Dick Crockett, Carol Wayne, Timothy Scott. [PG]

Edwards and Sellers team up for their only non-Pink Panther collaboration, where the title says it all. Typically episodic and sketchily-constructed, it’s really just a neorealist series of embarrassing situations strung together, almost all taking place during a long party. Sellers plays an Indian actor, but manages to overcome allegations of “brownface” racism by making him one of the few characters in the movie that’s not a stuffed-shirt, blowhard or buffoon. The fact that he consistently manages to get into terrible situations isn’t because he’s a klutz or an imbecile, but because he’s an outsider trying ever-so-hard to be polite and well-liked (and when one thing goes wrong, another is surely on its way). A few too many dry spells along the way, and the climax goes predictably over-the-top (remember who’s directing this thing), but the sequences where Sellers loses his shoe, manipulates an intercom system, gleefully feeds a parrot, twists painfully when unable to empty his bladder and, most famously, ruins an upstairs bathroom are howlingly funny.

72/100

Hang ‘Em High (1968)

Directed by Ted Post. Starring Clint Eastwood, Pat Hingle, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley, Ben Johnson, Charles McGraw, Arlene Golonka, Bruce Dern, Ben Steele, Alan Hale Jr., Ruth White, L. Q. Jones, Joseph Sirola.

Innocent ex-lawman Eastwood survives a lynching at the hands of a posse looking for a killer and cattle rustler, then agrees to act as marshal for territorial judge Hingle so he can track and capture his accosters and bring them to justice. Clint’s first American Western feature headliner utilizes the visual language, exaggerated gestures, and moralistic melodrama of the spaghetti Westerns that made him a star. Though their faces are familiar in these sorts of productions, Begley doesn’t have much to work with as the chief antagonist, and Stevens only gets a tragic confessional to give her character any dimension; Hingle and Johnson fare better in law & order roles, one reasonable and the other dictatorial. Dominic Frontiere provides the Ennio Morricone-esque music, but even though director Post fails to replicate Sergio Leone’s outlandish style, he competently forges the danger, bravado and ambiguity needed to sell the material. Regardless of pale imitative concerns, it’s always watchable and periodically exciting. Dennis Hopper has a small part as a deranged prisoner.

71/100

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman. Starring Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Gertrud Fridh, Erland Josephson, Georg Rydeberg, Ingrid Thulin, Ulf Johansson, Gudrun Brost.

Reclusive painter Von Sydow lives with his young wife (Ullman) on an island, his mind troubled by horrifying dreams and visions…or are they repressed memories? He describes the titular Vargtimmen as “when most people die…sleep is deepest…nightmares are more real; it is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful”; it is here that the boundaries of his madness are tested most strongly, including during a nightmarish visit to a castle on the other side of the island. Bergman’s psychological horror film tends to be divisive among his followers, one that presents a series of surreal images and scenarios that can be disturbing if the premise of ruptured insanity is believed, laughable if felt to be unconvincing. With the observational abstractions too loosely gripped by the fantasia features—a figure walking up walls to the ceiling, the nude and derisive form of an ex-lover (Thulin), a fit of rage leading to a child’s murder, etc.—its legacy in reflection is based on directorial touch instead of the wisdom of his pen. Playing the sinister castle baron, Bergman regular Josephson’s appearance is his first in a feature film in the span of a decade.

71/100

Rachel, Rachel (1968)

Directed by Paul Newman. Starring Joanne Woodward, Estelle Parsons, James Olson, Kate Harrington, Frank Corsaro, Bernard Barrow, Donald Moffat, Terry Kiser. [R]

Woodward portrays shy spinster schoolteacher, Rachel Cameron, who discovers a sexual awakening in her mid-30s during her summer vacation at home with needy mother Harrington. There isn’t a storybook romance for her—the man (Olson) from her past she clings to is a crude wolf, and she doesn’t share the desires of closeted lesbian friend Parsons (looking like Velma from “Scooby-Doo” as a middle-aged schoolmarm)—but the material is handled with straightforward sensitivity that doesn’t cheapen her evolution. Flashbacks suggest more than they reveal—chastened by the same reluctance to shed light on the “sexual deviance” of her friend?—and in its own way, the lack of clarity is appropriate for her emotional repression and easily persuadable state of mind (Rachel’s experience at a loony church revival is one of the film’s least successful/credible episodes). Woodward’s strong performance anchors a film that dawdles during some passages and lacks polish in depicting subjective turmoil. Marks the directorial debut for Paul Newman, Woodward’s husband; their daughter, Nell Potts, plays young Rachel in the flashbacks.

70/100

The Bride Wore Black (1968)

Directed by François Truffaut. Starring Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Michel Lonsdale, Michel Bouquet, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Claude Brialy, Claude Rich, Serge Rousseau, Alexandra Stewart.

Truffaut’s homage to Alfred Hitchcock borrows the tropes and iconography but sidesteps the technique (both its goosey manipulation and its vulgar contrivances) in creating an arthouse revenge picture of unexpected tones and delights. Having lost her husband on her wedding day to a gunshot, grief-stricken Moreau first attempts suicide, then chooses vengeance by tracking down the men responsible and killing them one by one. Short on logic (how does she find them, let alone know who they were in the first place?), as well as the sort of intimate character definition that Truffaut was known for, but it has some effectively chilling and melancholy moments, a few well-placed splashes of dark humor, and a memorable performance from Moreau. Warning: those looking for catharsis in their revenge fiction may find at least one aspect very frustrating after the film ends. Lush score by frequent Hitchcock collaborator, Bernard Herrmann. Inspired the Kate Bush song, “The Wedding List.”

