Le Samouraï, the tenth feature film of Mid Century Cinema favorite Jean Pierre Melville, had its premiere in France on October 25, 1967. Over the years it has come to be seen as the representative Melville film, and for many, their favorite of his thirteen movies. It is indeed a masterpiece; and one that is…
On August 30, 1967 John Boorman’s Point Blank premiered in San Francisco. It was a fitting choice for a movie that begins and ends at the abandoned island prison of Alcatraz, even though Boorman, in an inspired move, shifted most of the film’s action from tie-dyed, summer-of-love San-Francisco to the cold, impersonal monochromes of Los…
Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde made its debut in August 1967, screening first at the Montreal Film Festival on August 4 before premiering in New York City nine days later. A fictionalized account of the notorious depression-era outlaws, the film, starring Warren Beatty (who also produced), Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman would become a sensation,…
On June 24 1967, Pauline Kael – not yet established at the New Yorker where she would emerge as one of the most influential film critics in America – wrote a long essay for the New Republic singing the praises of the then under-appreciated Orson Welles and his new under-seen film, Chimes at Midnight. “Like…
May 17, 1967 marked the release of Bob Dylan: Dont Look Back (that’s right, no apostrophe). A documentary of Dylan’s 1965 visit to England, cameras followed as the twenty-four year old Bob performed in proper concerts and on informal occasions, held forth in sparring matches with a clueless, often hostile establishment press, bantered with his…
“City on the Edge of Forever,” the twenty-eighth episode of the first season of Star Trek, aired on April 6 1967. Widely acclaimed, it is a fan favorite, and has been singled out for high praise by both Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner. A time-travel affair where the bulk of the action takes place in…
Mid Century Cinema favorite and enigmatic Art House Rock Star Robert Bresson’s eighth feature film, Mouchette, had its Paris premiere fifty years ago this week. We have always had a special fondness for Mouchette. Generally averse to rankings, we nevertheless have no trouble identifying this as our third favorite Bresson, behind, in no particular order,…
Fifty years ago this week Ingmar Berman’s Persona opened in the U. S. One of the landmarks in the history of film, it is about the convergence of personalities between an actress (Liv Ullmann), mute and withdrawn after falling silent in the middle of a performance, and the nurse (Bibi Andersson) charged with her care. …
On January 26 1967, Sidney Lumet’s The Deadly Affair opened in America (the UK-based production had its premiere in Britain the previous October). Largely unnoticed at the time and a flop at the box office (though it did earn five BAFTA nominations), the movie is very much worth revisiting, both on the strength of its…
A major stepping stone on the road to the New Hollywood, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up opened in the U.S. on December 18, 1966. Antonioni was already a heroic figure to that younger, big-city, buzzing-with-excitement legion of avid filmgoers (and future film-makers)—the New Hollywood generation that had previously flocked to art-houses for screenings of his earlier masterpieces,…