Movie Monday: The "1968 Was a Good Year in Film" Edition

1968 was a really good year for movies. A really, really good year.

It was the year of "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Funny Girl", "Bullitt" and "The Thomas Crown Affair", the Zeffirelli version of "Romeo and Juliet", "The Lion in Winter", "Rosemary's Baby", "Planet of the Apes". And those were just some of the big money makers. There was also "Hell in the Pacific", "Monterey Pop", "Will Penny", "Yellow Submarine", "Paper Lion", "Hellfighters". Among the kids' movies, there was "The Love Bug", "Blackbeard's Ghost", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".

It was also, by the way, the year that the MPAA's movie rating system was put into use, although not until November 1. The original ratings were G (for general audiences), M (for mature audiences, R (Restricted), and X - which meant that no one under 18 was allowed to see the movie at all. I'll have to do a post about my thoughts concerning the rating system one of these days. But today is not that day.

But I digress...

I turned 12 in 1968, but I saw a good selection of these films when they first were released and then finally came to my local theater, which could take a few months in those days, when we didn't have multiplexes and there were only so many prints of a film that made their way from theater to theater, one week at a time rather than opening in multiple theaters in a town and sometimes staying on for weeks and weeks and weeks. In fact, it was a Really Big Deal the next year, when "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" came out and was held over at the (one and only) theater in the town where I lived for a second week.

I did get to see "2001: A Space Odyssey" before it went into general release and was only on at a few select theaters. My father, as I've written about here before, as a big science fiction geek and we went on a family outing to the closest theater where it was playing (that was about a 30 mile drive) in limited release. That never happened, so it means that my father really wanted to see it badly.

That was an interesting experience. By that time, I'd seen a lot of science fiction movies, but I'd never seen anything like that before. This is one of the trailers that was in theaters as "2001" started to get around to theaters:



1968 was also the year of "Planet of the Apes". That wasn't nearly as innovative a film, but still, it got my attention as something that was deeper than just a story on the screen. Something else got my attention that night at the movies, though, and that was the second feature, "Five Million Miles to Earth". It had come out the year before in the UK, where it was made, under the title "Quatermass and the Pit" and even then was the theatrical remake of a UK television serial that had been shown on the BBC at the end of 1958 and the beginning of 1959. In 1968, though, it started making the rounds of American theaters; seeing it on a double bill with "Planet of the Apes" was the beginning of my love of British science fiction:



Not that "Planet of the Apes" was a bad movie. It was very, very good and, for my money, much superior to the 2001 remake. As I said, it was more than just a sci-fi action film; it was an allegory addressing the racial tensions that the United States was then experiencing. That's one of the cool things about science fiction - it can address touchy issues that would be difficult to talk about in other formats. Here is one of the original trailers for the film:



"Planet of the Apes" starred Charlton Heston. It was not the only film Heston had in release that year. He also starred in "Will Penny", a western. It is a stark, realistic film in which he portrays an aging cowboy who hires on to ride the boundaries of a ranch over the winter but instead finds love with a woman he is supposed to have evicted from the cabin she and her son are living in on a remote part of the ranch. Also starring Joan Hackett and Donald Pleasance, "Will Penny" is a wonderful film, one of the first Westerns I ever saw that I really liked. Here's the trailer:



Steve McQueen also had two films out in 1968. The first out was "The Thomas Crown Affair", a bank heist film that starred McQueen and Faye Dunaway. McQueen plays a rich man who plans and hires a crew to carry out a bank robbery just for the fun of it, to see if he can do it - and if he can get away with it. Dunaway is the insurance investigator who goes after him - in more ways than one. Here is a scene from the middle of the movie, after Dunaway's character has started playing both sides of the street, so to speak:



Later in the year came "Bullitt", the movie with what I consider the best car chase scene in the history of film. In this film, McQueen is on the right side of the law, playing a police detective who has gotten caught up in a political game that he isn't altogether sure he wants to be involved in. For a lot of people, "Bullitt" is all about the big chase scene. Here is the scene after the chase:



And then there was "Romeo and Juliet". Another good film. This is the Franco Zeffirelli version, the first time the Shakespeare tragedy had been filmed with actors playing the title roles who were near the ages the characters were actually supposed to be. I was twelve at the time, so of course I cried through the whole movie the first time I saw it. Which, of course, meant that I had to go see it again so that I could actually see the thing. I've seen it many times since, and it hasn't lost its appeal. Here is the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet:



There just isn't enough room to show clips and/or trailers from all the good movies that came out in 1968. And that is a good thing, really - it's nice to know that there's just one year of movies that could take awhile to explore fully. So, my advice to you on the first Movie Monday of 2014 is to go find a movie from 1968 to watch...and then another one...and then another one. There's enough there to keep you busy for quite a while.

Music Sunday: The Film Score Edition

Now, this is movie music:



I watched "The Magnificent Seven" (1960) last night for the first time in years. I'd forgotten how much I like the score, which was composed by Elmer Bernstein. It was nominated for an Academy Award but lost out to the score for "Exodus", composed by Ernest Gold. However, Bernstein's score was listed at number 8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 25 best film scores from American films. The score from "Exodus" does not appear on the list, although it was nominated when the AFI list was being compiled.