69/100

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

Directed by Terence Fisher. Starring Christopher Lee, Leon Green, Niké Arrighi, Charles Gray, Patrick Mower, Sarah Lawson, Paul Eddington, Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Rosalyn Landor, Russell Waters.

It’s Christopher Lee’s Duc de Richleau versus the black magic of occultist Charles Gray and his pack of Satan-worshiping followers in this sometimes overlooked Hammer horror production. This battle between the forces of good and evil has its barmy episodes—those late-night giant tarantula attacks are so inconvenient, wouldn’t you agree?—but is mostly taken seriously in Richard Matheson’s screenplay. Lee appears to relish a chance to play the good guy for a change, and Gray retains his dignity as a menacing yet sophisticated fiend. Goofy effects don’t upset the macabre spell cast by director Terence Fisher, and the vivid sense of creepy atmosphere only finally runs aground during the nutty yet lackluster ending. A small but fervent following rate it among the best Hammer ever produced, and they might be on to something. Taken from a book by prolific writer Dennis Wheatley. Also known as: The Devil’s Bride.

69/100

Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1968)

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Starring Harvey Keitel, Zina Bethune, Lennard Kuras, Michael Scala, Harry Northup. [R]

Scorsese’s feature debut is a grainy and intimate New York drama on a shoestring at the time of the “analog indie.” Italian-American street punk Keitel splits his time between knocking around with his easy-living cronies and becoming smitten with a blonde (Bethune) he meets on a ferry. Crude but urgent, shot in black & white with restless handhelds and lots of closeups. Its ungainly structure is a testament to the labors of its creation, as the two storylines were sewn together mid-production, and the superfluous erotic fantasy montage was added at the last minute to satisfy the distributor, who demanded some T&A for marketing the film in exploitation sectors. The Catholic guilt angle and Madonna-whore complex deepen an otherwise rudimentary relationship arc; some of the symbolism is heavy-handed by the director’s standards. Not quintessential Marty, but still a must for his faithful just to witness the potential in chrysalis, sort of a “student film warm-up” for Mean Streets and beyond. Debuted at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1967 under the title, I Call First.

69/100

Dark of the Sun (1968)

Directed by Jack Cardiff. Starring Rod Taylor, Jim Brown, Peter Carsten, Yvette Mimieux, Kenneth More, André Morell, Bloke Modisane, Olivier Despax, Guy Deghy.

Mercenaries on a mission to save millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds from a Congolese mining operation under threat by rampaging rebels. Unusually mean and violent action film feeds off lowbrow stereotypes (the local populations, “helpless” women, an ex-Nazi cohort who predictably goes bad, etc.) and offers little of substance to hold interest between the scenes of carnage and macho posturing. However, its visceral impact is not to be overlooked, and the savagery of several sequences (including a lengthy and merciless climactic fight) manufactures a form of volcanic rage rarely seen coming out of a major studio during its era. Taylor and Brown are well-cast as blunt, no-nonsense tough guys, and Carsten makes for a sadistic heavy. Glossy, adventurous score by jazz pianist Jacques Loussier. Co-writer Ranald MacDougall went credited as “Quentin Werty”. Also known as The Mercenaries.

68/100

Greetings (1968)

Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring Gerrit Graham, Robert De Niro, Jonathan Warden, Rutanya Alda, Allen Garfield, Peter Maloney, Tina Hirsch, Ray Tuttle, Cynthia Peltz, Richard Hamilton. [R]

This subversive counter-culture put-on has virtually no plot and is too of-the-moment to not feel like mothballed satire today, but it’s still worth a look. Three friends—conspiracy-minded Graham, voyeuristic pervert and amateur filmmaker De Niro, and introverted romantic Warden—get into assorted misadventures. Improvisational and reactionary, their obsessions with sex, the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination, et al keep the vignettes as frisky as they are dated, and some of them drag out the point too long, but too many of the bits are legitimately funny for the film as a whole to get restless. Tighter editing would have been both an antidote and a poison; a crucial part of its identity is the flawed shagginess. Not for everyone, but it ought to tickle the fancy of curious parties. First credited film role for De Niro, and also the first film to ever earn an X rating (which, like most non-pornographic X-rated films from the era, ended up being actually rather tame by today’s standards, and was later re-rated as R).

