The staff in the mailroom here at Mid Century Cinema received some angry letters in the wake of our recent “Best of 1969” post—from 1967 and 1968. “Why didn’t we get the “best of” treatment?” they complained, in correspondence littered with passages too vitriolic to reprint here. Closing with more than a hint of snark, they concluded, “Haven’t you insisted again and again that “The Last Golden Age” started in 1967?”
Well, despite the rudeness of these remonstrations, it must be admitted that they have a point. Our original plan was to slot in each “Golden Age” top ten list at some point during the year of its fiftieth anniversary, under the “Fifty Years Ago This Week” banner. But, properly chastened, we will back-fill 1967 and 1968, slotting them in here—if somewhat incongruous in the moment, over time all the lists will share a common home.
First up is 1967—ground zero for the emergence of the New Hollywood. And it was indeed a great year. As with 1969, 1967 is overrepresented on our list of the top twenty-five films of the sixties, with six entries (including one honorable mention). Still once more we pause to add here our standard disclaimer that “Top Ten” lists are arbitrary and ridiculous. Andre and Wally put it best, in this beautiful conversation which is also deeply moving for the way it shows just how important the movies have been in their lives. [Consider this from Andre: “The first time I saw a Bergman film—it may also have been Wild Strawberries—I was a very young man, and I couldn’t believe I was seeing what I was seeing. It was as if Moses had brought down the tablets into the movie theater. I mean, I’d been staggered by On the Waterfront, but when I saw Bergman—he was so bold, so experimental, doing things no one had ever done before. And now I’ve seen each one of his films so many times . . . I love the fact that the story of My Dinner with André actually begins with a Bergman film.”]
Take a moment to digest those thoughts . . . . and now, in alphabetical order, our Top Ten of 1967 (Movies from the best of the sixties list are noted with a star.)
Accident* Our favorite Joseph Losey film, and that is high praise. From a screenplay by Harold Pinter, Accident is directed with an assured confidence where every small camera move counts. A morality play of guilt, desire, and emotional shadowboxing that features outstanding performances by Dirk Bogarde and Stanley Baker.
Bonnie and Clyde* Arthur Penn’s film, starring Warren Beatty (who also produced), Faye Dunaway, and Gene Hackman, can stake a forceful claim to the mantle as the film that announced the arrival of the New Hollywood. And not just for its code-shattering transgressions, but in the way the movie exposed a basic divide in generational sensibilities.
La Collectionneuse Not our favorite Rohmer (it probably slots in third behind My Night and Maud’s and Autumn Tale), but this stellar entry from his Six Moral Tales series is nevertheless perhaps the Rohmerest of all Rohmers, one of the singular voices in the history of cinema.
The Deadly Affair Adapted from John Le Carre’s celebrated first novel by an at-the-top-of-his-game Sidney Lumet, Deadly Affair, along with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, are the two great films of the sixties that stare down the Cold War with a bleak, knowing exhaustion. Mr. James Mason leads an outstanding cast that includes Simone Signoret and Harriet Andersson.
The Graduate* With Bonnie & Clyde, the movie that marked the emergence of the New Hollywood—again both for its taboo-busting content and the way in which it stimulated responses and arguments largely along generational lines. Ironically, with the passage of time it becomes clearer that the movie’s sympathies are more complex, as we have contended here (and here).
In Cold Blood Very fine work here by accomplished writer-director Richard Brooks, as well as, of course, Truman Capote (whose “non-fiction novel” provided the source material) and star Robert Blake. But to our eyes the stars of this gem are cinematographer Conrad Hall and supporting players John Forsythe, Paul Stewart, Charles McGraw, and Jeff Corey.
Mouchette* Speaking of singular voices in the history of cinema, Robert Bresson lived to age ninety-eight but only left us with thirteen features, including one of his best, in 1967. In the words of Penelope Huston, “Mouchette is a deeply pessimistic film which somehow leaves one in a mood close to exhilaration.” Her take is so essential we’ll withhold the usual link to our own.
Point Blank* John Boorman – channeling French New Wave maestro Alain Resnais – fractures time in this enigmatic tone poem (watch the colors shift as the oblique narrative unfolds) featuring Mr. Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and a party of favorites. Marvin wants his $93,000, but that’s not what the movie is about.
Le Samauri* Legend holds that when Jean Pierre Melville was pitching the script to him, Alain Delon stopped him with the observation that ten pages into the story there had not been a word of dialogue. The rest, as they say, is history . . .
Who’s That Knocking at My Door Following the exploits of on-screen alter-ego Harvey Keitel, Martin Scorsese’s head-turning first feature (from Roger Ebert’s review at the time: the movie announces “the arrival of an important new director”), shows the enormous influence of John Cassevetes, as well as Scorsese’s infectious, insatiable cinephilia.
Mr. James Mason (with Harriet Andersson) in The Deadly Affair
Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson
Robert Bresson’s Mouchette
Lee Marvin in Point Blank