Cinema '62 | Stephen Farber, Michael McClellan

so tonight we will present two of the films that contributed to the Cinematic significance of 1962 alongside such canonical Classics as Lawrence of Arabia To Kill a Mockingbird The Manchurian Candidate Gypsy whatever happened to Baby Jane and many more which we will discuss uh with Stephen and Michael later in the evening we begin with war hunt directed by Dennis Sanders and starring John Saxon Robert Redford and Sidney Pollock the film was produced by Terry Sanders who is here with us tonight Terry can you raise your hand where's Terry oh there he is right there [Applause] Dennis and Terry are UCLA Film School alum so I want to thank Terry back to UCLA and that's also why it makes it especially exciting that tonight's 35 millimeter print of War Hunt is coming from the UCLA collection so thank you very much Terry for coming in [Applause] following War hunt I will be joined on stage for a conversation with Stephen and Michael about the films in their book then after a brief intermission we will conclude the evening with a 35 millimeter screen of Ride the High Country directed by Sam peckinpaw and starring Randolph Scott Joel MacRae and Marriott Hartley if you didn't get a chance to pick up your copy or signed copy of Cinema 62 in the lobby before the show we will resume the book signing during the intermission uh so please pick up a book and get it signed then if you uh can and now please help me welcome to the stage Steven Farber and Michael McClellan oh that's such a bright light well I can't see anything I'm Stephen I'm Michael McClellan and thanks for coming we really appreciate it and and I really want to thank the film archive for putting on this program you know we were planning to do a lot more programs like this in the spring of 2020 but something happened and we had to put that off and we're delighted that the archive was still willing to recognize our film our book last year was the 60th anniversary of these great films they were pretty close to that 60th anniversary year but uh appreciate those of you who are coming and to hopefully discover some movies most people how many people have not seen War hunt mostly most everybody so and I'm so thrilled that Terry is here also you know he really contributed a lot you know did like a very thorough interview with him for the book to provide a lot of background information on the movie we can talk a little bit about that afterwards in our discussion but it was a very unusual film for 1962 an anti-war film set during the uh a Korean War which had not been dramatized very often in film and I think ahead of its time in many ways as again we'll talk more about that later and of course I've had a great cast as well and many of the people went on to very important work in film beginning with the young star of a of the movie Robert Redford in his very first feature film and the rest of actors Sydney Pollock before he became a Academy award-winning film director he was an actor and he in Redford I believe met each other while making this movie and went on to make cinematic history together yes just a uh just some historical context that it's very fitting that that you're watching it as part of a double feature because when it was released in 1962 it was sort of a staggered release I don't know if Terry can remember this but it was released in New York in the uh in the spring as an art house venue and then uh the distributor a United Artist uh they decided that they wanted to test it in a few cities as a commercial action War film which it technically is quasi and you'll see why and then when when they finally opened it in Los Angeles in November of that year it was part of a double feature and another historical reference 60 years ago on this very date January the 27th 1963 you could see it in two different theaters in this city which was very common at the time there were enormous number of 1962 films playing all over the city in January of 1963 because in that era all movie theaters were single screens there were no multiplexes so um so if you think that you're starving to Jeff to uh the movies are being starved to death what a cornucopia you would have had 60 years ago so we'll say more about this and about another 62 movies in our discussion after the screening enjoy yes thank you [Applause] so we'll I'll be back upstairs uh back up here right after the film um please turn off all your cell phones silent electronic devices and we are also here to spark conversation about Cinema but please refrain from Talking during the film we'll start the conversation after the film okay with that thank you very much and enjoy warhunt so Stephen Farber is a past president of the Los Angeles Film critics Association and currently serves as faculty member at UCLA teaching film criticism he has written for numerous Publications including the New York Times Los Angeles Times Hollywood and The Hollywood Reporter he's also published several books including outrageous conduct art ego in the Twilight Zone case and Hollywood on the couch Michael McClellan is the former senior vice president and head film buyer for Landmark Theaters and served on the board of appeals of the classification and ratings administration of the MPAA he currently co-produces a classic film series in Los Angeles and they are both the authors of Cinema 62. please help me welcome to the stage Steven and Michael okay sure right thanks well thank you both for this wonderful book and for joining us here tonight um I definitely want to talk about war hunt that was very powerful experience um I hadn't seen the film before either um and I want to talk about how you first saw it and brought it to the you know included in why you included in the collection but let's start with the collection itself the idea of it and how you came about to to write it I'm you know as film goers we're sort of trained by the industry to think about movie Seasons there's the summer season there's The Fall season the end of the year critics give us their top 10 list so we're used to thinking about you know movies and movie history in terms of annual increments and a lot of ways that's built around industry release schedules but that's a Chris as a Critic and historian why would a