BLACHEFAN
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Hud (1963)
Courtesy of Paramount
Paul Newman received his third Oscar nomination for his portrayal of the title character, the handsome, surly and unscrupulous bad-boy son of a Texas rancher who locks horns with his father over business and family matters. Loosely based on Larry McMurtry's debut novel, "Horseman, Pass By," the film received seven Academy Award nominations, winning three: Patricia Neal (best actress), Melvyn Douglas (best supporting actor) and James Wong Howe (black-and-white cinematography). Motion Picture Academy President John Bailey in 2017 chronicled the production of the film and summed up some of his impressions of the film's relevance 55 years after its release: "Naked and narcissistic self-interest have always been a dark undercurrent to the limpid surface stream of American optimism and justice, but it is not a reach to see the character of Hud as an avatar of the troubling cynicism of that other side of American Populism — the side that espouses a fake concern for one's fellow man while lining one's own pockets. Hud, a lothario at the wheel of his crashed convertible, raising a shroud of dust clouds in its trail, is nothing more than a flimflam 19th century snake-oil salesman and carnival barker. His type erupts over and over onto America's psyche like a painful pustule."
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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Novelist Harper Lee's child's-eye view of southern bigotry is adapted exquisitely for film by screenwriter Horton Foote and director Robert Mulligan. Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for his performance, is country lawyer Atticus Finch who must defend a black man (Brock Peters) on a trumped-up rape charge. As the courtroom drama unfolds, the Finch children (Mary Badham and Philip Alford) learn about courage and self-respect. In his film debut, Robert Duvall plays the mysterious Boo Radley.
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Ride the High Country (1962)
Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott are aging gunfighters chaperoning a gold shipment to a mining town in director Sam Peckinpah's western. One partner wants to deliver the gold safely and the other to steal it. On the way they meet a religious fanatic (R.G. Armstrong) and his daughter Elsa (Mariette Hartley in her film debut), who is planning to elope with her boyfriend Billy (James Drury). The next day, Elsa insists on joining up with the group so she can marry Billy at the mining town. Complications ensue, leading to a final shoot-out that allows McRea and Scott to reconcile their differences and pave the way for the film's poignant finale.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/ride_high_country.pdf
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The Music Man (1962)
This adaptation of Meredith Willson's Broadway hit is Americana at its finest. Con-man extraordinaire Harold Hill (Robert Preston) uses his revolutionary musical "think system" to fleece the sleepy little town of River City, Iowa, and his charisma to woo the town's icy librarian played by Shirley Jones. The supporting cast includes Buddy Hackett, Ron Howard, Paul Ford, Pert Kelton, and Hermione Gingold. Ray Heindorf won an Oscar for his musical direction of songs including include "Ya Got Trouble," "Marian the Librarian," "Gary, Indiana," "Till There Was You" and the spectacular finale "Seventy-six Trombones." Surprisingly, Robert Preston was not even nominated for reprising his Tony-winning Broadway performance.
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The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
In the midst of cold war with Russia, paranoia ran rampant, and director John Frankenheimer and screenwriter George Axelrod captitalized on America's fears to create what critic Pauline Kael called "the most sophisticated political satire ever made in Hollywood." During the Korean conflict, prisoners of war (including Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey) are brainwashed by the Communists in order to lay the foundation for high-level political maneuvering once they return home. Haunted by nightmares, Sinatra is determined to solve the mystery behind his terror and eventually discovers the heart of the scheme: Harvey's mother (Angela Lansbury) and her politician husband (James Gregory). Lansbury and Harvey create a memorably disturbing mother and son relationship, and Sinatra's bug-eyed, perspiration-soaked sleep deprivation is barely soothed by a budding romance with Janet Leigh.
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
John Ford, a filmmaker since 1914, already had given the movie-going public such classics as "The Iron Horse," "Stagecoach," "My Darling Clementine," "Fort Apache," "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon," and "The Searchers." Ford's last great Western, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," makes explicit everything that was implicit in the genre which Ford himself shaped so heavily. By clearly showing that the conquest of the west meant the triumph of civilization (embodied in Jimmy Stewart) over wild innocence (John Wayne) and evil (Lee Marvin), this elegiac film serves as a film coda for Ford and also meditates on what was lost as progress and statehood marched across the West. The film's concluding aphorism has entered the American lexicon: "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
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Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Based on the exploits of T. E. Lawrence during World War I, this renowned classic may play fast and loose with history and psychology, but its remarkable beauty is breathtaking. David Lean crafts this film, one of his many epics, with sweeping wide shots that capture the desolation of the desert. Peter O'Toole, who was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Gregory Peck for "To Kill a Mockingbird," plays Lawrence larger than life, albeit with marginal historical accuracy. Also starring Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, and Alec Guinness, the film took home a total of seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography (Freddie Young), and one for Maurice Jarre's memorably rousing score.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/lawrence.pdf
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How the West Was Won (1962)
John Ford, Henry Hathaway, and George Marshall directed the individual episodes of this sprawling epic which was originally released in Cinerama. It follows the Prescotts, an emigrant family, through four generations, from the Erie Canal in the 1830s to their home in the West half a century later. The episode directed by Ford, which focuses on the Civil War, is probably the best of the film's three parts. With James Stewart, John Wayne, Carroll Baker, Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Carolyn Jones, Eli Wallach, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, and Richard Widmark. Nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, it claimed three: Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Screenplay.