68/100

Oliver! (1968)

Directed by Carol Reed. Starring Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed, Mark Lester, Jack Wild, Harry Secombe, Joseph O’Connor, Hugh Griffith, Peggy Mount, Leonard Rossiter, Hylda Baker, Kenneth Cranham. [G]

Film version of the Lionel Bart stage musical (itself based, of course, on the Charles Dickens novel, “Oliver Twist”) is spirited, elaborately-mounted, and handsome-looking—despite the obvious use of soundstages, the squalid sprawl and sordid tenements of London look great. Moody as the eccentric rake Fagin and Reed as the menacing brute Bill Sikes are the cast standouts; unfortunately, the one that truly comes up short happens to be Lester as Oliver, a wide-eyed void of charisma who mostly just stands around and lets the story happen to him. Though their upbeat and sing-songy nature often contrasts the harsh undercurrents of the plot and setting, the songs are mostly delightful, a lineup that includes “Consider Yourself,” “As Long As He Needs Me,” “Pick a Pocket or Two,” and “Food, Glorious Food.” Can’t replace the original tome or the best of the “straight” film adaptations (particularly the David Lean production from 1948), but it’s enjoyably dingy and musically zesty enough to rate as a modest success. Its six Academy Award wins went for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Score Adaptation, Sound, and an honorary Oscar for Onna White’s creative choreography.

67/100

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

Directed by Norman Jewison. Starring Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Paul Burke, Jack Weston, Biff McGuire, Astrid Heeren.

Luxuriant crime caper with McQueen as Thomas Crown, a millionaire who hatches bank robberies more for the thrill than the payout, and Dunaway as the insurance agent investigating (and romancing) him. Empty entertainment, with hardly any meat to the plot or refinement to the characters. It’s all about the photography, the affluent style, the unconcerned attitude; all three aspects may steam up when the chic leads approach combustion, particularly during the famous “chess seduction” scene, but no real emotion is ever cracked, resulting in climactic indifference at their fates. The Christopher Chapman-designed “multi-dynamic image technique” is more an unneeded distraction than eye-filling exhilaration, so be grateful that it’s used sparingly. Viewers who love soaking in the “lifestyles of the rich and famous” milieu may rate this higher. Shot by Haskell Wexler and scored by Michael Legrand; the latter won an Oscar (alongside lyricists Alan & Marilyn Bergman) for the hit song, “The Windmills of Your Mind.” Yaphet Kotto has a small role as one of Crown’s unknowing accomplices. Remade in 1999.

67/100

Flickorna (1968)

Directed by Mai Zetterling. Starring Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, Åke Lindström, Frank Sundström.

Three female actors in a touring production of Aristophenes’ Lysistrata experience imagined overlaps between their roles in the play and their own personal lives (mostly problems with men). With a cast primarily comprised of Bergman regulars, you expect to be in good hands, but director Mai Zetterling’s controversial ambitions leave things unsettled and disarrayed, if rarely uninteresting. It’s a self-assured effort from the filmmaker, studded with striking images and eloquent performances, but also pretentiously handled, overprecise at times, and not as transparently probing as I would have liked, as if Zetterling and the actors were whispering only to those with shared experiences. A disastrous flop with critics and audiences when first released, reappraised positively in numerous circles in the years since. Screenplay credited to Zetterling and British writer, David Hughes. Also known as: The Girls.

66/100

The Detective (1968)

Directed by Gordon Douglas. Starring Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, William Windom, Jacqueline Bisset, Jack Klugman, Horace McMahon, Robert Duvall, Al Freeman Jr., Tony Musante, Lloyd Bochner, Pat Henry.

Frank Sinatra is…John McClane?? Okay, not really, but the heroes of this film and Die Hard were both inspired by the same character from different Roderick Thorp stories. Here, he’s NYC detective Joe Leland (as he’s called in the books), investigating a grotesque murder with the most likely suspect being the victim’s housemate, but Leland is unconvinced, even after the man is tried and sent to the electric chair. An awful lot of time is devoted to the dissolution of Leland’s marriage to Remick, but these “breathers” help cleanse the palette when the painfully-outdated film dredges up ugly gay stereotypes and wanton cruelty in speech and behavior for the sake of lurid thrills. With the Rat Pack days on the decline, Sinatra gives a surprisingly committed, controlled dramatic performance, and most of the supporting cast does solid work, notably Freeman and Duvall as less-than-noble officers Leland has to deal with. Screenplay adaptation by Abby Mann.

65/100

Paper Lion (1968)

Directed by Alex March. Starring Alan Alda, Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, Lauren Hutton, Mike Lucci, John Gordy, Roger Brown, Pat Studstill, Frank Gifford, Vince Lombardi.

Humorous if leisurely story from Sports Illustrated writerGeorge Plimpton’s book of his experiences “going undercover” as a rookie quarterback in the Detroit Lions’ training camp. Meandering narrative flow offset by Alan Alda’s everyman-comic grasp of confident anxiety—how else should a Harvard intellectual feel getting pounded to hamburger by hairy gladiators?—and supporting cast of authentic players and coaches. Offers time-capsule insight into the pro football traditions and structures that’ll be an alien experience to modern-day football die-hards who gobble up “Hard Knocks”-style documentary series. Alex Karras has the most vivid personality and laidback charisma among the athlete performers; playing Plimpton’s photographer lady friend, Lauren Hutton is boring but beauteous as the only other professional actor among the main cast (Karras runs rings around her, acting-wise). In addition to all the real-life football figures, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson also plays himself in a cameo. Roy Scheider appears briefly near the beginning.

