Best movies of 1964
April 27, 2025.
Friends of film:
Who says the Cold War wasn’t fun! Living in shadow of nuclear annihilation sure could be a laugh, even if the laughs were often grim.
We’ve got a couple that go right at the heart of the matter: Dr Strangelove and Seven Days In May, which reveal the cynical internal politics and brinksmanship that everyone feared to be closer to the truth than the likes of the New York Times or Washington Post would divulge. (Also released in 1964 but not selected by FranxFlix, was Fail-Safe, the “serious” version of the Dr Strangelove plot based on the same story, starring Henry Fonda. Watch it if you want to be thoroughly bummed out).
We have little cold wars fought for the greater good on a personal level: James Bond protecting the free world from a rabid villain in Goldfinger; Becket, about a power struggle in 12th century England; and the first of the great Leone Spaghetti Westerns, A Fistful of Dollars: the Baxters on one side of town, the Rojos on the other, and Clint Eastwood right in the middle.
And there’s poor Richard Burton, not even a spy, but out in the cold in the hottest of settings enduring a night of endless temptations and frustrations when all he wants is a little inner peace.
It’s not all doom and gloom: each of those films have great comic strains running through them, especially Strangelove, which laid down the marker of black humor for generations.
But hey, let’s forget about all this existential jazz and truly unwind.
Imagine a time so glorious that you could go to the movies and choose among seeing The Rat Pack with Bing Crosby along for the ride, Elvis Presley leaning into his comeback, or those new startups, The Beatles?! What a blinding conjunction of stars arching across four cultural generations.
That leaves us with two pure musicals: The crown jewel of Walt Disney, Mary Poppins, and the immaculate stage-to-screen My Fair Lady. I don’t care if you don’t like musicals: sit down and watch both of these. Flights of fancy interlaced with animation in the former, and the latter, where the deliciously maliciously lyrical sparks fly between ’enry ’iggins and ‘liza Dooli’le. The tunes are catchy, the acting impeccable, but nothing tops the words:
Women are irrational,/That’s all there is to that!
Their heads are full cotton, hay, and rags!
They’re nothing but exasperating, irritating, vascillating, calculating, agitating, maddening, and infuriating hags!
Now that I think of it, this happiest of musicals documents the coldest war of all: the eternal battle of the sexes.
Enjoy.
FXD
Arlington VA.
As always, click the posters for a movie clip.
Becket
d. Peter Glenville
****
Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, John Gielgud
Two of Britain’s best actors portraying two of Britain’s greatest historical figures in one of the epic clashes of church and state based on a play by Robert Bolt: how could this not be great? If ever an actor owned a role, it is Peter O’Toole. Here he portrays a young, restless King Henry II; he would go on to play old, restless King Henry II in 1968’s Lion in Winter opposite Katherine Hepburn. How often do we get to see an actor play the same character at different ages? Simply brilliant script.
Dr Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
d. Stanley Kubrick
*****
Peter Sellers, George C Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, James Earl Jones
Peter Sellers could have been nominated three times for his three very different roles in this film, but it’s the supporting cast that really brings it to life. Director Kubrick didn’t tell Slim Pickens the film was a comedy, so that he would play it with all of the corn-fed earnestness he could muster, and it pays off. Kubrick’s earlier films are all great, but this one put him into the top tier of directors. It’s hard not to consider this one of the top ten films of all-time.
A Fistful of Dollars
d. Sergio Leone
*****
Clint Eastwood, Marianne Koch, Gian Maria Valonté
In case you are unfamiliar with the term “Spaghetti Western,” it was a derisive term about low-budget Italian films set in the American west, often badly overdubbed because many of the actors of various nationalities couldn’t speak a common language. Screenwriter and director Sergio Leone took this as a challenge, and created this first of “The Man with No Name” trilogy. Eastwood, whose career was languishing after his stint on the tv show “Rawhide”, defied all professional advice and flew to Europe to make some easy money, and emerged with his now-classic squint-eyed, understated persona. Leone once said, “Eastwood has two expressions: with cigar, and without cigar.”
