Category: 1960s

At first honored to be chosen for the job, James Coburn soon discovers that being the President’s analyst is the loneliest job in the world and makes a run for it with spy agencies from across the world on his tail. I had started this thinking it was going to be a straight-forward narrative like an Analyze This but with the President. Instead, the President isn’t ever shown and it doesn’t take long for the film to firmly establish itself as being part of the swinging, psychedelic 1960s. Coburn is fantastic in his role with a wide grin that appears as he slowly begins to lose his grounding. There are many weird, but hilarious parts, but William Daniels as a gun-toting, suburban liberal is pure awesomeness.

In George Lazenby’s one and only outing as James Bond, he takes some vacation time to pursue Telly Savalas’s Ernst Blofeld, who is posing as a Count and has set up an allergy research clinic in the Swiss Alps. At the same time, Bond has agreed to woo the daughter of the head of a crime syndicate in exchange for help in taking down Blofeld. Since I was having fun with the Connery Bond films, I decided to extend my mini-marathon to include at least one film of each of the other actors. With just a few bumps, Lazenby transitions into the role rather admirably. The film is a bit too long and Bond pursuing an actual relationship is a strange character adjustment, but there’s a lot of entertainment to be had in this outing. With the gorgeous Swiss hideout, the aggressively German number two, many fantastic mountain chases, and the international stereotype team of female assassins, it’s hard not to be won over by the charm. It was during this installment that I realized how generic the title sequences can be with random visuals and the blandest typeface. I suppose it’s easy to just get distracted by the music and silhouettes of naked women. . 

Unmarried and lonely Sandy Dennis spies teenager Michael Burns stranded in the park across from her home during a rainstorm and invites him to stay with her. Regrettably for both of them, they do not know enough about each other for this arrangement to work. There’s a sense of impending dread that resonates throughout the film and I was fully expecting it to play out similarly to the end of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. There is absolutely no one else I can think of who could play the necessary aspects of the complex main character as Dennis and she carries this unusual film from its first moments.

TVA administrator Montgomery Clift arrives in rural Tennessee to oversee the building of a dam on the Tennessee River, facing much opposition from the locals especially Jo Van Fleet whose family lives on one of the river’s islands. Clift is perfectly cast in this role. He’s equally determined to complete his task with a firm […]