63/100

Finian’s Rainbow (1968)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Fred Astaire, Petula Clark, Don Francks, Tommy Steele, Keenan Wynne, Barbara Hancock, Ronald Colby, Al Freeman Jr., Wright King, Dolph Sweet, Louil Silas. [G]

Gold at the end of the rainbow, desperate land grabs, and a love quadrangle among an Irish lass (Clark), a well-meaning schemer (Francks), a mute girl (Hancock) who expresses herself through dance, and a leprechaun (Steele) all clash in this adaptation of the popular stage musical. Coppola’s first big studio production (a marked change of pace for one of “those UCLA kids”) lacks a personal touch, but he corrals the big set pieces well enough and gets from Astaire—in his final singing and dancing role—a performance that echoes of his heyday from thirty-plus years ago. The songs aren’t especially memorable or catchy (though the lyrics are usually at least more literate and droll than average), and like most musicals of the 1960s, it runs at least a half-hour too long. The supposedly satirical “racial shenanigans” are painful, particularly Wynne in blackface. Can at least boast one great line about the US Constitution that is as applicable to politics now as ever before: “I don’t have time to read it…I’m too busy defending it!”

60/100

Firecreek (1968)

Directed by Vincent McEveety. Starring James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Inger Stevens, Gary Lockwood, Jacqueline Scott, Jack Elam, J. Robert Porter, James Best, Dean Jagger, Brooke Bundy, Jay C. Flippen, Ed Begley, Barbara Ann Luna.

Stewart’s aging part-time sheriff doesn’t exactly make a pack of outlaws led by Fonda quake in their boots, but he reckons on exacting a little justice against them anyway after they repeatedly make trouble in his small town. A drab, humorless Western in the faithful tradition; the ingredients are there for a captivating style of frontier escapism, but it never comes together. Plot elements and tactics are recycled (including a High Noon-esque final act), and it’s not the smashing star pairing that it should have been—Stewart is too low-energy, and Fonda essayed a much better villain for Sergio Leone later that same year. Periodically sparks to life, but the leisurely story is over-crowded with minor characters that serve little function besides disseminating dramatic interest and employing a handful of recognizable character actors. Low-stakes sub-plots devoted to female companionship and their worries are mere window dressing for wider crowd appeal. Alfred Newman provided the score.

60/100

Funny Girl (1968)

Directed by William Wyler. Starring Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Kay Medford, Mae Questel, Lee Allen. [G]

“Non-biographical musical bio” of singer/actress Fanny Brice, as adapted from the 1964 Broadway production, suffers like so many big movie musicals from the 50s and 60s do: too much movie, too little show. In her film acting debut, Streisand demonstrates agility and timing as a comedienne, and there’s certainly no faulting her singing voice, but the dramatic scenes elude her. It’s not all her fault, however—Isobel Lennart’s script addresses Fanny’s setbacks and domestic friction with a leaden pen, and few of her co-stars are up to the challenge (Sharif’s fire and charms are muted, even when arguing with Fanny, and Pidgeon is a stiff as Ziegfeld). A big, swooping camera shot of Babs on a ferry belting out “Don’t Rain on My Parade” is the kind of artless spectacle a kitschy melodrama like this needs to soar; what luck, they’ve got one! Other songs include “People”, “I’m the Greatest Star”, and the title tune written new for the film. Streisand nabbed an acting Oscar in an extremely rare tie (with Katharine Hepburn from Lion in the Winter); if you need a tiebreaker, consider how inexcusable it was for Streisand to be an Academy member after completing just one movie, and she, no doubt, cast the tying vote for herself. Sequel: Funny Lady.

59/100

Anzio (1968)

Directed by Edward Dmytryk & Duilio Coletti. Starring Robert Mitchum, Peter Falk, Mark Damon, Earl Holliman, Rena Santori, Robert Ryan, Arthur Kennedy, Joseph Walsh, Wolfgang Priess, Giancarlo Giannini, Thomas Hunter, Wayde Preston. [PG-13]

Standard WWII programmer material fills out sparse, pseudo-profound philosophical moments and points of view that shake out the mothballs. Story follows Ernie Pyle stand-in Mitchum, a war correspondent along for the ride as Allied forces attempt to land at Anzio during the Liberation of Italy campaign, but poor strategic decisions and futility-of-war proposals are shouldered off the screen by run-of-the-mill heroics. Mitchum’s steady presence and relaxed charisma, alongside a respectable showing from the craftsmen, make sure this isn’t a terrible option for enthusiasts of the era’s myriad war pictures, but there are too many stock ingredients to leave much of an impression. Reportedly rewriting a lot of his own dialogue, Peter Falk has a couple of scenes shimmering with earthy personality, but the wartime-happy free spirit he plays otherwise goes wasted. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis.

58/100

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968)

Directed by Freddie Francis. Starring Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Ewan Hopper, Barry Andrews, Christopher Lee, Barbara Ewing, George A. Cooper, Marion Mathie, Michael Ripper.

Uneven Hammer outing for Drac; boasts the typically evocative ambience and preternatural Gothic trappings, but the plot (clergyman Davies exorcises the vampire’s castle with a large cross, which revives the count and sets him on a wrathful mission) is on the feeble side. Lovers Andrews and Carlson—the latter being Davies’ niece, the subject of the aforementioned wrath—are a bloodless pair (no pun intended), and Lee’s fanged freak hardly figures into the story at all until the final act. Has its moments, and the beautiful bloodletting remains a proud fixture of these British fright-fests, but this resurrection needs more life (pun…okay, that one was intended). Most audiences must have thought otherwise, though, since this was Hammer’s most profitable venture.