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Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Courtesy of Warner Bros.
"Days of Wine and Roses" marked another in a series of Hollywood classics on the touchy subject of alcoholism. Previous examples on the theme include "The Lost Weekend" and "Come Back, Little Sheba." Though his career prior to "Days" had been noted for a deft touch in light comedy, in this Academy Award-nominated performance, Jack Lemmon plays a hard-drinking San Francisco public-relations man who drags his wife Lee Remick into the horrific descent into alcoholism. Director Blake Edwards pulls no punches in this uncompromisingly bleak film. Henry Mancini composed the moving score, best remembered for the title song he and Johnny Mercer wrote, which won an Academy Award for best original song.
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West Side Story (1961)
This musical presentation of a Romeo and Juliet-like relationship amid the clashing cultures of young Puerto Rican emigres and bigoted New York street toughs boasts sets and production numbers even bigger and more elaborate than the successful stage version that preceded it. The film retained the play's music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and choreography by Jerome Robbins, who co-directed with Robert Wise. The film's supporting cast, lead by Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, both Oscar winners for their roles, fared better with critics than its stars Natalie Wood and Richar Beymer, whose singing voices were dubbed and whom were considered by many to be miscast.
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A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Model film adaptation of Lorraine Hansbury's classic play about a black lower middle class family. The legendary cast is a veritable who's who of the civil rights era: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee.
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The Magnificent Seven (1961)
The popularity of this Western, based on Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" (1954), has continued to grow since its release due in part to its role as a springboard for several young actors on the verge of successful careers: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Horst Buchholz. The film also gave a new twist to the career of Yul Brynner. Brynner bought the rights to Kurosawa's original story and hand-picked John Sturges as its director. Sturges had earned a reputation as a solid director of Westerns such as "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955) and "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957). Transporting the action from Japan to Mexico, where it was filmed on location, the story portrays a gang of paid gunslingers hired by farmers to rout the bandits pillaging their town. Contributing to the film's popular appeal through the decades is Elmer Bernstein's vibrant score, which would go on to become the theme music for Marlboro cigarette commercials from 1962 until cigarette advertising on television was banned in 1971.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/magnificent_seven.pdf
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Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Selecting as its focus the "Justices Trial" of the post-World War II Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, rather than the more publicized trials of major Nazi war criminals, "Judgment at Nuremberg" broadened its scope beyond the condemnation of German perpetrators to interrogate the concept of justice within any modern society. Conceived by screenwriter Abby Mann during the period of McCarthyism, the film argues passionately that those responsible for administering justice also have the duty to ensure that human-rights norms are preserved even if they conflict with national imperatives. Mann's screenplay, originally produced as a Playhouse 90 teleplay, makes "the value of a single human being" the defining societal value that legal systems must respect. "Judgment at Nuremberg" startled audiences by including in the midst of its narrative seven minutes of film footage documenting concentration camp victims, thus using motion-picture evidence to make its point both in the courtroom and in movie theaters. Mann and actor Maximilian Schell received Academy Awards and the film boasted fine performances from its all-star cast.
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The Hustler (1961)
Paul Newman is an up-and-coming pool player and Jackie Gleason the reigning champ in this moody, deliberately-paced morality play directed by Robert Rossen. Rossen and Sidney Carroll's adaptation of a Walter Tevis novel gets its gritty reality from the black-and-white cinematography by Eugen Shuftan, who won an Oscar for his work. The real contest in "The Hustler" is not between Newman and Gleason, but between Newman's love for his girlfriend (Piper Laurie) and his self-destructive impulses. Rossen's best directorial decision is giving full weight and screen time to all of his characters. In only his third film, George C. Scott gives a chilling performance as Newman's manipulative manager.
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Flower Drum Song (1961)
This film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical marked the first Hollywood studio film featuring performances by a mostly Asian cast, a break from past practice of casting white actors made up to appear Asian. Starring prominent Asian-American actors Nancy Kwan and James Shigeta, this milestone film presented an enduring three-dimensional portrait of Asian America as well as a welcomed, non-cliched portrait of Chinatown beyond the usual exotic tourist façades.