year what's the significance of studying the specific year why would you frame a history in an annual way well I think you in a way answered the question because uh at that time there wasn't that same kind of uh season approach to film uh a distribution I mean good movies were just released all throughout the year they weren't so conscious of marketing summer movies of a certain type and awards movies in the fall I mean these some of the movies that did actually end up in the awards race did come out late in the year but that was really because that's when they were completed but there was just the assumption that audiences would go to see interesting provocative entertaining movies throughout the year and that's something that uh has been lost I think today yes if you if you think about when the critics were in Awards season right now right the Oscar nominations just came out so um you know and all these Awards uh in this era now like there were very few Awards in that era um there was no La film critics new you know uh National Society none of that right so there was the Oscars there were the Foreign Press um there was a New York Film Circle that was the only critical Circle and ironically 1962 was the only year that they didn't give out their Awards and the reason for that was that there was a hundred day newspaper strike in New York and so they opted not to meet because they couldn't give full consideration and then also delayed several films from opening in in 1962 and they were pushed into 1963. so having said all that I just want to read you a list of movies that were on screen on this day 60 years ago in January of 1963. you could find these in the names that's that's the exhibitor term for neighborhood theaters War hunt as I uh the film you just saw any number of these movies and they were all playing on double bills not with each other but but the various films The Miracle Worker The Manchurian Candidate Karis Bulba Atari Walk on the Wild Side Elvis Presley's girls girls girls Birdman of Alcatraz uh George kukers directed the uh Chapman report Requiem for heavyweight period of adjustment that was that was the Tennessee Williams screenplay starring Jane Fonda one of the three films she made in 62. uh Walt Disney's In Search Of The Castaways which was a huge hit by the way oh I'm gonna digress who went to the movies here tonight in 1962. there you go that was a big Christmas film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance The Music Man whatever happened to Baby Jane and for you um and this is all in the neighborhoods by the way and for the more mature minded these are not part of the book but Satan in high heels She Walks By Night Playgirl after dark and the third sex and that was just in the names in the art houses Antonio's eclipse last year at Marion bod Picacho 70 A Taste of Honey divorced Italian style Waltz of the toreadors shoot the piano player Elektra and the sky above the mud below which was the oscar-winning documentary from the previous year exclusive engagements are we ready to kill a mockingbird Days of Wine and Roses Phaedra Long Day's Journey Into Night Gypsy Freud two for the Seesaw and jumbo and the road shows the of the big um do you remember what the road shows were they were Reserve seat engagements we have reserve seats now but 60 years ago this was a very big deal was a road show intermissions um uh Grand movie palaces the longest day which was at the Cathay Circle which is no longer with us the wonderful world of The Brothers Grimm which was the Warner Cinerama that theater is no longer with us Mutiny on the Bounty at the Egyptian which is still with us but they're renovating it and the crowning achievement of the of the year we feel Lawrence of Arabia at the Warner Beverly Hills so they were all on screen in this night and this very day in 1963 you don't get that kind of variety these days folks into the way the things that were different in 1962 those films would play for weeks on end or months on it in some cases so if you missed one of these masterpieces one week you could you could see it the next month and it might still be in the theaters right they were circulating around and many of them eventually all of the films that were exclusives and even the big road shows they eventually went into the nabes and then and then they played on double bills and they played sometimes a movie would be around for almost two years in that era and so that was long before um they would be be premiering on television it took them years to wind up on television and then of course we don't have all these alternative platforms that we have now yeah I mean now a movie opened in the theater one week and two weeks later it's gone and then a week after that it's streaming it's hard to you know even get a sense of what's out in the theater at any given time so um Euless a lot of these amazing classic films some films we hadn't heard of let's go back to war hunt because this is a film that I had discovered reading your book and I was expressly excited that we have a print in the collection so there's a lot of Classics like canonical Classics in the book but warhunt is one of the films in the book that really um I think is overdue for re-inspection I think tonight was a very powerful experience so let's talk about Warren when did you first see it and and um how long did it stay with you and how did it end up why did you decide to include it in the in the well I actually did see it in 1962 um I was young but I I was going to a lot of movies and I did see it and uh it got some great reviews the main critic of the uh uh uh New York Times Bosley Crowther raved about it and he was the most influential critic in the country at that time and uh on the national board of review which did exist then and they put it on their 10 best list for the year so it didn't make a big explosion at the box office but it got attention and I was eager to see it again I hadn't seen it in a long time I watched it again and then I contacted uh Terry to talk about it and he had some very uh good memories of they tried to get cooperation from the Army when they made the movie but of course the Army was not going to approve a movie like this which was not exactly a glowing gung-ho rah-rah a war movie it