Cinema60

Bart & Jenna welcome guest Natasha Degen, chair of Art Marketing Studies at FIT, to discuss William Klein's Who Are You Polly Maggoo?

Bart & Jenna play Kiss Marry Kill with the year 1964.

The following films are discussed:

• The Train (1964)
Directed by John Frankenheimer
Starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau

• Welcome, or No Trespassing (1964)
Добро пожаловать, или Посторонним вход воспрещён
Directed by Elem Klimov
Starring Viktor Kosykh, Evgeniy Evstigneev, Arina Aleynikova

• The Americanization of Emily (1964)
Directed by Arthur Hiller
Starring James Garner, Julie Andrews, James Coburn

• Woman in the Dunes (1964)
砂の女
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
Starring Eiji Okada, Kyôko Kishida, Kôji Mitsui

• Marnie (1964)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Tippi Hedren, Sean Connery, Bruce Dern

• La Ronde (1964)
Circle of Love
Directed by Roger Vadim
Starring Jane Fonda, Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy

We maybe got, uh, too ambitious when we set out to watch every single Sophia Loren film from the 1960s. But how could we not? Loren was a 1960s superstar and for good reason, she starred in a whopping twenty films during the decade. The inconsistent quality of these films is a little puzzling considering the majority were produced by her career-shaping husband Carlo Ponti. However they can perhaps be partly explained by a passionate love of her craft, bolstered by a strong work ethic, which helped to pull her up from poverty. This decade in film tells the tale of two Sophias–the magnetically charming goofball lead and the super serious big-budget dramatic actress. To Loren’s credit, she manages to switch between these two types seamlessly, using her charm and grace to elevate every role she’s cast in–no matter how disappointing the script may be.

In this double-sized episode, Bart and Jenna divide and conquer Loren’s filmography in all of its rambling, globe-trotting glory. They come together to discuss four of these films in depth: her star making performance in Two Women, her relatively muted role in the blockbuster El Cid, arguably her best of the decade Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and the baffling A Countess From Hong Kong, Charlie Chaplin’s final directorial effort.

The following films are discussed:

• Heller in Pink Tights (1960)
Directed by George Cukor
Starring Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, Margaret O'Brien

•It Started in Naples (1960)
Directed by Melville Shavelson
Starring Sophia Loren, Clark Gable, Vittorio De Sica

• The Millionairess (1960)
Directed by Anthony Asquith
Starring Sophia Loren, Peter Sellers, Vittorio De Sica

•A Breath of Scandal (1960)
Directed by Michael Curtiz
Starring Sophia Loren, Maurice Chevalier, John Gavin

•Two Women (1960)
La ciociara
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Starring Sophia Loren, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Eleonora Brown

•El Cid (1961)
Directed by Anthony Mann
Starring Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Raf Vallone

•Madame (1961)
Madame Sans Gêne
Directed by Christian-Jaque
Starring Sophia Loren, Robert Hossein, Renaud Mary

•Boccaccio '70 (1962)
Directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica
Starring Sophia Loren, Anita Ekberg, Romy Schneider

•The Condemned of Altona (1962)
I sequestrati di Altona
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Starring Sophia Loren, Maximilian Schell, Fredric March

•Five Miles to Midnight (1962)
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Starring Sophia Loren, Anthony Perkins, Gig Young

•Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
Ieri oggi domani
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Giuffrè,

•The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Directed by Anthony Mann
Starring Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness

•Marriage Italian Style (1964)
Matrimonio all'italiana
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo Puglisi

• Operation Crossbow (1965)
Directed by Michael Anderson
Starring Sophia Loren, George Peppard, Trevor Howard

•Lady L (1965)
Directed by Peter Ustinov
Starring Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, David Niven

• Judith (1966)
Directed by Daniel Mann
Starring Sophia Loren, Peter Finch, Jack Hawkins

•Arabesque (1966)
Directed by Stanley Donen
Starring Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Alan Badel

•A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
Directed by Charles Chaplin
Starring Sophia Loren, Marlon Brando, Sydney Chaplin

•More Than a Miracle (1967)
C'era una volta
Directed by Francesco Rosi
Starring Sophia Loren, Omar Sharif, Georges Wilson

•Ghosts, Italian Style (1968)
Questi fantasmi
Directed by Renato Castellani
Starring Sophia Loren, Vittorio Gassman, Mario Adorf

Bart & Jenna welcome guest Rachael Guma to talk about her love of Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966). She in turn blows their minds with a theory about how the film uses squares and circles as a visual language.

It’s easy to judge the past solely by its accomplishments, but doing so never provides the full picture. In isolating only the achievements of the Space Age, the ‘60s come across as a glossy and utopian time of cultural and scientific development. Yet, by the end of the decade, most of the world was trapped in a near fever pitch of anxiety; the Cold War was looming larger than ever, the American presence in Vietnam was being openly and angrily questioned, the sexual revolution was ramping up, and a myriad of violent clashes were happening between protestors and police. To top it all off, technology was also developing rapidly–not just in space but in people’s day-to-day lives. As much excitement as there was for change, there was also an equal amount of fear: fear of technological advancement, fear of rapid change, fear of losing our humanity, fear of putting too much faith in science. The future was now and everything was seemingly happening at once. What’s an emotionally repressed 1960s’ Joe Blow to do with all of this uncertainty?