Goldfinger
d. Guy Hamilton
****
Sean Connery, Honor Blackman, Gert Fröbe, Harold Sakata, Bernard Lee
This, the third in the series, is my favorite Bond picture. Connery inhabits the character, and the action kicks up to where it should be - without going over the top as is now expected of Bond. The villain, Aurie Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) is the one we want: the madman in the lair with strange foibles and obsessions, and accompanied by the aptly-named henchman Oddjob - the large Japanese wrestler who kills people with his hat. And yes, the female lead played by Honor (!) Blackman, is actually called Pussy Galore. So much Austin Powers to unpack here…
A Hard Day’s Night
d. Richard Lester
****
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brammley
So many future rock’n’roll stars, from David Crosby to the Grateful Dead to Billy Joel talk about how they came out of the movie theater in 1964 and decided they wanted to be a Beatle. The music was already evolving beyond anything resembling contemporary pop, and their personalities leapt from the screen in a way that left their Ed Sullivan appearance in the dust. The press compared the wisecracking surreal humor of the Fab Four to the Marx Brothers, and the weird gonzo directing by Dick Lester using jump edits, sped-up film, and strange angles helped usher in the Swingin’ Sixties. So much more Austin Powers to unpack here…
Mary Poppins
d. Robert Stevenson
*****
Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, Glynis Johns, Elsa Lanchester, Jane Darwell, Ed Wynn
Disney seems to have had as many epochs as the pharaohs, but this film (by my reckoning, an artifact of the Third or Fourth Kingdom) is among the best. If you didn’t get to see this as a child, well, I feel sorry for you. It was magical. Seeing it as an adult is almost as wonderful. Go ahead and chuckle at Dick Van Dyke’s unbelievably bad cockney accent but tip your cap to his charm and grace, as well as Julie Andrews’ “practically perfect” film debut after being snubbed from reprising her Broadway role on screen as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. Watching it as an adult, I really appreciate the pacing of the film to a child’s perception, as well as some first-rate performances by veteran supporting actors.
My Fair Lady
d. George Cukor
*****
Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Brett, Theodore Bikel
OK, here’s the behind -the-scenes industry drama: Julie Andrews played the role on Broadway opposite Rex Harrison. Audrey Hepburn was cast in the movie even though she isn’t a singer. Audrey shines, although her voice is dubbed by Marnie Nixon who also covered for Natalie Wood in West Side Story. Julie Andrews wins best actress for Mary Poppins. Got it? The onscreen story is even better - one of the last great Technicolor movie with acerbic lyrics set to fantastic music that accommodated Harrison’s limited vocal range (he recites rather than sings most of the time). He portrays Professor Henry Higgins, who has made a bet that he can turn a common flower girl into a duchess purely be teaching her proper English. By the way, the title is a pun: it’s the cockney pronunciation of “Mayfair Lady”.
The Night of the Iguana
d. John Huston
*****
Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah Kerr, Sue Lyon
The play this was based on was written by Tennessee Williams, which means one thing: sweaty people trying to keep a lid on simmering sexual and violent impulses. This one is set in Mexico, with Richard Burton as a recently defrocked Episcopalian minister who has to fend off or choose among would-be lovers ranging from a sixteen-year old nyphomaniac (Sue Lyons) to his old sexy friend (Ava Gardner) and an aging attractive spinsters (Deborah Kerr). What to do, what to do…With John Huston directing in a semi-noir style, it is compelling from beginning to end.
Robin and the 7 Hoods
d. Gordon Douglas
****
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, Bing Crosby, Peter Falk, Barbara Rush, Victor Buono
FranxFlix has been dying to get to the Rat Pack! Only the good ones are here (no Peter Lawford) and it’s a gem. If you are unfamiliar, the RP was a drinking club founded in the 40s by Humphrey Bogart but by the 50s had metastasized around cooler-than-cool crooners Sinatra, Martin + Davis. The Pack had figured out that if they showed up on a soundstage for a couple hours a day and shot some footage, the producers would foot their drinking tabs for the other twenty-two hours. It was an idea just so crazy, that it occasionally produced a good movie. Pure fun, with a decent plot and some great songs, the camaraderie leaps off the screen.
Seven Days in May
d. John Frankenheimer
*****
Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederic March, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien, Martin Balsam
This film hits on so many topics that appear obvious in hindsight: Cold War paranoia, conspiracy theories about the “Deep State”, conflicted loyalties between oaths and ideology. It should have you ruminating for days about history and the frailty of humanity in and out of power. As in all his movies, Frankenheimer gives a sense of immediacy that he cleverly teases out of our loyalty to the characters he presents. Fantastic acting by many mature Hollywood veterans (March, O’Brien) alongside the entering-middle-age starring cast (Lancaster, Douglas, Gardner, Balsam): this is no country for young men. The screenplay was written by Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling.
Viva Las Vegas
d. George Sidney
***1/2
Elvis Presley, Ann-Margret, Cesare Danova, William Demarest
Well let’s have some fun! How about a stupid throwaway movie that you’ll want to watch over and over?! Clearly subsidized by the Las Vegas Travel Bureau, it has stock characters with minimal development in a stupid plot with cliché filming and editing… and it’s wonderful. Of the 28 (mostly bad) films Elvis made, this is my favorite. What’s not to love? (Everything.) OK, but what’s not to hate? Race car driver Elvis. Pool boy Elvis. Gambling Elvis. Motorcycle Elvis. Waterskiing Elvis. Helicopter Elvis. And Spandex-need-not-have-been-invented yet Ann-Margret. Wipe that weak 21st century sneer off your face and let the King of the Lip Curl show you how it’s really done.