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The Exiles (1961)
Released nearly 48 years ago, "The Exiles" remains one of the few non-stereotypical films that honestly depict Native Americans. With the perspective of a true outsider, filmmaker Kent MacKenzie captures the raw essence of a group of 20-something Native Americans who left reservation life in the 1950s to live among the decayed Victorian mansions of Los Angeles' Bunker Hill district. MacKenzie's day-in-the-life narrative pieces together interviews that allow the people in his film to tell their own stories without ascribing artificial sentimentality.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/exiles.pdf
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Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Truman Capote's acclaimed novella—the bitter story of self-invented Manhattan call girl Holly Golightly—arrived on the big screen purged of its risqué dialogue and unhappy ending. George Axelrod's screenplay excised explicit references to Holly's livelihood and added an emotionally moving romance, resulting, in Capote's view, in "a mawkish valentine to New York City." Capote believed that Marilyn Monroe would have been perfect for the film and judged Audrey Hepburn, who landed the lead, "just wrong for the part." Critics and audiences, however, have disagreed. The Los Angeles Times stated, "Miss Hepburn makes the complex Holly a vivid, intriguing figure." Feminist critics in recent times have valued Hepburn's portrayals of the period as providing a welcome alternative female role model to the dominant sultry siren of the 1950s. Hepburn conveyed intelligent curiosity, exuberant impetuosity, delicacy combined with strength, and authenticity that often emerged behind a knowingly false facade. Critics also have lauded the movie's director Blake Edwards for his creative visual gags and facility at navigating the film's abrupt changes in tone. Composer Henry Mancini's classic "Moon River," featuring lyrics by Johnny Mercer, also received critical acclaim. Mancini considered Hepburn's wistful rendition of the song on guitar the best he had heard.
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Allures (1961)
Called the master of "cosmic cinema," Jordan Belson excelled in creating abstract imagery with a spiritual dimension that featured dazzling displays of color, light, and ever-moving patterns and objects. Trained as a painter and influenced by the films of Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, and Hans Richter, Belson collaborated in the late 1950s with electronic music composer Henry Jacobs to create elaborate sound and light shows in the San Francisco Morrison Planetarium, an experience that informed his subsequent films. The film, Belson has stated, "was probably the space-iest film that had been done until then. It creates a feeling of moving into the void." Inspired by Eastern spiritual thought, "Allures" (which took a year and a half to make) is, Belson suggests, a "mathematically precise" work intended to express the process of becoming that the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin has named "cosmogenesis."
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One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Courtesy of Universal
Based on the 1956 Charles Neider novel, "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones" (a loose retelling of the story of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), this Western marks Marlon Brando's sole directorial effort. "One-Eyed Jacks" displays his trademark introspection and offbeat quirkiness. Brando's novel approach to updating the Western film genre marks it as a key work in the transition period from Classic Hollywood (1930s through 1950s) to the new era that began in the 1960s and continues to the present day. As director Martin Scorsese and others have said, this evolution from "Old Hollywood" to "New Hollywood" involved a change from filmmaking primarily being about profit-making to a period when many directors create motion pictures as personal artistic expression.
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Wild River (1960)
Elia Kazan directed this often overlooked and visually stunning film, set in the early 1930s, about a Tennessee Valley Authority official (Montgomery Clift) who goes up against an elderly townswoman (Jo Van Fleet) bent on protecting her water rights at the expense of the community that will benefit from the agency's dam project. Further complicating the situation is the romance evolves between her widowed daughter-in-law (Lee Remick in a standout performance) and the TVA official. The film was scripted by Paul Osborn, and adapted in part from books by Borden Deal and William Bradford Huie.
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Think of Me First as a Person (1960-75)
"Think of Me First as a Person" is an astonishing discovery from the Center for Home Movies and its annual Home Movie Day, where once a year people in cities across the nation bring their home movies to screen. This loving portrait by a father of his son with Down syndrome represents the creativity and craftsmanship of the American amateur filmmaker.
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Psycho (1960)
Suspensefull thriller by Alfred Hitchcock shocked audiences when it was released, and still manages to terrify viewers more than 50 years later. The film boosted the career of Anthony Perkins as the creepy Norman Bates, but subsequently stereotyped him as the damaged outsider. Portraying the doomed Marion Crane, Janet Leigh fared better, though she was constantly overshadowed by her role in the film and her experience with Hitchcock. The Bernard Herrmann score, rich with discordant strings, is spine-tinglingly unforgettable.
The expanded essay is below this description.
https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/psycho.pdf
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Primary (1960)
Produced by Robert Drew, shot by Richard Leacock and Albert Maysles, and edited by D. A. Pennebaker, "Primary" charted new territory in documentary film making. Using lighter, more mobile cameras and sound equipment, the filmmakers achieved greater intimacy with their subjects, following on their heels as the candidates wound through packed crowds and hovering like gnats to capture their more private moments. Modern political and news reporting owes much to the audacity of this film's invasive technique.
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House of Usher (1960)
The talents of Vincent Price, writer Richard Matheson, director Roger Corman and the legacy of Edgar Allan Poe combined in the first of American International Pictures' series of films that dominated horror on the screen in the 1960s. Despite shooting schedules that rarely ran more than three weeks or budgets over $500,000, the series offered elegant, literary adaptations, luminous decor and color photography that established a new standard for screen horror. As a director and producer, Corman's films helped launch the careers of a galaxy of Hollywood talent including Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard and James Cameron.
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The Birds (1963)
"The Birds" was the fourth suspense hit by Alfred Hitchcock—following "Vertigo," "North by Northwest" and "Psycho"—revealing his mastery of his craft. Hitchcock transfixed both critics and mass audiences by deftly moving from anxiety-inducing horror to glossy entertainment and suspense, with bold forays into psychological terrain. Marked by a foreboding sense of an unending terror no one can escape, the film concludes with its famous, final scene, which only adds to the emotional impact of "The Birds."