was much more critical and I personally felt in kind of looking back at it that it was really a movie that foreshadowed the Vietnam War era that of course people didn't know that that was going to be such an event in 1962 but the futility of that war which of course inspired tremendous anti-war protests I think kind of foreshadowed in this movie and the character of Endor that John Saxon played very effectively sort of makes you think of people like Lieutenant Callie in the Vietnam War era who really became of savages during that war experience so I think that there was a lot in it that really speaks to things that were going to happen in the future that maybe the reason it didn't catch on in a big way is it maybe it was a little too far ahead of its time in raising these anti-war issues and these questions about the psychotic Tendencies of some people during a controversial war and it took a while I think seeing it now as you did I think you appreciate more the incisiveness and the pertinence of what it was saying yeah I mean it also I mean you talk about a number of different Trends throughout the year different like you know Classic Hollywood directors and the directions that their films took but this falls in the category of new directors and new directions that really did Mark 1962 as as different this was a film that represented sort of like a an independent voice and the more I mean I guess I would say a more risky take in terms of like style and approach to the themes right so can you talk about how War hunt might fit into that that theme that you explore in the book in terms of the you know the larger trends of 1962. well I think that uh as you say there were other movies that were kind of mainstream popular movies that were aimed at uh like a general audience but what was so interesting was that there were also these very um quirky adult provocative specialized movies that interested people who wanted to go to the movies and see a variety of entertainment I mean that actually playing tonight um right at the uh Landmark Newark via new Art Theater is Stanley Kubrick's film of Lolita which was another controversial different kind of movie that uh played in 1962 so people had a real choice of different kinds of movies that they wanted to see there were a lot of new talents like like Stanley Kubrick who was a relatively new filmmaker at that time the Sanders brothers who made this movie also very new people on the scene and John frankenheimer who made the mentoring candidate and two other movies in in 62 very talented newcomers that had a lot to offer but there were also veteran directors like John Ford Howard Hawks George cucker who you mentioned who were working that year as well so there was really such a range of films and it was very stimulating for people both who wanted to see more traditional works by Old Masters and people who wanted to see Innovative films by brand new talents on the scene yeah and this film also represents um one of the themes of the book which is the uh which is the end of the studio era and the and the seeds of the new Hollywood which really came in later after the production code I mean that's an interesting this film and all the films of 62 were all inhibited by the production code which had been around for 30 years but the overseas films that that list of the Art House examples were much more Frank in their in their subject matter and in their sexuality and so a number of uh producers were really chiding under the production code and so they were pushing the boundaries and they modified their production code the previous year and that allowed a film like Walk on the Wild Side which I mentioned um to uh to insert um that was a um that was Jane Fonda's second film and that's an example of a new Talent with an older with an older golden Ager Barbara Stanwick and Barbara stanwick's role in that film was as a lesbian Madam now that had never been seen in a an actress of that stature would have never played a part like that but this was a a pivotal transitional Year and that crossroads of the old Hollywood clashing with the new Hollywood speaking about the code and and the censorship that had eased up a bit since the 1950s the head of the production code office in the I think from the 30s to the 50s uh Joe Breen had retired and he was a real um censor censorious person who strictly interpreted the code and the people who took over after he left realized that times were changing and they still were operating under the code but they were not quite as strict and there were these changes as you say that introduce new subject matter that hadn't been allowed in the past and I think even a a film a like War hunts or a right the High Country which you'll see had some adult material that wouldn't have been permitted in films even a few years earlier now granted they would several years later even those inhibitions would be gone and the films would be even franker but it was a transitional period when the old censorship code was beginning to be whittled away a little bit about also on the on the critical side or the institutional side I always think this is a pivotal year also because it's kind of the moment when previous decades film critics film historians the idea of film criticism was developing during this time and there was always the argument film can be an art it is an art form arguing against the idea that it's just it's just pop culture it doesn't have a value this is the period of time when filmmakers themselves became conscious of the idea of making art or wanting to make art Moma had film programs there were film classes film programs starting at a university so film culture in a way became self-conscious of itself around this time and the filmmaker sort of took that to heart does that sort of that kind of jives with your theory of this moment of transition oh definitely um this was the rise of of the film culture of film being taught in in universities and Beyond you know UCL and USC were in the Forefront of that but but but there was also in New York but aside from Los Angeles and New York they were beginning to emerge in different places there were oh there were thousands of local film societies who used to rent out the local theater like one or two nights a