cinemadiso's - 1960s In Films Vol. 3 List
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The controversial subject of evolution versus creation causes two polar opposites to engage in one explosive battle of beliefs. Attorney Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) faces off against fundamentalist leader Matthew Harrison Brady (Frederic March) in a small Tennessee town where a teacher has been brought to trial for teaching Darwinism. Let the trial begin...and watch the sparks fly! - Director:
- Stanley Kramer
- Cast:
- Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly
- Formats:
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Mikio Naruse Collection: When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960)Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki
The widowed Keiko (Hideko Takamine) manages a hostess bar in Tokyo's Ginza district. She remains faithful to the memory of her husband and supports her mother, brother and his son. The smiling mask she wears allows her to make a living, but the pressure to sell herself is unrelenting. Her business is failing and she must decide whether to raise the money to buy her own bar or marry one of her admiring affluent patrons. A superb, heart-rending film. - Director:
- Mikio Naruse
- Cast:
- Hideko Takamine, Tatsuya Nakadai, Masayuki Mori
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The Executioner (1963)El Verdugo
This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an executioner's daughter and reluctantly takes over her father's job so the family can keep their government-allotted apartment. As caustic today as it was in 1963, this early collaboration between Luis García Berlanga and his longtime screenwriter Rafael Azcona is an unerring depiction of what Berlanga called 'the invisible traps that society sets up for us'. A furiously funny personal attack on capital punishment, 'The Executioner' evaded the state censors who sought to suppress it, and today is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time. - Director:
- Luis García Berlanga
- Cast:
- Nino Manfredi, Emma Penella, José Isbert
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In a northern Greek city in the 1960's, a leading opposition politician is attacked on the street while his party is holding a rally and later dies in hospital. The dead man's left of center party was against any type of foreign intervention in national affairs and was seen by the right wing party in power as a threat to national security. The cover-up begins almost immediately with the police claiming that the dead man was struck by a drunk driver. A prosecutor is assigned to the case and he meticulously interviews everyone involved, slowly gathering evidence that shows the extent to which the assassination was potted by senior policemen and right-wing extremists. Getting appropriate actions from the State proves to be something else entirely. - Director:
- Costa-Gavras
- Cast:
- Yves Montand, Francois Chaumette, Irene Papas
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Ivan's Childhood (1962)Ivanovo detstvo
A determined 12-year-old boy named Ivan joins a Russian partisan regiment as a scout due to his uncanny ability to slip quickly through enemy lines undetected. But as his missions become increasingly dangerous he is pulled from duty, something which he is quick to protest against because Ivan has an ulterior motive - to avenge the death of his family at the hands of the Nazis. Andrei Tarkovsky's first feature film is regarded as one of the most accomplished cinematic debuts and launched the career of the most influential and admired Russian filmmaker in history. - Director:
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- Cast:
- Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov
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"The Lion in Winter", is set in England during Christmas 1183. Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is deliberating over who to chose as his successor, and plans a family reunion in the hope to resolve this. His scheming wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), and 3 sons: Richard the Lion-Hearted (Anthony Hopkins), Prince Geoffrey (John Castle), and Prince John (Nigel Terry) are all in attendance, and are all vying for the throne. Princess Alias (Jane Merrow) - Henry's mistress whom he wishes to marry and her brother, the young and crafty King Philip of France (Timothy Dalton) are also at the reunion. With much at stake, rebellion, treachery and deception is rife as everybody fights for their position on the throne. - Director:
- Anthony Harvey
- Cast:
- Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins
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By any standard, director Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch, a powerful tale of hangdog desperadoes bound by a code of honour, rates as one of the all-time greatest Westerns, perhaps one of the greatest of all films. This original Director's Cut restores it to a complete, pristine condition unseen since its July 1969 theatrical debut. The image is letterboxed, the color renewed, the stereo soundtrack remixed and reintegrated - all to blood-and-thunder effect. Watch William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan and more great stars saddle up for the roles of a lifetime.