56/100

The Subject Was Roses (1968)

Directed by Ulu Grosbard. Starring Jack Albertson, Martin Sheen, Patricia Neal. [G]

Frank D. Gilroy’s Pulitzer and Tony-winning play is more or less photographed as is for this feature film re-telling, depicting dysfunctional family ties rubbed raw upon the son’s return from war. Originally set on Broadway entirely within a single Bronx apartment interior, the dramatic action may be opened up to a few new locations here, but it remains hopelessly stagy in both its physical set-ups and stage-to-screen translation, with conversations too often reduced to long-winded monologues where everything is spelled out through words instead of some combination of dialogue, image and incident. Good performances, but overrated—Patricia Neal’s return to film acting after suffering a debilitating stroke was seen as heroic and earned her an Oscar nod, while Jack Albertson actually won the one he was up for (Supporting Actor, despite clearly being a co-lead with more screentime than anyone else). Albertson and Martin Sheen recreated their stage roles; Neal took over for Irene Dailey. Treacly music cues include contributions from Lee Pockriss and a couple tunes sung by Judy Collins.

55/100

Coogan’s Bluff (1968)

Directed by Don Siegel. Starring Clint Eastwood, Lee J. Cobb, Susan Clark, Tisha Sterling, Betty Field, Don Stroud, Melodie Johnson, Tom Tully, Seymour Cassel. [R]

Early Eastwood vehicle, and not one of his best; here he plays an Arizona lawman who travels to the Big Apple for a fugitive extradition, which, of course, does not go smoothly. Benefits from Siegel’s tough and stylish direction, nice use of the Fort Tryon Park locale, and Lalo Schifrin’s energetic jazzy score, but the story is thin and the characters are sketched in the vaguest of terms (the antagonist is especially nondescript and forgettable). Meanwhile, the premise itself is hardly milked at all for material; plenty of missed opportunities for fish-out-of-water observations/humor, especially the scene where the square cowboy enters a psychedelic free-love nightclub. Most notable today for its time capsule qualities (hippie culture, freewheeling misogyny, etc.) and being the inspiration for the television series “McCloud.”

54/100

The Split (1968)

Directed by Gordon Flemyng. Starring Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Jack Klugman, Julie Harris, Donald Sutherland, Warren Oates, Diahann Carroll, Gene Hackman, James Whitmore, Joyce Jameson. [R]

Richard Stark’s tough-guy career-criminal Parker is renamed “McClain” and his race is changed, giving Jim Brown his first leading man role. The story, based on Stark’s “The Seventh”, is a fairly standard, cliché-heavy heist programmer, with some hardboiled dialogue and savage violence thrown in to keep it rattling and humming. A band of none-too-trusting thieves plan a robbery of the Los Angeles Coliseum during a Rams football game, but the messy aftermath leads to suspicion, threats, in-fighting, a few deaths, and a confusing kicker right at the very end. Cast is superior to the by-the-numbers execution, although Diahann Carroll is underused, and what the heck is James Whitmore doing as a psychotically perverse landlord? As a footnote, this was the first motion picture to earn the newly-established R-rating from the MPAA.

53/100

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)

Directed by Ken Hughes. Starring Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Adrian Hall, Hether Ripley, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle, Robert Helpman, Benny Hill, Davy Kaye, Stanley Unwin, James Robertson Justice, Barbara Windsor, Peter Arne, Desmond Llewlyn. [G]

Fanciful but unexceptional musical about a crackpot inventor (Van Dyke) and the titular flying car he contrapts. Starts out on firmly frothy footing, with the inventor testing out rocket flight and whistle candy and an automatic hair-cutting machine to predictably unsuccessful results, but ironically enough, around the time that hissing and belching motor vehicle of his starts to soar, the film does the opposite—its whiz-bang fantasy land elements and senselessly-plotted adventures turn tiresome and leaden in a hurry. Van Dyke is adequate as the bright-eyed eccentric, not far removed from his chimney sweep from Mary Poppins (and, indeed, the producers tried to snag Julie Andrews to play his love interest, which ended up being essayed by Howes). Features a largely worthless songbook from the Sherman Brothers (anotherholdover from Poppins), with the only memorable tune being the title track (which isn’t a good song, exactly, just one that can easily get stuck in the head), disgraced by the godawful “Lovely Lonely Man,” which drags an already overlong film to a screeching halt around the midway point. Kids may like it in fits and starts—it’ll be too leisurely-paced for some—but adults get little to do but occasionally marvel at Ken Adams’ impressive sets and laugh at the crummy special effects. Adapted from a children’s book written by Ian Fleming; Roald Dahl co-authored the script, making it the second time in two years that he helped bring a Fleming story to the big screen (the year before, it was the James Bond picture, You Only Live Twice).

