Tamiya Iemon is the Worst: Ghost Stories of Yotsuya
There are many tales of love, bitterness and vengeful ghosts, but like a certain Scottish play, Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan is unique in having a curse associated with it.
Read moreTag Archives: 1960s
Kuroneko
A lone samurai making his way home late at night meets a defenseless woman. So begins the horror of Kaneto Shindô’s tale of ghosts, vengeance, and the wrongs visited upon women by entitled men.
Read moreWelcome to Cairowood
Examples of Egyptian filmmaking date back to the beginning of the 20th century, with Cairo becoming a hub of commercial filmmaking in the Arab world with the introduction of sound.
Read moreHigh Spy: The Espionage Fiction of Adam Diment
In the midst of Swingin’ London, and in stark contrast to James Bond, English author Adam Diment created Philip McAlpine, a reluctant, shaggy-haired, dope-smoking spy in the latest Carnaby Street fashions.
Read moreEyes Without a Face
A fan of silent serials and a precursor to the French Nouvelle Vague, Georges Franju was inspired by the early thrillers of Louis Feuillade when he made the haunting, at times shocking, story of a disfigured woman, a driven scientist, and the horror of physical beauty.
Read moreColossus and the Amazon Queen
People unfamiliar with genre films sometimes have this weird idea that the movies all carry themselves with an air of complete seriousness, that a particular type of film can’t possibly be aware of its own cliches and pitfalls until some smarmy mainstream director steps in and makes a spoof. That spy movies, even James Bond, can’t be aware of their
Read moreFace of Eve
If jungle adventure movies have taught us anything, it’s that modern man, with all his so-called “refinement” and “civilization”, is the most dangerous animal of all. Even though those city folk ultimately fall prey to quicksand, cannibals, and hungry wild animals.
Read moreA Gaggle of Golgo 13
Golgo 13 was (is) a long-running Japanese comic book aimed primarily at bitter guys in dead-end salaryman jobs who harbored daydreams of being tough-as-nails murderous sex machines but, in reality, were just nerdy guys reading a comic book on the train before they started a day full of kissing their boss’s ass and shouting out the company cheer.
Read moreYpotron
Ypotron is an airy espionage adventure with sci-fi elements and no interest in its own plot, so enamored is it instead with low-budget globe-trotting and extremely large hats.
Read moreInterpol 009
Interpol 009 has everything you’d want in a 1960s spy movie–except for a memorable villain, a spectacular crime, and audacious action set pieces. On balance that leaves you with attractive stars, lots of nicely photographed scenes shot in glamorous locations, some nice cars, and a lot of fun gadgets.
Read moreCazadores de Espias
The Mexican film industry’s contributions to the 1960s spy craze tend to be on the whimsical side. Given the overall zany-ness of the field, then, I do not say lightly that Cazadores de Espias maybe the silliest of them all.
Read moreRaumpatrouille Orion
To the very limited extent that the German science fiction series Raumpatrouille Orion (full English title: Space Patrol – The Fantastic Adventures of the Starship Orion) is known in my own United States, it tends to be the victim of a certain unfair association. On those pitifully rare occasions when it’s mentioned, it’s seldom without being compared unfavorably to Star
Read moreSome Girls Do
Some Girls Do is the second attempt to bring Bulldog Drummond into the late twentieth century, and if you enjoyed Deadlier than the Male, there is no reason why you wouldn’t enjoy this one as well.
Read moreReparata and the Delrons
Reparata and the Delrons were a girl group that spent a career plumbing the lower echelons of the pop charts. Their early repertoire was heavy on teenage melodrama and heartbreak.
Read moreBurt Bacharach: Casino Royale
Burt Bacharach’s soundtrack is probably the least maligned aspect of producer Charles Feldman’s 1967 film version of Casino Royale. One doesn’t have to love the movie to enjoy the soundtrack.
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