Tuesday, 8 June 2010

Back to 1962

Very 1962! Above: Marisa Solinas and Germano Giglioli (yes really!) in the missing episode, by Monicelli, from BOCCACCIO 7O - this was cut from the original release but is now included in the 4-episode dvd. The original was sold on its 3 stars - Loren, Schenider and Ekberg - in the De Sica, Visconti and Fellini episodes (right). This missing one now is pure 60s as it follows it's young couple around a typical Italian landscape of the early '60s. It's been fun to see them all again.
I already reviewed several choice 1962 items previously here: CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, ALL FALL DOWN, THE CHAPMAN REPORT etc.

Eva Marie Saint and Warren Beatty look terrific here in Frankenheimer's choice melodrama ALL FALL DOWN:
Dean Stockwell and Katharine Hepburn in the little-seen (then) LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT by Sidney Lumet, finally on dvd. Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards are also terrific here. All 4 won the joint best acting award at - was it the Cannes film festival?
1962 must surely be one of the 3 best years ever for movies - my other 2 would be 1939 and 1959 - each have at least 20 films of note. It was also that great era for black and white films and that early 60s vibe. I will get around to 1959 later but for 1962 - when I was 16 in Ireland - the key movies include L'ECLISSE, ADVISE & CONSENT, LOLITA, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (where Lee Remick should have won that academy award!), BILLY BUDD, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, JULES ET JIM, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, TO KILL A MOCKINBIRD, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, JUMBO, GYPSY, THE MUSIC MAN, A KIND OF LOVING, BOCCACCIO 70, Welles' THE TRIAL, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (trash but I love it), ALL FALL DOWN, THE CHAPMAN REPORT, THE LION, THE MIRACLE WORKER and THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR, for starters, plus Sophia Loren doing the twist in Paris in 5 MILES TO MIDNIGHT and the camp farrago that is SODOM AND GOMORRAH. REACH FOR GLORY by Philip Leacock is a fascinating British film, hardly seen since 1962, which I shall return to...
Right: Ty Hardin on the beach interests Glynis Johns in that well-used still from CHAPMAN REPORT. Below: click image to enlarge text ....The big regret of 1962 though: if only... I remember 5th August 1962 well, as I saw BUS STOP the night before. Marilyn's pool pix though achieved their aim in getting Liz Taylor off the world's magazine covers as CLEOPATRA over-ran in Rome, and are imperishable almost 50 years later...

2 comments:

  1. Yes, 1962 was indeed a choice year, and was recently chosen as a prime year by the NY Film Critics Circle when they had special events to commemorate the organization's 75th anniversary. And yes, it was the Cannes Film Festival where Hepburn, Richardson, Jason Robards Jr. and Dean Stockwell were given a special commendation for their joint "brilliance of performance".

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  2. I used to think of 1962 as a sort of movie wasteland, but now see it as something of a filmic goldmine. So many great and interesting pictures came out that year. Thanks so much for reminding us of that.

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