In 1960, King Features Syndicate brought forth “Popeye the Sailor,” an animated television series featuring new misadventures of the beloved spinach-chomping hero and his wacky circle of friends and foes. A total of 220 short cartoons were created for the series by multiple animation studios, and most them were forgettable. But there was one short that stood out for being an extraordinary detour from the usual Popeye-fueled knockabout.
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There is a scene in Ken Russell’s 1975 “Tommy” which ranks among the most remarkable and ridiculous visions ever put on film: Ann-Margret, in a swing of drunken rage, throws a champagne bottle at a television set. The bottle smashes the television’s screen, and waves of soap suds and baked beans come pouring out. Ann-Margret then writhes on the floor, covered head-to-toe in baked beans.
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One of the most artistically ambitious productions from the golden age of B-movies was Joseph H. Lewis’ pulpy thriller, which borrowed heavily from the Bonnie and Clyde story while offering a production style that transcended its budgetary limitations.
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I truly cannot understand why Fred Coe’s 1965 comedy “A Thousand Clowns” received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture – an honor that put it in the company of “The Sound of Music,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “Darling” and “Ship of Fools.” Those other four films are considered classics, while “A Thousand Clowns” is little more than a tired embarrassment.
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Speedy Gonzalez and the Road Runner compete in a match race to determine which is the fastest. As they speed along the empty desert roads, they are respectively pursued by Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote. However, the multiple traps designed to stop the racers constantly backfire on the shabby predators.
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The 1970 film “Dodes’ka-den” has always been a puzzling piece of the Akira Kurosawa canon. Despite its cred – an Academy Award nomination as Best Foreign-Language Film and the distinction of being the director’s first color film – audiences did not embrace it during the film’s theatrical release. The film’s commercial failure in Japan compounded a myriad of professional and personal problems that pushed Kurosawa to a suicide attempt. Outside of Japan, it was barely seen on the big screen – a U.S. release didn’t take place until 1974.
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William Wyler’s 1959 “Ben-Hur” is a film that generates respect, if not adulation. And there is no reason to feel guilty about not loving this mammoth three-and-a-half-hour epic. Gary Giddins, writing in the New York Sun, probably summed it up best: “Watching ‘Ben-Hur’ all at once is like sitting down to a 10-course meal and finding that every course consists of potato dumplings, except for the seventh, which is strawberry shortcake (that would be the chariot race).”