This video also features the home video debut of The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage, the Academy Award nominated 1996 documentary by Paul Seydor and Nick Redman. It includes long-unseen footage of the on-set shooting, and reminiscences by principals connected with the film.- Director:
- Sam Peckinpah
- Cast:
- William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan
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Few films have caused such controversy as Peter Watkins' The War Game, a drama documentary made for BBC TV in 1965 about a "limited" nuclear attack on Kent, England. Blending fiction and fact to create a moving and startling vision of the personal as well as the public consequences of such an attack, Watkins exposes the inadequacy of the nation's Civil Defence programme and questions the philosophy of the nuclear deterrent. Conspicuously absent from TV screens until 1985, it was mainly through cinema release in 1966 - and its Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1967 - that it gained a loyal and vociferous following, providing a sharp focus for CND and other peace movements. - Director:
- Peter Watkins
- Cast:
- Michael Aspel, Peter Graham, Kathy Staff
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Red Beard (1965)Akahige
Red Beard, the last and most ambitious of Kurosawa's collaborations with Toshiro Mifune, marks the end of one of the most remarkable actor-director relationships in the history of cinema. Toshiro Mifune plays a commanding but humane doctor in a rural clinic in late 19th-century Japan. An idle and socially ambitious intern (Yuzo Kayama) arrives at the clinic and discovers the meaning of responsibility, first to oneself and then to others. This intimate epic - and offbeat social drama - boldly mixes the styles of soap opera and the action movie, and rewards the viewer with a detailed reconstruction of a feudal era, a warmly humanitarian message and a powerhouse performance by Mifune. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Yûzô Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki
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Sanjuro (1962)Tsubaki Sanjûrô
'Sanjuro' was a film made in response to popular demand. The previous year Kurosawa had scored a huge critical and commercial hit for his own production company with Yojimbo, which introduced the character calling himself 'Sanjuro' (which means simply 'thirty years old'), the scruffy, mercenary, cynical ronin (masterless samurai) played by Toshiro Mifune. The public had taken this maverick figure to their hearts and demanded a sequel. Originally Kurosawa had planned to give the script to another director, Hiromichi Horikawa, but finally decided to take it on himself. - Director:
- Akira Kurosawa
- Cast:
- Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Keiju Kobayashi
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Jimmy Stewart plays the bungling but charming big-city lawyer determined to rid the fair village of Shinbone of its number one nuisance and bad man: Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). And as if all that weren't enough, the biggest star that ever aimed a six-shooter plays the man of the title: John Wayne. Super-sincere Stewart and rugged rancher Wayne also share the same love interest (Vera Miles). One gets the gunman but the other gets the gal. - Director:
- John Ford
- Cast:
- James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles
- Formats:
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Exterminating Angel (1962)El Angel exterminador
After a lavish dinner party in a stately mansion, the guests find themselves mysteriously unable to leave the room. As the days pass the elaborate pretences and facades that they've built up by virtue of their position in society collapse completely as they become reduced to living like animals to survive. - Director:
- Luis Buñuel
- Cast:
- Silvia Pinal, Jacqueline Andere, José Baviera
- Formats:
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The Virgin Spring (1960)Jungfrukällan
Set in beautiful 14th century Sweden, the film tells a sombre, powerful fable of peasant parents (Max Von Sydow and Birgitta Valberg) whose daughter, a young virgin (Birgitta Petterson), is brutally raped and murdered by swineherds after her half sister (Gunnel Lindblom) has invoked a pagan curse. By a bizarre twist of fate, the murderers ask for food and shelter from the dead girl's parents, who, upon discovering the truth about their erstwhile lodgers, exact a chilling revenge. - Director:
- Ingmar Bergman
- Cast:
- Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom
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La Dolce Vita (1960)The Sweet Life
Perhaps his most famous film, La Dolce Vita slices into the decadent amoral core of Roman society with Fellini's trademark attention to detail and spectacular photography. Marcello Mastroianni plays a gossip columnist (the term 'paparazzi' derives from the in a film) who aspires to be a more serious writer but knows he never will be, because like society, he is fascinated by the decadent hedonist pursuits which are seemingly everywhere. The Vatican was appalled by the film, but the public adored it, relishing the images Fellini fed them, most notably the now infamous scene of Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg frolicking in the Trevi Fountain. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
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Il Posto (1961)The Job / The Sound of Trumpets
Olmi's partially autobiographical 'Il Posto' is a satirical take on the alienation of office life. Domenico (Sandro Panseri), a boy from the suburbs, goes for a job with a big corporation in Milan. Applying with him is Antonietta (Loredana Detto), to whom he takes a teenage fancy. After a gruelling entry process both he and Antonietta are accepted, and Domenico begins his life as a corporate worker. As he observes his fellow employees, many of whom have been there for years, he begins to anticipate the reality that lies in front of him. - Director:
- Ermanno Olmi
- Cast:
- Sandro Panseri, Loredana Detto, Corrado Aprile
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