Nothing says “Happy New Year, 2024” like talking about movies from 60’s.
1960’s cinema is in this interesting spot in film history between the old hollywood and the new. The old hollywood consisted of the studio system. Each studio had stables of actors and writers under contract. It was more or less a holdover from the old repertory theater days. The studios ran everything and they were the tastemakers.
By the late 50’s/early 60’s the old hollywood was literally dying off, and the studios were being sold to corporations. In 1966, Paramount Pictures were bought by Gulf+Western, which was a huge turning point in the film industry. The 1970’s were considered the American new wave of cinema because the new corporate owners had no idea what they were doing and it gave an opening for young filmmakers to try things the previous generations couldn’t. The 60’s is where that experimentation started percolating. New boundaries were pushed. The stories could be more edgy, more real, more tragic, more imperfect.
This is a small sample platter of some films that have been declared “cult classics.” Unappreciated in their time, they have been reevaluated out of the context of when they were released. It must have been frustrating to see interesting films go unnoticed because they weren’t seen as commercially viable, only because it happened to come out the same weekend as West Side Story (1961), a movie I really love, by the way.
Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
Directed by Robert Mulligan
Screenplay by Gavin Lambert, based on his novel of the same name.
Starring Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford and Ruth Gordon
“The story of what they did to a kid.”
This one was a recent discovery. I love Natalie Wood, and the past few weeks, I decided to check off some blind spots in her filmography.
The story takes place in 1935. Daisy Clover (Wood) is a 15 year old tomboy who swears, smokes and lives with her mentally unstable mom (Gordon) in a trailer on the boardwalk in the fictional Angel Beach, CA. Her dream is to be a singer so she records a demo tape and sends it to hollywood mogul Raymond Swan (Plummer). Swan soon auditions her, then grooms her to be the new “IT” girl. Swan puts Daisy’s mom in a sanitarium and gives Daisy a rehearsed back story in which her parents are dead and her mother’s last wish was to hear her sing. He picks out her clothes, and makes her memorize everything he tells her to say to the press, completely controlling every aspect of her life.
Swan’s control gets too much for her, and she runs away with handsome young actor Wade Lewis (Redford), which is also bad because HE’S 27 AND SHE IS 15 YEARS OLD! Wade spends the movie seducing, then leaving Daisy for young men because he’s a closeted bisexual, and it’s revealed that Swan had controlled him as a young actor as well. This is Redford pre Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid (1969) which made him into a superstar. He’s really despicable in this movie, but spoiler alert: Everyone in this movie that isn’t Daisy is awful to Daisy.
The story bares some similarities to the experiences of Judy Garland, and other iconic starlets from the 30’s. It’s a character study, but rather than it being a study of one single character, the character is the entertainment industry at large, and the predatory figures in show business.
Ladybug, Ladybug (1963)
Directed by Frank Perry
Written by Frank and Eleanor Perry, based on a magazine article in McCall’s magazine.
Starring William Daniels and Nancy Marchand, along with several children.
This is a movie I discovered when I was a kid, weirdly enough. I was channel surfing on my aunt’s tv, and just landed on this, but I can’t remember if it was on TCM or A&E. The first thing I noticed that made me put the remote down was that this film stars a young William Daniels, whom I recognized as Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World.
I kept watching because I became mesmerized by every single scene. The performances, the score, the pacing of the scenes themselves, everything felt so hypnotic.
One morning in a rural elementary school, a nuclear fallout alarm goes off, and none of the teachers can tell if it’s a drill or an actual warning of nukes being dropped. The teachers decide to proceed like it’s just a drill and sends all the children home. The film documents the children as they all walk home along a deserted country road, debating whether it was a real or false alarm.
The movie holds you in suspense the entire time, until you start feeling like one of the kids, anxiously anticipating a bomb about to go off.
It stars mostly kids, and by the way, the best kid acting I’ve ever seen in a movie. Most of these kids are not professional and they’re amazing. They’re performances are real and don’t feel showy the way lots of kid actors perform. It truly feels like they just put a camera in front of real kids walking home from school.
The cast also includes:
a young James Frawley, director of The Muppet Movie (1979) as a truck driver.
Alice Playten as one of the kids. Most people, especially from my generation might recognizer her voice because she was a prolific voice over actor who did tons of cartoons in the 90’s, most notably as Bebe Bluff on Nickelodeon’s Doug.
It was made by the married filmmaking team of Frank and Eleanor Perry, who are Katy Perry’s aunt and uncle, just a wtf sidenote. The Perrys made a handful of really fascinating and unique films in the 60’s. One of these days I’ll write about their whole filmography and style.
The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968)
Directed by William Friedkin
Screenplay by Norman Lear, Sidney Michaels and Arnold Schulman, based on Rowland Barber’s novel of the same name.
Starring Jason Robards, Britt Ekland, norman Wisdom and Elliott Gould
“Sometimes being a nice girl is too much to BARE!”
This movie was made for me. It’s about show business, it’s set in New York in the 20’s and threre’s no less than 3 scenes in a delicatessen.
We lost both William Friedkin and Norman Lear last year, so I wanted to put this on the list. Lear worked on the script, and it’s a film Friedkin made before The French Connection (1971), which boosted his career.
This story takes place in 1925. Rachel Schpitendavel (Ekland) is an innocent Amish girl from rural Pennsylvania whose dream is to be a dancer in New York. She auditions for Minsky’s Burlesque with her interpretive dance inspired by stories of the bible, but it’s too tame for owner Billy Minsky (Gould). Minsky’s is known for their elaborate all girl striptease comedy revues, which are emceed by the comedy stylings of Raymond Pain (Robards) and Chick Williams (Wisdom).
Meanwhile, Minsky is trying to shake off moral crusader Vance Fowler (Denholm Elliott) from getting the vice squad to shut down Minsky’s on obscenity charges. Minsky gets a tip that the cops are gonna raid the theater at midnight, so he comes up with a plan for Rachel to perform her tame bible dance right as they show up, making Fowler look like an idiot.
Things get complicated when Pain & Williams both fall for Rachel, but that’s honestly the least interesting part of the film. This movie isn’t perfect, but I like it because it’s mostly about comedians rehearsing bits backstage before a show, so it felt close to home. It also kind reminded me of my favorite behind the scenes show like 30 Rock or The Muppet Show.
There were so many other gems from the 60’s I wanted to talk about, but I’ll do another cult classics sample platter like this again.
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) is available to rent on Apple Movies or Amazon Prime.
Ladybug, Ladybug (1963) is currently available to watch in full on YouTube.
The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968) is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.