I'm a big fan of movie music, although it has been said that the best film scores are invisible to the ear because they fit so well that you forget that the music is there. And that is true, to an extent. Still, movie themes, the music that plays over opening or closing credits, should be something that is memorable. So should main themes within the scores.

For example, here is what is known as the "Love Theme from The Godfather" (1972), composed by Nino Rota:



Again, great movie music. I'm not really happy with the sound quality of this clip, but I think it illustrates something: if the music is good enough, it will sound good no matter how bad the sound quality of a recording.

Nino Rota also composed the score for the Zeffirelli version of "Romeo and Juliet" (1968):



Another movie that has a wonderful score is "Gone With the Wind" (1939), composed by Max Steiner. You can argue about the suitability of the film and its themes all you want, I don't think it is possible to argue that the score is not top-notch:



Some of the music from these films is iconic. So is the music from "Star Wars" (1977), composed by John Williams. That might be surprising, coming from a science fiction (or, some might say, science fantasy) film, but I don't think so. I've heard some describe this score as "bombastic", but I like it.



Still, if you're talking science fiction film scores, I prefer this, from 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," composed by Bernard Hermann:



I also like the music from "Planet of the Apes" (1968), composed by Jerry Goldsmith. This bit, called "The Hunt" is not the theme but is from the body of the film and is, I think, just brilliant. It fits the film perfectly:



So, something a little different for Music Sunday today. I like to think of it as me doing my little bit to promote the idea that music doesn't have to be rock or pop, or have lyrics, to be listenable.

Movie Monday: The "Movies of 1968" Edition

Yesterday, I wrote about music in 1968, so today I thought it would be interesting to see what was going on in the world of movies that year.

Looking around a little, I found a listing of the top grossing films of 1968 and was interested to see that of the top ten money-makers of the year, I've seen eight of them, all but one at the time they came out. The ten films that made the most money in 1968 were:

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey
2) Funny Girl
3) The Love Bug
4) The Odd Couple
5) Bullitt
6) Romeo & Juliet (this is the Zefferilli-directed version)
7) Oliver!
8) Rosemary's Baby
9) Planet of the Apes
10)Night of the Living Dead

Of these films that were the most popular at the box office, "Oliver!" won the Academy Award for Best Film, Barbra Streisand's performance in "Funny Girl" tied with Katherine Hepburn's turn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter" (which was the twelfth-highest grossing film of the year) for Best Performance by an Actress in a Lead Role, and Ruth Gordon won as Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in "Rosemary's Baby".

I think it's interesting that such a wide variety of films did so well. Looking at that list of most popular films, there is science fiction, musical romance, children's fantasy, comedy, police procedural/crime, Shakespeare, another musical - based on Dickens, horror, more science fiction, and more horror. Compared with the ten highest grossing films last year:

1) The Avengers
2) The Dark Knight Rises
3) Skyfall
4) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
5) Ice Age: Continental Drift
6) The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2
7) The Amazing Spiderman
8) Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
9) The Hunger Games
10)Men in Black 3

I don't think I need to expand too much on the differences between these two lists and the differences in the variety of the audiences the films on each list are aimed at. The first list contains films aimed at a variety of audiences and demographics. The second list...well, those films might be aimed at slightly different audiences, but at no age demographic about the age of about twenty-five years old. Not that older audiences haven't enjoyed some of those films. I saw "The Avengers" and liked it a lot, and I'm looking forward to seeing "Skyfall" and "The Hobbit", and I'm considerably older than the target demographic for them.

Still, as a group of films, the 1968 list has much more variety than the 2012 list, and I think that is a sad thing. Certainly, a much wider variety of films is being made. The question is, why aren't they attracting larger audiences in the theaters? Is it because, except for big action movies, people would rather see them at home on cable or on DVD? Is it because the distributing companies only really put their money behind the expensive blockbusters such as those that make up most of the 2012 list? Is it because audiences are only willing to part with increasingly more expensive box-office prices for films in franchises that they know ahead of time they enjoy?

I've got no answers for these questions. What I do have are some trailers from films on the 1968 list. I am personally of the opinion that trailers for older films were much more likely to give a better indication of what the films they advertise really are about. Even this trailer for "2001: A Space Odyssey", which is more than a bit abstract (appropriate for what is in many respects an abstract film), makes me want to see the film again:



Here is a trailer for "Rosemary's Baby":



And one for "Planet of the Apes":



Even this action-filled trailer for "Bullitt" shows that the movie is about more than just its justly famous chase scene:



Oh, yes...and the two of the ten top-grossing films of 1968 that I did not see? That I have still not seen? Those would be "The Odd Couple" and "Night of the Living Dead". I've never had any real interest in seeing "The Odd Couple". As for "Night of the Living Dead", the trailer convinced me that I did not want to see it, ever. I mean, really, if the trailer scared me that much, I couldn't see any point in seeing the full movie.