Jesse Walker now presents 1965:
The Perpetual Three-Dot Column
Here are his top ten films for that year:
1. Repulsion
2. The Saragossa Manuscript
3. The Loved One
4. King Rat
5. It Happened Here
6. A Game With Stones
7. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
8. Mickey One
9. Le Bonheur
10. Time Piece
Repulsion in a fine horror film, though perhaps not #1 fine.
Haven't seen The Saragossa Manuscript. Or It Happened Here. Or Le Bonheur. (By the way, IMDb lists It Happened Here as a 1964 film.)
I find The Loved One to be a mostly unfunny mess. Mickey One is also a mess, though a fairly interesting one.
King Rat is okay. So is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. (I don't seem very excited about 1965.)
Minute for minute, A Game With Stones and Time Piece may be the two best films on this list, but they're both shorts so shouldn't be here.
Honorable mentions:
11. Simon Of The Desert
12. Chimes At Midnight
13. The Shop On Main Street
14. For A Few Dollars More
15. Tokyo Olympiad
16. Looking For Mushrooms
17. Major Dundee
18. The Pawnbroker
19. The Return Of Ringo
20. Passages From James Joyce's Finnegans Wake
All in all, a more interesting list than the top ten.
11 was supposed to be part of a bigger film, though I think it stands on its own. Should be in the top half of the top ten.
Some call 12 one of Welles' best. Not me. It's got moments, but I don't love it.
13 is pretty good. 14 is fine for this type of movie. 15 should be top ten.
16 is a short. 17 is okay. 18 is intriguing. (People talk about Rod Steiger's performance as all interior, but have you seen it? He's acting up a storm.)
Haven't seen 19 or 20. I should note at the time it was smart to have "Ringo" in your title. Lorne Greene's "Ringo" went to #1.
Other films that would make my top twenty:
Beach Blanket Bingo
Help! and The Knack...And How To Get It (neither can touch A Hard Day's Night, but they're both fun)
Other films I like:
Alphaville, Carry On Cowboy, Catch Us If You Can, The Cincinnati Kid, The Collector, The Flight Of The Phoenix, The Great Race, Gumnaam (for the opening dance number), The Hill, How To Murder Your Wife, Loves Of A Blonde, The Naked Prey, Pierrot Le Fou, Red Beard, Ski Party (for James Brown), A Thousand Clowns, Thunderball
Other films of note:
The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Alphabet Murders, The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders, The Art of Love, Baby the Rain Must Fall, Battle of the Bulge, The Bedford Incident, Billie, Boeing Boeing, Bunny Lake Is Missing, Casanova 70, Cat Ballou, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion, Darling, Dear Brigitte, Die! Die! My Darling!, Doctor Zhivago, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Dr. Who and the Daleks, The Family Jewels, Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Ferry Cross the Mersey, Genghis Khan, Girl Happy, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Hallelujah Trail, Harlow, Harum Scarum, The Heroes of Telemark, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I'll Take Sweden, In Harm's Way, Inside Daisy Clover, The Ipcress File, I Saw What You Did, John Goldfarb Please Come Home!, Juliet of the Spirits, Lady L, Life at the Top, Lord Jim, Marriage on the Rocks, Mirage, The Money Trap, The Monkey's Uncle, Morituri, The Nanny, Never Too Late, None but the Brave, Once a Thief, Othello, A Patch of Blue, Promise Her Anything, Red Line 7000, The Rounders, Sandra, The Sandpiper, The Satan Bug, Sergeant Deadhead, She, Shenandoah, Ship Of Fools, Situation Hopeless...But Not Serious, The Skull, The Slender Thread, The Sons of Katie Elder, The Sound of Music, A Study In Terror, Sylvia, Synanon, That Darn Cat!, That Funny Feeling, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, Tickle Me, The Truth About Spring. Viva Maria!, Von Ryan's Express, What's New Pussycat?, Wild on the Beach, Young Dillinger
4 Comments:
My wife asked my favorite director last night and I said either Welles or Tsui Hark. Don't think I could pick a single favorite from either but Chimes is up there.
1. The Chimes at Midnight;
2.Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors;
3.Time Piece;
4. Kwaidan;
5. The Saragossa Manuscript; (I like the novel better)
6. How to Murder Your Wife;
7. The 10th Victim;
8. Pierrot le Fou;
9. For a Few Dollars More;
10.Red Beard;
Pleasures of the Flesh; The Ipcress File: Doctor Zhivago; What's New Pussycat; Repulsion; Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasia in G-Minor; Battle of the Bulge; Kustom Kar Kommandos; Alphaville;
Here are the films of 1965 that should have made the list.
The Alphabet Murders
Cat Ballou
Doctor Zhivago
Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte
The Ipcress File
Juliet Of The Spirits
Lord Jim
Mirage
Othello
A Patch Of Blue
Ship Of Fools
What's New Pussycat?
Getting a consistent story on when IT HAPPENED HERE debuted is a fool's errand. But perhaps the IMDB is right. (Then again, the site is wrong about the FINNEGANS WAKE film, which was screened at Cannes in 1965 yet has an IMDB year of 1966. So it is not infallible.)
...and since Anon mentions HUSH...HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE, I'll point out that that one was on an earlier iteration of this list—but then I learned it actually debuted in 1964, and I moved it. So I'm not infallible when it comes to years either...
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