1964 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1964:

1. Mary Poppins
2. My Fair Lady
3. Goldfinger
4. The Carpetbaggers
5. From Russia With Love
6. A Shot in the Dark
7. What a Way to Go!
8. The Unsinkable Molly Brown
9. The Pink Panther
10. A Hard Day's Night

What are your top three films for 1964? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. Gertrud
3. Band of Outsiders

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

1. Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. Fail-Safe
3. Dr. Strangelove

I should really catch Band of Outsiders soon.

 

My third choice was really hard. Not only were there two Godard films to choose from, but also A Fistful of Dollars and Seven Up.

 

1. I Am Cuba
2. A Fistful of Dollars
3. Onibaba

Watched I Am Cuba last night and was amazed by it, an incredible looking film with some really moving stories. A Fistful of Dollars is just good vibes, super fun watch. My third choice was really close between Onibaba and Dr. Strangelove but I went with the former because I'm sure Strangelove will get enough attention. Onibaba has some great atmospheric horror, exploring what desperation can lead people to.

 

1. Dr Strangelove
2. Onibaba
3. Kwaidan


Another great year! I need to re-watch Band of Outsiders, I haven't seen it in about 10 years, but I do remember liking it a lot at the time.

 

1. Red Desert
2. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
3. Woman in the Dunes

 

A coworker once saw me watching the dance scene from Band of Outsiders and called me really weird.

 

Dr. Strangelove
Mothra vs. Godzilla
Assassin

 

I feel like I should rewatch the Zatoichi films, since one of them is probably up there.

 

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. From Russia With Love
3. Umbrellas of Cherbourg

 

1. Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. 7 Up
3. A Hard Day's Night

If y'all haven't seen the Up Series, go check it out. 7 Up was the first installment, where a documentary crew interviewed a group of 7 year olds in Britain of varying class statuses, and they come back to them every 7 years, which is still going on now. The most recent installment came out in 2019 called 63 Up.

 

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. A Fist Full of Dollars
3. The Gospel According to St Matthew

Dr Strangelove is an all timer. A Fist Full of Dollars rightfully launched Leone. The Gospel According to St Matthew is a really raw, rustic telling of the Jesus as the revolutionary he deserves to be remembered as.

 

The Up series is great. The more recent ones have become quite tragic as you watch these people slowly succumb to age and the physical and mental degradation that comes with it.

 

I watched all of them recently and it was really strange to see them all grow up so much in such a short time for me. I found it really interesting how much a lot of them seemed to hate the experience.

 

The seven-year gap is not really long enough to be able to look back on things and put them in perspective sometimes, so having the documentary come around is like pulling off scabs on old wounds. They also deal with a fair bit of celebrity with none of the financial incentives.

56 Up actually had the most of them appear since 21 Up. 13 out of 14 came back, but Charles has refused to do the show for decades. 63 Up was down to 11 participants, and since we now have a dead cast member and a dead director it is an open question as to whether it goes on. I hope it does, and it would be interesting to see how a new filmmaker approaches the material, especially since Apted was accused of manipulating some things.

 

I always liked the moments in later films where they would argue with him about how he portrayed certain things. I feel like there's probably a lot of really interesting conversations that we don't get to see. I know they kind of have to have the old footage in there for people who haven't just watched them all in a row but by the later films there was so much old footage I could have done without in favor of more new stuff.

 

1. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
2. A Shot in the Dark
3. Dr. Strangelove

 

Holy shit, I had no idea Apted had passed away. That's such a shame, I was really hoping he'd live long enough to do 70 Up and that'd be the last installment.

 

Strangelove is probably number one for me too. Also add me to the list recommending the Up series. 28 Up specifically hits me harder emotionally than almost any other movie. Certain directions that people went and how they speak about them break my heart every single time I watch it.

The Americanization of Emily is another favorite that I don’t see mentioned very often outside of discussions about Chayefsky. I watched it as a kid because my father loves it and didn’t really understand what was going on, but I revisited it a few years ago and felt very differently. Super cynical and funny and depressing, like so much of his other work. And a wonderful start to the Andrews/Garner pairing.

The Pumpkin Eater is also highly recommended from me. It has one of Anne Bancroft’s best performances and is a powerful, challenging character study. In a lot of ways it feels like a precursor to the films that blew up later in the decade and especially in the 70s.

The 60s and 70s are my favorite movie decades without a doubt, and this year is where a lot of that gets rolling.

 

Dr. Strangelove has been dissected to death so much that there is not much to talk about, but a movie that is over 50 years old had a more convincing case of an actor playing multiple characters than so many attempts that occur to this day. It really does feel like Strangelove and the President are talking in the same room.

 

Dr. Strangelove takes it with 17 votes, the highest total so far and the first English-language film. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was second with 12 votes. Dr. Strangelove will move on to the bracket.

 

I had been wondering what film would be the first English language one to top it. I hadn't counted on Dr. Strangelove though. I've only seen the film once, many years ago, and I definitely did not get it. I've been long overdue to give it another look. I'm expecting that we'll see a lot more English language films on top from the 70s onward.

 

I figure the general winners will change a lot around 1977.

 

1. A Fistful of Dollars
2. 7 Up
3. A Hard Day's Night