Movies Of The 1960s From Beach Blanket To Hip

Movies have always been an avenue of escape and in the 60s it was no different. Our culture was wrapped around the turbulence of changing times. People who went to the movies did not want to sit through hours of a saga, they wanted it short, sweet and to the point. Much of the movies of the times were music centered while other genres of sci-fi and horror movies were really taking off in the mainstream. Westerns and other serial movies were a dying breed, but a handful of tough guys would keep on going.

If you loved music based movies, you had many choices. Elvis was all over the place with hokey movies featuring scantily clad women who would seem almost mesmerized by him. He was featured in 27 movies during the 1960s. His last movie, "Change of Habit" also starred Mary Tyler Moore where he played a doctor who was falling in love with a nun. All of his movies would feature him singing and gyrating his hips.

The Beatles came up with three hit movies, "A Hard Days Night," "Help!" and Magical Mystery Tour displaying songs from their albums. There was not really much of a coherent plot to these movies, but the point was to entertain a Beatle-crazed crowd who just could not get enough of them.

Along with the themes movie critics despised like the music promotion films were the lame summer beach movies. Frankie Avalon and Annnette Funicello were a famous duo as was Sandra Dee who starred in a few Gidget movies. While clean by standards of today, many complained of the exploitation of the female bodies in the movies.

A hot trend which started in 1954 with "Climax! Casino Royale" flourished in the 1960s and beyond. Everyone knew agent 007 as James Bond, a dapper spy with a lot of cool toys who drove fast cars and slept with many beautiful women. Of the seven Bond movies, Sean Connery played the hero in six ("Dr No," "From Russia With Love," "Goldfinger," "Thunderball," "Casino Royale," and "You Only Live Twice") and George Lazenby played him in one ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service"). Connery also starred in films "Shalako" and "Fine Madness" during the 60s.

Many stars were in the makings during this decade. An up and coming Jack Nicholson did his first film, "The Wild Ride" in 1958, but after about five more movies in the 1960s, he was a household name when he played a spaced out lawyer in "Easy Rider" in 1969. Dustin Hoffman made his name known in 1967 with "The Graduate" (the movie which made Mrs. Robinson an adjective to describe an older woman seducing a younger man) although he starred in an earlier movie in the same year called "Madigan's Millions" which was not received with the same praise. Woody Allen began his claim to fame with the movie "What's New Pussycat?" in 1965. Burt Reynolds got his start in 1961 in the movie "Armored Command." Goldie Hawn made her film debut in 1969 with ">Cactus Flower."

Walter Matthau made a few movies in the 1950s and was the narrator to the classic 50s cartoon "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", but in 1968, he played a character, Oscar Madison, in the movie "The Odd Couple" which will forever make him a household name. Co-star, Jack Lemmon, had a prolific movie career in the 50s and 60s with films such as "The Apartment," and "Hamlet," "Mr. Roberts." Since then, the duo have performed together in a few other movies which reflected their differing personalities.

The 70s had more than its share of all-star cast disaster movies (disaster because it involved a disaster, although you can say it also meant disaster in the other term.) The 60s version of an all-star cast movie was a Stanley Kramer film called It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World starring Jimmy Durante, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Jonathan Winters, Peter Falk, Spencer Tracy, Carl Reiner, Terry-Thomas, Arnold Stang, Buster Keaton, Jack Benny, Jerry Lewis, Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney, it even had the Three Stooges!

Members of the "Rat Pack" still maintained their cool cat status from the 1950s and were riding high in the 1960s. Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop starred in the film, "Ocean's 11," in 1960 where they played army buddies who planned to pull a heist on five Vegas casinos in a night. This group has done movies on their own and a few of them have teamed up from time to time to do a flick. This group was a hot item in spite of rumors of their ties with the Mafia. They were the epitome of everything that would be politically incorrect today.

Jerry Lewis who is under-appreciated in the US, but lauded in France cranked out nine movies during the 1960s. Hit classics we will never forget include "The Bellboy," "The Nutty Professor" and "Disorderly Orderly."

Cult classics existed before the 1960s, but films from this decade would leave an imprint on our memories as some of the weirdest of the genre. "Peeping Tom," made in 1960 was denounced for its glorification of horror became an immediate classic. It was one of the first films to come with a warning. Lon Chaney really sank to the bottom of his career in 1964 when he appeared in "Spider Baby". "They Saved Hitler's Brain" in 1963 was about a scientist kidnapped for the sole purpose of resurrecting Adolph. In 1966, David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave spoofs mental health, Tarzan, weddings and communists in the film "Morgan!". Monster movies that were so bad it was funny became cult classics. People flocked to see the horror of the titles "Samson Vs. The Vampire Women," "Invasion Of The Zombies," and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die."

Some of these classics were scorned for the implications of sexual innuendo to outright soft porn, though tame by today's standards. Herschell Gordon Lewis and Edward Wood Jr. were some of the biggest contributors to that trend with obscure movies such as "Daughter Of The Sun," "Moonshine Mountain," "Suburban Roulette," "The Sinister Urge," and "Orgy of the Dead."

While cowboy films were a dying breed, one star held on to it to the point of making them of a cult film nature. Clint Eastwood stood for the all American hero in the 60s with movies like "A Fistful Of Dollars," "The Good, Bad, And The Ugly," "Hang 'Em High," and "Coogan's Bluff."

Movies from Japan became the craze in the late 50s and all the 60s. Mostly spoofed by people since the dubbing of these films were off leaving the speakers moving lips at the wrong time when there was nothing said. "Godzilla" was a product of the 1950s with the scare of nuclear holocaust and the possibilities that monsters of giant proportions could come to attack humans. This spun off with other creatures like the famous Mothra and Gamera and the not so famous Barugaon, Gaos, Guiron and Zigra.

Dramatic classics we will never forget include "Dr Zhivago" made in 1965 which was a tear-jerker about a peace loving poet during the Russian Revolution of the early 1900s who lost his family during the war and lost his soul mate, Lara. In 1967, Sidney Poitier plays an unconventional teacher in charge of a classroom of unruly students in "To Sir, With Love." Marlon Brando makes one of his greatest movies in 1962 based on the novel "Mutiny on the Bounty (and a remake of the 1935 version)." Gregory Peck won his Oscar award in 1962 for his role in "To Kill A Mockingbird." The epic adventure of Stanley Kubrick, "Spartacus" was a big hit in 1960.

This was a great time for good films, although much like today, there was a lot of not so hot movies that fade from our memories. There was something for everyone back then and the old classics never die. For more information consult these resources: