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The Sixties: Movies

This guide covers the decade 1960 - 1970

Overview: The New Hollywood

The 1960s were a transition period for Americn filmmaking. The old Hollywood Studio System was gone. During the 1950s and the 1960s, the Hollywood studios as film producers transformed into financial backers. Major stars, like Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas, and directors, such as Stanley Kubrick, started their own production companies The agents became more powerful, serving as brokers for the creation of big projects. The old Hollywood Studios found a new source of revenue. They now signed deals to syndicate older films to television. (Eric Hodgkins, p. 146 -166) In addition, a whole new generation of filmmakers were replacing the old guard. And, of course, foreign directors, such as Fellini, Bergman and Kurasawa, were created masterpieces of world cinema.

The Little Movie That Could

Oscar for the Best Picture

  • 1960. Ben Hur (1959)
  • 1961. The Apartment (1960)
  • 1962. West Side Story (1961)
  • 1963. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
  • 1964. Tom Jones (1963)
  • 1965. My Fair Lady (1964)
  • 1966. The Sound of Music (1965)
  • 1967. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
  • 1968. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
  • 1969. Oliver! (1968)
  • 1970. Midnight Cowboy (1969)
  • 1971 Patton (1970)

Source: oscars.org

Oscar for Best Song

  • 1960.  High Hopes in A Hole in the Head (1959)
  • 1961. Never on Sunday in Never on Sunday (1960)
  • 1962. Moon River in A Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
  • 1963. Days of Wine and Roses in Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
  • 1964. Call Me Irresponsible  in Papa's Delicate Condition (1963)
  • 1965. Chim Chim Cher-ee In Mary Poppiins (1964)
  • 1966. The Shadow of Your Smile in The Sandpiper (1965)
  • 1967. Born Free in Born Free (1966)
  • 1968. Talk To The Animals in Doctor Doolittle (1967)
  • 1969. The Windmills of Your Mind in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
  • 1970. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
  • 1971. For All We Know in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)

Source: oscars.org

Foreign Films to See

--Suggested by 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by S.J.Scneider

 

15 Directors to check out

  • Michelangelo Antonioni
  • Blake Edwards
  • Stanley Kubrick
  • Akiro Kurosawa
  • David Lean
  • Sergio Leone
  • Richard Lester
  • Mike Nichols
  • Sam Peckinpah
  • Roman Polanski
  • George Romero
  • ​Francois Truffaut​​

Movie making

Career Breakout Roles

  1. Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins (1964)
  2. ​Anne Bancroft, Anne Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (1962)
  3. Warren Beatty, Bud Stamper in Splendor in the Grass (1961)
  4. Michael Caine, Alfie in Alfie (1966)
  5. Julie Christie, Diana Scott in Darling (1965)
  6. Sean Connery, James Bond in Doctor No (1962)
  7. Catherine Deneuve, Geneviève Emery in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
  8. Patty Duke, Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker (1962)
  9. Faye Dunaway, Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
  10. Clint Eastwood, The Man Without a Name in A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
  11. Jane Fonda, Cat Ballou in Cat Ballou (1965)
  12. Dustin Hoffman, Ben Braddock in The Graduate (1967)
  13. Lee Marvin, Liberty Valance in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
  14. Steve McQueen, Vin Tanner in The Magnificent Seven (1960)
  15. Paul Newman, Eddie Felson in The Hustler (1961)
  16. Jack Nicholson, George Hanson in Easy Rider (1969)
  17. Peter O'Toole, T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
  18. Robert Redford, The Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
  19. Barbra Streisand, Fanny Brice in Funny Girl (1968)
  20. Gene Wilder, Leo Bloom in The Producers (1967)

Source: Imdb.com

Memorable Quotes from Sixties Movies

  • "That's the way it crumbles--cookie wise." --The Apartment (1960)
  • "Feed Me." --Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
  • "A boy's best friend is his mother." --Psycho (1960)
  • "Bond. James Bond. --Dr. No (1962)
  • "Shaken, not stirred." --Dr. No (1962)
  • "Miss Jean Louise. Miss Jean Louise. Stand up. Your father is passin'" --To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
  • "Then you mean all this time we could've been friends?" --Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)
  • "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!" --Dr. Strangelove (1964).
  • "Tell me how did you find America?" "Turn left at Greenland." --A Hard Day's Night (1964)
  • "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius." --Mary Poppins (1964)
  • "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."-- The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
  • "This here's Miss Bonnie Parker. I'm Clyde Barrow. We rob banks." --Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
  • "What we have here is a failure to communicate." --Cool Hand Luke (1967)
  • "I just want to say one word to you--just one word...'Plastics.'" --The Graduate (1967)
  • "Now listen, hear me good mama. Please. Don't make me have to send you to jail... There's white time in jail and there's colored time in jail. The worst kind of time you can do is colored time." --In the Heat of the Night (1967)
  • "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." --2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
  • "Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!" --Lion in Winter (1968)
  • "Yeah, they're dead. They're all messed up." --Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  • Oscar:Now kindly remove that spaghetti from my poker table. [Felix laughs]  Oscar:The hell's so funny?  Felix: It's not spaghetti, it's linguini. .[Oscar picks up the linguini and hurls it against the kitchen wall]  Oscar: Now it's garbage.--The Odd Couple (1968)
  • "What ever they're selling, I don't want it." --Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (1969)

Source: imdb.com

Drive-in theaters

Source:  An old drive-in movie theater in the Santa Barbara County, California
Date: 1 October 2008, Author Alexpankratz

The drive-in movie theater was one of the more popular destinations for an evening outting in 1950s and 1960s. Every city and many small towns across America had at least one. For a society that was in love with the car, it was the perfect entertainment, and it was inexpensive.

 

Some Movies set in the 1960s

Additional References

Ebert, R., & Corliss, M. (2004). The great movies. New York: Broadway.
Ebert, R., & Corliss, M. (2006). The Great Movies II. New York: Random House.
Hodgkins, E. (1957, June 10). "Amid Ruins of an Empire a New Hollywood Arises". Life 42(23), p.146-166.
Lewis, J. (2008). American film: a history.  New York, NY, etc.: W.W. Norton.
Parish, J. R. (2006). Fiasco: A history of Hollywoods iconic flops. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Schneider, S. J. (2013). 1001 movies you must see before you die. Hauppage, NY: Barrons.