By 1968, science fiction had become the outlet of choice to express these collective anxieties. The genre was blossoming in literature, television and film–from Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick to The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. It proved to be both the perfect cypher for societal fears of progress and heightening violence, as well as the perfect genre for some well-deserved escapism. It also produced one of the greatest films ever made to feature a murderous computer who sings. In this episode, and discussed in order from the ridiculous to the sublime, Bart and Jenna watch several selections from this annus mirabilis of sci-fi films that engage directly with societal anxieties of the future.

The following films are discussed:• The Green Slime (1968) Directed by Kinji Fukasaku Starring Robert Horton, Luciana Paluzzi, Richard Jaeckel

• Project X (1968) Directed by William Castle Starring Christopher George, Greta Baldwin, Henry Jones

• Planet of the Apes (1968) Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner Starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter

• Charly (1968) Directed by Ralph Nelson Starring Cliff Robertson, Claire Bloom, Lilia Skala

• Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) Directed by Alain Resnais Starring Claude Rich, Olga Georges-Picot, Anouk Ferjac

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) Directed by Stanley Kubrick Starring Douglas Rain, Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood

Guest Pauline Kael joins Cinema60 in spirit to talk about one of her favorite films from the ‘60s: Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde! No reading required as Bart & Jenna argue her case for the film against their own personal misgivings.

Guest Kyle Eagle talks with Bart & Jenna about Sweet Love Bitter, an under watched gritty jazz film starring Dick Gregory

Tennessee Williams was always a man out of time, but by the ‘60s his time was sadly up. As the ‘50s came to a close, his career began a descent from its utmost apex to such a low that Williams himself fell deep into the bottle. Cinema, however, was still playing catch up with all of his later hits. With the way the decade was front loaded you’d hardly believe how quickly these films dissolved to a trickle after 1962. Perhaps it was due to slackening standards regarding explicit and shocking themes on celluloid. Or perhaps Williams’ celebrity had just gotten too big for Hollywood to truly do justice to these highly personal and narrow character studies.

In this episode, Bart enthuses rapturously about even the most mediocre of Williams’ 1960s offerings while Jenna condemns a surprising number of his characters to burn in hell, just because of the misery these poor tortured souls inflict on everyone they encounter. Listen as they discuss the highs and lows of Tennessee’s movie career and gossip about which characters they think are in the closet. (Spoiler: basically all of them.) Plus, there’s a film in here that Bart and Jenna agree is arguably the greatest of all Williams adaptations. But you’ll have to tune in to find out which one!

The following films are discussed:

• The Fugitive Kind (1960)
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Starring Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani, Joanne Woodward

• Summer and Smoke (1961)
Directed by Peter Glenville
Starring Geraldine Page, Laurence Harvey, Rita Moreno

• The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961)
Directed by José Quintero
Starring Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya

• Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)
Directed by Richard Brooks
Starring Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight

• Period of Adjustment (1962)
Directed by George Roy Hill
Starring Jane Fonda, Jim Hutton, Anthony Franciosa

• The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Directed by John Huston
Starring Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr

• This Property Is Condemned (1966)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, Charles Bronson

• Boom! (1968)
Directed by Joseph Losey
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Noël Coward

While 007 may have been the original catalyst, what truly turned the 1960s into an era of Bond was the vast number of rip-offs and spoofs that tried to cash in on the craze. Welcome to a new segment on Cinema60 where we guide you through the magical world of Bootleg Bond!

You may have seen the Michel Hazanavicius O.S.S. 117 spoofs starring the ever charming Jean Dujardin, but Did You Know that O.S.S. 117 was actually a real franchise? O.S.S. 117 started out as a book series, created by the prolific Jean Bruce, who was practically unknown outside of his native France. Within the country, however, the books were a smash hit. Hundreds were written, even after Bruce died right when Eurospy fever was about to consume the planet. Bruce’s books and the subsequent film adaptations actually pre-date James Bond, even though ol’ O.S.S. 117 (Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath when he’s at home), was quickly eclipsed by his Scottish-accented brother-in-chest hair.

Join Bart and Jenna as they trudge through these largely terrible films. We promise it’s far a more fun episode to listen to than it was to watch the films, so consider this episode a bit of a riff on Back Row’s I Watched It So You Don’t Have To column.

The following films are discussed:

• OSS 117 se déchaîne (1963)
OSS 117 Is Unleashed
Directed by André Hunebelle
Starring Kerwin Mathews, Nadia Sanders, Irina Demick

• Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 (1964)
Shadow of Evil / Panic in Bangkok
Directed by André Hunebelle
Starring Kerwin Mathews, Pier Angeli, Robert Hossein

• Furia à Bahia pour OSS 117 (1965)
OSS 117: Mission for a Killer
Directed by André Hunebelle
Starring Frederick Stafford, Mylène Demongeot, Raymond Pellegrin

• Atout coeur à Tokyo pour OSS 117 (1966)
Mission to Tokyo
Directed by Michel Boisrond
Starring Frederick Stafford, Marina Vlady, Jitsuko Yoshimura

• Pas de roses pour O.S.S. 117 (1968)
OSS 117 Murder for Sale
Directed by André Hunebelle
Starring John Gavin, Robert Hossein, Curd Jürgens

• OSS 117 prend des vacances (1970)
OSS 117 Takes a Vacation
Directed by Pierre Kalfon
Starring Luc Merenda, Edwige Feuillère, Elsa Martinelli

Author Greg Jackson joins Bart & Jenna to talk about Francesco Rosi's Hands Over The City (Le Mani Sulla Citta)