Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)

Google: “In this fact-based film, distinguished U.S. Army Col. David Marcus (Kirk Douglas) is enlisted by the Israelis to perform the difficult task of preparing their fledgling nation for battle against the Arabs. Before long, he feuds with the local leaders, quits his post and goes back home to his pregnant wife (Angie Dickinson) in the United States. However, Marcus, who is Jewish himself, soon has a crisis of faith and decides to return to duty to help the untrained Israelis form an army.”

The film is slow and laboured. The sound quality is poor and the dialogue isn’t synchronised quite right. There’s a disjointed, awkward feel. 

John Wayne, Topol, Frank Sinatra and Yul Brynner all appear, but no amount of star charisma can make the script work. I do like Senta Berger as Magda Simon. She has a certain warmth and charm that is lacking elsewhere. Kirk Douglas is watchable, too, but seems much too chirpy most of the time, adding to a feeling that the whole affair is rather shallow.

On the plus side, there are a few good lines. For example, when David asks his wife why she’s up so late, she replies: “I worry better when I’m awake.”

Arabesque (1966)

Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren star in a silly comedy thriller about an archaeology professor thrust into a criminal adventure when tasked with decoding some ancient hieroglyphs.

It’s shot in an inventive way, with the use of mirrors and reflections, plus strange angles and vantage points. There’s a great scene in which a drugged Peck weaves in and out of motorway traffic, with the film rendering his altered perception. 

The problem is that it’s just not very entertaining. The parts played for comedy simply aren’t funny. The script is poor, and – other than Peck and Loren – the acting is woeful. Worst of all, the villain (played by a hammy Alan Badel) is absolutely awful.

Would I watch it again? Absolutely not.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

Extremely uneven spaghetti western. Sergio Leone directs and makes beautiful landscapes look even more beautiful. Ennio Morricone’s music is iconic and haunting. And Clint Eastwood is as magnetic as ever. But the tone of the film is really odd, and sometimes scenes intended to be slightly “comedic” simply fall flat. In particular, Eli Wallach (the “ugly”) seems strange with his sneering and grimacing. Plus, there’s a sadistic thread that runs through it. Deliberate moral ambiguity, perhaps. 

It’s more ambitious than A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More (with which it’s often grouped as a loose trilogy), with an ongoing, parallel narrative about the US Civil War. There are spectacular battle scenes involving a huge number of extras. It’s unclear whether you are supposed to take it as an anti-war film, or whether it’s again being morally ambiguous on purpose. 

On the plus side, Lee Van Cleef (the “bad”) is charismatic as “Angel Eyes”. But the dubbed voices used for all of the actors – even the English-speaking ones – remain a barrier that prevents it from ever seeming even remotely real.

The Sand Pebbles (1966)

China in the 1920s. Steve McQueen plays Jake Holman, an engineer on a US gunboat patrolling the Yangtze river. It’s an unusual ship in that the Americans employ a Chinese crew, who effectively do all the hard work in an uneasy master/slave relationship. 

Richard Attenborough is a sailor named Frenchy who becomes attached to a young woman he saves from a life of prostitution (Marayat Andriane as Maily). Candice Bergen is Shirley Eckert, the pretty missionary McQueen falls for. 

It’s incredibly long (over three hours), but a lot happens. It’s also the sweatiest film I’ve ever seen. Everyone seems to be perspiring all of the time. Steve McQueen is the usual monosyllabic anti-hero. He seems to struggle with what little dialogue he does have, with an oddly wobbly mouth on the sentimental scenes. 

I did wonder why The Sand Pebbles ever got made. It’s a strange story and it doesn’t have any obvious hook. Director Robert Wise had just worked on The Sound of Music, and the showdown in the missionary courtyard did partially resemble the abbey crypt scene from that superior film.

Batman: The Movie (1966)

Wonderfully absurd film-length version of the popular TV series, featuring all of the main characters from that timeless show. You get to see the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and the Joker (Cesar Romero) all working together on an evil plan involving dehydrating members of the United World Organization’s Security Council to a test tube’s worth of dust. Catwoman is also involved, this time played by Lee Meriwether (rather than Julie Newmar or Eartha Kitt from the television version). It’s a pleasure to see her pretending to be Soviet journalist Kitayna Ireyna Tatanya Kerenska Alisoff in order to woo the unsuspecting Bruce Wayne.

As with the TV programme, it’s visually colourful to an extraordinary level, with bright greens and purples bringing out a psychedelic feel. It’s playful and inventive, too, with camera angles as crooked as the crooks themselves used whenever the villains are on screen.

The humour emerges from how seriously Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) take themselves and their crime-fighting. They are stiff, moralistic “straights” in direct contrast to the loose, thrill-seeking baddies.

Stand-out moments include Batman trying to dispose of a bomb as the fuse burns down (wherever he turns, there’s a nun or a baby or a young couple or a family of ducks in his way) and Batman trying to fend off a shark that bites his legs as he dangles in the sea from the Batcopter. (He only survives because Robin climbs down the ladder and passes him a can of shark-repellent spray.)

The frivolous wit is refreshing. When Batman was reinvented in 1989 as a “moody”, troubled character in line with the “darker” comic origins, it all seemed tiresomely po-faced.

Father (Apa) (1966)

A poignant Hungarian drama directed by István Szabó. Takó (Daniel Erdely) lost his father (Miklos Gabor) in World War II and – with only three memories of him – invents a fantasy figure of who his father might have been. We see these heroic childhood fantasies played out in suitably childish, boys’-own action sequences that are contrasted with the reality of the child’s actual life. His idealised dream sequences – a source of comfort and a way of coping with bereavement – play out against the real-world political changes occurring in Hungary after the war.

The second half of the film shows an older version of Takó (now played by András Bálint) as a student in 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Uprising, still trying to come to terms with who his father was and trying to figure out why this question has been so central to his life.

It’s a terribly sad film that’s not without moments of gentle comedy. The childhood part of the story is more effective and engaging than the grown-up section of the narrative, but both parts work well. The film would be better appreciated with a deeper understanding of Hungarian history than I was able to bring to it.