52/100

Inspector Clouseau (1968)

Directed by Bud Yorkin. Starring Alan Arkin, Frank Finlay, Patrick Cargill, Delia Boccardo, Barry Foster, Michael Ripper, Richard Pearson, Beryl Reid, Susan Engel, Tutte Lemkow, Katya Wyeth. [G]

Third Inspector Clouseau picture in the Pink Panther series loses Blake Edwards and lacks Henry Mancini’s iconic theme music, but more critically, replaces Peter Sellers with Arkin—a perfectly fine comic actor, but he’s not Sellers, and he sure as heck isn’t Clouseau. The bumbling idiot detective hops across the channel to assist Scotland Yard in breaking up an organized crime ring, gets involved in his usual pile-up of mishaps, blunders, and completely inadvertent triumphs. There are some humorous moments scattered about (“I don’t deserve to have this autographed picture of Sean Connery!”), but no big laughs, which the best entries have in spades; the timing is off, the good gags are played too quietly and the lesser ones too loud, and the lazy camerawork inspires little interest in anticipating payoffs. The series would take a seven-year hiatus after this pic’s disappointing returns, before Sellers, Edwards and Mancini all returned for The Return of the Pink Panther. Look for Norman Lear’s name on a gravestone.

52/100

Ice Station Zebra (1968)

Directed by John Sturges. Starring Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine, Tony Bill, Jim Brown, Alf Kjellin, Lloyd Nolan, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Ted Hartley, Murray Rose. [G]

Long, sluggish Cold War thriller set aboard a nuclear submarine in the Arctic Ocean. Skipper Hudson sets sail under orders to rescue survivors of a mysterious disaster, but is really there to try and recover photographs taken by a crashed Soviet satellite; along for the ride is an English intelligence officer (McGoohan), a Russian defector (Borgnine), and an unknown saboteur among the crew. Cast is highly variable—Hudson is passive, McGoohan has panache, Borgnine affects a laughable accent, Brown is given nothing to do until his final scenes, etc.—and excitement is in short supply. The ironic ending has a nice sting, and Daniel L. Fapp’s photography looks quite good (shot on 70 mm Super Panavision), but there’s little else to recommend here. The third act, which moves the action beyond the sub’s confines onto an ice pack, is such a blatant movie set that even the actors seem to forget they need to pretend that it’s freezing cold! Based on an Alistair MacLean novel. A favorite of Howard Hughes (!), who’s alleged to have watched it over a hundred times.

50/100

I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968)

Directed by Hy Averback. Starring Peter Sellers, Leigh Taylor-Young, Joyce Van Patten, Jo Van Fleet, David Arkin, Salem Ludwig, Herb Edelman, Louis Gottlieb, Janet Clark, Grady Sutton.

Middlebrow stiff Sellers feels trapped by a demanding fiancée (Van Patten, more shrill than funny) and overbearing mother (Van Fleet), but through a series of unlikely but mildly amusing incidents, he falls in with a hippie crowd, including a free-spirited flower-power girl named Nancy (Taylor-Young). Disappointing outing for the star is meandering and predictable and falls back on stereotypes far too often—considering it was produced at the height of the counterculture era, there’s hardly any real insight, and the types are lazily constructed. Some funny moments, like Sellers’ square family unknowingly ingesting, ahem, “baked” goods, or a “dropped out” Sellers trying to spread a message of peace and love to a policeman, but it’s just too much of an outdated artifact to ever really take off. Co-written and co-produced by Paul Mazursky, his first film credit. Title refers to Gertrude Stein’s partner who had published a cookbook in the 1950s with a recipe for the kind of cannabis-laced brownies baked by Nancy.

48/100

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Directed by Franco Zeffirelli. Starring Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, John McEnery, Milo O’Shea, Bruce Robinson, Michael York, Pat Heywood, Keith Skinner, Robert Stephens. [PG]

Third major English-language screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s story of star-crossed lovers is as bad as the first one, so I suppose it should be no surprise it, too, earned a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. The production is Ren Faire-lite, and efforts to open up the stagy mounting (e.g., sword fights on the go) only highlight the backlot-style exterior sets and moth-eaten wardrobe—all dressed up and nowhere to go and no one to believe it. Casting real teenagers in the central roles is a great idea on paper—remember 42-year-old Leslie Howard as young Romeo in the 30s rendition?—but the two they got for this one can barely act, an even duller duo than Tony and Maria in the original film version of the same play’s musical dilution, West Side Story. There are no casting coups in support either, with a rather boring Mercutio until his flamboyant final stand and at least one roster choice that can hardly be believed: Michael York as Tybalt?? As it was before and after on film (e.g., Baz Luhrmann’s garish contemporary spectacle with Leo and Claire), these actors may know the words but struggle with the music. Still, I don’t envy troupes who have to tackle these kinds of necessarily foolish parts; if the characters weren’t foolish, none of these events would occur. The photography and costume design were given Academy Awards. An uncredited Laurence Olivier provided narration and dubbed the voice of the actor playing Lord Montague, Antonio Pierfederici.

45/100

5 Card Stud (1968)

Directed by Henry Hathaway. Starring Dean Martin, Robert Mitchum, Roddy McDowall, Inger Stevens, Katherine Justice, Yaphet Kotto, Ruth Springford, John Anderson, Denver Pyle.