week and they'd show some of these foreign films that just didn't make it into these smaller towns and um just in popular culture in 1962 moviegoing was the number one Leisure activity there was a polite there's a Gallup poll and they listed sports events and whatever the summertime concerts the whole thing theater exactly but movie going was number one and even though the film attendance had been you know eroded since with the rise of television in in the 40s and and the close of theaters Etc um there was a rebound in in the early 60s and it was also the Golden Age of the art houses all of those uh you know specialized films I was describing um they were at their Apex in the in the early 60s and uh it was also as part of this and the Wisconsin you know the scholarly studies but also there was a recognition of of film as an art by all means but also what what it represented um just aesthetically this was the a high point for black and white that's why we curated these two films tonight this was in black and white Ride the High Country was in is in color but in 1962 the majority of movies were in black and white most of the films that I read to you were in black and white but within five years they became a tiny minority so there's a one-word answer for for why that happened does anyone happen to know it Bingo television exactly so that pushed the studios because they all wanted the revenue from the sales television and they were told by the television um you know networks and from the manufacturers of televisions uh that they were switching to color by 1965 so they had better get with it and they all capitulated including internationally all those uh great and you know Antonio Bergman Fellini they loved Kurosawa they loved working in black and white but they all had to migrate over to color by the end of the decade so I'm going to turn it over to the audience after one question so um and I'll call on people just raise your hand so um you write with one voice in the book and I'm sure you've had many conversations with people why didn't you include this from why don't you close up but you're right with one voice in the book but what was your process of working together and coming up with the film to the final selection of films did you guys have any arguments about something that's something you want Michael not get in the book Steven it's something you want I mean how did that process come together uh that's a very good question um for the most part we we worked rather um we defer to each other's judgment because I had my favorites and Stephen had his and and and that's represented by the book because I wrote certain uh you know the the analysis and the sections on certain films and Stephen took his and then we agreed on many of the choices but we both came from for from kind of different directions Stephen has seen a lot of these films originally on the big screen I hadn't I was I'm a little younger and I hadn't seen I saw a number of them but I couldn't go to the adult movies I didn't see a film like walk on the wild side or Manchurian Candidate or you know that sort of thing some of the Internationals or the international films I didn't see any of those in 1962 it was years later in film classes and you know universities and um and television and I rep houses when I when I went into the industry so and I I never seen War hunt before so we watched it originally on television I'm seeing it for the first time tonight and I just want to give a shout out to the cinematographer Ted McCord um who worked beautifully in black and white in fact most of his really top work is in black and white he was he was 60 years old in 1962 and this is a representative he was he was Oscar nominated for another movie um that um was playing actually that I I didn't mention that yes I did two for the Seesaw um and that isn't that's another little Hidden Gem um it's a play adaptation but his black and white cinematography is breathtaking it's Exquisite what he was doing with because it's a play so there's mostly Interiors or rooms but just look at that movie and see what he was doing with with lighting and shadows it's it's incredible so anyway he also shot The Sound of Music didn't he well that was his big big film for The Sound of Music so um so they were very versatile you know but they were all making the the trip you know a number of the cinematographers did work in both both form as Ernest holler who won an Oscar for gone with the win he shot whatever happened to Baby Jane and he got an Oscar nomination for it and that's an exquisitely shot film as well so see were there any any titles that you I mean in terms of the working process is that kind of how it went down well I mean we went over the whole list of uh of movies that came out in 62 we couldn't even cover every single one there were some other interesting movies that are just like mentioned in uh the appendix to the book but not written about at life because there was such a treasure Trove that uh we couldn't cover everything in the detail that we would have liked but yeah we we I mean I think you know we certainly agreed on all of the important movies to be included we may not have shared the same enthusiasm for every single movie but uh yeah we are we agreed that all of the movies that are covered in the book were important films that needed to be addressed and discussed but definitely the sum total makes 62 the most significant year obviously that was the point of agreement that brought you two together yeah oh yes so let's turn it over the audience any questions go ahead and raise your hand I'll call you we'll bring a mic down to you so just wait for the mic to come up any questions we're in the back row here on on this side we're going to bring them back to you so thank you a couple questions for the filmmaker is he still here Terry's returning yeah could I ask two two questions had you seen them right to Terry as well down here in the front sorry so go ahead and ask your question had you seen Redford in Sydney lumet's TV adaptation of Iceman Cometh Before You cast him in this and what was it like shooting in Topanga Canyon foreign in in making this film United Artists needed Ace One name actor and that was John Saxon that we got on loan out from Universal