Category: 1960s

To celebrate their first wedding anniversary, wealthy music promoter Richard Attenborough hosts a party in the honor of musical couple Paul Harris and Marti Stevens. One of the guests is drummer Patrick McGoohan who wants to draw Stevens out of retirement and join his nascent band. It’s a clever take on Shakespeare’s Othello set across a jazzy 1960s London backdrop. The music is divine, even featuring actual jazz musicians from the time period. Altering Shakespeare’s narrative somewhat makes it more accessible and more resonant for a modern audience.  

Following his attempts to bring to stage Fives Kings, his combined version of five Shakespearean plays, Orson Welles took his obsession to play the character of Falstaff to this production in which he wrote, directed, and starred. Falstaff spends his days carousing with the young Prince Hal, much to the chagrin of the Prince’s father King Henry IV. It comes across as a medieval buddy comedy with a youth and his wayward mentor that culminates in a grand battle scene and an unfortunate ending. My lack of a Shakespearean education had me following the wikipedia synopsis while watching, but I still rather enjoyed both Welles’s portrayal and the cohesive way he combined the group of plays.

Doctor Richard Johnson invites Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, and Russ Tamblyn to stay at the 90 year old Hill House to investigate reported paranormal activity. The activity grows as the house seems to react to Harris’s presence. The tension and atmosphere created in the film are palpably effective. The women are great in their respective roles, especially in comparison: Bloom smart, cool, and worldly and Harris uncertain and inexperienced. I don’t remember the remake from more than twenty years ago being horrible, this is obviously the superior film, though the casting in that film makes a lot of sense in comparison to this one.