Mystery-suspenser in the trappings of a Western—who’s killing the members of a lynch mob that enacted excessive frontier justice on a tinhorn caught cheating at cards? Martin, who was sitting in on the game when the act occurred, isn’t sure, but suspects include the bartender who witnessed the events (Kotto) and an unsmiling preacher who just recently arrived in town (Mitchum). Has its moments, but this is not one of Hathaway’s better efforts in the Western genre; he generates minimal tension and the story is foolishly padded out with too many halfhearted and superfluous interactions. Dino’s restraint would be commendable if not for the fact that it often resembles sleepwalking; Mitchum does little more than put a slight, watered-down spin on his fire-and-brimstone The Night of the Hunter role; Stevens’ character should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Martin also sings the disposable title tune.

44/100

The Boston Strangler (1968)

Directed by Richard Fleischer. Starring Henry Fonda, Tony Curtis, George Kennedy, Murray Hamilton, Austin Willis, Hurd Hatfield, George Voskovec, Jeff Corey, Sally Kellerman, Mike Kellin, George Furth, Carolyn Conwell, William Hickey.

Static, semi-documentary-style crime drama relating the (dramatized) manhunt, capture, examination, and prosecution of the notorious serial killer from the 1960s known as the Boston Strangler. Director Fleischer repeatedly attempts stylistic tricks (color filters, lightning-fast edits, etc.), none more frustrating than the overuse of split-screen techniques that serve no purpose besides showing off, but all of these effects do little to mask the hollow nature of the screenplay, which believes it can get away with exploitation measures by taking itself “very seriously” otherwise. The fictionalization and tabloid psychology cheapens what could have been a fascinating character profile or a clinical historical study of factual events, but if it inspires interest in the true story (and the events that followed, which could not be portrayed here), that counts as an inadvertent success. Good performances redeem the picture to some degree, including Curtis’ most interesting work since the 50s.

43/100

Barbarella (1968)

Directed by Roger Vadim. Starring Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Milo O’Shea, Anita Pallenberg, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, Ugo Tognazzi, Claude Dauphin. [PG]

Fatuous, barely-coherent space opera based on a French comic book about the adventures of spaced-out intergalactic babe, Barbarella, a 41st-century Earthling traveling the cosmos when she’s assigned the task of finding a scientist who built a doomsday weapon (the scientist’s moniker, Durand Durand, inspired the name of the British new wave band). Clunky hardware/effects filtered through modish sensibilities make it as dated, apparatus/milieu-wise, as the legion of post-James Bond English spy spoofs from the same decade. Not entirely without value as camp, or, for that matter, an opportunity to ogle sex kitten Jane Fonda during a striptease in the opening number (poorly faked as zero-G—she’s clearly lying on glass—but who would be distracted by that?). However, the pace is a drag, the story details are for the birds, and the acting suggests everyone was on drugs during production (mostly downers and/or acid), so it’s only worth a look if you dig the source material and/or are horny for Jane. Terry Southern and director Roger Vadim are among many individuals credited with the adapted screenplay; David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame was a session musician during the recordings of the film’s score.

42/100

Sweet November (1968)

Directed by Herman Raucher. Starring Anthony Newley, Sandy Dennis, Theodore Bikel, Burr DeBenning, Marj Dusay, Sandy Baron, Martin West.

Boring Brit Newley meets capricious American Dennis and she introduces him to her “therapy program” where she’ll take him into her bed for one month and cure him of his psychological hang-ups; after one month, it’s out the door, goodbye and good luck. With a neatly contrived setup like that, personality, chemistry, and feeling matter a great deal, and none of them connect. Newley is unmolded clay with understandable reservations and Dennis is a proto-Manic Pixie Dream Girl where “kooky” and “free spirited” are synonymous with “bubble brained” and “childish”. The first hour or so aims for neurotic and witty, arrives at mannered and precious, and then things shift gears into serious, quasi-tragic territory—no points for guessing what that quasi-tragedy could possibly be. Starting with Dennis’ cloying friend (Bikel), it’s too complicated and cluttered for what is ultimately a two-hander, diminishing the doomed romance’s already shaky connection. Remade in 2001 with Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron.

41/100

The Stalking Moon (1968)

Directed by Robert Mulligan. Starring Gregory Peck, Eva Maria Saint, Robert Forster, Russell Thorson, Noland Clay, Frank Silvera, Lonny Chapman, Nathaniel Narcisco. [G]

U.S. Army scout Peck agrees to escort a woman (Saint) and her half-Native son to safety, but they’re pursued by the child’s ruthless tribal warrior father, who slaughters anyone standing in his way. The setup promises suspense and action aplenty, but this slow-moving revisionist Western barely has a pulse; it’s more pretentious than exciting, and the acting leaves something to be desired. Peck is phlegmatic in his dignity, while Saint is emotionally strangled, and the way she reads her lines as if she’s struggling to remember English during all her years with the Indians is laughable, laboring over each word like she’s attempting dramatic pauses, not wondering how to conjugate dusty old verbs. Landscapes and the themes of loneliness and isolation are all this movie brings to the table, and not nearly enough to make for a satisfying meal. Produced by Alan J. Pakula, making this a reunion for the producer, director and star of To Kill a Mockingbird (there’s a lot more killing in this one, same approximate number of mockingbirds).

