The closing days of 1965 saw the release of The Slender Thread, the first feature film directed by Sydney Pollack, who had been scuffing around as a TV actor (and director) for the previous decade. Thread marked the start of an impressive career for Pollack as a movie director (and subsequently as a notable producer…
Producer/Director Martin Ritt’s outstanding The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, based on the John le Carré novel, opened in America on December 16 1965. The liberal-humanist Ritt (who was blacklisted in the 1950s) had a reputation for often wearing his politics on his sleeve, which is not typically a recipe for dramatic intrigue. …
Bunny Lake is Missing, the last eminently masterful film from producer-director Otto Preminger (though six more would follow over the next fifteen years) was released on October 3, 1965. It is very nearly a great movie: the gripping tale, with a smart, witty screenplay was gloriously shot on location in London in striking black and…
Mickey One, produced and directed by Arthur Penn, opened on September 27, 1965. A harbinger of the New Hollywood, it had the misfortune of arriving ahead of its time; had it been released two or three years later, it surely would have met with greater success and acclaim. But in 1965, a moody, expressionistic film…
Get Smart made its television debut on September 18, 1965, with the episode “Mr. Big,” written by the show’s co-creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. The series, which can be watched with enormous pleasure today, arrived at a transitional moment in American politics and culture. An odd hybrid of rat-pack sensibilities and New Hollywood anti-establishment…
On August 3, 1965 Darling hit the big screen. It was a huge commercial success and took home Academy Awards for actress and screenplay—but it is one of those “you had to be there” movies; no need to track it down if you haven’t seen it. (Borderline scandalous at the time, both MGM and Columbia…
On July 25th at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, folk hero Bob Dylan, backed by a band that included Paul Butterfield and Al Kooper, plugged in, played three loud rock songs, and was essentially booed off the stage. (Many people booed. He left fifteen minutes into a scheduled one hour set. We can argue about…
Adlai Stevenson, Governor of Illinois and two-time Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party (he lost to Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956), died on July 14, 1965. He succumbed to a heart attack while walking in London with the actress and politically active socialite (and occasional paramour of director John Huston) Marietta Tree. An overview of…
The favorite filmmaker of many a young, hip cinephile, John-Luc Godard was at the apogee of his movie-god status in 1965 when Alphaville, his dystopian sci-fi noir took home the Golden Bear at the fifteenth Berlin film festival. The New Wave legend made an astonishing fifteen feature films from 1960 through 1967 (and eight shorts…
What’s New Pussycat? premiered on June 22, 1965, and despite its very promising cast – including Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, and Romy Schneider – we at Mid Century Cinema are Not recommending it. It was never very good and has not aged well. (Even the venerable Andrew Sarris, then purportedly rallying to Pussycat’s defense against…