Showing posts with label Year: 1967. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Year: 1967. Show all posts

The Graduate (1967)

Classic romantic comedy-drama directed by Mike Nichols and adapted from the 1963 novel by Charles Webb. It was the most successful film of 1967.

Dustin Hoffman stars as the graduate of the title. He returns to his family’s California home after completing his college degree but is uncomfortable with his parents’ expectations for him. He’s bored, too, and begins an affair with one of their friends (Anne Bancroft). This becomes more complicated when he then starts to fall for her daughter (Katharine Ross).

It’s an intelligent script that satirises the wealthy middle-class lifestyles of the time and makes the most of the social awkwardness Hoffman delivers so well.

The music, by Simon & Garfunkel, is extremely pretty and somehow suits the narrative perfectly, even though only ‘Mrs. Robinson’ was specifically written for the film.

I always liked the closing seconds, which are downbeat and not at all what you might have expected.

Cool Hand Luke (1967)


Extremely enjoyable and ultimately very moving prison drama starring Paul Newman as the ridiculously charismatic lead. Rarely will you see an actor with such presence on screen.

Locked up for a petty offence, war veteran Lucas “Luke” Jackson joins a road chain gang. He refuses to behave like the other men (including Harry Dean Stanton as Tramp), but slowly earns their respect with his liberated, nonconformist outlook. There’s a painful and emblematic scene in which he boxes against the leader of the men (George Kennedy as “Dragline”) and is repeatedly knocked down. But such is his strength of mind that he gets up again and again. Another remarkable interlude features the prisoners betting on whether Luke can eat 50 eggs in an hour and Luke then carrying out the challenge. It’s surreal and hilarious.

The second half of the film introduces a more serious tone. Luke tries to escape and the prison guards try to break his spirit. The narrative becomes richer and sadder as the essence of his personality – and even his humanity – is steadily eroded.

A remarkable soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin adds further depth to an extremely affecting story.

You Only Live Twice (1967)


Fifth time around for Sean Connery as James Bond.

Pros:

• The definitive Bond villain base, disguised within a volcano and featuring its own railway system and a lethal piraña pool.
• An exciting scene in which Bond pilots the autogyro “Little Nellie” and is attacked by four helicopters.
Donald Pleasence is creepily convincing as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE.

Cons:

• Plenty of racial stereotyping that culminates in a ludicrous scene in which Bond is made to be “Japanese”.
• Bond: “Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?...Like Peking duck is different from Russian caviar. But I love them both.”
• A slightly tired feel. The Bond formula is well established already by this point and was possibly becoming a bit of a straitjacket.