40/100

Hellfighters (1968)

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen. Starring John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, Jay C. Flippen, Vera Miles, Bruce Cabot, Edward Faulkner, Barbara Stuart. [G]

This account of intrepid oil well firefighters and their wives has some spectacular shots and a few suspenseful moments, but away from all the fiery furnaces and sweaty struggles, the story is a colossal dud. Outfit leader Wayne (too old for the role, as was common for most of the movies he made from the 60s onward) gets injured on the job, and while recovering, his daughter (Ross) falls for Wayne’s right-hand man (Hutton) and marries him less than a week after their first interaction. Plodding pace doesn’t help the drab soap operatics, nor do the flat dialogue and uninteresting performances (Wayne does his usual thing and nothing more; if this is how Ross behaved in all movies, Benjamin Braddock never would have showed up at the church). Such tedium in a movie ostensibly about battling fires that the filmmakers felt the need to throw in a bar brawl. Wayne’s character is loosely based on a real-life firefighter named Paul “Red” Adair.

39/100

Destroy All Monsters (1968)

Directed by Ishirô Honda. Starring Akira Kubo, Yukiko Kobayashi, Jun Tazaki, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Kyôko Ai, Kenji Sahara, Yoshibumi Tajima, Andrew Hughes, Chôtarô Tôgin, Hisaya Itô. [G]

Set a few decades in the future, this kaiju monster mash sees all the big galoots (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, etc.) restricted to Monster Island, but then a race of female aliens shows up to take control of them and unleash them on targets around the globe. Silly plotting and shoddy special effects and miniatures/models dominate, but even though fans of the series tend to rate this as one of the better entries, it’s just a lot of waiting around for the inevitable climactic dust-up as they all take on the three-headed King Ghidorah. Akira Ifukube’s bombastic music helps to stave off the doldrums, but even embarrassed snickering is in short supply in this disappointingly dull all-star smackdown. Followed by All Monsters Attack.

38/100

Lady in Cement (1968)

Directed by Gordon Douglas. Starring Frank Sinatra, Richard Conte, Martin Gabel, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Pat Henry, Richard Deacon, Lainie Kazan.

Sinatra’s second outing as private eye Tony Rome is a slack, silly bore, featuring a mystery which starts with the discovery of a dead naked woman at the bottom of the ocean, feet encased in cement, and gets progressively less interesting as it goes along. An autopilot yarn cheapened by dumb stereotypes and complications too tired to bother untangling. The Rome character is meant to be laidback, but as an actor, Sinatra appears disconnected, occupying space within the frame without giving his line readings a shred of conviction; talent-wise, he’s better than the material, but unfortunately, most of his co-stars, including Welch and her cartoonishly “big” hair, aren’t. Even Hugo Montenegro’s musical score is a misfire, frequently sounding like it’s warming up for a sing-along out of “Sesame Street”. At least it’s not an affront to look at, what withthe Miami location shooting and Welch appearing (of course) in a bikini. Marvin H. Albert co-scripted the adaptation of his own novel with Jack Guss.

33/100

Krakatoa, East of Java (1968)

Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. Starring Maximilian Schell, Brian Keith, Barbara Werle, Diane Baker, John Leyton, J. D. Cannon, Sal Mineo, Rossano Brazzi, Jacqui Chan, Victoria Young, Marc Lawrence. [G]

Cinerama hogwash set in 1883 when the island volcano of Krakatoa is erupting, a perfect opportunity for a salvage crew to swipe a fortune in pearls from a sunken ship off the coast. Fanciful fiction with hot air balloons and diving bells makes it feel a little like Jules Verne attempting a semi-contemporary pirate yarn, but this adventure is big and noisy and not any fun at all. Lots of explosions and model ships going glug-glug-glug and fake volcanic rock falling everywhere, but the filmmakers don’t deliver on the promised deadly disaster spectacle—the “down time” character interactions are just as cruddy as expected (when Barbara Werle starts singing “A Nice Old-Fashioned Girl”, go to the bathroom, it’s gonna be a while), and too few meat puppets meet their maker by way of, as Dr. Evil would say, liquid hot magma. As plenty of others have pointed out, it’s a pretty lousy geography lesson, too: Krakatoa was west of Java. Re-released during the disaster movie heyday of the 1970s under the new title of Volcano.

31/100

Skidoo (1968)

Directed by Otto Preminger. Starring Jackie Gleason, Alexandra Hay, Carol Channing, Groucho Marx, Frankie Avalon, John Phillip Law, Austin Pendleton, Michael Constantine, Frank Gorshin, Arnold Stang, Cesar Romero, Luna, Burgess Meredith, Mickey Rooney. [R]

Retired hitman Gleason is dispatched on one last job to rub out an incarcerated stool pigeon (Rooney), while his daughter (Hay) falls in with “pumpkin”-smoking, acid-dropping hippies. Wacky, incoherent disaster of a counterculture satire—from Otto Preminger, no less!—is almost worth a look for the overflowing cast curios (Groucho Marx as a gangster called “God,” three different villain actors from TV’s “Batman,” cameos from Slim Pickens and George Raft, etc.). Too leaden and uncomfortable to be remotely funny; like listening to middle-aged squares try to ingratiate themselves into the hip, young crowd with an overabundance of ill-fitting slang. Cohesiveness and consistency are about on the level with another late-60s comedy of chaos, Casino Royale…meaning there isn’t any. Music by Harry Nilsson, who also makes an appearance as a prison guard, and good news for audience members with poor eyesight: every one of the film’s end credits are also sung. Groucho’s final film.

27/100

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