and Redford was uh we had can you can you hold the mic closer down we hadn't heard of him but uh Monique James who's an agent at MCA recommended him because she had seen him in a few TV things so we we actually cast him because we saw a TV show that he was rather good in what was the question though Topanga Canyon what was it like Topanga Canyon well the film being uh extremely low you know modest modest budget I would have loved to have gone to Korea as a film but that was out of the question and um you know so many uh chats things happen to make in any film and the the good thing that happened for us and not for the people in Japan Canyon there's a huge fire there uh like a year before and so you got a lot of burn foliage and it just looks like a kind of war zone and um you know we see scouting is a big part of making any film and it was really scouted and decided that this was um just would be woodwork thank you very much so um we have a time for a couple more questions I'm going to cut you off Terry we have time for a couple more questions or one more question if there's some one more question over here on the side we'll bring the mic back over over here on the aisle here thank you thank you thank you Terry hi I just said the question um there's not many uh Korean movie the war movie back then you know there's another movie that was really impressed it was back I don't know if you gentlemen see this movie it's called 1951 it's called the steel helmet yeah it's very similar to this as well right right beside this tomb film I really like you film too very very you know beautiful down is any other career movie like this you mean you mean set in Korea yeah Korean War yeah yeah there's uh Workshop hill in 1959 Gregory Peck right right he was also the producer and then the star of that in 62 I mean the war film genre in general was it still was World War II still the focus oh that was the name because that's why I think this film stood out because it did because right it had a different setting um because there were a number of second world war movies that were still being made that year in fact uh Daryl's Annex production of uh the longest day about uh D-Day was the most successful film made during that year it was later surpassed by uh Lawrence of Arabia but Lars Arabia did not come out until the very end of the year in December so earlier in the year the longest day had rained as a top box office champ and that was a the ultimate uh World War II movie so let me talk for one more question right here in the middle we'll bring let's bring the mic over to you sorry okay we're right behind you on the side there we always sneak up on you it was very interesting to see the uh North Koreans saying uh Wall Street you know wants you to keep going with the war like today you know but uh uh so it was very poignant in his comment and then uh Robert Redford said what do you think of a t when he first got off showing that he was kind of a a glib you know a semi-affluent kind of kid and so um the politics of the movie was very subdued though it was just those those couple things otherwise it was these poor guys stuck in the middle of a of a war but uh it was it was very uh unpretentious and and and incredible I really liked it thank you so um we can uh wrap up but I want to ask so just finally because the the of 1962 for you is Lawrence varabio you could probably go on and on for that but was that just the obvious choice for you and if you could Briefly summarize what makes that the top film of this year of amazing films I think well I mean first of all it was a remarkable spectacle um it was shot over a period of a full year basically on location no CGI effects there um it was really done in these remote areas of the desert in Jordan mainly and I I don't think there's any substitute that a computer can quite match the authenticity of those locations beautifully filmed of course by the cinematographer and and the director David lean beyond that though it had a script with psychological depth and complexity that you saw in quite a few other other movies of 1962 but I would say the peak of that was in this Epic film that you had a a character at the center who was not a traditional hero I mean he did perform some heroic courageous acts but he was a very complicated tortured character and the idea of putting a character like that at the center of an expensive Epic movie was really bold but I think because uh David lean had won an Academy Award for his last film The Bridge on the River Kauai the studio and the people who were financing the movie were willing to go along with what he wanted to do so I think it's a movie that works on so many levels as a grand epic in the tradition that we we don't do it we saw sometimes in that era but we don't see it as often anymore coupled with psychological depth that was really a characteristic of more of the small art films of the era so really have like The Best of Both Worlds I would say I'm gonna beg your apology because I almost forgot we have a second film tonight could you would say a few words about Ride the High Country and why it made the list well I mean this is another movie they're talking about uh some psychological complexity you'll see it in that movie as well and this was another new filmmaker Sam peckinpaw it was his second movie only people didn't really know much about him or who he was so it introduced a brand new Talent as we saw in war hunt in terms of the filmmaking and the casting and he ride the High Country of course had two veteran actors right now Scott and Joel McRae but it also had a brand new actress Marion Hartley like uh a Mr Redford in war hunt I mean married Hadley didn't have quite the same career going forward that Robert Redford did but she was a new discovery as well and that's another thing that made 62 interesting was it mixed brand new talents and uh veteran actors with tremendous experience and it had a little more kind of sexual boldness as you'll see that wasn't characteristic of censored movies in 1962. do you sell it do you sell it all so we're going to take a 10 minute intermission Stephen and Michael will be back out in the lobby signing books please do yes and we'll be right back with Ride the High Country thank you so much